Where am I?

I am back from Los Ayalas and, while I was happy to see my family, not so much to come back to Las Vegas with 50-degree temps and wind AND real life. I am pretty much up to my neck in laundry and general house cleaning maintenance. I will give a shout out to Tyler who scrubbed our shower like a CHAMP . . . have not seen it that shiney white in a long time, even with Paula! BUT, since I packed away the winter clothes, each of my kids are down to two pair of pants in their drawers I am doing laundry right from the shute. AND I got the pleasure of cleaning out a badillion sippy cups that all somehow had curdled milk inside of them. Tyler said, "What?" like he didn't know what milk would do when left sitting in a sealed cup, unrefrigerated, under the crib. Oh well, it's even steven for the week I had off. I can't even get into the shows I DVRd and all the blogs I didn't read whilst I was gone. Tyler left this afternoon for a fishing trip this weeked. Like I said, even steven, although he's headed to Utah even though it's snowing. In my opinion, the Provo river won't compare to the Mexican beach.

So, basically, nothing too exciting to report, so I'll explain our trip by days. We left early and it was exciting to see Mackenzie experience everything, especially the flying. Morris and Elaine Smith, who we stayed with, are amazing. The 2nd picture is of my dad unloading the 200 lbs. of shoes and books for the school and library that the Smith's host for the village kids. The deal with that is the kids (who can afford uniforms) got to the town school (supposedly) from 8am until 1pm every day. HOWEVER, the village is far enough away from bigger towns that they seem to get poor teachers who show up late and leave early. AND some of the kids in the village can't afford the uniforms, so each afternoon for a couple hours Elaine invites the kids (from about age 5 to 12) to her home where she hosts an afternoon tutorial program for them. She never knows who is going to show, but she has them work on their spelling, writing, math, English, pretty much everything. Elaine has a pulse on a lot of the action in the village, so she knows who could use the help by way of a new t-shirt or a pair of shoes. It was fun to jump in the first day and try our hand at the school. . . not so good at teaching in Spanish as I am in English. The beach, which is the back yard of Morris and Elaine's house, was warm and refreshing. Mackenzie was in heaven and she and my dad giggled every time the waves rushed up their legs. It was fabulous. I'll write more and put more pictures on when I get a chance tonight.

It's back to reality and dinner prep, more laundry, and meetings tonight. I am hoping Grey's is new tonight, but hate to hope . . .