Market and Milkshakes

Friday morning Nicole and I went to the market for breakfast and to pick up a few things.

Nicole got a quesadilla...

Cheese, meat, onion, mushrooms and green salsa.

I got what we call a "gordita". It's a bean-filled tortilla with salsa and cheese on top. I opted for some meat sprinkled on top as well.

Later on, we went out with my grandparents for lunch. We ordered a few of these and chowed down.

It's all in a stone mortar and comes out boiling in a red sauce. That's cheese hanging out on the left, then chorizo, cactus, cilantro, and steak.

After lunch we went over to the mall and got milkshakes. There is this new place that I'd been waiting to try on my birthday. They go all out putting donuts and churros on top the shakes. 

It makes for a really cute presentation!

Grampa and Grampa exercised tremendous willpower and only got some healthy frozen yogurt. :)

Toasting the marshmallows on Austin's shake...

After this, Nicole and I went home with our grandparents to spend a couple days with them. 

They recently got a little pitbull named Max. 

Some of you might remember the idol Elder Wakefield brought to the US as an object lesson. He bought it from a guy off the street here in Mexico many years ago and named him Maximiliano. He has many many hilarious stories about Maximiliano. He'd ask people if they thought this ugly little idol had power. Most would say yes.

He'd do foot races - Grampa against Maximiliano. He'd ask people, "Who do you think will win?" 

The point of the object lesson - 

This idol has no power. It was made by a man. Jesus is God and holds all power! 

Anyways - he named his dog after that idol.

Max.

After church that night, we went out with the Garcias. We got a kick out of watching Elissa run with her walker. That girl can go!

~Bethany~

Chautla and Nicole

One of the days Nicole was here, we went to the Ex-Hacienda de Chautla. It is this beautiful European-looking manor on a lake. I never knew something so beautiful existed in Puebla until just a few months ago. This is what you see when you walk in the entrance - 

A dirt pathway and cabins scattered here and there. 

As you continue down the path, you start to catch a glimpse of something very eye-catching in the distance.

At every turn there was a beautiful place to take a family photo. 

So since we are such a loving and unified family, we walked around holding hands everywhere we went.

The look on Austin's face!!!!! Cracks me up!

We re-enacted our Christmas picture pose -

We played around "carrying" the mansion...

Before going any further, we had to make a stop at the little girls' room. 

Here in Mexico, it is common for the TP to be handed out at the entrance. I've always taken this as an affront and an invasion of privacy. Especially when it's a guy doing the rationing! If you know what I mean. 

Thankfully, the person manning the TP station took a break so we were able to grab how ever many pats of TP we wanted.

The eternal question - how much to grab??

After that quick stop, we continued on the Chautla adventure. 

Every 20 feet or so, there was something wonderfully scenic and I made Nicole stop and each on and take a picture with me. 

 

 

 

Nicole's always had pretty fair skin, but Idaho definitely compounded the condition. HA!

 

We found this beautiful path that wound its way all around the property. It was amazing! 

At one point we found a beautiful area that we thought would make for a great family picture backdrop. If you've ever been a part of family pictures, you know it can kind of be a deal, especially with the males in the family and even more especially with the younger males. 

We got a nice one with Nicole in it. 

Then Nicole took the picture and Mom got in it. Then we realized we had some major leaning going on - they called this the "Earthquake Hitting Picture". 

We went to go sit back down to retake it and that's when the belly-aching started...

Then Mom got a phone call...Grrrr!

This is how the scene went - 

(Thanks to Nicole for capturing this all!) 

Look at Dad's face - HA!!!

The phone call showed no signs of ending quickly so we just took advantage of it.

And FINALLY...the family picture done right. (Except for Nicole not being in it, but I guess she forfeited being apart when she got married.)

After taking hundreds of pictures, we made our way over to the hotel and restaurant part of the property. The earthquake had caused extensive damage to the restaurant and there were men working to restore it.

This whole area was being torn down. I guess this part was too damaged to repair.

Instead of eating there, we went a ways down the road and found this rustic place that served all kinds of meat and tacos.

It was a very tasty lunch and a great ending to our day in Chautla! 

~Bethany~