and El Paso and Arizona. In celebration of Steve's graduation and our upcoming two year anniversary, we decided to take a trip. We had the opportunity to spend a week along the southern border of our country and we had a great time. We started the trip flying in to Tucson and driving straight to El Paso. Here, we were able to stay with my friend Sahalie for a couple days, which was fabulous because we hadn't seen each other since Christmas. While there, we traveled a little south to Socorro, one of the areas Steve served in on his mission. We knocked on doors trying to track down what had happened to a few different families. Finally, we found one family he taught and visited with them for a couple hours, (well, Steve visited with them while I listened intently trying to grasp as much of the conversation as possible.)
After a couple days in El Paso, we headed back to Arizona for the Gila Valley Temple open house. The original purpose of this trip was to go to Steve's mission reunion, but it quickly morphed into many other things, and we didn't even end up making it to the reunion. When we got to the temple, we were just going to take the tour and then go visit people, but as we were walking in, we ran into Steve's mission president and were able to visit with him and his wife for a little while. After the tour, we found out that they were doing Spanish tours that night. As we were walking out, we ran into people from three different areas that Steve taught in, people that Steve had been trying to get a hold of and hadn't been able to. After visiting with all of them for a little while, Steve realized that this may be the only opportunity he'd have to go through the temple with someone he'd baptized. So we headed through the tour a second time, this time in Spanish! After the second tour, we headed over to another woman's house who Steve had taught before leaving the Gila Valley.
The next day, we went to church up in Sierra Vista. This was a very small Spanish branch, but luckily, most people spoke English too! After church, we visited a couple more families in the area. At one house, I got to try minudo (a traditional Mexican soup with cow stomach) for the first time. I must admit that it was not my favorite. It didn't taste bad, it was just more of a texture and visual dislike. After eating a couple dinners in Sierra Vista, we headed to Tucson to visit one more family. It was a really great experience for me to be able to meet so many of the different people that Steve taught on his mission, and see the difference he was able to make in their lives. They were all so caring and wanted to give you anything they possibly could. I was able to meet some truly amazing people and learn a lot more about Steve's mission and Steve was able to reconnect with some of the people he had become so close to. It was a great experiece.
After we finished with all of the mission visiting, it was on to the real vacation. We were able to go down to an amazing resort in Rocky Point, Mexico with two of Steve's brothers. The weather was perfect, the resort was beautiful, we were able to relax and just really have a great time! Other than just laying around on the beach and at the pool, we spent a day out on the Sea of Cortez fishing! I hadn't ever really been fishing before, but I was lucky enough to catch the first fish, and it was definately lucky because it was hours before I caught another one and I probably would have gotten discouraged if I hadn't already caught one. After a few days there it was time to go home. I think we were all sad to leave and get back to real life, but I was definitely grateful for the much needed vacation before this little baby comes.
*Steve did catch bigger fish than that, that just happened to be the first one he caught. :)
