Back from Tepotzlán and the laziest day of my life

Sunday, August 14

Sunday was our last day in Tepotzlán- a partial day, really. We didn’t have to check out until 2 pm at least.

We had no big plans- as I said, it’s a small town and there isn’t really that much to “do”, exactly.

Everyone just took it slow and hung around a while in the morning.

I had tea on the upstairs patio, took a shower, packed up some of our stuff.

One more pic of us- it was just so pretty up there!

Then we all decided to get lunch at the big food market. It’s similar to the one in Mexico City- big tents with permanent food stands all over the place underneath.

It’s pretty tight quarters, so it was hard to find a stand with seating for all of us.

I got two quesadillas.

After lunch, we really didn’t have that much time. I needed to return to a store down the way to exchange a dress I bought that I found a snag in.

This is nice of Asher with Ivan’s parents:

By 2 pm we were back at the hotel, loaded the car and said goodbye to the rest of the family. Ivan’s parents and we were heading back to Toluca via a different route.

Our route ended up being not super great- smaller roads, curvy and TONS of potholes everywhere. Ivan was not thrilled. It also started to rain… but not too hard, at least. (But still, some roads had drop-offs on one side in parts.)

We went through a lot of very small and, um, crappy towns on the way (for lack of better word!). Sorry, but it’s true. I couldn’t imagine living in some of those places….

I always am glad when the boys get a chance to experience driving through remote or rural Mexico. It’s just a very eye opening experience, to see how some people live. I’m not sure if their 12 and 14 year old brains really appreciate how GOOD they have it at home in the U.S., but we try to point it out. So many things that we take for granted at home, like, constant access to clean, fresh water, or seemingly unlimited HOT showers, or roads in good condition, are not a given here, at all.

Anyway, it took us around 2 1/2 hours to get back to Toluca.

Everyone was hungry, so we pulled off at a taqueria not far from from my in-laws’ house.

The rest of the evening was spent just unpacking and lounging around, mostly. It was a full/busy weekend with a LOT of walking (and on cobblestone roads). I felt pretty tired!

Monday, August 15

We had no big plans for Monday. Well, Ivan kind of did- he was going in the morning to drop his dad off at work, and then run some errands with his mom. Something about stopping at several doctor’s offices to schedule some appointments for his dad. Not sure exactly, but they were gone all morning.

I was just home with the boys, being lazy. Took a very slow morning, slept in, wrote a blog post, read some stuff on my phone, etc.

The boys spent a good chunk of the morning playing on Ivan’s brother’s PlayStation.

I finally made some scrambled eggs, took a shower, did some dishes that were in the sink, cleaned up the house and made our bed/had the boys make theirs.

Then, they still weren’t home, so I proceeded to lie on my bed and read for a long time!

I had the boys read for a while, too. Asher wanted to go up on the roof to read, so I made some tea and accompanied him.

Finally Ivan and his mom got home, and they brought TAMALES. Yum.

Ate a delicious tamale with chicken and salsa verde, and then went back upstairs to read some more! Nothing much was happening, so why not.

After a while Ivan came upstairs and seemed in an equally lazy mood, so we put a movie on Netflix in our room. We watched Persuasion, based on the Jane Austen book. A little different, but I liked it.

My Fitbit said I had like 1,500 steps so far for the day- HA- so we accompanied Asher to the store up the street to get a snack. I bought a small bag of Ruffles. Lol.

More lounging around ensued… until dinner time. (This was seriously the LAZIEST day I have had in forever. I decided to just embrace it, because when do I ever get a chance to be this lazy at home?!)

For dinner his mom made chicken mole with rice and beans. Omg. This was sooooo good, but this was way too much for me. I was STUFFED after, and I only ate one tortilla!! I wanted to keep eating because it was so good, but I couldn’t.

Around 8 pm we all drove over to Ivan’s uncle’s house, who we hadn’t seen yet. They live just a few minutes away. We didn’t stay long- just had some coffee/tea and cookies while visiting with him, his wife and Ivan’s cousins for maybe 45 minutes.

After the busy weekend traveling, this was a very nice buffer day to just chill and relax.

Tuesday (yesterday) we hit the road to be tourists again for the day- more on that later!