We’re loving this Old Town Mazatlan living. This place we rented is right smack dab in the heart of Old Town and we can get anything we could possibly need within a three minute walk. It’s amazing. Fruit/Meat/Fish market, check. Supermarket, check. Convenience store, check. Shoe store, check. Kids uniform store, check. Tailor, check. Plaza, check. Post office, check. School, check. Pizza, tacos, Chinese, tortas, hamburgers, check, check, check. Ice cold horchata at eight a.m. or eight p.m., check. Seriously, really loving this location. All that and more is within a five block radius.

No pool though. So today we took the kids across town to the Marina El Cid Resort, where a lot of cruisers spend their winters—and summers for that matter. It’s pretty similar in concept to Paradise Village in Puerto Vallarta—big all-inclusive resort with a marina and a bunch of swimming pools. This place is much easier to crash as a non-paying guest though. They don’t mind outsiders showing up and using the facilities. We had dinner, but nobody would have bothered us if we hadn’t.

The kids had a blast swimming. There was a pool slide that was the perfect size for Lowe, and he went down it a hundred times. For Ouest there was a cliff dive. Yep, a nine-foot cliff over a nine-foot deep pool. Ouest saw a boy (about twelve-years-old probably) jump off the “cliff” and immediately said to me, “Me want to go jump off of that.” So we walked up there, stepped to the edge, counted to three while holding hands, and jumped. No hesitation. No fear. The girl freaks me out a little bit. She may be too much like me for her own good. We made that jump seven times before I finally put an end to it, telling her I was too tired. Do you know what she said?

“I can do it by myself, Papa.”

I have no doubt she would have too, if I had let her. But not even I could allow that one.