I have always been independent and never that kind of girl looking to be taken care of, but for some reason this piece spoke to me because I knew deep down, I do want at least the option of being taken care of, if I choose to accept it.

Being pregnant and having kids has brought the need for la luna to be taken care of by el sol to the forefront. This Valentine’s Day, la luna wants to take the opportunity to thank el sol for the constant, unconditional love, protection, patience, kindness and engagement in our nearly ten year marriage. I am so happy and grateful to be walking this path with you!

Standing with Andy in front of a wooden podium with the letters “CONCIERGE” engraved in black on a golden nameplate, I asked why it was so impossible to get into the Indian restaurant as well as the dozen other restaurants which had already been ruled out by the woman on News Years Eve.

“No way can you get reservations there.”

“But we are going to eat at 5:30pm and will be finished before 8. Who does that on New Years Eve except foreigners with toddlers with 7:30pm bedtimes and grandparents watching the kid before they go out for their New Years Eve dinner.”

“I am sorry miss, those places needed to be reserved days ago.”

“Fine, what is available?”

Looking annoyed, the short Mexican woman with dark red lipstick and her hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail began to consult her computer.

I started to feel lightheaded. We had just finished a hard fought run on the beach, our last for quite some time with the baby coming and no new beach vacations penciled in on our newly unwrapped and displayed 2011 calendars.

I scanned the lobby looking for a place to sit myself including my extra 18 pounds of baby and pregnancy weight. What looked like an accessible chair turned out to be behind a barrier I didn’t want to scale so I desperately returned to Andy’s side. In an unintended bitchy tone, I directed him to choose where we were going to eat and then communicated that I didn’t feel well and needed the key to the room. He responded, “Do you want me to get you a Coke?” to which I replied that there was water in the room and then took off to the hotel elevator.

He knows the drill. He came to my rescue when I was pregnant with Belén after a similar desperate, dramatic instant message, when I was sitting at my desk, white as a ghost, mind in a psychedelic wind tunnel only accessible by drunk dreams or extreme bodily conditions, sweat coating my face. On that day, we learned how to deal with situation. Cool off, hydrate, consume sugar and use the restroom.

Once back in the room, I parked it on the toilet and opened a can of Coke from the minibar. Why oh why does this urge to pass out couple itself with needing to use the bathroom? I felt slightly better. I immediately began to wonder if there was any way in hell I could possibly handle natural child birth if an urgent bowel movement rocks me so hard.

After round two, Andy returned to the room with two packages of gummy bears and a can of Coke in hand. He should be moving in lockstep with Pope John Paul II towards canonization.

A can of coke, two packages of gummies and a half of package of our favorite “Japanese style” Mexican coated nuts, a delicacy we have no idea how it has not made it’s way to the United States, I was experiencing the greatest sugar high in recent memory. Talk about going from a low of lows to walking on the clouds. I was never going to want to come down.

I took a shower to wash off the layer of salt and sweat acquired from running next to a content turquoise ocean at which time I came up with a name for our baby which Andy was sure to love.

As I dried off, I pitched the name. “What about Ahnalee?”

Andy said, “Nope.”

And then we both proceeded to sing “Puff the Magic Dragon” the remainder of the day.

Cold temperatures and wind didn’t stop our little Cancún beach comber. Besides, it was still 50 degrees warmer than Boise.

We have traveled to Quintana Roo, the Mexican state bordering the Caribbean Sea, where Cancún sits, I believe six times…enough times we have begun to lose count. The uniquely beautiful turquoise waters coupled with the softest, coolest white sandy beaches are difficult to resist. Our first trip to the area was to Cancún to celebrate our second wedding anniversary in 2003 when we were living in Guadalajara, México. While we fell in love with the ocean and sand, we were not big fans of Cancún, feeling like it was more of a touristy American beach town than authentic México. After that trip, we vowed to return to the area but not Canún proper or the Hotel Zone (think mini Vegas-like hotels and American restaurant chains on a gorgeous beach.)

Return to the area we did, but we have preferred to stay south of Cancún in Puerto Aventuras or, as we became more brave (and our favorite places became more and more crowded), even further south and remote in Soloman Bay. Our last family trip to Soloman Bay ended in food poisoning, getting ripped off and a robbery (all to my parents) so saying that they were not thrilled to come back to the area may be a bit of an understatement.

When we invited my parents to come with us to Cancún for Christmas this year, we promised them we were going to a very touristy area where none of those things would happen to us and in this regards, Cancún did not disappoint. Despite being in an Americanized, touristy area, with weather much more windy and cold than we had anticipated, a week on the beautiful Cancún beach was just what the doctor ordered.

We really took minimal pictures but even so, I have a few hundred photos to sort through, edit, delete, etc. as well as a bunch coming from my mom before I will be ready to do a full post on our vacation down to Cancún. In the meantime, I will share one of my favorite shots I saw come through as I was downloading photos from the camera.

We saw six bulls and three matadors, what is typical for an afternoon. Each showdown was pretty short and I don’t recall it lasting much longer than 15 minutes. Each time a bull came out, the matador greeted the new bull with some maneuvering of his large cape.

Throughout 2003, we did so many fun things together including trips to the beach, wine nights, salsa dancing classes, shopping, spin classes and so so much more. And she helped us out when we got ourselves into pickles and was even there on the scariest night of the big earthquake after we had just arrived in our new city.

Later, we were swimming next to the sailboat in this vast blue ocean when Paul exclaimed, “Ow…jelly fish.” We all franticly swam back into the boat. As we stood on the boat looking out at the water, there was a single loan jellyfish about the size of a pint glass all by itself next to the boat. It felt as though the only jellyfish in the entire ocean had someone found an unlucky Paul.

The best parts of the vacation are the beach, of course, but also watch Belén blossom into an independent-minded, intelligent and determined little toddler. She mimics everything we do and is practicing besos (kisses), belly zurbers and the art of a beach vacation.

Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army’s victory over a French Army in the Battle of Puebla. The holiday is only celebrated in the city of Puebla and the United States. Today is more of a U.S. holiday than a Mexican holiday.