HoMe sweet home

I know, I know I am SO way behind on my blogging........I promised myself to try and be caught up by tomorrow~we'll see how that goes.......I got all the unpacking done, the house cleaned, paid some bills, did a shopping trip at costco and even went to the gym twice this week so far......oh, and had some coffee with some friends yesterday! I seriously HAVE the life...I truly feel so BLESSED!!! Sometimes I get annoyed with Mexico and think I'm over living here, but God works in mysterious ways and I know we're right where we need to be~It feels good to be HOME:)

So, we pulled into Guadalajara last saturday January 9th~around 6PM...
here's how the drive went: We decided to get a little shut eye this time before getting on the road so we packed up the car thursday night and had everything ready to go for EARLY friday morning and hit the sack around 10. Erik thought it would be a good idea to leave around 2AM.....this way we could put the kids in the car still asleep and hopefully have them sleep at least 6 more hrs in the car~and me TOO so I could actually be helpful with the driving this time! I didn't have coffee this time and was able to go back to sleep once we started driving....thank GOD! We pulled into Hermosillo, Mexico around 8AM and stopped at Mcdonalds for some breakfast. I felt rested and the kids were in good spirits too! Erik seemed a litte tired so asked me if I could drive for a little while so he could rest. I felt GREAT and was glad to be able to relieve him. We got back on the road around 9AM......I was driving and Erik was just about to doze off when Costi starts saying his tummy hurts and he feels sick.....I'm thinking...oh no! Is he car sick already? All of a sudden he just starts puking all over himself and his carseat....TONS!!!! Erik starts yelling at me to PULL OVER....we get pulled over on the side of the road and take him and his car seat out of the car......Pobrecito it was SO GROSS! Erik and I were both thinking the same thing........are we really going to drive another 20 or so hours with a pukey car seat??? Ugggh......yep, we're leaving it! So we got Costi changed and put his puked on clothes in a garbage bag and sealed it tight( I didn't want to leave those they were brand new pj's!) There were some mexican guys across the street from us watching what we were doing.......as soon as we got in the car to drive away they were on that like flys on poop! I hated leaving it but as least I know they either A) made some money for food with it OR B) it went to use for another baby......
The next few hours I continued to drive and Erik and the kids fell asleep for about 2 hours. It was nice and quiet and I actually enjoyed being the driver for a little bit. Then Costi got sick again.....and again.....and again.........about every 30 minutes(he defintitely wasn't car sick, had to be a bug....perfect time for my little guy to get sick). Erik decided he would rather be the driver than the puke catcher so we traded spots again. Poor Costi and mommy! I was on guard and ready for him to get sick for the next 12 hours. It was a LONG drive and besides Costi getting sick, the kids were ANGELS again! No complaining at all or asking when were going to be there......I must say they are amazing little travelers! Halle just slept off and on and watched a few movies. After about 16 hours in the car we stopped in a town called Culiacan.....it was about 6PM at this point.....we ate some burger king( I know, fast food twice in one day! Gross! ) and decided that we just couldn't make it all the way to guadalajara~which would have been another 7 or 8 hours. We weren't in a huge hurry and had time so we decided to drive another 2 hrs and call it a day. We texted Nisa and asked her if she could find us a good deal on a hotel online in Mazatlan (thanks Nise it was a nice hotel on the beach~it was under renovation but the rooms were brand new...it was perfect for us). We finished our burger king and away we went. I was actually looking forward to staying the night in Mazatlan and getting a good nights sleep! We were exhausted at this point!!!! We arrived in Mazatlan around 8:30PM and checked into our hotel........we got to our room and got our little sick guy into the shower, changed into some clean PJ's and he fell fast asleep for the night! He looked so pitiful, I just hate it when they're sick and then he had to be in the car ALL day.....so sad. I'm so glad we stopped.

We woke up to a beautiful morning! We looked out our balcony and saw the beautiful ocean and a clear blue crisp sky with the sun shining! Costi was all better and was HUNGRY....YEAH!!!!....so we all got dressed quickly and headed out to find a good breakfast spot. We walked down the street and found a cute little outside restaurant that had fresh juice smoothies and healthy breakfast stuff. It was really GOOD, thank God because sometimes breakfast places aren't so good in mexico and this being our first morning back from being in the states we really wanted something good. The weather was so beautiful and the beach and the ocean looked SO inviting but we really just wanted to be HOME......so we headed back to our hotel to check out and we had one last stop before the last 5 hrs in the car........STARBUCKS, of course:)

The rest of the drive was GREAT......I mean 5 hours is NOTHING in comparison to the last 18 the day before plus a sick kid the WHOLE way!!! Costa was better and nobody else got sick.......the kids watched a movie and played with the travel lite brite that Grandma Gloria got them (thanks so much Grandma they LOVED it! It was a change from just watching movies). They were anxious to be home and kept talking about seeing their bedrooms and all their toys and stuffed animals they hadn't seen in awhile.....they were so giggly talking about it! I LOVE that! I love that they love their home and look forward to coming back to it! I wasn't exactly looking forward to coming back to mexico, but HOME is HOME ya know? And this is where our life is right now.........and I wouldn't change it for a second.

Packed up and ready to go...

Senior Frog's store in Mazatlan

Doesn't it look beautiful? We might have to take a trip back...