Saturday, December 23, 2023
This morning we woke up and got everything packed up. It’s time to leave my family in Queen Creek and head to Sierra Vista -- the first of many visits with Betty’s friends and family.
This first part of the journey has really been amazing. It’s been years since I’ve seen many people in my family. But it’s been even longer since we’ve done anything with Betty’s family. Betty has been down a couple of times, but I haven’t been to Mexico in 9 years.
This is a really important leg in the journey. We want the kids to get to know this part of Betty’s life. We want them to meet their grandmother (the last time we were down here Ian was just 2). We want them to see where Betty comes from. Betty has some difficult family history questions that she’d like answered.
For their part, the kids are feeling some anxiety. New experiences are difficult, and they have heard some of the stories about safety issues in Mexico. They know that Betty’s personal story is complicated, and they worry about how they might be received.
So it’s going to be an interesting adventure.
Despite my system and insistence on people taking care of their own stuff, it’s still a major challenge. Good thing we’ll have lots of practice in the months ahead. We got out of the house a little later than we had hoped -- but I think it was better than it has been in the past.
Saying goodbye to Janie’s family
The birding thing yesterday turned out great today. We saw a beautiful red-tailed hawk right on our way out of town. I love the birds of prey. They are so majestic.
The drive from Queen Creek to Tucson was pretty uneventful.
For the first part of this tour into Betty’s past, we planned to meet up with a childhood friend of hers, Valentín Ayala, and his wife Martha. Like us, they have five kids: Enoc, Abish, Valentina, Ruth, and Caleb. Fans of the Book of Mormon will recognize that this is a faithful LDS family. Their older kids are a few years older than ours, but Valentina, Ruth, and Caleb are all right about our teenage kids’s ages.
We were supposed to meet up in In-n-Out in Tucson, but we got there a bit early, so Betty and I took the opportunity to run to Walmart and grab a couple of things that we needed.
It’s always a bit awkward meeting new people. As parents, you always wish your kids would just jump in and start chatting with your friends’ kids, but these things take time. In-n-Out was nice, but the kids all stayed a bit separate. I think it’s also a bit awkward for our kids because they aren’t used to speaking in Spanish all the time. Kimball, Alicia, Anahi, and Ian all speak pretty well. River refuses to speak, but she understands it well. We’ve tried to get her to speak, but she just won’t.
So with the anxiety and just meeting new people and having to do it all in Spanish, things were awkward. But then the kids started talking about what they like, and Ruth mentioned that she liked Taylor Swift. My girls are big fans as well. It was just the ice breaker we needed. After that, everyone relaxed, and the kids started chatting with each other more freely.
Anyway, after lunch, Vale’s kids wanted to do some shopping, so we walked around Ross and Burlington.
That took up the early afternoon. When we were getting ready to leave, Vale and Martha said that they wanted to take us to the house of a lady named Lucerito. She is from Guaymas (the town next to where Betty is from). She’s a bit older than Betty, but they had known each other 25 years earlier in the young singles group from church.
So we drove a few minutes to Lucerito’s house. The kids were all asking me “Who is this lady?” And I just told them: welcome to visiting Betty’s people. From here on out we will be meeting new people, most of them will be super nice and we won’t have met them before. We just have to roll with it all.
It was the best first house visit we could have possibly had.
Lucerito and her husband José are kind and warm. They’ve got beautiful orange and mandarin trees all over their front yard.
She’s also got dogs. Kimball and Anahi are terrified of dogs. At firs they were really nervous, but these little poodles (Cindy, Buddy, and Penny) were the sweetest things ever. After just a few minutes there, Lucerito asked if we wanted something to drink -- maybe hot chocolate. Valentín immediately said yes, so she started to whip up some delicious Mexican hot chocolate. Then from somewhere in her house she conjured up several bags of Tostitos, and before I knew it we were drinking hot chocolate and eating nachos and oranges. I looked over at the couch, and the kids were all laughing and visiting with each other, and Anahi was petting the dogs.
When we left the house, I think we were all in a little bit of shock. Lucerito’s house was a whirlwind of love and kindness and warmth. Things couldn’t have gotten off to a better start.
The next stage of the journey was in a little town southeast of Tucson called Sierra Vista. Valentín’s wife Marta’s sister, Ale, and her husband, Oswaldo, live there. He is the head winemaker at Los Milics Vineyard , which was recently voted the #3 wine experience in the country. I didn’t even know you could grow wine grapes in Arizona, but they are higher up in the mountains, and apparently it’s a fast-growing area for wines now.
Every time we get to a new house, the first question on the minds of the kids is: “Do they have dogs or cats?” Ale and Oswaldo have a little dog name Zoe, and within just a few minutes, Ian’s eyes swelled up and he started having a hard a time breathing. But we got him some eye drops and some Zyrtec, and things calmed down quite a bit.
As we settle down for sleep, there are two main concerns on my mind. First of all, Facebook has started blocking my posts from the blog, which is super frustrating because it’s the main way we have to contact people. The second concern is that our new car has temporary plates, and I’m not sure if that will be a problem or not in Mexico.
But those are concerns for tomorrow. Now it’s time to rest.
Hours in the car today: 3
Total hours in the car: 42
Miles Driven Today: 176
Total Miles Traveled: 2,431
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