Witnessing their first travel adventure
This year has been a bit paradoxy, time wise. Part of me cannot belive we are already in December and the other part feels like it has been a long year. Much like life here at the Ranch, this year has been packed with changes that it feels like it’s been forever. One of those changes was back in March, when we were blessed to have a new staff member join our team. It was God’s perfect timing, another caregiver was having to move on to what God had next for her. The lady that arrived, grew up in this ranch and by God’s sovereignty she was able to come back and serve now as an adult. She and I hit it off and became close friends. After being in quarantine for a few months when our time came to get some time off, she and I took a vacation in Cancun. Have to say it was nice to have someone to share some adventures with. It had been a while since I had had an accomplice. Neither of us thought we’d ever go back to Cancun, but low and behold it turned out we did…for her wedding. She had gotten engaged before our vacation and just got married in November. We are grateful that both her and her husband have graciously accepted staying for a bit here at the Rancho serving.
One of our objectives as we try to raise these kids, is for them to get as many life experiences as possible. Traveling has a way of opening new “worlds” to us all. So when this opportunity arose to travel, we had to consider the possibility of having some of them travel to the wedding with the bride & groom’s blessing. After much deliberation, gettings approvals and all that, it was decided that three of our teenage girls could accompany me to the wedding. As you can imagine, the girls were exctatic….as was I, truth be told. Not so much for the trip (though who would’t want to go back Cancun!), but it excited me to see them experience this whole new adventure.
I booked our flights, airbnb, and planned most of the details for the trip. I am so grateful for all my dear friends who are all so quick to offer help and are generous with their resources. A dear friend of mine, got all excited and blessed the girls with swimsuits, clothes for the wedding and the beach along with other things. We flew out on a Wednesday and it took us practically the whole day to get there. I am so proud of our girls, they were so patient with all the stuff we had to have them wear and do. I know we may not all agree on whether these measures help or not, but when the life of someone else is “in your hands”, you do it just in case.
We were blessed to stay at a place that had access to the beach. So on our first day, after breakfast we packed lunch and headed out to the beach. We had been watching the weather and it had been raining everyday, so we were praying for good weather so that they’d be able to enjoy the beach. Well, God really spoiled us. It did rain and was cloudy but it mostly rained when we were indoors. Our first morning, it looked like it had rained earlier and it was cloudy. Once we got to the beach, the sun started to come out. We were all day at the beach and when we were heading to our room to shower and change, it began raining only to stop when we were heading out for some shopping and dinner.
The beach by our place, had lots of shells. So they gathered some, and it touched my heart that their first thought was to gather some for all the kids back home. Being from the desert, we are NOT swimmers. One of them does not yet know how to swim, as for the rest of us, we would say we won’t drown. The waters were a bit rough and there were rocks on the shore making it uneven for them to get in and feel safe. So they only got wet for a bit and then sun bathed.
Having been there earlier in the summer, I knew of another beach that was very calm and the water was not high at all, so after a couple of hours we went there instead. It was a good call even though the water did not seem as blue and pretty as the other place. We got to rent a canoe, and a surf board. Turned out one of the girls is quite the adventurer. So we did that, and I tried to teach one of them to float and swim. It was a fun afternoon.
Collecting Shells
The following day, was quite full of activity. We went to an island off of Cancun and got to snorkel, feed fish & turtles, enjoy the beach, and ride a golf cart, which got a flat tire that turned into a whole different kind of adventure. Although, it was an exhausting outing, they did very well. Since this day was also the birthday of one of them, we got all dolled up in the evening and went out for dinner to celebrate.
On our third day, we had the wedding. I am one of those people that wants to take advantage of every second and I had to enjoy the beach as much as I could. I knew the girls were tired so I got up early and went for a walk on the beach, swam (more like stayed afloat), and enjoyed some quiet time. I got back and and had breakfast with the girls. Turned out they also wanted to go for a little walk on the beach…now I could not waste another opportunity could I?! As we walked, one came out with a game of trying not to get wet by the waves, of course we lost more than we’d care to admit. Then they could not resist it anymore, and asked if they could get in. Mind you they were not wearing their swimwear, but I am not a stickler for things like that so I just warned they might have to do without those clothes since they might not dry out in time. And off they went splashing around.
The wedding was simple and elegant. It was a lovely ceremony, and an honor to witness the joining of these two people. The girls loved it all. Well, the time to throw the bouquet came. The girls and I were the only single ones there (and just my luck…no single eligible men LOL just kidding, at least about my luck cause there really were no single men) and these girlies made me catch the bouquet. For you my dear friends who have not lost hope on my marrying maybe this will encourage you to keep on praying…maybe there is still hope for me. 😀
We got back to our room late that night and we had an early flight the following morning. The following day, we had an eight hour lay over in Monterrey, so thankfully I found this huge park with different activities. Within this park, there were a couple of amusement parks. We opted for one that had ziplining. It also had lots of birds and other animals, we ended up using most of our time there. We did do the zipline, and my adventurer went for a bicicle ride on a line. Had my heart speeding all the time, till she got back to us. After that, we had dinner and headed back to the airport.
It was such a priveledge to live this experience with them. Pondering about my life, for some reason I was not naturally adventurous when I was a teenager. Somehow I kind of felt like an odd ball, and so I would not venture out and do crazy or silly things because I did not want to stand out. Don’t know if it’s an age thing or what but I’ve reached the point were I don’t really care about making a fool out of myself. (Actually I belive God freed me of all that insecurity, but I’ll leave that for another post). All this to say, as the girls looked for me to know if they should venture to do things, I was really aiming to encourage them to go for it and not be afraid of looking or being silly. Whether it was going into the ocean with their pijamas or trying to stand on the surfboard and falling a million times.
Even though they really enjoyed themselves, they were actually happy to be back. It encouraged my heart to hear them express their love for this place. For it is our home, at least for now.
