Oh man, this last week felt like a total blur!! I think I touched on this already, but I felt like I crammed about 3 weeks’ worth of stuff into this single week between Nashville and Mexico.
Work was also insane.
Ivan left for Mexico Thursday at 4 pm, so I was also on my own from Thursday to Sunday morning (when our flight was). Not a big deal at all normally, but just meant no other adult to help get us all ready to go, deal with the dog, or any other responsibilities.
Thursday night Asher had a volleyball game and then I had to volunteer at the concessions stand, so I was gone from about 5 pm until 9 pm.
Friday I had a million things to get done at work… and thanks to some rather last minute meetings (that totaled three hours of my day…), I ended up working until 7:30 pm. 😩 But, I finally finished up and happily put my “out of office” notice on my email for the next week!!
Saturday I very thankfully had the whole day pretty open. I had not packed at ALL yet, and still had a few errands to run, plus Asher had his Homecoming dance!
I also scheduled a pedicure at 3 pm.
It was a very full day and left me wondering if I do something very wrong when it comes to getting ready to go on trips?! It always feels like such a cluster!! No matter how organized I try to be in advance, I still end up with last minute errands. Cleaning out the fridge. Packing always takes forever?! The house always ends up in disarray and I attempt to get it cleaned up before we go. The hot tub needs chemicals. The trash has to go out. Charlie the dog needs his stuff situated for the dog sitter. I putter around getting toiletries and ibuprofen and chargers gathered up.
Is this just me???? I really love to travel, but sometimes all the prep is a real turn off!! (although it definitely felt overall easier to pack for this “short” 1 week trip vs our common 2 week trips. There’s also more pressure to make sure nothing gets missed when it’s 2+ weeks, I feel, also. Eg accidentally leave food in the fridge for a week? Eh, probably ok. 2 weeks? Probably not…)
At 5:00 Asher was all ready for Homecoming. So handsome!
He and his friends took pics at a friend’s house at 5:15. I have a bunch of adorable pics, but I’m too lazy to block all their faces on more than a couple.
Once he and friends were off for their dinner reservation (many of them are actually sophomores, so there were some drivers among them, even though Asher is only a freshman…), I stopped at Walgreen’s for a pack of press on nails and then got home to finish packing!!
By the way, I did find some shoes. It was not super easy to find a low heel + shoes that would arrive in only a few days, but David’s Bridal website came to my rescue.
Here’s what I ended up with:
I think they’ll be good! I wanted something with a little sparkle or pizzazz, since my dress is a little more simple/plain.
Asher actually ended up sleeping over at his friend’s house after Homecoming, which I was not originally on board with, because we had to leave for the airport by at least 4 am!!
But I finally agreed that I would just pick him up super early Sunday morning and made him set multiple alarms in front of me so I could ensure he would wake up. (I was worried that he would stay up super late, finally crash at 2:30 am or something and then be in a dead sleep and would turn off his alarm…. Meanwhile I envisioned me and Ethan and cousin outside waiting, and me not wanting to ring the doorbell to wake the whole household at 3:50 am….)
Sunday (Day 1)
I woke up at 2:50 am on Sunday to get ready to go and we left the house by 3:45. My nephew (also coming with us) got to our house Saturday night. We swung by for Asher, who fortunately did wake up in time and slipped out their exposed basement window! (lol), and got to the airport a little bit after 4.
It was all smooth sailing from Madison to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Mexico City.
By noon we were in Mexico City! I had zero issues of any kind traveling solo with the 3 boys. Ahh, teens are not all bad. 😁
Their 13 year old cousin, who also lives in Madison, is really close with the boys and they all get along great. He has only been to Mexico actually once before, but to a different city with his family (not to Mexico City or Toluca), so it has been fun for us to “show him around”. 🙂
From the airport we went straight to Kalej’s grandparents house in Mexico City (Ivan’s aunt and uncle). Several other cousins etc were there and they made a big meal. We spent the whole afternoon/evening there.
I did generally okay after the very early morning (not typically a fan of those early flights! But the pricing was crappy and it was worth it this time to go for the earlier one). But by evening I started crashing and was eager to get back to Ivan’s parents’ house.
Traffic is SO bad in Mexico City. It mostly just makes me shake my head and silently think “I am glad I do not live here”.
Anyway, we finally made it back, after a much longer than necessary drive, and I called it a night!
Today (Monday, Day 2)
Today we were actually going to go back to Mexico City. I’ll spare you a long annoying story, but as usual, we had snaffus getting a rental car. Ivan had to go back to the airport today to get the car (yesterday we had to borrow his aunt’s car overnight ….).
On the way out of town we stopped for tacos de cecina!! The boys’ favorite and they wanted to have their cousin try them. He agreed- delicious.
Back to Mexico City… fortunately mid morning the traffic was much better.
We hung at his aunt’s house for a little while while Ivan went off to the airport to get the rental car. (His female cousin drove him to the airport on the back of her motorcycle which I was less than thrilled about… the motorcyclists here all seem to have a death wish the way they weave in and out of traffic. I am hoping she did not do that. In any case, they made it in one piece and he successfully got the car.)
The rest of us headed to the Basilica of Guadalupe (Ivan met us there once he got the car). If you read my Mexico posts from last Christmas, this will look familiar. We visited then (it was our first time there), but the extended family wanted to take Kalej (my nephew) to see it. So, we went again!
It was actually nice, because when we went last time it was Christmas week and was PACKED to the hilt. It was way less busy today.
At first I was like, eh, I don’t need to take any pictures – I took pictures last time, in December! But then I decided, well, that was that trip and this is this trip!
So, I took some more. 🙂
We again climbed to the top. I do love the views from up there. It’s a neat spot.
It was a most beautiful day, also.
The drive back to over by Ivan’s aunt’s house was at least 40+ minutes. I dozed off and took a much needed power nap.
We (our group included me, Ivan, the boys, cousin, Ivan’s brother (who lives by us in the U.S.), his mom, his aunt, uncle, and his cousin and her husband) all stopped for tortas.
The place is small so we took them to go, and then spent a few hours at his aunt’s house again. We finally headed back to Toluca and didn’t get there until almost 9:30.
Had some green tea and chatted a few minutes and now I’m in bed writing this and am about to go to sleep!! I am TIRED!
We’re having a nice time so far, and I’m happy it’s not cold like the last time we were here!!
Will check in again soon!
GRATEFUL KAE 
I was wondering how you are enjoying Mexico and it seems you and the family are in full vacation/family mode. love it!
I know that pre-travel could be stressful as there’s always something to do last minute, but trips are best investment ever, so I just try to enjoy while I can and endure the pre and post travel chaos gracefully.
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Yeah, it’s sort of just a necessary evil I guess!! It’s just especially hard when the rest of life doesn’t slow down to really allow that prep time (or recovery time)… and we are not always so good at allowing extra time surrounding our trips for that! (Like for Hawaii we flew the day after Asher’a graduation ceremony AND I worked the day before we left!!! 🤪)
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Oh lovely! I really love that cousin bond – I’ve got 4 cousins on my dad’s side and really wish T had that. 2 of my cousins had babies within a year of T, but everyone is in California and now that my parents’ have moved to Portugal, there’s not that draw back.
My husband’s siblings are much older so I’m closer in age to my husband’s nieces and nephews than I am to his brother, but that mean his kids are way older than T. He is obsessed with them though, and they are very sweet with him.
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Yes, it’s so awesome that they have this close cousin! My husband grew up very close to a few of his cousins and their relationship now is more like one of siblings. It’s really nice. I hope the boys always stay this close to this cousin! On my side I just have one sister and she moved far away, plus there’s a pretty big age gap between her kids and mine, so sadly it’s harder there to really foster those close relationships. But the kids still always have a blast when they do get together.
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it looks like you are having fun!!! For packing I have a list that I follow every time. It has places where you can tweak if you are going to a wedding vs a hiking destination. I also have a separate one for backpacking or car camping trips. Every time I just go down the list and it makes it so much easier than having to feel stressed because you may have missed something. Anything I can do to out my brain on autopilot is always a win for me.
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Yes, I always say I’m going to make formal packing lists and then I don’t! I feel like it’s not even exactly not knowing what to bring.. I get more tripped up/spend more time trying to sort out clothing. If I know for sure what the weather will be like, it’s much easier for me. But for like this trip, my MIL had said it’s been quite cool at night, but also warm and sunny other times… so I overthink how many warm vs cool items to bring, etc… hahaha.
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I get that! I have that built into my list. So I can just put in the number of days and weather and it populates the number of items. I also made one for hiking with food like this.
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Yay! Glad you all made it safely and are having fun. For me, getting ready for a trip is kind of like getting ready for Christmas. Every time I think of something I need to do, I think “No, it’s too early to do that yet.” Then suddenly the trip is the next day and I have 1000 things to do.
I love those shoes!!! I can’t wait to see photos of everyone all dressed up.
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Yes exactly!! The “it’s too early” thing is so true. I like to try to get my clothes mostly figured out in advance if I can, but I’m still USING many things right up until closer to the trip, so it’s not like I can really fully pack a week ahead, you know?!
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Oh, I’m always packed days ahead of time — and I still HATE the day before a trip. Now I just remind myself that I’m always glad I went, so I ignore my worried feelings the day before.
Thanks for “bringing us along” on your trip. I’m enjoying it immensely!
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It always works out and then I mostly forget about it those anxious feelings, but I would just enjoy it all more if it didn’t always feel like such messy cluster! I hate that “racing against the clock” feeling, I guess!
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Wow! You’ve had so. much. going. on.
I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from you for a bit and COMPLETELY FORGOT YOU WERE HEADED TO MEXICO. Like, I remembered, but then didn’t put two-and-two together.
Love the shoes. You’re going to look gorgeous in that combo ❤
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Haha, I know, it snuck up on me, too!!! And thanks- I think the shoes should be good! They were only like $34.99 which isn’t bad, either! I definitely didn’t want to spend a ton on sparkly silver shoes I probably won’t wear too often… haha.
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I think pre-travel is especially hard when you are doing it all by yourself! Phil does most of the pre-travel “getting the house ready” work because I pack for the boys. We have never taken a long vacation since our honeymoon, so it’s less work for us since we are usually only gone for a max of 4 nights. It’s trickier when you need to take out the garbage, etc. Plus we do not have a pet which further complicates things. But I love that feeling of getting to the airport and just enjoying the excitement of the trip!
The authentic Mexican food all looks delicious! But your days have been so long between the early mornings and then sort of later nights (well late for me – getting home at 9:30 = late for me since I typically have my lights off by then).
Today is my last day of work for the week. Paul and I fly to DC tomorrow mid-morning. So today will be a mix of working + packing. But I’m really excited for the trip as Paul is very easy to travel with and just pretty easy overall to be around. So it will be like a true vacation to go somewhere with him.
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We often are both working right up until close to when we leave for our trips (like day before…), so Ivan often is literally not around to help with much until the night before. It’s harder when it’s a case like this where I wanted to also make sure my hair was cut recently, I wanted a pedicure to make my toes look decent in open toed shoes, etc. And, it never fails that I need some cosmetic item or need a new travel contact solution or something!! Before beach trips I’ll sometimes get a spray tan, which requires planning/time as well… just so many time sensitive things!
I’m so excited for your trip with Paul! I hope you guys have the best time. 🙂 He’s probably so pumped about this special 1:1 time with mom (not to mention auntie and cousin time).
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Gorgeous photos! I’m glad you are having fun!
You are not alone. I feel like no matter how carefully I prepare for a trip, I am ALWAYS scrambling at the last minute. Part of that is because some things are just… last minute. I can’t take out the trash any earlier than right before we leave.
But also, you only had ONE WEEK in between travel experiences, and it’s not like your regular life stopped during that time! So you were cramming in regular life, plus recovering from travel, PLUS preparing for travel into a tiny space! YIKES! I’m glad you are there and it’s going well and soon you will be on the other side of this travel extravaganza!
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Exactly! So many things just can’t really be done until right before (like the garbage, certain house tasks, cleaning fridge out, etc..) I also can’t usually pack many items that I’m still actively using! And it’s not like the weekend before a trip the rest of life all stops so I can just get ready, lol!! This is the first time in a long time I’ve had travel so close together… definitely added another dimension…
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I agree with you and Suzanne, no matter who much you prep, time you set aside, it’s always a cluster to get out of the house for a trip. It’s just part of the process, sigh. Loving the style of your wide legged jeans–where are they from?
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I always have this fantasy of leaving the house in tip top shape, all perfectly clean and with made beds etc to come home to… yeah, that very rarely, if ever, happens. 😅 oh well….
The jeans I bought last year after being repeatedly taunted by a Facebook ad for Up West… I think they may have gone out of business though!! Not sure.
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