This will probably be the longest blog I have ever written….just a forewarning.
Tuesday, August 4
th, we got up at 3:45am, and headed to the
SL International Airport, to catch our flight to Corpus Christi, Texas. But of course there are no direct flights there, so we went via Phoenix, Arizona and Houston, Texas. We are always a little worried about how Berkley will be on the airplane, and she always amazes us. She sleeps most of the time, and has never had a problem with the change in pressure.
We got into Corpus Christi, which is my birthplace by the way, around 1:30pm. My Aunt and cousins were on the flight too, and we were picked up by my cousin Bryan and my Tia Coco. My mom’s sister lives in Corpus so we stayed at her house. When we got there we were met by loads of family that I haven’t seen in about 5 years. My cousin Bryan, his wife Kelly and their 2 daughters, Michelle and Lucy. My other cousin Bob, his wife Anna and their daughter Kristina. My cousin Sylvia, her husband Josh and their daughter
Mya. My Aunt and Uncle, and their 2 kids at home at the moment (just got back from their missions within the last 2 months) Becky and Stephen. It was definitely a full house. We had a total of 18 people, including babies, stay at my Aunt and Uncle’s that night.
We had a very optimistic attitude about leaving for Mexico the next morning at 10am. Guess what
didn’t happen. That many people getting up and getting ready, loading all their stuff into vans, getting fed…you get the picture. 12pm rolled around, and then 1pm. We then decided to just drive to the border that night, get our papers to cross and go across the next morning. And we did just that. It was dark by the time we got to the border to get our papers, which was a little scary. They have military guarding the borders with very big guns. And Matt being the funny guy he is, wanted a picture with one of them. So while at the border you have to register your vehicle, and you need to have your registration with you. Well one of the vans
didn’t have the registration, so they had to go to the
DMV in the morning to get a copy of the registration. They also had to take one of the vans into the mechanic to get a part fixed, which took a while. So we just stayed in the hotel and hung out with our cousins. We ended up leaving for Mexico around 3:30pm with a fixed vehicle and car registration.
I don’t know if any of you have ever driven in Mexico, but it is insane!! You pretty much have one and a half lanes on each side of the road, and the drivers are LOCO! Everyone is passing each other, and swerving and the road is bumpy anyway…it’s like being on a wooden roller coaster for 6 hours. If any of you haven’t experienced a wooden roller coaster, it is a very bumpy ride.
We stopped in a place called Soto la Marina, where one of my
Tio Marcos lives with his family. They have a cute little house, with lots of dogs. They gave us some fresh
mangos and our favorite soda pop,
Esquis!
After we left
Tio Marcos’s house, we had a 3 hour drive to
Tampico, where my
Abuelos live. I think we ended up arriving at there house around 11pm. My Tia
Juanis, and her daughter Whitney were already there. They had flown in from Canada earlier in the day. My
Tio Checo, was also there waiting for us. And of course
Abuelita and
Abuelito were anxiously waiting.
Abuelita had made a big pot of
posole, a Mexican soup, and had made some tamales for us. It was delicious of
course. It was just the start of the amazing food we were going to have over the next few days. We slept about 19 people in my grandparents small two bedroom house.
The day after we arrived at my Grandparents, we packed up everyone and headed to the beach, where we stayed for 2 nights. We played in the water, played sand volleyball, soccer on the beach, caught crabs at night, had
barbeques and played group games till early in the morning.
One of the days we went to the market to buy some souvenirs of our trip. It was very crowded, but a lot of fun. We picked up some good Mexican vanilla and a couple things of jewelry. We had lunch right down the street from the market and we had our first
Torta. It is a sandwich on French bread filled with beans, 2 kinds of cheese,
chorizo, avocado, onions, ham and I’m sure a couple more things. They were delicious!
On Sunday we went back to my Grandparents house and had a
Segura (my
Abuelita’s side) family reunion. About 73 people showed up and ate a great meal and just enjoyed each other’s company. I had taken a nap while everyone was showing up, so when I woke up I was set on finding Berkley and playing with her. Well I found her with one of the cousins that
doesn’t speak English (only a few do), but she
didn’t want to give her up. On the first try I just reached for her, but she made no move to hand Berk to me. So I waited a few more minutes and finally just took her. She made no effort to give her to me. Matt had told me he had had a similar experience earlier in the day, but he knew the Aunt that wanted to take Berkley.
Monday morning we got up early, had a great breakfast, packed up the van and made the 9 hour ride back to Corpus Christi, Texas. Berkley was such a trooper! She slept a lot of the time and played the rest. When we got back to Tia Coco and Uncle Bob’s house,
Tio Pino and
Sarai were waiting for us. They had a great dinner waiting for us on the
barbeque. They had their daughter, Millie and their son, Jordan with them. They are just so cute. They next day we were leaving so we made the most of our last night in Texas and
didn’t go to bed till about 4am.
We made it home safe and sound the next day.
