Hello! Katie was horribly ill last night and today (she wants me to be graphic, but I will spare you the details) so I am back on blogging duty! I got up with the kids about 6:30, knowing that Katie had been up and down all night. She let me know in no uncertain terms that she would not be going to class today. No problem, except that Drew had a fever and a cough as well. I was worried because this apartment is too small for two sickos, so I dosed up Drew and stuffed him full of food. By 7:30 his fever had started to drop some and he was a much happier little boy so I thought we could risk him at daycare. I want to take a moment to thank Jimmy Parker, our adopted student. Jimmy is a 26 year old college student from San Antonio whose group fell apart. He still wanted to come to Monterrey so he came down by himself and got added in to our group. Not an easy situation, but he has done a great job. Anyway, he let me use his cell phone as an emergency contact in case one of the sickos worsened, but luckily, that didn't happen. Classes were pretty good today. In business Spanish, we worked on the imperfect subjunctive and talked about using conditional phrases with the pluscamperfecto tense. Fascinating stuff, I know :) Katie was really bummed about missing today's history class. We were studying the presidencies of Portilla, Madrid and Gortari (1976-1994). Gortari, especially, was interesting. He is widely regarded as the worst president in Mexican history. And that is saying a LOT! Assasinations, selling off state companies to his friends, etc. Good stuff! One weird thing...at the end of class, the professor (who we really like) had us all go around the room and talk about what we thought of the class. I don't know if that is customary down here or if he was just looking for an evaluation, but it was a weird vibe. We have our final papers due tomorrow along with our final exam so I don't know how honest everyone was with him! Ooosh! (Sorry, that is one of the sound effects he makes all the time in class and I had to put it in for Katie :) After classes, I skipped lunch and went back to check on Katie. She looked much better (human, even). I had bought her some gatorade and an assortment of crackers so she had a little to eat and then went back to sleep. I went to pick up the kids and, to give her a little more time to rest, decided that we would visit the Mexican baseball hall of fame, which happens to be located next to the brewery that we visited last week. So we took a cab over there (I am going to miss having cheap cabs around at my beck and call. Some of them are scary, but it is so convenient! And you never have to worry about getting lost. Just wander wherever you want, then have a cab take you home!) Jared was very impressed by the staues outside the Hall of Fame, although he did want to know who those other guys (Fernando Valenzuela, Hector Espina, etc.) were with Babe Ruth, Cy Young, etc. :) He did a pretty good job when we got inside, also. Even though he didn't know any of the Mexican teams or players, we were able to talk about some crossovers (Did you know that before African Americans were allowed in MLB, lots of the stars like John Gibson played half the year in the Negro league and then the other half of the year in the Mexican league?) as well as comparing what was going on in the major leagues at the same time. Both boys liked the interactive area best, though, as you can probably tell from the videos in the smilebox. There was a batting cage, a simulated pitchers mound, and even a small scale stadium with a tee ball set up for the little ones. (Jared was hopelessly overmatched in the batting cage. He must have taken fifty swings without making contact, but had a good time, anyway :) The whole thing was very well done! We got back around 6:00 and I made dinner for the boys (Katie had a sprite and more saltines). After that Jared and I had to go out and play catch for an hour or so. Then I came back and got the kids (and Katie) showered and put to bed. As soon as I finish this I am going to work on my history essay for tomorrow and some grammar exercises for the other class. I have been doing some extra grammar work to try to catch up (most of our kids are native speakers so staying ahead in the grammar is my only advantage), but I will probably skip it tonight. Tomorrow we start packing...