Puerto Vallarta
- Amanda, Adelind, Skip, Kelly, Cooper, Rob, Eric, Mimi, Connor, Craig, Emma-Kate, Melissa, Ally and Zach
Wow, what an incredible four days. It was definitely one of those vacations that you return from needing a vacation 🙂 Four of Rob’s college friends organized a trip to get together and stay at a house with a chef included in Puerto Vallarta. We jumped on this opportunity to spend time with some really great people we don’t get to see very often. What made it even more special was all of the kiddos that would be there so it was definitely a family vacation.
Cooper showed us just how easy flying with him can be. On the first flight to CA he stayed in his car seat and was entertained the entire time. The second flight he slept for nearly 2 hours of the flight in my arms. Rob and I have now been teased with what the easiest flight scenario can be.
The house was so nice with lots of open air space. The bedrooms were built down the hillside with the pool at the bottom and the dining area at the top.
So that was the first 1.5 days. The next 1.5 days were ones that we hope to never repeat again. On the day of our flight Cooper woke up with a single cough and we had our fingers crossed it would become nothing more during the trip. We were proven wrong on Friday morning at 2am. He woke struggling to breathe and moving his body around very violently. We tried bringing him outside into the humid air, but nothing seemed to ease his struggle to breathe. We were very lucky to be traveling with two doctors. After waking up one we decided to call the Mexican 911. I still don’t know how Rob managed to convey to the non-English speaking operator where we were, what was going on and what we needed. A few minutes later a cop car shows up with police wearing their M16s. We were rushed in the back of the cop car to the nearest hospital–not how any of us imagined our first Mexico police ride experience. Did I mention that Rob’s friend Eric, who is a doctor, also speaks pretty good Spanish? We felt so fortunate he came with us to the ER to help communicate what was going on and let us know what they were doing to Cooper. A chest xray, IV, breathing treatments and some blood draws later Eric left us in the ER to wait for the test results and get some sleep.
Later that morning the pediatrician looked over Cooper and his test results and told us that we would be admitted for 2-3 days; both Rob and I went numb. We had no idea that we would actually be admitted to the hospital, let alone for many days. This and our flight home from this short 4 day vacation was just 2 days away.
Let’s just say the next 1.5 days were very exhausting. Cooper did surprisingly well for having to stay in the hospital bed (think toddler not allowed to walk around), an IV in his foot, cannula in his nose, breathing treatments every 2-4 hours and all this in a foreign hospital room.
The pediatrician was very nice and even brought his son, who spoke some English, to help us understand the diagnosis. Most of the nurse and doctor staff did not speak English so Rob did a terrific job communicating with them using his high school Spanish. I wouldn’t recommend it, but being in the hospital definitely helped me learn basic Spanish very quickly. We were greeted with fantastic news that Cooper was taking very well to the breathing and steroid treatments and we would actually be allowed to leave in just one more day. The doctor believes he had bronchitis and said that he was really surprised with how quickly he was feeling better.
The morning of our discharge we were able to have the cannula and IV removed and Cooper was over the moon excited to be able to walk around again.
We left the hospital with a chest xray, patient bracelet and some Mexican drugs as “keepsakes.”
We now had 1 day left to make the most of the rest of our time in Puerto Vallarta. We were able to join the rest of the crew for a chance to explore the town a little and enjoy a nice dinner. The highlight of dinner for Cooper was definitely the mariachi band that played for us from the sand outside the restaurant.
- Cooper dancing to the band behind
We enjoyed one last yummy breakfast at the house with everyone before they headed off back to their east and west coast homes.
Amazing how much older Adelind, Connor and Cooper look from when we saw them in Seattle just 9 months ago: http://kochman.net/2013/01/27/meeting-new-friends/
Our Seattle flight was a little later so we were able to enjoy some more pool time before we left. This trip was another reminder how much Cooper can love the water after he gets some time to warm up to it.
It was really nice traveling with the Dise family to Puerto Vallarta. It gave us someone to wave to during our airplane walking adventures, airport dining buddies, navigate customs/terminals with and best of all, great company for the adults and kids.
The flight home Cooper needed some more entertaining, slept less and was a little fussier, but the bar was set really high from the flight down. Daddy got his first diaper changing experience in the airplane bathroom and we both left wondering if we should have bought a third seat for our upcoming holiday travels.
The highlight of the flight home was that Dave Matthews was on both of our flights back from Puerto Vallarta. When Rob got on the plane he said he swore someone who looked just like Dave was walking through the PV airport carrying a guitar. Would he really be flying commercial and carrying around a guitar at the airport flying from Mexico to Seattle? The answer ended up being yes. We were just two rows behind him on the plane (first class vs. coach), stood by him in both the CA and Seattle baggage claims and navigated through the CA airport with him. Rob got this great picture with him when we were finally back in Seattle at 11pm, a long day, but what a great picture and memory to have.
Overall it was an exciting first trip to Mexico for both Rob and Cooper and we know that any future trips there should be even more relaxing. The full set of pictures are here.
