Family Border Trip!

As most of our regular and faithful readers know, a long and arduous trek to the border has to be done every six months to renew papers and such. This past week the car's expiration date was looming near, so we started planning to head out! The rest of the family had just been out in October & November partying and having fun in the U.S., while I (Nicole), faithful, self sacrificial, and hard-working that I am, stayed in Mexico to keep the boat afloat. As it had been almost 6 months since I had seen an American flag blowing in the wind, I was pretty excited about going on this trip. Bethany and Austin stayed home this time.

Elder and Sis. Wakefield decided to go with us-- that definitely added to the fun!

In order for this trip to be safe, we left Puebla around 4am to arrive in the early afternoon. Its best to not cross the border in the middle of the night.

After several hours of driving, we stopped for breakfast at McDonalds around 9am. There was wifi so I decided to see how things were going with the school and Beth... I sent her a sisterly dorky hello picture, and she sent me one in return. :)) Somebody was having a rough morning.

When I asked permission from dear Bethany to be able to put up this picture of her, she suggested I put up all of the pictures that we have texted each other in the past few weeks.... I think NOT! Most of them consist of the kinds of pictures that you only share with the ones that you have no intention of impressing, because the facade that you put up the to rest of the world has already been shattered by years of growing up together.

Need I say more?

After our longer-than-planned-for stop for breakfast, we got back on the road. Turns out that we were better off sitting in that booth at McDonalds than on the road because we avoided this mess that had just happened. The ambulances/authorities had not even shown up yet and the driver of the smaller car was still inside, staring off in a daze.

We don't know how many cars exactly were involved, but there was a private security car crunched and a larger Explorer type car that went flying over the divide and landed up on a hill on the other side of the road. (Black Explorer in the red circle.)

You might think the front of this car looks bad, but the back was crushed even worse.

The Lord kept us from harm not only in this situation, but for the rest of our trip. We had no accidents, popped tires, or encounters with shady characters, going and returning. Thank you Jesus.

Arriving at the border!

Bethany is usually the one to pop out the patriotic tunes, but Mom was quick to fill her shoes once we were in the border crossing lane.

Gramma made sure we all had our hands over our hearts as we sang along with the National Anthem. :)

This is the closest picture I dared to snap... These border peeps ain't too keen on getting their pictures taken. (And understandably so....I'm not complaining)

Grampa and I - our first step onto American ground.

After driving almost 14 hours, we were tired and hungry, but very relieved to have finally made it!

First stop- Applebee's!

Am I the only one that gets mistaken for a 12 year old?? I mean really... How rude. LOL. I want to say this is a one-time fluke, but sadly I have had several encounters like this with restaurant servers in the past few months. Am I getting younger or something? This never used to happen to me...

We arrived on Monday and spent Tuesday-Friday shopping all day, every day until we literally dropped. It was tiring and lovely at the same time. We were able to buy so many supplies and goodies that we can't get in Mexico, or on the trips when we fly out!

This was about day #4 of shopping and dropping. We were at the mall and after just a few stores, all I had the energy to do was people-watch while eating frozen yogurt.

Friday morning Grampa and I went to an office store to get his December 

newsletter printed and out to you all.

Awesome things are happening in Mexico City!

Friday afternoon was spent just picking up last minute supplies and such...

My feet hurt. And maybe I was being a sissy. Judge me if you like. :))

The awkward part of this is that I kept running into the SAME MAN who was also in a wheel chair, but he actually needed his wheel chair... The first few times we crossed paths, we exchanged soft, understanding smiles... The next 20 times, I just avoided eye contact. -.-

In between all of our shopping we had to eat of course..

^Cracker Barrel is our favorite! You are really missing out if you've never been to one of these before. ^

I found Denae Abbott on the wall at Logan's Roadhouse!

Hi Denae! :)))

Once again, bright and early, we packed up and drove out. Crossing over onto the Mexican side can be stressful... We had the car and trailer packed full with things, and in the past they've made us unpack everything. We always hope for green lights and happy border agents. Thankfully they didn't have us unpack everything, but they did randomly choose a 25lb bag of brown sugar that happened to be close the trailer door to be examined. Much to our dismay they sliced it open and didn't even have the decency to provide us with tape or something to close it with...

Grampa and I kept ourselves entertained on the trip back! We spent approximately 3 hours thinking of words that rhymed with snow. It was quite funny.

Sweet little dogs at a rest stop.

This one didn't take long to warm up to the strangers.

And finally, as if this post isn't long enough we made it home!

*Nicole*