Mexico Overview

Saturday December 22nd, 2007:
As we were packing up the car, Carter ate some berries from a bush outside. After a chat with poison control, we made a stop at a local nursery on our way out of town to ensure that he would be fine. Plant was identified as Heavenly Bamboo which is apparently harmless. Caravaned in 3 cars and arrived, if I remember correctly, around 3:00 pm. Dan and Brittney followed a bit later on after she finished work. We were in charge of dinner that night -- tomato tortellini soup.

Christmas Pajama Handout ensued.

Carter fought sleep in our room shared with Dan and Britt that night. Claudia and Joe were kind enough to let us move his porta-crib into their bathroom for the duration of the trip.

Sunday December 23rd:
We guessed well and arrived at the church building in town about half an hour before church was to begin. We walked in to hear the sound of Christmas carols being sung for the prelude. A very full meeting house that day (standing room only in the halls) with all of us gringo visitors.

I was so frightened that Carter would catch sight of the guy wearing the eye patch and bust out his best pirate imitation. Carter can "Aaarrrgh" with the best of them. How did we end up going right past him like three times without Carter seeing him??? I'll tell you how -- fervent prayer.

Sunday was the day that the men were in charge of dinner. We had delicious tin foil dinners (after hours of waiting for them to cook to perfection)!

Monday December 24th (Christmas Eve):
After Dan and Brittney's muffins and smoothies breakfast, this day was designated as the day to go into "town." This included a visit to the local "aquarium," bargaining with the vendors in the marketplace, and purchasing fresh shrimp and fish at the fish market.

Upon our return to the house, Shane and I made Pina Colada Chicken salads to go along with the Salmon and the local fish and shrimp that Joe grilled up. Everyone just LOVED this meal. The shrimp was something our mouths had been watering for since last Christmas when Joe grilled us up some of that local shrimp.

The only thing that could top such a fine meal was the multi-course fancy Christmas Eve dinner Jon and Monica prepared for us. The table was set spectacularly with lots of candlelight and we enjoyed our salads, pork chops, asparagus, and dessert all while sharing great conversation inspired by the questions we each found underneath our place cards. Picture perfect (see pictures in Christmas Eve post below).

Tuesday December 25th (Christmas Day!):
We planned to wake up really early, but didn't. Brad eventually got us all out of bed, but since we ate a hearty Christmas breakfast prepared by Jon and Monica before getting to the presents, Brad actually fell back asleep and we had to wake him up again to open presents!

Carter LOVED both his Etch-a-sketch and his puzzle that makes animal sounds when you put in the pieces.

I took family pictures of Joe and Claudia's family that day. Actually, Jon is a photography professor, so he set up the shots and I pushed the button! What a good-looking family!

Dan, Brittney, and Ben eventually had to leave to get home. Brittney had to work the next day and Ben had to fly home the next day.

Overall, a nice, relaxed, low-key Christmas day.

Wednesday December 26th:
From this point on, we pretty much just hung out and enjoyed what time we had left at the beach. The weather had warmed up a bit from when we first arrived and we had a lovely day in the sand.

Power went out that night (and the generator would not be turned on again until the next morning), so we had a bonfire on the beach and about froze our tooshies off! Luckily, Joe had made us some hot cocoa when we came inside. Kind of fun to go without power, using candles and flashlights "survive!"

ThursdayDecember 27th:
That would be today. We spent the morning packing up and we left around 11:00 am. We just got home. Great trip! Thanks for making it possible, Joe and Claudia!

Oh, and when we got service on our phones again coming into the states, Shane had 4 messages from poison control wanting to know what happened to Carter from eating those berries so that they could close out the case...oops.