Adios Colima

A beautiful blue casita in Cofradia.

This really cool tree has a twin tree growing out the side of it!

Audrey standing in front of a field of calla lillies. In Spanish they're called "flores de alcatraz", because an "alcatraz" was a kind of ship with a distinctive sail, and the flower reminded someone of that sail.

There was FINALLY someone at the "carwash" when we were driving through with the camera. The photo's not so great, because we didn't want to make it obvious that we were taking a photo of something that gave us such joy and bellylaughs.

Ceci hanging out with Baby James.

Elliot made the mistake of being between James and something he wanted- the Connect 4 checkers. James is trying to get to them by distracting Elliot with a zrbt.

Our family at the hacienda with Ian Sparks and Jared Riley.

Elliot on the beach at Las Boquitas.

Cec playing with a little boy that we had met the Sunday we went to church in Manzanillo.

We wanted to call this one, "Gringos in the Mist", but then we realized that Erick and Alexis were in it, too.

Entrance of the tortugario on the big day...

Dad and kids looking at the shells on the beach.

Elliot with the turtle he tried to buy....:)

Tortugario volunteers passing out baby turtles.

Our babies!

Flapping furiously, trying to get to those waves!

On your mark, get set, GO!

And they were off, little cuties!

Elliot's turtle ended up being the most competitive, and got to the waves first. We thought we should sing "Wide Open Spaces" to the babies as they took off...."Who doesn't know what I'm talkin' about....who's never left home, who's never struck out...."

Baby turtleprints- the cutest thing ever!

Playing soccer under the volcano.

Sisters from the Rama Centenario cutting hair in Queseria.

I cut this little girl's hair (I can't remember her name right now, she's Susi's little sister...)

And this little guy, Lalo. I cut two more, but they didn't want photos.

The entertainment crew.

After lunch, at our house, with Elder Gamboa, Elder Wilson, and Erick and Alexis.

The kitchen crew at our party- Hermana Concha and her daughter (?), Anabell, Hermano Pili, and I can't see who the other sister is.

Eating sopitos- like taco salads with less salad and more juice.

Hermano Pedro's family. Juanito and Jessica were in Cec's nursery class. Audrey and Elliot and James got to go to Pedro's baptism the next day.

Hermano Justo's family. He did the mustic for our party.

Us with Hermana Wendy and the Pili family, otherwise know as "cute Rodrigo"'s family. This picture makes me laugh because Wendy's lunging for the camera because she didn't think it was going to go off.

Hermana Concha, Don Jose, and their daughter.

The Jonguitud family. Maby was one of my favorite people I met in Colima- and her kids Karen, Alejandra, Diego, Hector, and Presidente Gregorio Jonguitud.

The Avila family- or, our Mexican family that was accidentally born in a different country and accidentally not related to us by blood. Tania, Keyla, Erick, Alexis, Rogelio and Anabell. We loved these guys. They are the neatest family.

Presidente Oscar Cortes and his family, his wife Susi, little Jarom was a friend of Cec's, Jared was a friend of Elliot's, and Ruby (Rubi? I'm not sure how her name is spelled)

Audrey's Young Men friends, Moi, Rodrigo, David, Alexis, (I can't remember, something like Hugo), and Presidente Cortes. James had just given a goodbye speech where he said that he felt completely safe leaving us here, except that there were too many cute boys, "chicos guapos" in the ward and he worried about Audrey. That made everyone laugh, and when I wanted a picture of these guys, Presidente Cortes shouted, "Wait, if you're taking a picture of the chicos guapos, I need to be in there too!"

The Castillo sisters

Our goodbye dinner with our friends from Project Amigo, there at the hacienda.

James with Diego and his family, Bizmarck, Nelly (who was also Elliot's teacher), and Baby Michel.

And me with their family.

And our Mexican family. From the left, Anilu, me, James, Audrey, Susan, Elliot, Ted, Lety, Jorge, and Diego. Beto wasn't there that day. I can't even TELL you how much we love these guys!

On the morning that Deigo took us to the airport, the volcano was especially pretty, so we took one last shot.

So, we found this awesome bug on the floor of the airport! I put my wedding ring next to it so you could see how big it was, and it was almost tie-dye-looking, with pink and gray and white and black- I'd never seen that pepto-bismol pink on a bug before! Everyone thought we were strange, leaning down taking a picture of something on the floor, until they saw it and also came over to take photos.

Monday was a big day for us! We were all ready for Dad’s flight to arrive in Manzanillo and made good time on the freeway, the car worked just great…. So we got to the airport and Dad’s flight had actually arrived at 1:45 and he was wondering where we had been the last 45 minutes. I had forgotten to translate the hour into our time. We came home and settled in and talked Dad’s ear off. Mom was so excited to be able to speak English to another adult, that she kept Dad up until about 1.

Last weekend we made friends with a couple of former missionaries who had been here in Colima a couple of years ago and had come back to visit. Their names were Ian Sparks and Jared Riley. And since we had a vacancy in the Hotel Willmore, we invited them to stay with us in our spare room. On Tuesday we started having problems with our brakes and had to take the van to have Diego take a look at it. We were bummed, because we had planned to go to Manzanillo and go to the beach. So we were talking to Ian and Jared about it and they said they really wanted to go to the beach too, and suggested that we all go down together in the van that the branch president had loaned to them. So we went to the beach where there was good snorkeling, and where there are also surf-worthy waves a short hike away. James and Audrey and Elliot swam out to the sunken ship snorkeling, and also went to the big waves beach to do some boogie boarding. One wave caught Ian and sent him into the sand. He had a big sandburn on his forehead. We told him to tell his wife that he was rescuing a baby dolphin… We finally ordered octopus, since Dad was here to help us eat it. It was interesting. None of us could eat more than about four pieces of it. It was just really strong-tasting. We ended up meeting a family there at the beach that we had met when we visited the branch in Manzanillo- the family of the district president there. So Cecily played with those kids while Audrey and Elliot went out into the waves with Dad.

Wednesday, we went over and got Baby James, because he’s one of our top five favorite Jameses now. His parents were suffering because they couldn’t read Harry Potter fast enough with him hanging around, so we took James to our house and played with him for a couple of hours, until he got tired and hungry. He is such a good baby. He’s so sweet. And he LOVES Elliot. He just cooed and babbled away at us. We almost just put him in our suitcases as one of our souvenirs. Then, for lunch (at about 2….) Ted and Susan took us to El Balcon de Tio Pedro, the restaurant that’s in Suchitlan. It is sooo beautiful there. The food is really good, but the restaurant is up on the second floor, up in the trees so you feel like you’re in a treehouse. James ordered the ham hock and everyone was really impressed that he actually finished. Paul and Jackie, the American couple who bought a house nearby, happened to come in when we were about half finished, and they joined us too.

We took Dad and Audrey to the Piedra Lisa, because they’d never been there. It’s a really big rock in a park in central Colima that’s slippery, like a big slide, and the tradition is, that if you slide down the rock, it means that someday you’ll return to Colima. So Audrey and Elliot went down several times, saying “Now we have to come back 7 times, 8 times 9 times…..!” Ian and Jared left that afternoon to go to another area where they had served.

The next morning we went and picked up Alexis and Erick and brought them up to our house to spend a couple of nights. Because my kids are addicted to them and we feel like we’re’ missing some kids when they’re not at our house. That day Anilu from the office called to ask how many people would be coming to the farewell party they were giving for us on Friday, and I told her that there were six of us in our family and we had two friends, so we would be eight. I realized later that we are not six, we are five. We have so many people coming through I don’t know how many I have in my family anymore. And it’s not like I even have to use another hand yet!

The Relief Society sisters from our ward wanted to go up to Queseria and cut hair for the kids before they started school on Monday. So we met the branch president and a van full of sisters and we put our family and Alexis and Erick and Luke and Sarah and James in our van and headed up with Jorge to Queseria. There were six of us cutting hair, two of the sisters brushed out the hair of the girls before they got their hair cut, and everyone else played with kids. We had brought a soccer ball, two bubble wands, and some cookies and juice to share with the kids. The Branch President and Elliot and Alexis went over to play soccer with the boys. Then they realized that only the two of the boys had shoes, and were having a hard time playing, so Presidente Cortes arranged a goal-shooting competition, so that the boys could stand on the little pad of cement, at least. Poor Presidente had worked that night, and had gotten off work and come right up to help with the service project. He’s so awesome. Jorge was so impressed with the way everyone treated the people up there, and with their organization. He said that usually he has to run the project and ends up doing a lot of the less fun chores, but he said this time he just got to sit and play with the kids, and that he seldom gets to do that. Once the kids all had their hair cut, the sisters invited the moms and dads to come and have their hair cut. They were hesitant at first, but several did take up their invitation. And Jorge thought that was neat, because these moms have such hard lives, and seldom does anyone take care of them like that. It was just a really fun activity! We all really enjoyed ourselves.

We had the missionaries over for lunch that afternoon. Elder Gamboa is from Veracruz, and Elder Wilson is from Denver. We had chicken, funeral potatoes, and peas. And for dessert we had peanut butter cups and Sees chocolates. The chocolates were a cultural lesson for Elder Gamboa- he thought it was so weird that that you don’t know what flavor the chocolate is until you bite into it. James told him that that is what the “life is like a box of chocolates” saying from Forrest Gump meant, and he was amazed, said he’d never understood that part of the movie. We had a lot of fun with them- Elder Wilson was going to BYU, so we engaged in some BYU vs. USU sparring. Later that evening, some fog moved in up here. The kids went down to the river to show James the spots where they had explored. They took some really neat photos of the forest in the mist. Erick showed James that there are some coffee trees down there that have beans on them.

Well, we think that Audrey has yet another admirer. She was standing outside her room almost ready for bed and the new little kitty came and dropped a dead frog on her foot. He sat down and looked up at her, very pleased with himself. He was obviously making his intentions known, and was trying really hard to impress Audrey. Yup, we think he has a crush on her. A little token of his affection…

On Friday, I talked to Jorge during the morning about the exchange we’re having where kids from here are going to come to Logan next summer. Audrey got onto YouTube and showed Erick all of her favorite videos. Then, they held a farewell luncheon for us there at the Hacienda. We said goodbye to all of the people that we’ve been working with here at Project Amigo. The food was so good, that we all ate way too much. Audrey and Erick both felt a little queasy for a while. That night there was an activity at the church that we attended. It was a potluck dinner where members were encouraged to bring non-member friends, and then there was karaoke and dancing afterwards. We kept trying to get Audrey and Tania and Keyla to come out and dance, because Cecily was dancing with us. Finally, one of the other brothers, because this was a district activity, grabbed them and showed them how to dance. It was really cute. Then we couldn’t get Audrey off of the dance floor.

Saturday we went souvenir shopping. I’m not even going to say how much we spent, because then it would become public record and James would find out. We really haven’t bought anything while we’ve been here, and we figured that if we didn’t have a couple of tacky Mexican wall ornaments in our home, no one would really believe that we’d been here.

Then we headed down to the turtle sanctuary. James and Audrey and Elliot went on the boat ride through the marsh and jungle to see the wildlife. Then we were given a brief lecture on the turtles there at the sanctuary, and they took us out to the beach to release the baby sea turtles! They explained to us that they can’t just put the babies in the water because in that little crawl towards the waves, they mature almost 5 years in terms of their sensory perception- suddenly a lot of their instincts kick in and they note the location of the beach where they are to come back later and lay their eggs. Female sea turtles don’t start laying until they’re 20 years old, and they’ve had this program going for 13 years, so they still haven’t had any of their babies come back, but they’re really hoping that in about 7 years, they’ll see an increase in the number of females returning, which will mean that everything they’ve been doing has helped. So they drew a line in the sand and we all lined up behind it. They told us we couldn’t go any further than that line with our babies, because the babies could get stuck in someone’s footprint. Then they went down and handed a baby to each child. We had seen the babies in the pool and they were all swimming lazily, but out there near the waves, they were flapping their little fins like crazy, trying to get to the water. They counted to three and had us release the babies. They immediately started towards the water. The waves came and got some of them, but sometimes the waves turned them around, or even pushed them further inland, but those little turtles immediately turned around and headed for the waves again. They were adorable. It was a really really really neat experience. Oh, when we were looking at the babies in their little pool, there was a kid there with the net who offered to fish one out for us so that we could hold him. When we gave the baby back, I had the kids give him a tip to say thanks, and he panicked and said, “No no no, you can’t buy them!” He thought we were offering to buy the baby turtle.

We zoomed back to Colima for District Conference. We washed our faces and feet in the bathroom because we didn’t have time to get back to Cofradia to wash up. Right after that evening session of conference, our branch had a going away party for us. We hired one of the sisters to make sopitos, and one of the brothers brought his sound system and music. The branch was so sweet and so generous- we ended up taking home a whole pile of gifts.

The people here are just really amazing people. I think that’s one of the things that I like best about traveling like this- spending enough time in a place that you really get to know the people. Because you almost always realize that there are amazing people wherever you go. It’s very faith-affirming, and gives you hope for the world, that no matter where you are, you usually end up meeting up with people who are so incredible that you feel honored to have met them and to have gotten to know them. And you don’t have to point to one cultural or economic or social or religious element and say “well, that’s what makes such a person”, you come to realize that we must all have that potential in us, because you find people in all races, all cultures, all religions, all economic situations that inspire you. It makes you feel like whoever you are and wherever you are spiritually, physically or economically, you could do that too.

On Sunday, we arrived at District Conference half an hour to practice with the choir. And the choir was awesome. For the rest hymn, they sang “Mando a su hijo” (He Sent His Son) once and then had the congregation sing it with them again. It was really really neat. They had a couple of recent converts bear their testimonies and they were amazing people with amazing stories. It took us a couple of hours to say goodbye to all of our friends from the branch. Then we went to dinner with the Jonguituds- he is the District President, so they had the mission president, one of the counselors in the mission presidency, and the branch president there too. The mission president is President Davidson. His wife and daughter were also there. It was really fun to talk to them. The counselor in the mission presidency is an educator in charge of the institute and seminary programs in this area of Mexico, so we swapped ideas about books and reading.

Because the branch threw us a party Saturday night, we missed the parties that Bizmarck and Bianca had because they were celebrating their confirmations in the Catholic Church. So we dropped gifts by to them that afternoon and said goodbye to them as well. We also hung out with baby James again for a while. Oh, and his parents. I asked my kids if it has sunk in that this might be the last that they see of these friends, and they basically refuse to think about it- they just tell me very confidently that we’re coming back. After all, they’ve slid down the Piedra Lisa.

So we’re all packed and ready to go tomorrow. We’ve weighed our suitcases, and even with all of my books, I think we’ll still squeeze in under the weight limit. I guess I’m feeling like my kids- I can’t face the reality that we’re leaving. It seems like we’ll wake up Tuesday morning to the sound of Rosi raking the rocks (groan) and drop by the Hacienda with excuses like having to do the laundry or check email, when really we’re just hoping that Jorge or Anilu is up for a chat. We’ll quickly trade our gripes about the humidity and rain for gripes about the drought and the state of our lawn. And instead of complaining that we can’t get peanut butter cups or rootbeer, we’ll be missing the taco stands. We’ll realize too late some of the things that we should have appreciated about Mexico and Colima and Cofradia, and we’ll be even more grateful for the things that we did relax and enjoy. And we’ll go away changed as people and a family for the better.