May 16, 1997.  It has been 10 great years!  We had a small wedding with about 35 people attending.  We were married on a Friday night at St. Pauls Lutheran Church in Aurora.  Brett's kids, Rachel, then 13, and Drew, 11 were our wedding party.  Our reception was at The Roundhouse.  Everything was perfect!  We went to Puerto Vallarta for our honeymoon. 

Fast forward 10 years....we're back in Mexico!  We decided to take the daring route this time.  We booked a room at the Casa Isabel, in Zona Romantica, or downtown Puerto Vallarta.  It could not have been better.  If you are looking for a romantic getaway for adults only, this is it!

www.casaisabelpv.com



This is the view of Casa Isabel from the street, and the pool.  It seemed like the whole place was ours! 



This is my personal bartender, Brett, adjusting the poolside music.  Also, Memo's "casa de los hot cakes" was our favorite breakfast spot.  I had Kahlua pancakes one day.....yummmmm-o!  It was about a 3 block walk straight down the mountain to town.  It was a $3 cab ride back up!  We usually hiked it, but the cab definitely came in handy after some cerveza....



Here is the view from our bedroom (it had a wide open balcony!) and our kitchen.



This is a view of Casa Isabel from town.  You can see the red umbrellas right in the middle of the picture.



These were typical poses throughout the trip!  Brett was happy with his GRANDE margarita at Andale's.



These are pictures from our actual Anniversary.  We had reservations at a beautiful restaurant, Cafe des Artistes for dinner. 



Here is a picture of the garden setting at Cafe des Artistes.  They had rose petals on our table....it was an unbelievable place.  Dinners were a work of art.  I had a crab salad and grilled scallops.  Brett had wasabi ravioli and sea bass.  We couldn't have asked for a better evening....and then the dessert came!



This dessert was the most incredible thing I have ever seen.  On the bottom it says "Happy Anniversary" written in chocolate.  It was all on a mirror....about 1 ft. by 3 ft.  It had candles in rasberries, a molten chocolate cake, pieces of chocolate, a candy sculpture, "fireworks in the fruit" according to brett, and all different flavors of sauces in different designs.  Wow!



Here are sunsets from 3 different nights!  This was the view from our balcony.  It was incredible.  We watched the sun set each night, except for the anniversary night when we were at dinner.  There was also a pirate ship cruise each night.  You can barely see the ship sitting in front of the sun in the last picture.  When it was completely dark, there were fireworks shot from the ship every night.  It was so awesome!



Here are 2 of our favorite restaurants.  Yes, we ate good!  Joe Jack's Fish Shack on the left and Cafe de Olla on the right.  These were all within a few blocks from Casa Isabel.  We did not meet a meal that we did not like!



Here is our daily view of the beach.  We spent almost every afternoon here.  I acually read 2 whole books on this trip (Thanks, Traci), which is more than I have read in 3 years!  We found this wonderful shack of a restaurant, La Carreta,  right on the beach.  You could grab a couple of chairs, which included a table and an umbrella, and they served the best guacamole and chips with buckets of beer.  We drank Corona, Sol, Pacifico....I think we tried them all!  A bucket of 10 beers for 160 pesos.  That's about $1.45 each.  We definitely had a few buckets.

This was the first time we left Anna and Brady, so it made a 4 night trip seem like a week!  They were fine, Rachel stayed with them.  We couldn't have had this wonderful trip without her!