e and I had an amazing opportunity to visit family in Mexico City. What an adventure! we had a blast seeing art and broadening our world view as we learned about the Mexican culture. We ate delicious food. We had perfect weather during our visit. it would rain a little each night, so we had no pollution, but blue skies every day for our excursions. We met very nice people and took a lot of pictures. my photos are supplemented by family's, thank you to them!
so. head's up. there are a lot of pictures. I'm keeping this blog for me to enhance my memories, so i won't apologize to any of you readers about the large amount of photos. i wasn't interested in buying any souvenirs for me, although we did get a couple for e. i told everyone that the photos were my souvenirs, so here they are.
an additional note of gratitude that my little camera survived a fall of 15 feet on the pyramids. the display was broken, but the SD card full of photos remained functional for the trip!
we all came in on red eye flights. had some bleary eyed breakfast and Grandma and Grandpa's little pink casa house.
Grandpa was just wonderful to hire a very nice Mexican brother Benjamin to drive us all over the city. that way we could all relax. Benjamin was so helpful in so many ways. he told us about the sites we saw. he taught us Spanish words and phrases and helped with translation. He was pleasant and funny and remembered everyone's names. he helped with bargaining for souvenirs. He also was an amazing driver. I don't remember ever seeing such intense traffic with loose rules. along with that, I've never been to such a densely populated city before. no grass between the houses, just built touching each other. children used playgrounds that were next to busy roads because that's all the play space that was available. 
As were were all jet lagged, we spent the day floating down the canals at Xochimilco (So-che-milco) You can buy a song from the vendors, as we did here. you can buy roasted corn for cousin S (previous pic).
The Island of the Dolls
The canals are left from what was an extensive lake and canal system that connected
most of the settlements of the Valley of Mexico. These canals, along with
artificial islands called chinampas, attract tourists and other city residents
to ride on colorful gondola-like boats called “trajineras” around the 170 km
(110 mi) of canals.
taking a break to find a banyo (toilet). standard procedure is cost of 5 pesos each person and don't flush the paper. lots of greenhouse nurseries because of the water.
we were in the sun a lot this trip. fortunately E did not get sunburned.
walk through a market
grandma got some radishes
E liked this flower display and the baby animals in the next shot. 
so many merchants making fresh tortillas as we walked past! amazing.
When we ate at the commodore (cafeteria) at the Missionary Training Center (CCM), we dressed as the missionaries do.
The two doctors on staff to serve these young folks.
Grandpa's office.
shopping for snack food at the Tienda (store)
Wow, these are great pictures!
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