Mexico, part 1

Well, we made it! And, we have an internet connection! The flights down here were remarkably easy - just two two and a half hour flights and we were in Guadalajara.

Then we took a taxi to where we're staying: the palatial home of some of Sacha's parents' friends. They are the parents of one of Sacha's best friends from high school and retired to live down here about a year ago.

Their house is huge, and it also has a little cottage on the grounds that we're staying in. There's a pool right in the middle of the courtyard and the house kind of spreads out around that. Long story short: it's gorgeous and welcoming and sunny. Yay! It's the rainy season here, but luckily it rains mostly at night. We've already done some exploring of the town, Ajijic, and that's been fun.

Everything is within walking distance, so we don't have to deal with public transit or a car or anything. And, our hosts have been more than happy to take us out in their car when needed. We all went to the public market in the next town over yesterday. The kids only lasted about five minutes, but we got to see all the people selling fruit and meat and all kinds of things.

Today, we decided to venture out by ourselves, so we walked about five blocks to a restaurant that our tour guide and our hosts recommended. There, I got what was quite possibly the largest Mexican hot chocolate ever made.

After that, we went to a kids' art hour at a local community center run by the huge ex-pat community that lives here. All the other kids were Mexican except for ours, and another little girl who was also visiting from the states.

I have to say, just to pat Sacha and myself on the back for a minute, that I'm proud that we've managed to get the kids down here so early in their lives. We really want them to know and be familiar with the Mexican side of their ancestry, and so far, we seem to be on the right path. Also, we'd like to live abroad for a year when the kids are older, so this is our first step toward that,

Mateo has been a bit shy, but happy to use his Spanish to talk to other kids and adults. The cutest example of this was when the four of us had been talking about our ages and then Mateo climbed up a huge slide at the local park and announced loudly that everyone should watch "the tres y medio (three and a half year old) go down the slide!"

Natalia has been very shy and has mostly wanted to be carried around in the Ergo, but she did some drawing at the art class today and has loved playing at the park. It's tough to have your routine shaken up at age two, so we think she's doing great.

Anyway, we're just taking things day by day, which is probably good, because we still have almost two weeks to hang out here. Still in the plans are horseback riding, lots of swimming, playing at the park, roaming the village, possibly visiting some nearby towns, and trying to relax as much as possible.

Finally, I thought I'd post a few photos of the amazing public art that is everywhere down here. Everything is brightly painted and everywhere you look, there are intricate little designs or paintings or murals.

Best laid plans

Well, our flooring plans have self-destructed. The supposedly wonderful flooring guy that our contractor was subcontracting to (I know, my grammar skills have left the building) has disappeared without a trace. Therefore, there will be no floor refinishing or carpet removing while we are gone. Except, thank goodness, in our entry room, which is what needs it most anyway. In that room, the carpet will be removed and some nice, classy, durable marmoleum will be put in. Then, after we get back, we'll work on finding a new flooring person and get the rest of the project done. We're both pretty disappointed about this turn of events, but it will all work out in the end, I'm sure.

Anyway, in happier news, we had a fun time at the park on Sunday. They had just installed a new climbing structure at one of our nearby parks and it was a hot day, so the water feature was in full swing, too. We all had fun, and both kids ended up soaked. We'd like to send out a big thank you to Megan and Apa, who took the kids through the water feature while Sacha and I stayed pleasantly dry :)

These three next ones are my favorite ones lately of my favorite three people.

Here's Mateo climbing on the new structure:

And, climbing on the older, more familiar, Apa structure!

Water!

Megan was such a good sport about running all around with the kids in the water feature.

I present Exhibit A:

I love how the water's hitting him from all angles in this one.

I've been thinking over Wendy's recent post (answering a question I'd asked about photography) and am thinking of making the first two photos of the kids in this post the centerpieces of some kind of family photography wall. Anyone have any thoughts on that? Or, any other favorites that I've posted? I really want to start printing and framing some of these, but get overwhelmed when I sit down to pick a few...

PS: We leave for Mexico for two weeks on Thursday, so blogging may be less or more frequent, depending on all sorts of things.

PPS: We'd like to send out HUGE congrats to our friends Lili, Ronnie, and big sister Eliza on the arrival of their new baby boy. We can't wait to meet him!!

New developments

The kids are doing all kinds of new things recently.  I went to acupuncture this morning and had some time to reflect while I was lying on the table (ahhh, relaxation!) and here's what I came up with:

1.  Mateo can ride his balance bike.  I think he could do a pedal bike if he wanted to.  He rode his balance bike all the way to a farther-away-than-our-usual-park today and home again.  He can really get going, he can balance with both feet off the ground, and he can even handle most bumps and going up and down driveways and curbs and such.  Thanks again to Bubby and Poppa for the gift!

2.  Natalia, despite our suspicions that she will be very quick to learn the balance bike thing herself, won't go near hers.  She prefers her little trike, although she's getting to be much too big for it.  One of these days, she'll be ready, so we're trying not to push.  It will be fun to watch her learn when she is ready, though.  I think she's gonna be a terror!

3.  Speaking of our little girl, she's doing a lot of talking these days.  She can speak in full sentences when she wants to (ie, "Can I see that?") and will tell you in no uncertain terms exactly what she wants.  She's learning her colors, numbers, ABCs, and pretty much anything else that comes her way.  Recently, both kids are learning about spiders, because it is spider season here.  All the baby spiders have hatched and are making webs all over everywhere.  It's best to go out with a stick or something in front of you in our garden, so as to catch all the webs before they and their spiders get you in the face!

4.  It's summer time and the living is easy.  Sacha's home, the kids are free from any structured activities, and we're having fun just making it up as we go along.  We did sign them up for swim lessons after we get back from our trip, but, for the most part, we're doing the slow summer thing.  We just wake up in the morning, talk about what we'd all like to do, and then we do it.  For the most part, I have the kids in the mornings and Sacha has them in the afternoons, so we can each have some time for ourselves, but we have plenty of family time, too.  What can I say, except that it's great to be married to a teacher!

5.  We are leaving for Mexico in less than a week!  While we're gone, we're planning to have half our house, which is currently covered with nasty, stained carpet, refinished with hardwood floors.  That means we have to move all our furniture to the other side of the house while simultaneously packing for our trip out of the country.  Good times!  Let's hope we arrive in Mexico with our sanity intact, and that the project actually does get finished before we get home.

6.  The hot weather is finally here.  Wahoo!  We're hoping to get some good berry-picking in after we get home.

7.  Sacha and I are going out with two other couples for dinner and a movie tonight.  A big group date!  The fact that we all got sitters for the same time and arranged this all was amazing, and we are looking forward to it.  We're looking forward to hanging out with some of our playdate friends and actually being able to have a conversation with each other, and also for the working spouses to get to know each other, too. 

8.  That's it.  Hope your Saturday is treating you well!

Editing and a find

I spent several hours today cutting down the load of digital photos on our computer. We have an external hard drive that backs up everything, but even so, most of the time we just forget about editing out the bad pictures once they're on the computer. Now, we only have 1,500 photos on the computer instead of about 3,500. Whew! Anyway, as I was going through, I found this great photo of Mateo and Apa from about a year ago. Such cute guys, and such a resemblance between them. Enjoy!

Storytelling

When my siblings and I were children, our dad would frequently tell us bedtime stories at bedtime.  He did read to us at other times, but these were original stories with a whole cast of characters, known as the Friends.  Most of them had alliterative names, including Sam Kitty (who started it all), Charles Chimpanzee (who lived on the moon), Walter Water Buffalo, and a whole bunch of other ones that I can't remember.  Edlyn and Galen might be able to help me out. 

 The only other characters I remember were the characters he let us name ourselves:  Bambi, Feline, and their kids, who were named Jackie, Janet, Jonathon, and Snow White.  The Friends had incredible adventures that often ended in cliffhangers, and they often traveled to Impossible Canyon and Implausible Mountain (if any of you know my dad, you will know that title is all him), as well sometimes to visit the moon.  My brother would usually sit on Dad's lap and get tickles during the times Dad needed a laugh from the peanut gallery.  We've been telling him for years that he should write down some of the plots, or even a complete list of characters and locations, because there were a lot.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when we came home from date night one night and Apa, unaware of the stories my dad used to tell, told us all about the original stories he'd been telling our kids before bed.  They, too, have a cast of characters with somewhat alliterative names, including Miracle the Chicken, Prudence the Pigeon, Fred the Fox, and some other ones I can't remember.  I'm sure Apa can fill them in in the comments, or at least I hope he will.  They've had some elaborate adventures and have become part of Mateo's daily imaginary life.  Fred the Fox is big right now, in particular.

I think it's very cool and some kind of good karma that our kids are getting similar original stories from Apa that I and my siblings got from our dad.  Now, if we could just get both of them to start writing them down! 

Garden

I just have to post some braggy shots of our garden in bloom.  We bought our house from two gay men who were obsessed with tropical gardening and who sold the house in a big hurry after a hard winter killed a few too many of their plants.  They also packed in as many plants as they possibly could, apparently not considering what would happen when all those plants grew to full maturity.  Although, they said they worked in the garden an hour per day (HA!), so maybe they had plans to groom things as they went along.  Anyway, the plants are growing and the flowers are blooming and we love it.  Here's what we're living with these days:

Bubbles

We had tons of fun with Catherine and Mekka this morning again, as they swung by for brunch and hangout time before they had to go to the airport.  I just have to brag about the brunch for a minute because it turned out so well:  waffles made from scratch, homemade strawberry sauce, real whipped cream, and then eggs with herbs grown in our garden.  YUM. 

Then, while Sacha and Mekka talked tech stuff, Cat and I and the kids played bubbles in the backyard for awhile.  The kids loved the bubbles and a new friend to enjoy them with, and I had fun taking photos of them all having fun. 

Here are a few of the bubble blowers!

Then, we finished off the evening with a wonderful dinner with Apa.  He brought over bratwursts and we barbequed with corn and all the fixins.  We had a really nice time together, even though our son did push some limits by peeing on the floor and then spilling his water glass.  The half years (he's three and a half) are rumored to be tough, so let's all hope he goes easy on us!

Sandy, busy day

We had a big day today!  Thanks to our summer schedule of trading mornings of who gets up with the kids, Sacha got up early and let me sleep in.  Then, I took Mateo out for a quick breakfast and park playdate with some of our friends from his preschool. 

After that, we rushed home to finish cleaning the house before our second event of the day:  our friends, Catherine and Mekka, from southern California were coming into town for a wedding this weekend.  Cat was coming over for coffee and then lunch and we were all very excited!  After lots of talking and LOTS of eating, we sent her on her way to the wedding and had naptime and workout time for me. 

 And then, I packed up the kids and we took a trip on the MAX train to Pioneer Courthouse Square, where they were having an event called Sand in the City.  Sacha and her parents took the kids two years ago, when Natalia was about 3 weeks old, and I stayed home to sleep.  I'm glad I went this time, though, because it was awesome.  One of the best things about having toddlers/preschoolers is that every part of an adventure is exciting for them. 

They loved waiting for the train, and riding it downtown!

Waiting for the train

Our local MAX station

They also, of course, loved the crazy sand sculptures.  I loved them, too.   Here are some of the coolest ones:

This castle was awesome!

These next two go out to Uncle Galen, who works in a mill and wears a hard hat every day!

We finished up at the dig pit for kids, at which both kids spent much time digging and piling and such.  They even buried my shoe.

It was kind of a madhouse...

This might look sideways, but it's really just my normal view of Tali from the top.  When we're out, if I'm not holding her, she's about 2 inches from me at all times...

I just can't get enough of her curls!

Finally, the Pioneer Courthouse itself!  It was built back in the 1800s.  The square next to it is called "Portland's Living Room" and always has cool events going on, as well as lots of homeless people hanging out.

We made it home on the train and now the kids are in bed.  We're thinking of watching our first episode of The Wire, so we'll see if we get hooked.  We also have to get the basement ready for cat living, because Yarn is going to be staying down there at the end of the month, while we're gone for two weeks and our floors are being refinished.  She's never even been to the basement, so we hope to acclimate her slowly.  Have a great weekend!

Photos from our trip, part 2

Continued...

We had lots of time for cuddles...

We explored the amazing garden at the camp

We got to feed the gigantic flock of chickens there

We drove up the mountain on the island and looked down...

...and up!  This was built by the CCC during the Great Depression

The kids loved the views from inside,

and we loved the views from outside!

Sacha and Mateo had bonding time

And so did the kids and I

All in all, we had a great time!