Mexico

So of the highlights of the Mexico trip were Blake yelling at the top of his lungs every 5 minutes how much he hates tar. All of the locals looked at us like we were crazy.
















I also remember all of the big muscular manly boys running out of their room in the "hospital" screaming like little girls at a haunted house. Will said there was a "black widow" in his suitcase. It took a good hour to get them to go back in the room and hunt it down. At lunchtime we would eat with the locals in their home. It was great to see my kids eat anything. I even think we were fed cactus with our tortillas one afternoon. Monday we spent most of the day at a roof putting up insulation strips, finishing a bathroom shower (and I mean all in one), and finishing off the siding to and old barn that we were preparing to become a real room. The area we were working, you can see that they are really bad. I have never seen such good use our of old tires. Even amongst these very poor you find that they plant flowers.




























Samantha also go sunburned really bad that first day but was a trooper and really didn't complain. I thought she would be up all night and pretty much done for the rest of the week, but she stayed with it and put in a hard days work each day.























Almost everyday the ice cream man would come by and sell us his treats. The first day way a crap shoot and some of us ended up with some real funky Popsicles. They were described as jalepeÑo, and another as shampoo grass. Almost everyone tried them, but the next day most of us ended up getting a tried and true vanilla, eggnog flavor that we knew to be good. The first day as I cam back to the truck, just up the street from where we were working there was a stray horse just eating along side of the road. We really don't even have stray cats or dogs anymore. Can you imagine a stray horse? Bizarre.

















One of the other of my favorite parts about this trip was working along side Will. I don't know how we got paired up together, but for at least two days straight we ended up on top of a roof together.

















I know that I am not the favorite Aunt in my family, ( I became the first mom and last aunt, so I have way more mothering skills than aunting skills), even that said, I really had a great time with him. All of the kids were such great workers. Working together as a big family really does unify everyone.























I suspect this is one of the reasons this trip really was so wonderful. We were unified doing something that was good and beneficial to someone else. Service. On Friday when we went back to say goodbye tears of gratitude were shed, and it wasn't just from these wonderful ladies we helped but from our family. I am so grateful for the opportunity for my family to help them. I had a "sisters in Zion" moment, when I knew these sweet women knew that they were loved not only by me but by God. It was very taxing emotionally to leave them knowing how there next day would be and what our next day would be. It was hard not to feel spoiled especially when it is the truth.

If you want to hear another version of this trip check out my sister Melinda's blog. She had a great recap of the trip.