ROAD TRIP! & Tell your mom you love her!

Thought:   My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?” 
― Bob Hope

Thursday Dec. 18th - Today is my mother's passing away day, 6 years ago at 3:15 in the afternoon!  I sat by her bedside all day and watched her!  Sure do wish I could tell her I love her just one more time!  Hopefully she already knows that!  I'm sticking with that idea! Rhonda lost her mom in March so we have had this tradition of going somewhere to get chocolate cake in memory of our moms.  We will have to go when I get back, then get back on schedule!  

We got up early this morning and drove to Veracruz with the Olsons, Andersons and Sandbergs! WE met two other couples there that are missionaries over by the temple - the Smiths and Pococks from Idaho Falls. It took us 6 hours to get there.  We drove through some very beautiful mountains and the scenery was spectacular!  It looks just like people told me it looked like!  I tried to trust them and they were right!

Veracruz is on the coast.  We stayed in the Holiday Inn Express right on the beach!  It reminded me a lot of when our family went to Cancun last May!

Kinda looks like our Cancun hotel with the ocean in the background!

The beach isn't as nice!

The Christmas tree in front of the hotel!

The reason for going to Veracruz was to go to the temple there!  The temple is just like the Newport beach temple.  We were able to catch a 4:00pm session and then did 1 1/2 hours of sealings afterwards in SPANISH!!!  My head is mush!  We went to Chilis for some dinner and the chocolate cake I was suppose to be eating with Rhonda!  The king size bed felt so nice!  I swear our bed at our place is a double!

Greg thinks this is a good pic of the traffic!
It's hard to capture the idea of 6 lanes of traffic
heading into 2 real lanes!

This is out of our hotel room window towards the beach in Veracruz!

The other side!  See the beach down there
with all those houses around it!

Veracruz

Chilis for dinner!

Our hotel behind Greg!

The Veracruz temple

From left the Sandbergs, Pococks and Sis Olson

The nativity scene on the temple grounds

We had to drive through downtown to get to the old fort!
Just took a pic of the side of the road

Another pic of the side of the road!
There are little stands like this everywhere!
I don't know how anyone sells anything because there
so many of these stands!

Friday Dec 19th - We got up early, and headed back over to the temple for a 9 am session.  But unfortunately a bus of temple goers beat us to the temple.  We got dressed and stood in the hallway for 1 hour and 5 min.  Welcome to Mexico!!!  You know how bad it is to start a temple session when you are exhausted!  It's bad enough when you have had a good nights sleep!  Only one side of my headphones worked and so I was crazy all day!  We finally got through with that and headed back to the hotel to change into more comfortable clothes.  We still had to dress like missionaries.  I can't tell you when the last time was that I wore pants!  I guess I won't be for the next 16 1/2 months!  Anyhoo-  the Olsons directed us all to an old fort that Cortez built to protect the port of Veracruz.  This place was built in the early 1500's!  We wandered around there for a couple of hours.  It was a very pleasant afternoon, so fun was had by all!  Also, we got to meet the mission pres. for the Veracruz mission.  I swear his wife is 19!  (Not really) They both look so young!  What a responsibility for such a cute little couple!

Pic of inside of port!
The right is closest to the water so where the
shipments came in.  The left side is where
prisoners were kept!

Greg ready to turn into superman while talking on his phone!
Probably a guard hut!!

pics of the San Juan de Ulua
built in 1500's

Courtyard!
 The archways tot he left led out to the docks!

Out on the dock!

Prisoners were kept here!
Those white bumps are stalagtites
and stalagmites!  I don't remember which is which!
One grows up and the other drips down!

Cool old door to keep prisoners in!

We all met at a famous fish restaurant for dinner!  Never quite got the name!  It was in Spanish, you know!  I had shimp on a shishkabob and Greg had some white fish!  Who really knows what your eating here in Mexico?????

It's hard to see the funny fish hanging on the pole!  Sorry

A table on the beach!

All I can say is Welcome to Mexico!

Saturday Dec. 20th - Again we got up early (GREG WON'T TELL ME WHY WE ALWAYS HAVE TO GET UP SO EARLY!)  Why can't I just sleep in once in awhile!

The Andersons rode with us on the way back home.  We were scheduled to go to the Xalapa (sounds like halapa) mission to give the missionaries their flu shots!  We finally arrived there after going through all these small towns, which I wanted to stop and roam around in, but no, Greg is always on the run!  You all know that!  Greg already wrote - out of turn - about how we finally found the church!  We met Pres. and Sister Greer.  They are from Gilbert Az.  These mission presidents and wives are just the nicest people ever!  I love sister Greer!  She doesn't speak Spanish!  We will be friends, I just know it!  Also sister Pocock doesn't spanish either.  She has been in Mexico for 8 months!  We will be friends too!  Well, someone had already given the missionaries their shots, so got to enjoy watching their skits ( Elders took turns trying to convert Santa Claus.)  Funny!

The Greers also invited us to their mission Christmas lunch they were feeding the missionaries!  YUM!  We had ham with a pineapple sauce, salad, mashed potatoes with cheese, corn chowder soup and a roll.  Cheesecake for dessert!  Best lunch EVER!  We had so much fun visiting with the missionaries!  I met Mike Lee 's(the Senator)  son!  He is almost done with his mission.  His twin brother is in Michigan or somewhere also speaking Spanish!  Cute kid!  Our friends son - Chris Anjeweirden is in this mission, but he was up north and didn't get to see him!

We had a long drive ahead of us, so we left after lunch!  We also met up with all the others who had left later than us.  We met at some ruins in the middle of nowhere!  They were called the Cantalon ruins.  There was evidence that the ruins were built around 600 BC and were inhabited until 1100AD. At the peak it is estimated that 93,000 people lived there!  WOW!  Cool stuff!  We climbed around them.  I dont know how the kids could walk on that volcanic rock that was everywhere.  They must have had leather feet!  

We had to drive over another big mountain pass to get home.  It was extremely foggy and very hard to see for a long while.  I was driving (of course) and that was scary!  Even scarier than the crazy people in the city!  We finally arrived back to our place around 7:30 pm.  I was very excited to get home because our kids had sent stuff with a daughter of the Ellis' that was coming down to visit for Christmas!  We didn't connect until Sunday.  I also had to make chocolate chip cookies for our caroling party on Sunday and do the laundry!  We finally got to bed around 12:30, then Beka facetimed us at 12:45 just to visit!  She has gone nuts now that finals are over!  Still nice to talk to her.

Looks out of place in Veracruz!

Following this truck filled with burnt sugar cane!
I love how high they pile their trucks!

There really aren't words!
A little family taking their sugar cane to a market probably!
The husband is walking on the side!
We are on our way out to see the ruins in the
middle of nowhere and we see this!!!

A huge Christmas tree at the ruins!
I don't know how someone got the bow on the top!

Walkway up to the ruins!  Called 1st avenue!

A section of the ruins that housed a family of 20!
So the archeologist say!
Do those people really know what they are talking about???
Do they really know where the people slept, ate, worked or sacrificed their horrible teenagers????
They say these ruins are from 600 BC
What will people say about the ruins we leave in 500 years or longer???

Pretty amazing really!
How long did it take to put all of those rocks together?

Ruins up the hill and a whole city is up on top!

Looking up the hill at a huge ruin!
All this is built out of volcanic rock!
Do you know how sharp these rocks are??

A main walkway
either 1st or 2nd avenue!

This is part of the ruins that have not been restored!
It seems to go on forever out there in the desert!

Have a very Merry Christmas this week!