the renting-a-condo-option would be great but I don't want to bring food, prepare meals, etc. Just because you are in a condo with a kitchen doesn't mean you HAVE to cook. The advantage of the condo is the multiple bedrooms & bathrooms. The kitchen can stay unused. I'm not sure if I'm reading this right but it sounds to me that there is not a real concensus on what to do. Just that you want to get away for a day and a night. I hightly recommend that you discuss what you want to do before you do any further research. Even if you have more than one option, such as everyone would be agreeable to either shopping or skiing. Then you can search for places that are condusive to those activities. You don't want to do a bunch of research, settle on the "perfect" place, then find out one of the girls doesn't want to do that particular activity. Since you mentioned your friend was a foodie, that brought to mind a few more possible activities. Cooking Classes. If you can find a one day cooking class on a Saturday in a nearby area, you could tailor your trip around that. Another idea, a food tour. Last time I visited my son in NYC we did two food tours. One was Pizza in Brooklyn - we ate at two different pizza places in Brooklyn and visited several locations where movies were shot. Great tour (all on a bus). The other one was a food walking tour of Greenwich Village. We walked around, visited several interesting restaurants and markets, and got lots of samples. One more idea, wineries in the Finger Lakes in New York. I've never been but plan on doing a two day trip there in March. LOTS of B&Bs in that area as well. I also highly recommend meeting at one of your houses and all driving to your destination in the same car. That makes the getaway start from the minute you leave that house instead of a couple of hours later when you arrive. Is there a reason you are all planning to drive separately?

Olliesmom, sounds like this (link) is the story you are referring to, perhaps. The vast majority of stories like this - while incredibly unfortunate - have nothing to do with cartels or even small-time criminal activity, but are crimes perpetrated by someone familiar to the victim. I understand your reluctance to travel. From your initial post, it sounded like you were upset with your mom for "throwing a fit", which is why I responded as I did. Apart from feeling that Mexico is unfairly maligned (and it's not that small - it's about 1/5th the size of the United States! ;-)), I don't mind encountering fewer crowds when I go there. (OK, so that's selfish of me ...) Terriks, I didn't realize there were so many expats living in PV. I recall reading that at least 3 million tourists flock to the area annually though, and that's a lot of people, many if not most being repeat visitors. People wouldn't keep going back to these areas if it were as unsafe as the media wants to make us believe. I'm ready to go back, but won't be able to do so until next year. Here is a link that might be useful: Murder in Cozumel

Thank you for the specific information everybody! Going to look over the options and view the websites for different sights this weekend and see what interests my daughter as well. I really liked Seattle, Boston, and San Francisco when visiting there myself. I guess we'll have to see what is available in hotels and air travel too. I have been looking at those resort places here in TX though, but I ruled out Hyatt's Lost Pines. Too close to home for wanting to pay for staying there overnight. I drive by there everyday and it is less than 20min from the light at Riverside off 71 in traffic to get there. I was looking at the ones in San Antonio, Galveston, and Woodlands. Edit: If anybody has any specific hotel recommendations my budget is pretty open as in I'm willing to pay higher than the average rate, but don't want the really really high ones as I don't think with as little time as we'll spend in the hotel room that it is worth it. I generally prefer a 4 or 5 star hotel. But really what matters more to me is that it is clean, family friendly (as in allow children) and close to everything and transportation since we won't have a car. This post was edited by lyfia on Fri, Aug 2, 13 at 9:32

Call a handy-man. This is an easy DIY job with a common post hole digger. The hardest part will be cutting pavers to fit back around the anchors, depending on how it is detailed. Construction is no longer shut down where I live. Few places can be that far behind. Except New York. Ask around on the Nextdoor App.