The LONGEST blog post of all time.

So we got back yesterday from our whirlwind tour of Mexico. Here's a map of our Odessy.

On the first day we drove from Provo to El Paso. My in-laws picked us up at the airport at 11. We wanted to drive all the way to Chihuahua that night because there was a big dramatic showdown a week earlier about how I had to risk my job and demand the 19th off so we could spend all day on the 21st in Guadalajara for Grecia's birthday. I refused, so we were literally rushing the entire day on the 19th to get there so we could leave Chihuahua on the 20th to be in Guadalajara the next day. We only stopped to pee and I purposely dehydrated myself so we'd have to make fewer pit stops. The weather was good and Luis was speeding most of the way

We got there any my MIL decided she'd rather go shopping at the WalMart and Sams Club in El Paso (more on WalMart to come), which took literally 2 hours, making it WAY too late to consider making the drive, so we stayed at the Econo Lodge in El Paso on the night of the 19th.

We woke up late on the 20th, as usual, and my in-laws woke up even later. While we were waiting we walked to a K-Mart and bought me a pair of sunglasses and Andrei some headphones and a bag of balloons for the rest of the trip. We finally got on the road around 12 or 1 and made it to Villa Ahumada in time to enjoy the world's greatest burritos. If you're ever in Villa Ahumada, Chihuahua, Mexico, stop at a little place called Restaurante La Arizona. Order the Asadero and Frijoles burrito and the Chile Relleno Burrito. You will NOT be disappointed.

We got back on the road around 4 and made it to Chihuahua around 6 or 7. We stopped by my SIL Karla's house before going to Mama's place and played Guitar Hero for like 2 hours (it was her Christmas present from Luis and my Suegros). Andrei fell asleep in the car on the way to Mama's house and we put him peacefully to bed on a big mattress in Grecia's old room.

We woke up on the 21st pretty early and got on the road. It was a LONG day in the car filled with balloon fights and videos, and we finally arrived in Guadalajara around 8:30 or 9:00. Once again, Andrei fell asleep in the car and we put him peacefully to bed in Abuelita Esperanza's guest room. Abuelita is Luis's paternal grandmother and she reminds me A LOT of my Grandma Black. Because of that, I truly love her.

The next morning we woke up and made the rounds. We had to take Papa to the airport because he had business in Toluca and then we went for Grecia's belated birthday meal at La Enramada. That's a restaurant in GDL where they have live Mariachi performances and comedians on a big stage in the middle of the room. We had to wait an exorbatantly long time for the rest of our party to show up and to get the food ready, and I was so tired I didn't feel like parenting, so I just let Andrei run amuck in the "kid's room" while the grown-ups enjoyed their food in relative peace. Apparently the new trend in fancy Mexican restaurants is to put a bounce house in the back room and ditch the kids back there. I have mixed feelings about that, but it was nice to not have to worry about the little monkey for a few hours.

By the time we left there wasn't much else to do for the day, so we went back to Abuelita's house and just chilled for the rest of the evening.

On the 23rd, we basically had a repeat of the previous day, only Andrei got to swim in Abuelita's pool for an hour and we ate at a different restaurant. This time we went to Carne en Su Jugo, which isn't the name of the restaurant but the name of their most popular dish, which is kind of like pork stew with beans. It sounds gross but may be literally the most delicious food on the whole planet. I'm not sure, but it's definitely a top choice for me. This restaurant also had a "kids' room" and this time Andrei got to play with his "tio" Ernestito. Ernestito is the only son of Luis's uncle Ernesto, so that makes him Luis's first cousin and technically a generation older than Andrei. The joke is, though, that he's only 8 and Andrei is like 2 inches taller than him. He goes to a bilingual school, too, so he and Andrei had a good time running around like maniacs and practicing their English and Spanish together.

Side note: Luis's middle name is Ernesto, and it's the name most of his maternal family calls him. His maternal grandfather's name is Ernesto, and Hector's son's middle name is Ernesto. Luis has a paternal uncle named Ernesto, who is Ernestito's dad. Did you catch that? 1 family, 5 men with the same name. I love Mexican culture, but I'll never understand why they latch on to one name and give it to everyone in the family. It makes get-togethers VERY confusing...

After dinner we went back to Abuelita's house and enjoyed a typical evening of Farias family fun- that, of course, means that everyone comes to Abuelita's house, sits around, eat sweet bread and drinks, and makes conversation until the older generation starts to randomly fall asleep in the middle of their small talk. I hung out in the kitchen with Ana, Karely, and Ernestito's sister Paulina making cakes for Christmas.

Christmas in Mexico is VERY different from in the U.S. The celebration is usually held on the 24th, not the 25th, and it usually involves A LOT of food, pinatas, alcohol, fireworks, and random hilarity. Often there is a family dance. We celebrated this year at Tia Chela's awesome house in Bugambilias (that's Spanish for Bougavillias), an exclusive gated community on the edge of Bosque la Primavera (that means the Springtime Forest- a wooded mountain out of the main pollution/traffic area of the city). Tragically it's our last Christmas there, since she's selling her house and moving to a condo downtown. Boo hoo.

We had a large meal and a show (traditionally put on by the ladies in the family), followed by 2 GIANT pinatas and hours of socializing with the family. Andrei earned the nickname "Party Boy" because he was still going strong and running circles around the grownups at 1 a.m. I mean literally running circles. He was on a scooter. We're thinking of making him a t-shirt and boxers next year that actually have "Party Boy" stitched on to them.

The weird thing about Andrei is that the later he stays up, the earlier he wakes up; this is a phenomena that my in-laws refused to believe existed until this year, but he's been doing since he was a baby. He woke up on the 25th at 5 a.m. ready for Santa's bounty. We forced him to go back to sleep, but it was a fruitless effort and we finally succumbed to his pleading and let him open his presents around 8. When I say "open" I of course do not mean literally open. Luis's family does not gift-wrap anything, and they don't do stockings in Mexico, so he actually just walked over to the table where they were sitting and picked them up. Woot! I hid some in the closet of our room just to add a little excitement this year.

We were hungry and the rest of the family was sleeping like most regular humans do after staying up till 2, so we decided to walk around and try to find some place for breakfast. The only place open was a little torta shop so we had bionicos (that's chopped fruit mixed with yogurt, honey, and granola) and tortas (that's Mexican-Spanish for sandwiches made with thick bread and some sort of meat). Then we walked over to the condo where Mama and Ana were still sleeping and woke them up. Aren't we great relatives?

The rest of the day is eloquently chronicled in my previous post titled "San Juan de Dios."

On the 26th we got BACK in the car with my FIL (Ana and Mama didn't want to go) and drove to the coast. It was a peaceful trip, except for the fact that Andrei was on edge from a general lack of sleep and nutrition. We spent a few hours at the beack in Manzanillo and slept about an hour away in the city of Colima, which is a charming little town where I would some day like to retire. It's cleaner than most cities in Mexico, has year round warm weather, fruit randomly growing around the city, and gorgeous public parks. Most of the buildings downtown are over 200 years old. Luis lived there when he was like 7 or 8.

The next day we went back to the beach after swimming in the hotel's AWESOME pool, and spent the remainder of the day on the sand and in the surf. The beach at Manzanillo has weird sand that is super sticky and flecked with gold. It makes everything it touches bronze colored, which makes for really terriffic photos. We had dinner at "La Boca" which is an inlet with a lot of resorts and restaurants. We ate our meal literally about 20 feet from the beach on a table literally sitting on the sand. We drove back to Guadalajara that night, and Andrei fell asleep in the car (can you see an emerging trend?).

The next morning we left early and drove to Chihuahua. It was an uneventful trip and we were glad to be out of the car by the time we arrived. At this point Mama switched from obsessing about Luis's lack of sleep (the previous theme to all of our family conversations) to Andrei's lack of appropriate clothing (she thinks that in the chilly town of Chihuahua the frigid 60 degree weather was putting Andrei at risk for the flu and repeatedly scolded both Luis and myself for not foring him to wear sweatpants, sweat socks, and a parka at all times). This was a theme she repeated the entire week, often with unintentionally hilarious results.

Our time in Chihuahua was uneventful and I spent most of it either cleaning Mama's house (by my own choice), pushing Luis to help his mom with some home repairs (like fixing a leak in the plumbing and reattaching her pantry door), playing with Andrei in her community park, or sitting around Karla's house eating, laughing, and playing. I love Karla, by the way. She is the happiest, silliest person I've ever met, and I think she's intoxicatingly charming. Karla's husband Hector (yup, another repeat name... are you really surprised?) got baptised this year after 6 years of waiting. It was a joyous family reunion to say the least.

New Years was weird and uncomfortable, and there was an incident with the Ponche that I still haven't quite forgiven Mama for. For details, email me. But we all survived, even Anrei, who ate dinner on the 31st at 10 o'clock and fell asleep on my lap in the living room at 10: 35. We even got to rock out on some Karaoke classics like Selena's "Como La Flor," which is one of my fav. songs ever. If you don't know it, check it out here. My favorite part was when Karla did my makeup. She's a professional beautician, and girlfriend knows her stuff. It was fun to feel pretty for once, after spending the past few months feeling simply ucky.

We rested on the 1st and didn't really do anything except for hang out and buy Andrei some shoes. Luis packed Andrei's bags and didn't pack any shoes, meaning that Andrei only had an old pair of slip-on's that were a size too small. He spent the first week complaining about them so Luis bought Andrei a pair of flip-flops at the WalMart in Colima, which Andrei left at La Boca when he had to take them off to wash the sand and dirt off his feet before entering the car. We then bought him a pair of clear shower flip-flops at the WalMart in Chihuahua. Andrei ran around for like 5 days in those until my MIL got pissed off and told Luis to stop being cheap and just buy him some dang shoes. That's probably because he looked ridiculous. He thought they were magic crystal power sandals, though, so we were cool with it. Mama was worried that he was too cold, though, despite the fact that he almost always had socks on with his sandals. Classy, I know. Luis didn't want to, since Andrei has like 20 pairs of shoes here in UT, but Mama insisted and footed the bill, so it was cool. This was hard since Mexican WalMarts are basically grocery stores with a VERY small selection of housewares and clothing tacked on. They only had like 5 choices of boy's tennis shoes, the cheapest of which cost 250 pesos, which is like $20. She also bought him the most ridiculous pair of PJ's ever because they were fleece and she was still obsessing over the cold thing. Andrei wore them for 5 minutes and then took them off and put on his regular t-shirt style PJ's. This is when the unintentional hilarity ensued as Mama spent the next 48 hours arguing with our 6 year old and trying to cajole him into wearing the pj's. He did, long enough to take a photo. It was really funny.

We left on the 3rd and drove as far as Moab. It was a long day seeing as we left at 7 a.m. and had to spend almost 2 hours in line at Juarez to cross the border. I did most of the driving, which is weird because in 7 years of relationship with Luis he's ALWAYS done the driving. I can literally count on 1 hand how many times I've driven him some place. I was tired of being copilot, though, and the driver's seat looked so comfy and ample, so I thought I'd give it a go. It was fun, and made going through the immigration checkpoint outside of Gallup NM a lot easier. It was midnight by the time we got there, though, and we weren't sure how the roads were, so we stopped for the night at the Motel 6. It would have been the best night's sleep I'd had the entire vacation, except for the noisy baby in the next room and the paper thin walls.

We got back to Provo around 12 on the 4th and had to rush to unload suitcases from the rental car before returning it to the airport in SLC at 1. We barely made it, and were REALLY happy to be back in Provo at 3.

So there you go. I had a pretty good time, all things considered. I loved San Juan de Dios and the beach, and had a great time with Luis's sisters. I'm glad to be back, though. I missed potable drinking water, clean air, adequate roads, and American Diet Coke. Mexican "Coca Light" tastes like soap and tears.

Hope you all had a good winter break, too!