visitor.

I feel fortunate that I have a wonderful mother in law. Mostly, I can't believe she took a week off to spend a week here with us in Mexico. She must have been so exhausted by the time she left. And we were sad to see her go. Very sad. I forgot what an enormous help she can be and she let me take advantage! Her being here was a tremendous help as I was able to get a lot more done. She helped fold my laundry, she watched the kids so J and I could go to the gym in the mornings, she carried Lola for a huge portion of the day (Lola still hates Mexico I think) and she was happy to do it all. We also had the opportunity to take her to a lot of fun places, some of which probably frightened her but hopefully provided a glimpse of what it's like here.

 

This is the temple in Guadalajara. It's a small temple, but very beautiful. My friend told me this story that I loved. A man worked across the street of where the temple was going to be built. He was able to watch the process from start to finish and this experience gave him the desire to become a member of the church of LDS. His wife later became the primary president in my friend's ward here. Pretty amazing.

We took Bonnie to a town called Tonala. This town has everything! They sell furniture, home decor, jewelry, food, etc. My friend bought beautiful 8X10 frames here but 50 pesos each! That's less than $5.00. I mean she had to drive down a creepy alley to get them, but seriously...that's cheap. You can take a picture of a piece of furniture you like and you can find someone here to make it for you. So we walked by this store and could not believe the toilets. So Mexican. Big smiles when we saw these!

I have never seen glass blowing. This picture is obviously not good, but it was fascinating to watch. 

Sorry for the blurry pic, but this was the best I could do. It was heartbreaking to see the kids say goodbye. I kept daydreaming of her flying into Sky Harbor. I was sad to see her go, but I was also sad she wasn't taking me with her.

We did so much more and didn't take pictures unfortunately. But we loved having here with us and look forward to June when we'll be able to spend time with her again. 

Good: I am meeting more people and enjoying making new friendships here. It allows the time to pass quickly. Ava was invited to a birthday party and didn't want to go without me, and I wasn't going to let her go alone. I didn't want to go spend an afternoon with a bunch of people I didn't know and I knew it would be difficult to communicate with, but knew I just had to go. I ended up spending 3 hours at this party and really enjoyed the people I met. And although it's frustrating trying to communicate it's a challenge I'm slowly learning to accept and find rewarding in the end.

Bad: There few people here I consider to be favorites. But I do have some. One of them is my good friend, Stacie. And her husband is allowed the opportunity to do his 4th yr rotations in Utah. Which means she will be leaving in June. Although this is GREAT news for her, and this is something I am desperately hoping will happen for us, I am enormously sad she will be leaving. She has shown me so many things while being here. My experience thus far would never have been this amazing without her. I suppose I should consider the fact that I have been blessed to have had her here to "show me the ropes." And I of course I am. Which makes it very sad that she's going to be leaving. But it will be another semester, I look forward to new students who will make their way down here.

XO