Mexico 2014 (1 of 3)

We made the drive straight from South Carolina, got home to Pennsylvania only to unpack and re-pack and drive to an airport hotel in Newark, then woke up the next morning to get on a plane to Mexico.

We spent the first week of August at the decadent Azul Beach Hotel resort in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. This was a special trip, and it marks an important time for our family. It was the (hopefully) First Annual RVibe Founders’ Retreat.

Readers may know that ten years ago Braydon started a business venture. It began as an independent “project” — an internet technology concept — then morphed into a serious business start-up, then evolved into a full-time serious company with an entire infrastructure, a whole slew of employees, responsibilities, and the whole-nine-yards. We’ve been investing in RVibe for a decade now. And when I say ‘investing,’ I mean fully and entirely investing, our hearts and our souls investing, in a big-big-big way investing. Investing financially, emotionally, and psychologically, as well as investing our time, our energy, our mental space, and our entire selves into what has become this larger-than-life part of our world. RVibe has been an uphill battle from Day 1, and we’ve shed plenty of blood, sweat, and tears over this thing. But recently — and I mean really just in the past year or so — we’ve begun to finally see some of Braydon’s sheer determination come to fruition. It has begun to bear fruit and we’re just starting to get some perks out of it. This trip (hopefully) marks the start of a new era for us with RVibe. We are (hopefully) entering an era of seeing some of the (ridiculously-over-the-top-insane-amount-of) hard work we’ve invested over the past decade begin to pay off.

The concept for this week of the summer was two-fold: 1) for Braydon and his business partner, Chris, to have some designated, devoted time to do some significant and substantive strategizing and brainstorming together. Braydon is in Pennsylvania, and Chris is in Chicago, so while they spend an enormous amount of time everyday on the phone and online together, they spend relatively very little time together face-to-face. When they are together it is always for large events, conferences, business deals, and with a lot of people around them. Day-to-day they are trouble-shooting and/or in crisis mode, trying to run a company from the ground-up. The idea was for the two of them to go far away, to a place out of reach, and spend some heavy duty blocks of time together planning the future of RVibe. The other part of this trip was: 2) for our two families to spend a week together in a fun, relaxed environment where we could enjoy each other without stress or distraction or the pressure on any of us to be hosting. We went into the week with a very clear plan that we were all committed to: every day Chris and Braydon would spend 7am-1pm working (while their wives and kids enjoyed the resort), we would spend our afternoons with our own families to give the guys a break from each other, and then we would meet up for drinks before going our own way again for dinner.

We had never done anything like this, and we really didn’t know how it would go. By the end of the week, every single one of us agreed that it had gone extremely well. The RVibe founders worked hard and played hard, the rest of us just played hard (!), and we all had a fabulous semi-working vacation in beautiful Mexico.

I’m going to write this post just like any of my ‘Trip Reports,’ but — because of the nature of it — it wasn’t actually like any other trip we’ve taken. I’m posting about it from my perspective (for me this was a vacation! I was along for the ride!), but this would be a very different post if written by Braydon or his business partner (who would surely focus significantly on the work that was accomplished). While I’m not Braydon’s business partner, I am his life partner, and I am so gratified and so thrilled — for all of our sakes — that we got to do this Mexico trip. The First Annual RVibe Founders’ Retreat was a smashing success!

The bambinos love to travel. It is their favorite thing. Owen could watch airplanes all day long. There is no place in the world that he is more enthused than in an airport. We flew Newark to Cancun and it was smooth and uneventful (which was amazing for us because we’ve seemed to have had a string of bad airline fiascos recently). The trip from the airport to the resort was quick and easy. And then… suddenly… we were there.

The Azul Beach is an all-inclusive resort. We can critique these sorts of places with the best of them. But we can also let it go, and from time-to-time thoroughly enjoy what these places have to offer. And, wow, they have a lot to offer. We hadn’t been to an all-inclusive together as a family of five since 2009 (for that post click here). I think we had sort of forgotten how intoxicating (literally and figuratively), and indulging, and incredibly enjoyable they can be. The Azul Beach was like none other we’ve been to — it was a small, “boutique,” “Gourmet Inclusive” that catered specifically to families with young kids. The place was luxuriously dripping in gorgeousness.

below: Power Breakfast with a View.

We did just as we had planned. Braydon and Chris met for breakfast and spent the first half of the day together. The afternoons and nights we were with our own families. But every afternoon we all met up for drinks at the pool bar by our rooms. Chris and his wife have an adorable 9-month-old baby named Gus. He was such a good sport and we loved hanging out with them in the pool.

The idea of going away together — as business partners and families — is a really good one. I highly recommend it for anyone in any sort of similar position. We really bonded during that week and I’m sure it will help to strengthen RVibe, not to mention strengthen our two families both independently and together.

For Braydon and Chris, it was some work. It was also plenty of play.

And, for all of us, I think, it was pretty darn heavenly.

Here is Kyle, in Kyle Heaven:

The snorkeling was awesome. The resort is located along an area of the Mexican/Caribbean coast that is National Park. The reef is preserved and protected and, thus, it was the best snorkeling we’ve seen in a long, long time! Kyle was in his glory and spent most of the week underwater!

Here is Meera, in Meera Heaven:

The swimming pools were beautiful, warm, crystal-clear, and plentiful (there were so many of them!). Meera could spend her whole life in a pool, I swear!

Here is Owen, in Owen Heaven:

This is Owen at one of the resort’s restaurants. It was an Asian theme and it had a “sushi river.” This was pure heaven for Owen. This is worth some explaining.

Once we got over the oddity of eating sushi in Mexico, and we just accepted it for what it was (totally decent — like, actually, really good — sushi!), we quickly came to love the ‘sushi river.’ Now, we had heard of all-you-can-eat sushi places (Owen is a big fan of them), but we had not heard of a “sushi river” (maybe we’re just pathetically insulated people? I don’t know). It blew our minds — especially Owen, because he is a Lover of sushi. This boy can eat sushi. He’s the kind of kid that these all-inclusive resorts lose money on big-time when they do their pricing!

The sushi river was a circular sushi bar with, literally, a river of water, with a strong (somehow motorized) current, running through it. Little boats were floating on the water circling the bar. The sushi chef was in the center constantly placing all sorts of sushi, on little trays, onto the boats, all night long. You sit there and just take what you want as it comes around. This whole thing — the sushi river — is a crazy amazing thing for a sushi lover.

It is impossible to put into words the extent to which Owen was enamored with this whole entire thing. He insisted on taking some photos of the experience. He took about 40 of them. Here are my favorite three {nothing quite makes a foodie mommy blogger as proud as when her 10-year-old son feels compelled to grab the camera and take pictures of his food!} ~~

And, not to be left out, here is Mommy-and-Papi Heaven:

Nothing says “heavenly” like mimosas by the pool with Kindles loaded up with pleasure reading. It was such a glorious treat.

(for post 2 of 3 click here)