Pretty Travel Photos to Distract You From My Utter Lack of Posting

Guilty Yuppie Disclaimer: No small part of me despises doing travel reviews, because I fear they come across as "Oooh, look how fabulous and privileged I am, traveling to exotic locales! Pretty please be jealous of me and my extremely good fortune / profligate spending!"

What I'm actually trying to get at is more along the lines of "Travel is just one of my things, so I live / budget accordingly, and I like reading about other people's trips to get ideas. And, well, Hell - I haven't posted in weeks. Maybe some scenic beach photos will distract everyone qualify as a post while I try to rediscover my writing mojo. Wait, can I use the word 'mojo' outside of the year 2002?"

Oh, and none of the following resorts / towns / etc. sponsored this post or trip, obviously, so regretfully, positive review to follow was at my own expense.

Thank you for your understanding . . .

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"Hallmark Holidays" - love 'em or hate 'em, every year seems to come replete with a new, exhausting set of festivities for us to spend our hard-earned cash on. And while I generally resent such saccharine intrusions into my time and wallet - isn't Valentine's Day grating enough without inflicting "Sweetest Day" and its sappy ilk on us? - I can now speak enthusiastically on behalf of the Babymoon phenomenon.

A skeptic at first, having not heard of the concept until a few months back, I quickly cottoned to the idea / excuse to get away with the AH for a few days. Although we've been lucky enough to travel often during our few married years, not since our honeymoon had we done a longer than a weekend, just-the-two-of-us adventure. True, travel is a privilege, but we had saved and were due a lazy, hedonist, lay-about-the-beach together trip.

And so, high on hormones and the possibility of staring at my beloved Pacific Ocean for a stretch, this Valentine's Day weekend we departed for Punta Mita, a scenic, sleepy resort village one hour north of Puerta Vallarta. Six days, one outstanding hotel (St. Regis, for Hotel Snobs keeping track), zero margaritas (gah) and one maternity swimsuit (GAH!) later, we returned home oozily relaxed, sunburned, and grateful.

To any of you considering this whole gestation business, let me now say with authority - take a Babymoon. Ahem, TAKE A BABYMOON. On whatever scale fits your budget - pitch a festive teepee in your neighbor's yard if you must - just get out of town for a spell. I've found it too easy while at home to spend most of pregnancy moaning about budgets and 529 plans and other scary adult stuff you didn't consider back when having a cute baby seemed like such a fun idea. Get gone, get a fauxgarita in your hand, and just enjoy the actually fun bits of this babymaking deal.

One caveat - when I say "travel" here, I mean "a lazy ode to hedonism that caters to your now-constant need to eat / drink / rest / be pampered." Now is not the time to take that jaunt up Macchu Pichu or live amongst the indigenous persons of northern Uzbekistan. Your knocked up self reacts in strange and delightful ways to things like sun exposure, motion sickness, etc., so call this trip a good excuse to book some spa treatments and leave the adventurous, capital "T" Travel for another trip.

And for those Smug Marrieds not considering kids, now or ever, forever and ever, amen, this trip was also a good reminder to me of how important it is just to have some one-on-one travel time with the husband type. On the "Duh" scale, that remarkable insight must rate at least a 9.5, but hear me out; post-Honeymoon, we'd fallen into the group travel habit. This has been a blast, naturally, but it also hasn't left us time to just sit and have those honest, fauxgarita (gah) induced chats that come easier when you're not at home.

I have to get back now to freaking out about budgets and maternity leave benefits and ohmigodisn'ttheresomeoneIcanhiretofigurethisstuffoutforme, but I do so now with a refreshed, if still sunburned spirit. This all made it possible: