Our flight out of JFK didn’t leave until late in the afternoon so we had a long morning to take care of our last minute errands and organization of the suitcases. I use the term “organization” loosely because like many other things in our final weeks, my ideals of having everything packed in logical and categorical ways fell dramatically short. Of course at the end I was just shoving all the last bits into whatever luggage had space for them.

Our last few days we tried to eat at our favorite places, so we had continental breakfast at the hotel our last morning. (Does it need to be mentioned that continental breakfast is my kids favorite, and not mine?) We drove back to our house to say goodbye to our neighbors, and to pick up the butter and cheese my friends Marina was storing in her freezer. Richard and I had to get a few more passport photos taken for documents we would need upon arrival, and then we went back to the hotel to shower and check out.

We had 18 suitcases, plus a backpack each, so Richard packed as many as he could into our rental van and then we ordered an Uber for me and the kids. Our flight check-in was tedious to say the least, but otherwise uneventful. KPMG allows us to fly business class and the advantages of this under the circumstances can not be overstated. (Although some of the other business travelers were not too thrilled to have our family of seven in their lines and their lounge.)

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The flight itself went smoothly. At the risk of sounding snobby I’m going to complain that the problem with flying business class with a toddler is that during take-off and landing she was so far away from me that I couldn’t hand her anything or physically comfort her or be helpful to her in any way. But once we were in the air Amirah watched a movie, ate some dinner and fell asleep. She slept for 12 hours, leaving less than an hour of the flight when she woke up. The other kids and Richard and I did some combination of sleeping and watching movies, and Simon was utterly delighted by the whole experience.

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We landed in Shanghai at 7:00pm local time, and with the exception of Amirah we had not slept a lot. Luckily adrenaline carried us through immigration and baggage collection and our driver (and a separate driver for the luggage), were quick to assist us once we came out of the gate. As a funny side note, when Richard arranged for the car for the luggage they first booked us a 21 passenger van. We laughed and Richard said that would not be necessary. So they gave us a 19 passenger van. (Which is really a bus.) Each suitcase had its own seat!

We got to the house around 9:00 and no one was feeling sleepy so the kids ran around and explored and we ate some cereal and snacks. We are currently using rental furniture until our shipment arrives, but I had to put sheets on the beds. Eventually we all felt sleepy enough to go to bed and begin the brutal process of jet lag recovery and sleep training.

We were all ready for a relaxing day on Sunday. We went to church, which is structured differently at the CCM so we only stayed for the first two hours, one of which I spent outside with Amirah. It was such a nice day, and the grounds at the CCM are so serene. I had no complaints.

We ate lunch in the cafeteria again, which the kids loved. (Jello, jello, jello.) Then we took naps and walks in the afternoon, and played a game of Spanish Monopoly. In the evening we hopped in a mission bus and drove to the temple to see the Christmas lights.

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Monday was our last day and so Nacho took us into the heart of the old city and we got to see all the amazing architecture. It is such a mix of so many styles, it was a visionary delight.

We ate a really yummy breakfast first, with real Mexican hot chocolate that my kids spooned excessive amounts of sugar into. The fruit was yummy and we tried new kinds. And of course it was all unbelievably affordable for these New Yorkers.

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It was a lot to absorb, Nacho filled us with history and trivia about the city and interesting events that took place over its dramatic past. We did a lot of walking, and Nacho was a fast walker!

Our last stop for the day was a market. Markets are my second favorite places to go in foreign cities, (restaurants are first.)

The market was so fun. It was expansive and I could have spent many more hours (and pesos!) there. Unfortunately the kids (and maybe some adults too) were tired and worn down so we kept our shopping to a reasonable amount of time (and pesos). My nine year old heart lept with the chance to purchase Mexican huarache sandals and I took my sweet time picking the perfect pair.

After the market we went back to the CCM to rest for a bit before going back to my parent’s favorite taco place across the street. We finished up with more churros for dessert and then called it a night.

The next morning we woke up early and one of our drivers picked us up and drove us to the airport, where had a pretty uneventful (thankfully) trip home.

I loved this vacation so much. Of course having my parents do so much of the planning and coordinating was a huge benefit, but it was low stress and huge reward. Everything met or exceeded my expectations and even though it was one of the longest trips we’ve taken it went so quickly and was so fulfilling. Of course the highlight of travel is the wonderful people that we meet and spend time with. Our experiences in Mexico were exceptional in that way, circumstances made it possible to spend more time with the people we encountered and interacted with. I’m so grateful to my parents for their sacrifice in serving in a mission and for their efforts in hosting us.

VIVA MEXICO!

Saturday morning went just like Friday morning, except our guide was different. His name was Ignacio, but he prefers Nacho, which of course amused the kids. He was really great too, very friendly and loved to tell stories. I was less confident in his facts, but we were all more entertained by his charisma. We spent the day at Teotihuacan, a place I’m struggling to summarize. We started out at a small museum where we learned from the museum guide about the many uses of the various parts of the Mexican agave plant.

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We also learned about making silver and weaving, but the kids really became obsessed with the obsidian, which you can look through to see the sun directly, like the special glasses used during an eclipse.

We did a little shopping in the museum shop where Eli bought an obsidian disc and Simon got an obsidian keychain. (Which he lost a couple days later and has been grieving ever since.) I bought a pair of silver earings and a couple really cute dresses for Miriam and Amirah.

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I won’t write much about Teotihuacan as a civilization. For me the ruins were the kind of place where imagination wins the day, there’s just so much we don’t know. It was really impressive though, and places like this and Machu Picchu and Mesa Verde cliff dwellings all really captivate me. I love to speculate and romanticize, but I also love to hear what archaeologists have learned and what hey speculate.

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By the time we finished hiking the Pyramid of the Sun the kids were hot and hungry and tired so we took a lunch break. Nacho picked another buffet for us, which the kids loved, and this one had a seperate taco bar. It was so yummy. There was also a lot of Mexican singing and dancing in costumes and we ate outside under the shade of big trees.

After lunch, with renewed energy we went back to Teotihuacan to explore the rest of the site.

It was an exhausting day, probably the toughest of our excursions for the kids. But it is a pretty fascinating place and I was really glad to experience it. We had a nice quiet and relaxing drive back to Mexico City and the CCM.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, so we spent the day with my parents at the CCM. Despite the late night Wednesday, we woke up early enough to get dressed in church clothes for a Thanksgiving broadcast for all missionaries at the training centers around the world. It was in the auditorium and the speakers were the Uchtdorfs. The messages were really good, but our kids were the only kids in the audience, so any sounds they made were really noticeable, and I ended up taking Amirah outside. But it was so sunny and pleasant out on the grass that I didn’t mind. After the broadcast we did a little shopping in la tienda, took a little walk, and just killed time until we could eat our Thanksgiving meal in the comedor.

Of course the meal lacked the sentimental and traditional foods that we usually have, but our Thanksgivings in recent years have all been unique since we moved away from Boise. Cameron was probably the most disappointed with the circumstances, but even he was happy they served gravy with the turkey and mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. It was really great being surrounded by all the missionaries, many of whom were also feeling homesick and longing for their family’s home-cooked dishes.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, resting, exploring the CCM and meeting my parent’s friends. It was a nice day to recuperate and re-energize for the next few days.

Friday my parents arranged for a guide to pick us up at the CCM in a “big car” (think 15 passenger van) as Amirah kept referring to it. It was so nice, it was spacious, the kids got to sit next to Baca and Grandpa, and Richard and I got to relax because we didn’t have to drive or navigate. Our guide, Daniel, was also really knowledgeable and as we worked our way out of the city he answered questions and filled our minds with historical trivia and context. Our first stop was the town of Cholula and it was about a two hour drive.

Our guide took us to the museum and tunnels of the Great Pyramid of Cholula. The history of this site was so interesting! I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and how hard it is to look back in hindsight and understand what was happening and how such a massive structure essentially disappeared into the earth. I love this kind of stuff.

The pyramid was begun before 100 BC and was constructed over a period of hundreds of years, adding layers and layers. But by the time the Spanish arrived in Mexico in the 1520s it was already covered by dirt and overgrown. Because they were oblivious to its existence, it was spared from destruction and in 1594, the Spanish simply built a church, La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. From Wikipedia-

“According to the Guinness Book of Records, it is in fact the largest pyramid as well as the largest monument ever constructed anywhere in the world, with a total volume estimated at over 4.45 million cubic metres, even larger than that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, which is about 2.5 million cubic metres. However the Great Pyramid of Giza is higher at 138.8 metres.“

Before climbing the hill to see the church and the surrounding views of Cholula, we took a tour of the tunnel system that goes through the pyramid. Stepping back in time that far, thousands of years, is so mind blowing.

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It was quite a hike to the top of the hill, but had a nice diversion when we stopped to snack on dried insects…

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Our driver and guide picked us up back down at the bottom of the hill and we drove to Puebla, a town not too far away, where the first order of business was lunch! The lunch was in a sunny buffet style restaurant that our guide picked for us. The food was good, and there were plenty of choices for the kids to pick something new to try and something reliable to fill their bellies.

I think my brain was already jam-packed with new information from the drive out of Mexico City and our time in Cholula, not to mention the after-lunch fog that sets in, so as we toured Puebla I found that I was more interested in seeing and less able to absorb information. So I’ll mostly post pictures of Puebla, which was beautiful- and the weather was so perfect.

We did lots of walking and saw churches, parks, shops and lots of talavera- which is a Spanish/Mexican kind of ceramic pottery and tile. It’s really pretty and totally my kind of art in architecture and kitchenware.

The kids were pretty well worn out by the late afternoon, and we had a long drive back to the city so we finished up with churros, which were sooooo yummy. Everyone tried a different kind; caramel, dulce de leche, chocolate, strawberry, and others I don’t recall.

We drove back to the CCM, made some dinner for the kids, and then my parents and Richard and I went to dinner at a sushi restaurant in a shopping mall, which was it’s own great experience. You haven’t seen a country unless you’ve seen a shopping mall in that country. (I’m kidding about that last part, but the food and the adult conversation was fantastic.)

Wednesday morning we packed up out stuff, checked out of the hotel and walked a couple blocks down the street to McDonald’s to eat breakfast and occupy the kids (Playplace) while Richard took a business call. I won’t lie, we eat at McDonald’s sometimes when we travel. It’s so cheap and easy. When Richard was finished with his call we climbed back into our noisy rental van and began the drive back to Mexico City. I knew that getting back would take longer than we thought, (this is true everywhere but especially in Mexico) and so I started off the day feeling a little stressed because there were a lot of things I wanted to stop and see and do.

Our first stop was La Antigua, the town where Hernan Cortez built his home after invading Mexico.

We had a great tour guide in La Antigua. He told us all about la casa de Cortes, gave us a walking tour of the town, and gave us some interesting historical background about the local people before and after Cortes. His English wasn’t perfect but Richard could fill in the gaps for the rest of us.

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The town of Antigua was quiet and friendly. It was hot so we stopped for cold drinks at a little bodega, and then as we finished up our tour an old man sold us all ice cream that he scooped from tubs he pulled on a cart with his bicycle. I’m so sad I can’t remember the flavor but it was something none of us had ever had before, and it was delicious.

We stayed longer than we should have because our guide was eager to teach us, but we didn’t even have time to walk down to the river. There are never enough hours in the day to see and do all the things.

Our next stop was Orizaba, which was just a couple hours away, but it was up in the mountains and a completely different climate. We had tickets that night to see Mexican dancing with my mom, so we needed to be back to the CCM on time to pick her up and leave Amirah with the babysitter. When we got there I could see that we were really short on time, we still had a four hours left to Mexico City, but I really wanted to ride the tram up to the top of the mountain so we decided to go for it. We decided we had one hour to get some lunch and ride the tram.

We ate tacos and crepes for lunch and watched some animals while we waited for the food. Cameron isn’t a fan of heights and begged us not to go up the tram, so we let him stay behind.

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The views inside the tram were amazing, it went high and it went fast. The lush green mountain was surrounded by fog and it was such a contrast to the hot and sunny desert where we’d spent the morning.

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We only had a few minutes to spend at the top because we were in a hurry to catch the tram back down the mountain, but it was worth it. So beautiful.

It was hard not to let my stress get in the way of enjoying the experience. (This can probably be said of all parents while traveling with children.) But I’m glad we went. We rode the tram back down, reunited with Cameron, and got back on the road to Mexico City. I was nervous about traffic but the GPS was telling us we would get there in time.

On our way back we spotted a mountain with steam coming from the top of it, my first thought was that there was a fire but the kids insisted it was a volcano. I didn’t believe them. Ha! I was wrong. It was Popocateptl, an active volcano.

I started to get really stressed on the way back to Mexico City because my mom had gone to a lot of effort to coordinate the tickets and babysitting for Amirah and I knew she really wanted to come with us. Richard tried to reassure me, but then when we turned off the GPS to conserve phone battery we missed a turn-off that added 30 minutes to our already delayed arrival. At that point I was inconsolable. My mom decided the best chance we had to get there on time was if she stayed behind with Amirah and we left as soon as we dropped Amirah off. Moms are the best, and we made it to the ballet at the last possible moment before they closed the doors.

The dancing was incredible. I couldn’t stop smiling, and after each performance I thought to myself “That was my favorite.” I wish I had handled the day differently, I wish my mom could have come with us. She had seen it before but it’s always fun to experience things together. Fortunately by the time we got back to the CCM and back to bed my heart rate had returned to normal.

We decided to extend our Memorial Day weekend a day or two, and planned a trip to Boston.  Neither Richard or I had ever been, so there was a lot we wanted to see.  My friend Holly gave us some inside tips, and on Thursday evening we hit the road.  We got to our hotel in the Boston suburbs late that night, so we took it easy Friday morning.  We drove downtown and decided to just get right to it with the Freedom Trail.  It turned out to be pretty hot that day, but we were still able to cover a lot of ground. Continue reading →

The kids really wanted to swim in the hotel pool, so we did that Saturday morning.  It wasn’t as hot on Saturday of course, but that didn’t stop them. (Especially Miriam.)  The hotel also had a basketball court and a cornhole set, so they played around with those for awhile.  We let Amirah have a nap in her bed, Richard went out and picked up some food for lunch, and we ate it in our hotel room.  Our first stop was the Boston Museum of Science, but by the time we parked and got tickets it was late afternoon.  The museum was amazing and we stayed until it closed, and still would have stayed longer if we could have. Continue reading →