Trip to Mexico

Andy and I enjoyed some time  (a whole week!) away from our kids as we took a trip to Mexico and enjoyed touring around and hanging out with my parents! It was an awesome trip and who knew we would be leaving snow behind when we booked out trip for May! It was so fun to see where my parents are living and we loved all the time we got to spend with them. They were, of course, great hosts! Thanks to mom and dad for a great week with you and to Alisa and Ryan for watching our kids!!

Day 1

I was so excited to have a break from being a mom. I looked just as forward to the time on the plane where I could read whatever I wanted and drink a cup of soda without it spilling on me. We went to bed way too late the night before we flew out and woke up far too early to catch our flight. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep. But no big deal  right? I was without kids. I planned to sleep on our first flight and enjoy a book on the second flight. Well pretty funny when Andy's boss just so happened to be on our flight sitting right next to us! So much for sleeping. We talked the entire time. It was so funny to me that she was on our flight and not only on our flight but sitting next to us. What are the chances! She is super nice and I enjoyed talking with her and getting to know her. 

When we landed in Mexico and once we made it through customs there were my sweet parents waiting for us - all smiles. It was so GREAT to see them. It's been a year and will be another 2 before we see them again. 

From the airport my dad had arranged for a driver (a bishop from one of the wards) to drive us around Mexico City and give us a tour. He did a great job and we really enjoyed seeing the city and walking around. I was grateful to survive the drive. As we got into the taxi we soon realized people don't bother buckling up - but REALLY they should. It was so crazy there and I might have feared for my life a few times but quickly came to realize everything was just fine - this was just normal driving. I've lived abroad and traveled abroad but the driving in Mexico seems especially bad! I'm so proud of my mom for venturing out and driving around her mission!

This is our tour guide with us down in Mexico city

Over the course of the week we came to realize that much of mexico or at least mexico city area is buil on top of old civilizations. Here in the heart of Mexico city they were excavating a temple ruin.

Day 2

We started our first full day on a sunday - fast sunday. It was nice to go to church and watch my parents interact with the people. It was fun for me to use my spanish again and it was a very special day when mom stood up and bore her testimony in spanish in sacrament meeting! she did a GREAT job! Pretty amazing to think a year ago she didn't know any spanish and there she was speaking the language and sharing her testimony!

There is never lack of food or good food with my parents! We all enjoyed some stake and salmon for dinner!

Day 3

This was a GREAT day! I woke up and went for a run. I think my mom tried to tell me we would get plenty of exercise but I didn't believe her. Turns out I really didn't need to go for that run. Mom was right - of course! We went to Teotihuacan where we hiked up giant pyramids. It was amazing to see ruins from civilizations that date back to aroun 600 or 700 AD!

Dad likes hats. Apparently he has already purchase several but as we were driving out to the pyramids he told my mom he was looking for a hat. She reminded him he had hats and he said he needed one just a little smaller. So first thing we did was go hat shopping. It was fun and I think we all look pretty good in our hats. I think dad will have at least 9 hats by the time he leaves mexico!

Be sure to note all the stairs in the pictures - we did lots of climbing this day!

We climbed up this pyramid in the background

Andy testing out ancient plumbing - ok maybe not really but this would have been the place to do so if you lived way back then!

Amy getting ready to climb up the stairs. I was challenged to run up them. I thought it would be easy - not so!

Day 4

Dad started his day with some meetings at the mission office. The meetings didn't last too long. Gave us enough time to exercise and eat a yummy breakfast and it gave us a good opportunity to stop in and see where their mission office is. We showed up just as a bunch of Elders were getting ready to leave after having had a meeting. It was a busy place when we walked in and it was so fun to see my parents interact with the Elders and it was fun to watch the Elders and remember what mission life was like.

After picking up dad at the office we had fun walking around their down town. I love their town. The streets and buildings are so pretty. We had fun walking in and out of shops. Here we are on what they call the sweet street. They have beautiful looking candies and treats. We sampled some of them and mom and dad had a plate of them for us in our room when we arrived. We all agreed they are prettier than they taste. Needless to say it was fun to try different things. 

Look how pretty the buildings are. They are so colorful and I love the little balconies that come off each window. 

Day 5

We started this day with an eruption! No joke! We woke up to ash all over the streets, homes, yards.....EVERYWHERE! My parents have an active volcano that they can see from their house. It decided to erupt while we were visiting. Not sure if you can really tell from these pictures but there was ash all over. And, as it happens we had on our schedule to go and visit Cuexcomate a volcano site that erupted long long ago. When we arrived at the volcano it was roped off saying it was closed for the day because all the ash needed to be cleaned. We were so disappointed. So, dad worked his magic and found the woman in charge and when she found out we were from out of town she let us go down inside. She just told us to be careful as there was ash everywhere. 

You can see tire tracks from all the ash

Andy outside the volcano

Here we are climbing down into the volcano

After our stop at the volcano we went to Cholula This was a really cool place. It is a church that is built on top of the pyramids. We got to walk through the pyramids underground. It was really neat.

If you look all the way to the top of this hill you can see the church (although it's a little blown out) It sits on a dirt hill which is covering old ancient pyramids. 

More stairs to climb! This was a theme to our trip! We got a workout everyday! 

This man is eating bugs - i kid you not!! Apparently it's a "treat" and the locals love them. Over a month ago my parents were at a mission conference and somebody had these bugs there. My mom couldn't bring herself to eat them so my dad stepped in and decided to show them how cool he was for not being a wimpy american who won't eat bugs. Well fast forward to our trip and my dad was still suffering from eating that bug and was on some pretty serious medicine to kill whatever bug he caught from eating it. He was pretty sick and couldn't eat a whole lot. He was a good sport to tour around with us every day. So, here are those great little bugs that made my dad so sick. I'm quite sure he will not be eating anymore of those on his mission. 

Below are bags of the bugs. people sit and sell them on the street!

Torta anyone?!?!?!? I heard about the torta we would be eating all week. Yes, it was worthy of all the talk! Is it good for you? No! Is it good? Yes. So 1 torta filled us all. It was fun to watch the man make the torta. I about died when I saw how much food he kept cooking up and the cheese....it was a LOT! We all walked away FULL from our quarter of a sandwich!

Dad introduce us to a new soda on this trip that I really liked.

there are churches everywhere and they are BIG and BEAUTIFUL. This was in the town center of Atlixco   
where we went to eat the torta.

this picture makes me laugh because we always seemed to have room for magnum ice cream bars and mom seemed to know all the places that had them!! 

Day 6

This was on our way to a town called Zacatlan. It is a town several hours from my parents house. This town we passed through is where they make lots of christmas ornaments. 

We saw this quite a bit - there would be women inside a little store making tortillas

We had fun hiking to the falls in   Zacatlan 

We were a couple hours from my parents house. We were out in the country. It was beautiful. I loved some of these homes we passed by

Not far from the waterfall we stopped off at a town and walked through their market. This was really fun. Andy and I loved this part of our trip. We were surrounded by locals. It was not a tourist spot so it was fun to feel like we were part of real life mexican people.It was also the day before Mother's Day (in Mexico) so there was a lot of stuff going on in the town. 

So Andy didn't really know I was taking his picture. I told him to stand there and I would pretend because I mostly wanted to get the meat in the back. Keep in mind it is really hot here and those are just chickens laying out on a table in the heat. And then there is red meat hanging up in the open heat in the other store. 

More chicken just sitting out on a random table waiting to be sold

Day 7

It was hard to wake up knowing it was time to leave. The time we spent in Mexico went so fast. We managed to squeeze in one more pyramid before we headed to the airport.

We stopped at Cacatxla. It was a really neat place. It had really neat pictures that were preserved on it's pyramid. The biggest picture was a really long picture showing some sort of war between dark skinned warriors and white skinned warriors. This pyramid and pictures were made about 200 years after the book of mormon. It was really fascinating to see!

Mom and Dad were so good to give us so much time - the whole week. However, I had to snap this picture of dad on the phone. I was amazed and impressed with how accessible dad was to his missionaries. He would get calls all throughout the day from missionaries. I can tell he is a great mission president and I know he loves his missionaries.

We were on our way out of town and heading to the airport and we were about out of the town and we stumbled upon a local gathering for Mother's day. Apparently Mother's Day is a VERY big deal in Mexico. We saw that they had some sort of dancing going on and luckily we happened to find an easy parking spot. We pulled over for maybe 10 minutes and got to get in on some of this traditional dancing. It was a really neat way to end our trip! We loved the dancing and the outfits.

Here are some random things from our trip:

You see these potato chips all over the streets being sold by local people in the streets

I thought this tree was really cool looking

We never knew which bathrooms we'd have to pay for toilet paper and have it rationed. this was funny - the toilet paper was on the outside of the bathroom.

This gave us a bit of a laugh - the truck is pulling the horses!!

I love all the cool windows and balconies. It was also fun to wander the streets because they have so many neat buildings and things to look at - even some of the benches in the parks are cool. This one was made out of tiles. I loved it!

Pigs being driven on the highway

We had a FABULOUS trip visiting mom and dad. They were great hosts and we enjoyed every minute we got to spend with them. It was hard to say goodbye after such a fun week and knowing it would be 2 years before I see them again. I don't think I've ever had that much one on one time with just my parents. What a treat!!