Just an old man and his dog on the first day of August.
Huzbend and Mikey rode their bikes down to a park.
Katie and I met them there with the car, along with Ralph.
They decided to do some "challenges".
Who will win?
I had my Council PTSA board of directors meeting that first week of August.
Phew. SO much to talk about and so much to do.
Katie had another week of Digipen summer camp during that first week of August.
One morning we drove up to drop her off and found out that they had cancelled in-person camp due to someone testing positive for COVID. They were going to do virtual camp for the rest of the week.
That didn't matter much, because we were headed to Mexico (!) on Wednesday evening of that week!
Katie was invited to participate in a friends - we'll call her S - quinceañera.
The quinceanera is the celebration of a girls 15th birthday and marks her "coming of age". There are many traditions surrounding this life event. Katie was asked to be part of S's court and so would have a big part to play in the celebration.
The planning for the quinceanera had been in the works since before COVID.
We were all were worried that we wouldn't be able to attend due to closed borders and other issues. We were also worried that vaccines might not be available by that time or that Katie would have issue with the vaccines due to her autoimmune issues and/or the medications she took.
Incredibly, it all worked out. For some of us.
Mikey, who had received his first vaccine dose on his birthday, was nowhere near being fully vaccinated.
Cases were on the rise and the risk was still there.
We decided that Katie and I would go, while Mikey would stay home with Huzbend.
It was really hard for me to leave half of the family home and jump on an airplane, but I knew that Katie had been looking forward to this for SO long.
It was just the thing she needed to get out of the COVID funk.
We were originally supposed to leave on Thursday morning, but the airline cancelled the flight.
They then rebooked us on a flight that arrived AFTER a connecting flight that we were supposed to catch in San Jose, CA. Well, that wouldn't work.
After a bit of work, we were able to secure a flight on Wednesday evening from Seattle to Portland and then from Portland to San Jose, CA.
We would meet friends who we were traveling with and overnight in San Jose, and then, on Thursday morning, fly from San Jose, CA to Guadalajara, MX.
We took an at-home rapid COVID test the night before we left to make sure that we were negative before getting on a flight to a foreign country. We did not want to get stuck in quarantine! We were negative.
We said goodbye - and I gave a huge hug to Mikey and Huzbend - and off we went.
We headed to the airport with S's mom. S was already in Mexico preparing for the big day with her dad, her sister B and another friend.
Here we are, masked up and ready to take our first flight since December 2019.
On the short flight down to Portland, the skies were clear and the view was incredible.
Say hello to Mt. Rainier.
And, her buddy a little farther south, Mt. St. Helens.
Yep. That's steam coming out of the crater.
We made it to Portland with no problem.
That never happens.
Granted, it was just a bowl of rice and some super plain baked chicken.
But, it was more than we thought we would find.
Shhh.
Don't tell.
I ate a personal pizza loaded with gluten and cheese.
Our flight out of Portland was delayed and got us into San Jose about 30-45 minutes later than the friends that we were meeting. We made it to the hotel in San Jose at about 9ish at night.
Katie felt bad that she had missed working out with Huzbend, so she did some push ups and sit ups in the hotel room.
She watched Food Network when she was done.
And, believe it or not, it was showing "Guy's Grocery Games".
It makes me wonder if they ever have anything else on Food Network besides Triple G, Triple D or Chopped.......
We were up bright and early the next day for our flight to Mexico.
The flight itself was no-drama and smooth.
But, we arrived to sheer craziness at the Guadalajara airport.
Getting through passport control was all good. No issues there
Except the guy checked my passport to Katie's immigration form and Katie's passport to my form.
He handed us our exit portions of the form and waved us through.
Then, it was time to make our way through customs.
There were people EVERYWHERE and noone knew where the lines started or ended to get through customs.
We grabbed our bags and then hopped into a random line hoping it would take us where we wanted to go.
As we were standing in it, our line dissolved and we moseyed our way into another line.
There were a lot of unhappy people speaking very fast Spanish all around.
We tried our best to stay out of the way and remain as friendly and non confrontational as possible.
It took FOREVER for us to get to the front of the "line".
We had to place our bags into a scanner, hand our customs form to an officer and then had to press a button. The button would then activate a colored light.
Green meant you were free to pass through. Red meant further investigation of your stuff.
All of us got green.
Phew!
We made our way out of the airport to meet our ride.
S and her friend were waiting outside for us and brought us to an area to get picked up .
Her dad pulled up in a MONSTER VAN.
The thing was huge.
It could probably fit about 13 or 14 people.
We hopped in, bags and all, and began to make our way to the villa where S's relative were staying.
The kids were going to practice their dances.
More on that in a second.
Meanwhile......back in Washington.
Mikey and Huzbend made their way to Lake Chelan.
The plan was to visit a water park the next day.
They stayed at a motel that was just meh.
Beds were comfortable but the bathroom was the size of a very small closet.
The motel had also advertised a pool which turned out to look like a hole in the parking lot.
So, that was disappointing.
That evening they ate dinner at a fancy restaurant at a resort.
Huzbend reported that dinner was "pretty good" but that the motorcycles that were driving by were way too loud.
Here is Mikey at a playground.
Back to Guadalajara.
The van ride to the villa was, let's say, bumpy and chaotic.
There was a lot of traffic and all of it was going fast and wild.
The villa (and the compound that we would be staying at) was within a gated community.
The roads within the gated community were barely big enough to fit one car on and were unkept, holey, dirt roads.
We soon made it to the villa and were introduced to lots of family members including, Daisy the chihuahua.
Daisy is the doggie of S's dad sister - we'll call her Tia.
(Tia means aunt in Spanish)
I have to admit, she was pretty cute for a chihuahua.
On the property some goats were just wandering around.
I guess they just live on the property. They were no ones pets.
We had to try to keep them from escaping when we opened the gates to get in or out.
After the introductions, the kids got down to work.
As part of the quinceanera, the birthday girl and her court perform a rehearsed and choreographed dance. It is a big part of the evening and everyone looks forward to them.
The Party Planner Lady - seen here in the photo on the left - had to teach the kids the dance in less than two days.
First, Party Planner Lady - I truly and honestly don't remember her name - walked through the choreography with them.
TA-DA! Spinning the princess.
Here's a snippet of the practice.
Daisy had had enough.
She went off to pester the goats.
The kids moved out onto the lawn for more room to practice.
We left the kids in our new Mexican families hands and headed to the place we were staying (aka "the compound") to drop off bags and then to a Walmart to purchase food for our stay.
Here's a little taste of what the roads looked like in the gated community.
I wasn't making it up.
There were also stray dogs wandering everywhere and walls around each huge property.
We pulled into our party compound.
It was quite lovely and had a definite resort feel to it.
The party would be held on the premises and we would be staying as guests in the house also locatedon the property.
This is the back gate.
It could be swung open to fit cars (or giant vans) through to park in the driveway. There was also a small door that you could walk through.
This was kept locked at all times.
The pool was a deep blue and also had a bridge over the top of it.
The yellow building beyond the pool is an elevated covered platform for ceremonies.
This is the back of the house that we were staying in.
Mango trees were scattered all over the property.
You can also see a building in the back with archways in this picture.
This building with arches housed a kitchen, bathrooms, a bar area, dance area and pool table.
The walls were home to farm implements and tools as well as old pictures and signs.
From that building you could cross over a small bridge over a man made stream to the front gate.
Here's the man-made stream.
It didn't connect to the pool, but to a waterfall garden area.
And lastly, a Virgin Mary shrine on the back of the house.
I'll have a few more pictures of the grounds later.
It was getting late and we had to get ourselves to Walmart!
Okay.
The Walmart was, like, 30 minutes away and it was already late - past dinner time.
It took a long time to find all the things we needed.
Some of that was taken up with trying to translate the ingredients lists to make sure I got things Katie could eat.
Yep.
I am THAT tourist.
I took a picture of a Walmart in Mexico.
We FINALLY got back to pick up the kids.
They were tired, exhausted, grumpy and wet.
They got bored and jumped in the pool at the villa with their clothes on since we had all their luggage.
Sigh.
We went to a local 24 hour burrito buffet place for dinner.
It was 10pm.
The burritos were okay.
There was nothing for Katie to eat except potato chips and soda.
They had sold out of rice for the day and the burritos were made with flour tortillas.
I had two burritos (they weren't that big), a Pepsi, and two desserts that Katie made me get because she was curious to see what they were.
Here are some really tired and hungry kiddos.
Especially the one in the back that only had potato chips.
The place we ate at was called "Los Milagros de Dalila".
Meaning: The Miracles of Dalila.
Dalila is a donkey and she has a whole family of characters.
Dalila is second in the line of characters pictured here. She has white hair and a blue dress.
There wasn't much time for exploring when we got back to the compound.
Everyone picked a bedroom and fell asleep.
Or tried.
There was a party going on in another compound somewhere near us.
Dance music drummed until late into the night.
Here was our room.
Two twin beds, a fold out table and a TV on the wall.
Not bad.
Katie left the TV on all night.
The Olympics were on for a while.
And then she put on this weird late night TV program that was so boring that it put her to sleep.
There were lots of mosquitos.
Even in our bedroom.
Yuck.
Bug spray was a must or you would be literally eaten alive.
The music in the distance was still playing, but now it was a calm sort of "morning time" dance music.
In order to board our flight to return to the US, we had to have proof of a negative COVID test taken within 3 days of our departing flight.
I had purchased an at-home test kit that was approved to use to satisfy this requirement.
We didn't want to deal with the hassle of finding a place to test in Guadalajara or getting it done at the airport.
We had to login to a video chat system and have a technician observe us giving ourselves the test (swab up nose) and the results. The technician would then give us a QR code allowing us to board the flight home.
Unfortunately, the wait time to video chat with a person was HOURS long.
So, I got "in virtual line" and waited.
I just left computer on, with the volume up all the way, and checked back every so often.
The house had two floors connected by this grand sweeping staircase.
If you looked up from the first floor, there was a dome at the top with small windows to let light in.
The decor was, um, interesting.
There wasn't anything on the walls except two.
One wall was full of colorfully painted plaster faces.
They were all different designs with painted lips and staring eyes.
I'm not sure why I don't have a picture of those.
And then, there was this butterfly.
Look closely at the body.....
Ultra creepy.
"Do I have to get up?"
She was convinced to roll out of bed when someone mentioned "pool".
I found these cute chocolates at the Walmart.
Of course I bought them.
Wouldn't you?
Here's what they looked like.
SUPER CUTE.
But, taste wise, mmmmm, not so good.
It was like watered down chocolate, if you can imagine such a thing.
Disappointing.
The time back home in Washington was two hours behind Guadalajara.
They had made it to the water park and had checked into their cabana.
Fancy!
This was the view from their cabana.
Mikey approves.
The guys were lucky enough to get a chance to try a 30 minute surfing experience for free.
They both said it was fun, but that they weren't very good.
After the surfing lesson, they picked up street tacos from a taco truck and then enjoyed the water park for the rest of the day.
That evening they had tamales for dinner.
"Best tamales ever" was what I heard about them.
They ate dinner at a lakeside park that was covered in goose poop.
Funny enough, that is almost exactly what we did down in Mexico.
I meant swimming. There was no goose poop.
The water was a little chilly.
S and her sister B were out getting their nails done just about all morning.
When they returned, S was getting a bit anxious about the ceremony/party the next day.
Practicing for the dance was put on indefinitely hold until she was feeling better.
Since practice wasn't happening, the other kids swam, played, relaxed, laughed and ate most of the day.
They ended up coming up with a game that was kind of like "keep away".
You had to keep the ball away from the person on the bridge.
Katie finally caught it.
Once you caught it, you could jump into the pool and the person who threw it would take a turn on the bridge.
Here's a birds eye view of the pool.
How did such a photo get taken?
There was a door on the second floor that allowed you on to the roof.
There was no railing or anything because, who needs safety?
The kids started to call this phenomenon "Mexico Rules" in a joking sort of way.
Because, at times, there didn't seem to BE any rules in Mexico.
Here they are on the roof.
Some more friends stopped by to join in the pool fun.
They were staying in Guadalajara proper in an AirBNB.
A restaurant they had stopped at earlier in the day gave them some gum, which they kindly shared.
It was the smallest piece of gum I had ever seen.
Remember that video chat COVID testing?
We got dropped multiple times from the virtual queue.
The one time we did make it through, the person on the other end couldn't see or hear us.
We could just chat via typing.
Sigh.
At this point, we had been waiting multiple HOURS.
The person I was type-chatting with suggested that I try the Spanish language video chat.
I did and I got right in.
I cautiously explained that I was told to go into the Spanish language video chat and asked if that was okay.
The person on the other end said yes.
We then learned that we would have to do each of our tests separately. That means when I was done with my test, we would have to do the whole thing over again on a NEW call for Katie.
ARGH.
It literally took all day.
It's a good thing that we didn't go anywhere or do anything, otherwise I don't know how I would've gotten this done.
It was not nearly as "convenient" as they said it would be.
The great news was that we were both negative and could enjoy the rest of the weekend knowing that we could get back into the US on Monday.
That evening, we were treated to a carne asada dinner by S's dad's family.
Everything was home made, even the salsas (aka sauces).
During the day, some of the setup for the party had begun.
We used these to eat dinner on.
We ate lots and lots of tacos.
During dinner, it was discovered that our friends daughter lost a favorite earring in the pool sometime that day.
Tears were shed.
The older kids decided to patrol the pool to see if they could find it.
Mind you, it was a stud earring with a BLUE stone.
Amazingly, Katie spotted it from the bridge that was overlooking the pool!
The girl's brother was able to retrieve it from the bottom of the pool.
A happy ending.
It was time to mosquito proof ourselves.
Earlier in the day S's dad had dropped off some new bug spray. He placed it on a table that we were using for a community stash of sunscreen and bug spray for all to use.
It was a Mexican brand of bug spray, and so the label was entirely in Spanish.
S's mom picked up and sprayed herself, then sprayed Katie and S' other friend.
It was only after the fact that she noticed that it was HOUSE bug spray.
We were supposed to be using it to protect our rooms from invaders - like mosquitos, the ever present flies and, yes, roaches.
Yikes.
As the sun set, the kids were preparing to rehearse their dance.
Here they are being instructed by the Party Planner Lady.
Come to find out that they were doing TWO dances at the event.
The second "dance" was a toast from the quinceanera to the guests.
Here's a little snippet of their practice.
After practice was over, Katie decided to wander the grounds of the compound with me.
I think she had one too many Mexican Cokes....
No corn syrup in there. Just straight up cane sugar.
She was a bit silly.
The post that she was leaning on was loose.
She almost fell into the empty stream.
Almost falling and laughing hysterically led to this.....
We decided to grab a seat on the raised ceremony building.
They had set up the chairs for the next day.
My mom friends were up there chilling and talking.
The way the spotlight was shining from behind the building made awesome shadows on the house across the way.
We had some shadow fights.
I think Katie won.
Everyone was way too hyped up to sleep.
S's cousins had brought a steam machine to get the wrinkles out of the fancy dresses.
There was a big singing and steaming party in S's bedroom.
And still, after all that shout singing and giggling, they STILL weren't tired.
A few kiddos came and hung out in the kitchen with the Mom's.
Mini sweet potatoes - another find at Walmart
I bought them because I thought Katie might need them to eat, but mostly because of Mr. Yam, who was like Coronel Sander's tuber-fied brother.
Another quirky Walmart find was a shark in a chocolate egg.
After reading the box more carefully and remembering my Spanish, I learned that the shark inside the chocolate egg was....
BABY SHARK!
This led to all sorts of silliness.
Including looking up the word shark in Spanish.
Shark = Tiburon
Which led to us singing "Bebe Tiburon"
Katie got all sorts of whacky and decided to have the Google Translate Lady say random shark related things in Spanish.
This was the signal that it was time for bed.
We fell asleep to the perpetual distant dance music.
And, for the record, another morning of relaxing "morning mix" dance music.
Katie had to be up early to get her hair and makeup done.
She volunteered to go first.
Oh so lonely being the first one awake.
Okay.
She wasn't the only one awake.
I went outside to take pictures of the sunrise over the walls of our compound.
As I was out there, I decided to do a panoramic view of the compound.
I was wondering what they would do with Katie's short hair...
It took about an hour for it to be done.
WAH!
Man, that makeup was incredible and very, very heavy!
Her hair was sweet as well, with a tiny braid to keep it out of her face.
"WHATCHOO LOOKIN' AT?!?!"
Since Katie had gone first, she had A LOT of waiting around to do.
And, sadly, swimming was not an option.
We were tired of hearing the other compounds dance music.
We decided to have a (one-sided because they didn't know they were challenged) music throwdown.
We co-opted the portable dance practice speaker and played some fantastically nerdy music such as:
A good time was had by all, except the adults who were not me.
There was also some roof sitting.
Of course, like one would.
While the girls were upstairs putting on their dresses, the boys and family guests hung out downstairs waiting.
Finally!
Katie was very excited to wear this "James Bond" dress.
Here's me, taking a selfie in the bathroom mirror because that's the way I roll.
S had to run off for pictures. We were about an hour or so late already at this point.
And then....more waiting.
Hi.
It was a beautiful day.
Warm with sunny skies.
S with her Mom on the left and her Tia on the right.
Pictures were a big to-do.
Just like wedding photos.
Here's S's little sister B, Sitting and dreaming about her own quinceanera.
She had already picked out her colors.
Group picture time!
The quinceanera, her chambelanes (chamberlains) and her damas (maids of honor).
This is my favorite picture.
Much more normal.
With pictures complete, it was time to move on to the ceremony.
This happened on the elevated building.
The family gathered and sat in the seats.
S was up front.
Friends were towards the back.
The priest/minister to the right in the picture below talked about the importance of the celebration.
I think.
I couldn't hear what was being said because I was wandering and taking photos.
S's dad translated what the priest/minister was saying.
A glance back at Mom, sister and Grandma.
Ceremony OVER - time to party!
But, first, to make it down the steps in the huge dress.....
Made possible by an assist from a friend.
SUCCESS!
AWKWARD.
They were embarrassed by everyone taking photos of them and clapping.
We all made our way over to the tents for the party part of the celebration.
S sat at the head table by herself.
On the table were various items that would be used for traditional ceremonies occurring throughout the event.
And, yes, that is a doll.
We called her "Creepy Quinceanera Doll".
You'll see her again later.
Her court were seated at the table next door.
Various people made their way up to S's table to say hi and congratulate her.
The kids tried a new drink.
I think it was a mango smoothie of some type.
It had a spicy salt around the rim.
The kids weren't fans.
They wiped the salt off.
The girls felt bad that S had to sit by herself.
Katie probably broke protocol by pulling up a chair to sit with her.
As we waited for dinner to be served, I found a candy station that had been set up.
There were all sorts of candies to try!
Like these sweetened coconut candies in Mexican flag colors.
The little clay pots are full of a tamarind goopy candy. Sour and, in my opinion, not that great.
Lollipops in the center back were packed in with tamarind spicy straw.
Gummies at the front left and then De La Rosa crushed peanut marzipan-like candy in the back.
My favorite was the peanut candy.
DINNER TIME!
These are big vats of pork that were frying away for hours.
Here's a closer look.
The specialty dish of Guadalajara is called torta ahogada.
It's a fried pork sandwich drowned chili sauce.
A special locally made bread - called birote bread - is used so that it doesn't fall apart when the chili sauce is poured on it. The bread has a crunchy outside and a soft inside. It's more salty than sweet.
All in all, it makes for one DELICIOUS sandwich!!
There were some sides you could select as well...
Fried pork rinds and potato or bean empanadas.
You could choose to skip the sandwich and get your fried pork on some freshly made corn tortillas, if you wanted. This is what Katie did.
I had seconds.
As we sat for dinner, a mariachi band strolled in to serenade the quinceanera and her guests.
Some say mariachi was born in the Mexican state of Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located.
Who wants to dance?!?!
Lots of people, I guess?
Everyone - family, friends and gringos - were having a great time.
S joined the dancing with her gigantic dress.
While the mariachi distracted everyone, they set up....
THE CAKE.
Each of these cakes is a different flavor of tres leches cake.
OMG.
And, yes, that is a small lighted fountain in the center of the display.
Buuttttt....some ceremonial stuff had to be taken care of before we could dig into that delicious cake.
More pictures needed to be taken.
This time on the bridge that was over the pool.
I decided to take some pictures before they were officially posed.
Ugh.
He has to touch me?!?!
Poor O, he looks embarrassed.
B seems to think it's pretty funny.
S's friend doesn't seem as perturbed as Katie.
ARE WE DONE YET?!?!
Just the teen girls.
Dramatic sky photo.
After the photos were taken, it was time for the traditional type stuff.
S took her throne.
Katie kept her company as they fussed and mussed with her hair and makeup.
It was time to add the BIG tiara.
Creepy Quinceanera Doll reappeared.
Here is the story:
The doll is S's.
The doll is S's.
Her sister B wants her to play with it with her.
S takes the doll to look at it lovingly and fix its hair.
She then hands it back to her little sister.
Since she is a woman now and does not need to play with kids toys.
Dad is checking in.
On to the next tradition - shoe.
It is only at her quinceanera that girls are allowed to wear high heel shoes.
Her father is the one to switch the shoes from flats to heels, allowing her to step toward adulthood.
This dance symbolizes that her dad will always be the first man in her life.
Awwww.
As the Daddy/Daughter dance ended, it came time for the court to do their dance....
But, they disappeared.
Literally.
As soon as the Daddy/Daughter dance was over, they all ran away up to the house.
I am not kidding.
It turned out that Party Planner Lady told them that they had to get changed after the first dance.
What she actually meant was after their - the courts - first dance.
They kids were confused and thought that the first dance of the evening was the Daddy/Daughter dance.
Whoops.
All the guests were stumped and poor S was left there standing alone wondering where her court went!
The Party Planner Lady tried to pass the time by explaining that the court were from the America and didn't understand the traditions and such.
I ran up to the house to find out where they all went.
When I arrived at the the house, it was a mad crazy dash to get changed out of their fancy clothes and into their dance outfits.
Dresses were being thrown and clothes shoved on as quickly as possible.
As soon as they were dressed, they ran back out only barely NOT slipping on the oily mess that the boiling pork from dinner made.
Out of breath and frazzled, they pulled it together as soon as the music started.
Here are some photos of their first dance.
A big twirl.
Through the tunnel.
And, the big finish!
Of course I have video of the dance!
They weren't done yet!
There was one more dance.
This time it was a toast from the quinceanera to the crowd of family and friends.
Here they come dancing on out.
Step forward. One, two, three....
And when they were all lined up...
...S had to dance around and clink glasses with each of them.
"Salud!"
For those who are curious, it was cranberry juice.
Yep. Got video of this too.
We're not done with traditional stuff yet!
Next up was a toast to the quinceanera from her Mom.
And then one from her Dad.
Happy tears.
It was lovely.
And now, after ALL that, it was time to party!!!
The Party Planning Lady called each member of the court out to introduce themselves.
Here is Katie doing her best anime girl impression.
Just like this, but from the side....
BUT WAIT!
There was one more surprise dance!
S had disappeared for a bit and, I guess, had made a costume change.
She came back out in this lovely traditional dress and did a traditional dance around a sombrero.
She must've been exhausted at this point!
As S went back up to the house to finally put on something a little more casual, the cake was SERVED!
My first piece was a straight up vanilla Tres Leches cake with strawberry filling.
YUM.
I said first piece. Yes. There were many more pieces to come after that first one.
Tee-hee.
The dancing had begun and lasted for HOURS.
There were lots of tequila shots as well.
Not for the kids, of course.
I kept being handed shot glasses (and sometimes full glasses when they ran out of shot glasses) to toast and drink with all sorts of people I didn't know.
Still dancing!
There was some line dancing craziness.
Finally at about 1am or so, the kids called it quits and sat down.
Many decided to head on in to the house.
The adults were also tired, but we weren't done with cake yet!
We polished off the chocolate Tres Leches cake.
The thing with quinceaneras, at least in Mexico, is that they last just about all night and then into the next day.
The staff left and eventually the DJ stopped playing, but that didn't stop the music!
Someone used the portable speaker to play tunes.
Some family members had brought tents to stay overnight.
We called it quits at about 1:30-2am or so.
The girls had to take off ALL that makeup.
They used some goopy makeup remover that smooshed all the makeup off.
Ew.
Katie was proud of her eye smudges.
Very 80's
As soon as Katie laid down that night (at around 3am), she was out like a light.
I took the opportunity to have the only hot shower I had the whole trip.
With so many people in the house, there was never any hot water.
The next morning.
So. Tired.
It was time for Party: PART TWO.
I mentioned the extended family that had camped out all night.
Well, they got the music playing and jumped in the pool.
It was pretty impossible to sleep, so the kids got up, ate some breakfast and decided to join them in the pool.
Dancing to the music....
Soon S' Dad said goodbye to the extended family.
(aka told them nicely it was time to leave).
Then, it was just us friends and S' immediate U.S. and Mexican family.
The pool party continued.
Not only were the mosquitos nasty.
The sun was nasty too.
Katie got super red cheeks her first day there.
S broke out the heavy duty face protectant and helped Katie apply it.
AHHH! It's a ghost!
Our adopted Mexican family once again made lunch with the leftovers from the night before and our dinner from Friday.
Okay. I don't know how "safe" the food was as some of it was sitting out and the flies and such...
But, we were hungry and it was food.
It still tasted really good.
Below is a picture of a specialty drink that one of S's Mexican family members made for everyone.
It was mixture of Coke, Tequila, and some other things that I don't know, with salt all around the rim.
I drank this one verrrrrrrrrry slowy.
It was super tequila-y.
Throughout the day, we polished off the rest of the leftover cake.
This one was coffee Tres Leches.
The whole day was spent relaxing, swimming, eating, drinking and laughing.
We weren't sure what was going to happen for dinner, so we thought that we should at least take care of the kids. We didn't want another 10pm dinner like the night we had arrived.
A super powerful thunderstorm rolled in and cleared out the pool.
(It's all we had)
As it got later and later, it was decided that maybe we should get something to eat for dinner and not just eat leftover cake.
The kids decided to stay behind and hang out while a bunch of the adults (not all of them) hopped in the giant van to drive to a taco stand.
We ended up driving about 20 minutes to a town called El Salto.
We stopped at this hole-in-the-wall place to order some street tacos.
That is a big shank of pork with a pineapple on top.
Makin' tacos.
Mmm.
Makes me hungry.
They manager with the notepad said we had to come back in 45 minutes to pick up our tacos.
S' Dad took us on a tour of El Salto to pass the time.
We headed for the town plaza.
The streets were shut down on Sundays for a market of sorts.
The government building was lit up with dramatic lights that changed hue every few minutes.
Most of the market stalls were full of food.
This is a stray dog looking for handouts/dropped food.
People either didn't pay much attention to them or shooed them away.
Across the plaza from the government building was a twin steepled church that was holding a Sunday night service that was open to the public.
We peeked in to see.
As we exited, I noticed this family of three kneeling outside of the church.
It was time to head back to the taco stand.
This is a picture of birds on a telephone wire.
Yes. This is a dog on a roof.
He was right on the edge and was barking at people walking by.
Peace peoples!
We arrived back at the taco stand and our meals weren't quite ready yet.
This gave me a chance to watch the cars going by and to take in some scenery.
I noticed that motorcycles seemed to be a popular mode of transportation.
Except that sometimes the motorcycles were used by entire families.
I'm talking five people on a bike.
Dad driving, small kid, small kid, mom in back holding a baby.
I tried to take a picture, but they were going too fast.
We got our giant taco order and made our way back to the compound.
I'm thinking that we got back at close to 11 o'clock.
And, the adults that had remained were pretty drunk by the time we got back.
The kids had a great time playing games and were super giggly.
Here's dinner.
It doesn't look like much, but DAMN it was delicious.
Eventually the family staggered their way home and everyone hit the hay (after some serious party cleanup).
The next day, it was time to say goodbye.
Two families, including ours, were leaving.
Time to go!
Many hugs were given.
Off to the airport.
I took some off-the-cuff pictures before we left...
Katie and a gas station.
Katie and a restaurant.
Part of Katie and a welcome (or maybe goodbye) sign.
We arrived at the airport and said our final goodbyes.
Inside we encountered a frustratingly slow moving check-in line for our flight.
Upon getting to the counter, we showed proof of our negative COVID tests and they handed us our boarding tickets.
Next, we had to go through security.
At the security entrance, we had to show this health attestation before passing through.
And I guess to make up for the slow line at check-in, there was NO line at security!
We had a little time before our flight took off, so we did some last minute souvenir shopping.
I also bought a sandwich.
Time to board!
We got to walk onto the tarmac to board our flight!
That was a first for Katie (and myself, I think).
Up the stairs.
The Spanish says: ham and cheese croissant
The English does not.
It was ham and cheese.
It was a great trip.
I am glad that we were able to go.
I was very sad that Huzbend and Mikey couldn't come with us.
I won't say that the trip wasn't stressful or that it was without worry or anxiety.
Because, it was. Very much so.
There were things that definitely didn't go as planned, but that's expected on any trip.
Especially when traveling outside the country.
I am glad that Katie was able to experience this alongside some friends and that we were able to take this adventure together.
I wonder if we'll have to do it all again in three years when the younger sister turns 15?
Goodbye, Mexico!
