The Pyramids

Ahhh! The pyramids! We spent a warm and beautiful day at the pyramids with everybody. The way it's set up is there is a plaza sort of thing in the middle with a bunch of pyramids all around it, some of them you can climb and some you can't. I think there was a moon pyramid and a sun pyramid. There were vendors everywhere selling knickknacks and textiles, I think we all found a little something. We climbed up one of the bigger pyramids and there were lots and lots of steep steps, we were glad we left Zara down at the bottom with Mom and Kasey.

Zara in her cute little hat from Abu and Lita (grandpa and grandma), she kept it on most of the time. 

This post is one big "Where's Preston?" it turns out he is hiding in most of the pictures somewhere, hahaha! And I have no idea why I brought a sweater, really, what was I thinking?!

Little baby toes

 Photobomb!

 (Preston, is that you?)

Lots of people! We were all pretty warm but the locals were walking/hiking up the pyramid in boots, boots with fur! Vests, sweaters, I couldn't believe it! My mom said that even if its hot sometimes they just want to wear "wintery" things because technically it's wintertime.

Sometimes it's hard to get a group photo.....

 I bet this lady has some good stories!

 (did you spot Presto?)

Just missing one sombrero and Doug.

Half way there.

Yay! We made it! At the top there is a little piece of silver(I think) about the size of a dime that's good luck to touch when you reach the top so there was a huge swarm of people all around it but we finally got to touch it. Yay!

Taking a little siesta

 To buy or not to buy....

After we hiked the pyramids we ate lunch in nearby cave. The atmosphere was pretty cool, there were candles and Christmas decorations everywhere and it was neat just be to underground. At that point I was glad I had my sweater. 

Zara was mesmerized with the mariachi guys and she even tried her first lime but decided it wasn't her favorite thing.

New Years in Mexico

The garland that my Dad brought back from the US in a duffel bag to replace the wreath tradition. So festive, is it Christmas yet?

 One night we had dinner with some of my parents friends from church and they made a dish for us called Paella. He brought his own skillet and set everything up right on the patio. The skillet was huge, you can't really tell from the picture but he even had a special spatula so that he could stir everything without burning his arm. He started with the rice and then added sea food after sea food...fish, clams, OCTOPUS, calamari and tons of other stuff and salt, tons of salt! We tried a little bit of everything and the octupus was pretty good. It took awhile to cook so we would go out there and see what he was doing, ask questions and then cover it up and stand around and talk and then check it again and then talk some more, it was a really fun evening. I think by that point Preston had his mission call to Spain and Paella is a Spanish dish, actually I think that is the whole reason why they were cooking the Paella for us in the first place!

One of my favorite things was when the Aunties and Uncles would whisk Zara away with them to a room to hangout and I would find them all just lounging around talking, Zara crawling all around them.

Umm, Yes. This is Zara in the kitchen sink after she pooped in my parents bathtub. Oops!

New Years Eve! We hung out all night with the Obando's, they are the ying to our yang. We love seeing them. They have three girls and they are all so fun and sweet! We played lots of games and ended the night with a rousing game of white elephant right before ringing in the New Year. 

The daughter of the guy that made the Paella brought my mom this centerpiece with the flowers and candle as a hostess gift. It was amazing.

 The highlight of the night was when Sarah and Doug received Isaac's white elephant gift. A little red kids chair, Sarah sat in it and we all just busted up laughing, it was pretty late at night.... We thought Isaac was going to DIE. It was hilarious. I think we were all laughing/crying.

We saw Walter Mitty and had the place to ourselves, turned out to be one of my favorite movies.

It is so hard to get pictures of Zara that aren't fuzzy because she is always moving around, but It thought this was a cute picture of Isaac :)

Zara dancing with dad in her new bear slippers from Abuelita.

  Preston and Zara playing with some new toys.

 I really wish the second picture wasn't fuzzy!

Puzzle time!

Out and about for a little architecture tour. There are some crazy cool building down there!

Tacos, soup and fried cheese with the fam. So yummy!

Preston trying to teach me how to use the settings on my camera while we were driving in the car. Kasey was doing a great job entertaining Miss Z.

Zara, budding photographer.