Another morning walk and lessons learned

The next morning, we woke up before 7:00 am.  Does Dad not realize this is our vacation?!  But it's a good thing we got up so early because 4 hours later after we finally finished our walk, we were sweating!

This is an all-inclusive resort called "The Coco's".  They have five very colorful buildings.  I checked into renting a room over Christmas break for the kids and ALL five buildings were completely booked for that time!

We walked up the mountain to the cross that you saw in a picture from my last post.  It was closed for remodeling, but we were able to get this close.  The Catholics will stop at each station.  I'm assuming they are praying to or for the saint at that station.  If you know, please enlighten me.  I forgot to ask our Mexican amigo.

The sun is rising...

The beach and the mountains

We walked on around the mountain and went to another little village.  It was so much smaller and dirtier.  But we did find some beautiful flowers while we were there.

I love this color combination

Beautiful yellow!

I loved how simple, yet how beautiful this was.  I stopped in front of a wall of a courtyard to get this picture,

When I stood up, a lady was waving at me.  I told Jodi "Uh oh, we're busted... hurry, let's get out of here!"  We kept walking and she started hollering at us.  He he!  She wanted us to come inside her courtyard and take pictures.  She spoke no English but we figured out that's what she wanted.  She had the biggest grin on her face.  Her little pepper plant...

Against her house

This is a fountain that she turned on for us.  The water trickled down into the pool

The lady's daughter was following us all over and smiling so big.  We asked if we could take her picture.  By the time we were leaving her courtyard, five other kids were out there following us around.

Lovely pink!  Cora, I need to learn how to texturize photos like you do.  I think this one would be so pretty with texture.

This "hut" is actually a garage.  I thought the greenery and flowers were beautiful.

A close up of the pretty pink flowers

By this time, Dad and Daryl had gotten tired of our often picture stops so they left us to walk back on our own.  We took a different route going back home.  We walked along the beach.

Ah yes, more pelicans.  He he!

Flying low...

Walking through the mountains and along the beach this morning woke me up to God's beautiful creation all around me.  I was in constant amazement at the beauty in every turn.  Yet... as you look around at the people that live there, the things they live in, the cars they drive that look like they will break down any minute, the kids that look like orphans in raggedy clothes and covered in dirt from their head to their toes..  you feel like you are in two different countries at one time.  I'll be honest.  My first few days there, I was looking at the filth and saw filth.  I couldn't believe people lived in so much dirt!  I'm grateful that God softened my heart while I was there and woke me up to the real beauty that was all around so I could see how precious ALL of His creation is!!  Look at that sweet little Mexican girl.  Did she get to pick when and where she would be born and live?  Did she pick a tiny house with many people on a dirt road?  No, God put her there.  He put her and me and you where He needs us to fulfill the plan and purpose He has on our life and the lives of those around us.  When I finally came to this conclusion, I realized how grateful I am to serve a God that has something grand in store for me, something grand in store for that precious little Mexican girl.  That precious little Mexican girl that probably doesn't even have a clue how dirty her clothes are because she is looking past the outside appearance and bashing this world with a beautiful smile.  Shame on me for not being able to look past the dirt.