Guaymas!!!

So this post ended up being longer than I had planned, but I didn't want to leave any pictures out. I did though. The pictures are in order from the end of the trip to the beginning of the trip! So the one above is the day we left Mexico. Sad day. Especially since the air down there was awesome for my hair...
This was just a laundry chute at the hotel. Shalie wanted to push me down there. It really was just a big hole.
A tender moment with Shalie at the beach. Let's just say it was one of oh so many moments together that week. :)
We wrote our names in the sand. How cute.
I love this picture!
The convenience store OXXO. Yes, I have a bottle of gatorade between my legs. Don't ask.
Fiesta! At the Elementary School. So fun and good food!
Cute little dancers and Shalie! The girl on the right was the best booty shaker I've ever seen. The little girl on the left was pretty good too.
My little friend. She was so cute. I didn't know what she said to me most of the time, but that's okay.
This picture just captured so much of Mexico. It's amazing.
Proof of the hot dog pizza.
This was one of the many many great meals we had. This night we ate at 1000 Tortas. I ordered my oh so delicious enchiladas de pollo all by my self! I was so excited.
Hard at work or hardly working. Eh either way, we got so much done at the orphanage!
The first night of good food! This was at Papas Locas. Well that's not really what the place was called, but we all got papas locas to eat. MMMM crazy potatoes!
This was the first day in Mexico. At the beach. Shalie thought it would be cute if we ran into the ocean holding hands. So tender.

Oh My Guaymas!

I've been back for a month, but I still want to post some pictures from my amazing trip to Mexico. It was such a great experience! My first time out of the country, but definitely not my last. It was definitely a culture shock for me. The worst part of the days was when I had to order my food. It stressed me out so much. I don't know Spanish at all and since we weren't in a "tourist" area of Mexico, the people didn't speak English. So I was always so stressed that I would accidentally order the wrong thing and end up eating fish. You don't wanna eat fish in Mexico... But I had help and all went well. I even ordered enchiladas de pollo all by myself one night. Oh the food was delicious! I miss it so much! Nothing here is as spicy as that food! Tortillas. MMMM. Around the town, there are many trucks or cars that drive around with big speakers on the top of them (like the ice cream truck) selling tortillas. The 'song' was so catchy and if I knew Spanish, I probably would remember it.
The children... They broke my heart. They learn at such a young age that white people=money. So we were constantly asked by small children for pesos. Oh and 30 gringos walking down the street in Guaymas stick out a lot... We spent 3 and a half days at an orphanage, cleaning up the playground and just playing with the ninos. I was there on 2 different days for half the day. It was such a good experience. I realized that it didn't really matter that I couldn't talk to them, as long as I let them sit in my lap and hug them. The boys loved to play soccer against the gringos. Only cause they could beat us. We played a lot of soccer. The girls loved being spun around in circles. It was heartbreaking when we had to leave. The kids never wanted us to leave.
The Elementary School. That was so much fun. I went there the second day in Mexico. We painted desks. I think the teachers quit fighting with the kids to keep them in school once we got there, cause there was always kids around trying to tickle us while we painted or kids wanting to help paint. And that got a little messy. It was so fun though. The principal was such a nice lady. She paid for lunch for us that day. What was for lunch? Hot Dog Pizza. I did eat a slice of it, well most of a slice. A girl can take only so much hot dog... I went back to the elementary school the next day for their fiesta. All I can say is that Mexicans sure like to dance... Dirty dance. We played some games with the kids before they all went into separate classrooms. We judged a dance contest, we had races with kids on our backs. One little girl pulled me into her classroom where we spent pretty much the entire time. I've never seen such little girls dance so dirty. The hot Mexican teacher wasn't much help, cause he was a pretty dirty dancer too. Shalie decided at one point we were listening to a song about getting naked... based on the teacher pretending to take off his shirt and then all the kids pretending to take off their pants... It was also pretty funny to see us white girls try to dance. We had a break for lunch... we got real Mexican food and one of our friends a few rooms down got Dominoes Pizza. Haha.
The Soup Kitchen... Humbling experience. I went there the first day. We helped clean up after breakfast and spent oh so much time cleaning off chairs... So Many Chairs. We went back to the motel for lunch and so then we were able to go back to the kitchen to help serve lunch. Most of the people who came for soup were men. We learned that most of those men were too drunk to take care of their families and end up leaving their families. I'm pretty sure if I understood what they were saying to us, they were hitting on all the girls. One man wanted me to buy him some tennis shoes. I was pretty proud that I figured that out. Then a mother with 2 children would come through the line. It was such a great experience. The ladies working at the soup kitchen were some of the hardest workers I've ever met. The pots of soup they cooked day after day was oh so much. The pots were big enough to fit a person inside.
Some things this trip made me grateful for:

• Our sewer system. Be grateful you can flush toilet paper.
• That I was able to go to a school that didn't have bars on windows and doors.
• That I can go to a church that doesn't have bars on windows and big fences to keep vandals out.
  
• That I live in this country, where we have laws that help keep the places we live clean.
• My family, my mom and dad.
• Good examples in my life: friends, leaders, teachers.
• That I've never had to beg for money.
• That parents can't just drop their children off at orphanages when they don't want them without getting serious consequences for it.

We had some fun while we were there also. We went to the beach a few times. We were there in time for the sunset each time. It was so beautiful. The last day in Mexico we went to the market and bought a few things and then went to the beach. When we got there, we got to watch some dolphins jump across the ocean. SO COOL! When we were walking through the water, one of the girls got stung on both her feet by a manta ray. They wouldn't let us get in the water after that :(. One night we ran into the missionaries when we were on our way to Dairy Queen. They needed a ride. It just so happened that only one of them spoke English and he was from Utah! Awesome! Some things that I hope I always remember:

• There were random shrines on the side of the roads, everywhere.
• A couple had a romantic moment on the side of the road... It was just weird
• OXXO stores are everywhere, like Maverick is in Utah.
• The ocean was warmer than the pool at our hotel.
• The man climbed the palm tree (somehow, mind still blown) to clean off dead branches.
• The crosswalk signals... So entertaining. Instead of a boring man and then a blinking hand for our crosswalk signals, we should have a man running, and as time runs out he gets faster and faster!
• The green light blinks before it turns yellow.
• The police pretty much do nothing except direct traffic with their whistles. If someone runs a stop sign, all they do is yell at them through their speakers.
• Traffic is crazy! And so are pedestrians.

So here are a few pictures!