Off to the Yucatan! First Impressions of Merida

December has come and the time has come for our year of planning to be implemented again!  This year is special in that Alejandra will be joining the rest of the gang for the first portion of the trip before returning to college.  Grandparents, Mike and Irm, will be in tow, along with our special guests, Tante Silke and Onkel Klaus from Germany!  So there will be some new faces in the photos.

The plane ride from Michigan was long, and made a little more difficult in that Juliana was suffering from a fever.  She slept most of the flight, putting on a brave face when we went through immigration and customs in Mexico City, before embarking on the last leg of our trip into Merida. 

The house that will be the base of our operations for the first half of the trip, is a beautiful home in the town center, and walking distance to a small market, the Paseo de Montejo, and the main center square.  We spent Christmas Eve filling the fridge and pantry from the Market yummies, and then headed into town to poke our noses into shops and churches that were open on the holiday!  We found a wonderful ice cream parlor that sells locally made sorbet of all sorts of fruit flavors.

 It was so wonderful, we went back on Christmas Day for an ice cream encore after each child opened a Christmas Day gift.  Personally, I don’t know if I’ll ever assimilate Christmas in shorts, but it was nice to enjoy a Christmas brain freeze in lieu of a nose freeze.

On Christmas afternoon, we bid a temporary farewell to Alex, who flew to Mexico City to visit his grandfather who had taken gravely ill.  And the following day, we awaited the arrival of Klaus and Silke, who would otherwise complete our group for this trip!