Sorry for the blogging delay.  I needed a little break. 

In two days we will head back to the United States for the first time in over 5 months.  There are so many things I am looking forward to – seeing friends and family, being able to fully converse with everyone around me, filling my belly with way too many cookies and various other American food offerings, the list goes on….

But for those who will actually have to get to see me in person I have a few warnings.  Some parts of Mexican life have become second nature.  Please don’t be surprised if I do any of the following:

1)      Greet every person I pass on the street with good morning, good afternoon, or good evening (probably in Spanish).

2)      Enter a room and greet each and every person before sitting down or stopping to have a full conversation (and also when leaving).

3)      Give you a kiss on the cheek when I greet you or say goodbye.  I assure you that I am not hitting on you.  It is simply the Mexican way.

4)      Feel the need to search for something for toilet paper and some change to pay the attendant before entering a public restroom. 

5)      Throw my toilet paper away in the trashcan rather than flushing it in a public restroom (although, unless you are stalking me, I’m not sure how you’ll know about this one).

6)      Expect there be someone to help me park in any given parking lot.

7)      Tip the bagger at a store or anyone helping out in the parking lot.

8)      Drive as if everyone on the road is out to get me and treat general traffic laws as somewhat optional (don’t worry, I’m going to really work at keeping this to a minimum).

9)      Try to light your stove or oven with a lighter.

10)  At any point reply to something you have said in broken Spanish.

That’s right, 2 days until we’re in Maryland and 11 days until we’re in Nevada.  Now you too can count down the days until you get to see these smiling faces.

Now that we're headed off to another country I decided it's time to resurrect the blog again. We've been on the road with our car crammed full for 5 days now. Here we are just before we left Reno:

So here's a brief run down of the trip so far:

Day 1 - We drove from Reno to Boulder City, NV and stopped very briefly in Las Vegas to see the water show at the Bellagio.

Day 2 - We headed to Flagstaff, AZ and managed to make it to the Grand Canyon in time for the sunset.

Day 3 - We drove to Albuquerque, NM and visited with the wonderful Dodrill family. It was great for Eli to have a chance to crawl and around and for Dave and I to enjoy a home cooked meal and catch up with the Dodrills, who are friends of Dave's family from MD.

Day 4 - We drove 11 hours from Albuquerque to Granbury, TX - our longest day on the trip. The only mishap was Dave leaving his I pod on top of the car when we stopped for lunch. It flew off the top at about 40 miles an hour, but was miraculously unharmed when Dave picked it up out of the middle of the road. We'll now be loyal customers of Speck cases.

Eli has become somewhat nocturnal at this point, so he was great in the car, but stayed up pretty late that night after sleeping so much.

Day 5 - We visited with my Dad's parents in Granbury, went out for a delicious Italian meal with them and then headed to Dallas to visit my mom's parents.

Today we're enjoying relaxing in Dallas and looking forward to dinner with the extended family tonight. We'll be here enjoying some much needed rest until Thursday morning when we make the drive down to Loredo, TX.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for our trip. So far we have had a very successful and enjoyable journey.