Guest Blogging!

Make a Smilebox photobook

Katie is taking the day off, so I have been enlisted for blogging duty. It worked out anyway, since I took the kids on an outing today (more on that later).

This morning was a great morning, probably the coolest it has been since we arrived. I took the kids to daycare about 7:15 and it was actually "crisp." Awesome! The business Spanish class was a little disorganized today, but the history class was great. We are studying modern Mexican history and got to learn about this huge student uprising in 1968 that I had never even heard of. It is amazing how little I really know about Mexico. After class we came back to the apartment to get ready for the trip.

I have been planning to visit the Grutas de Garcia, a cave system about 25 miles outside of Monterrey. Well, with one thing after another, today was our first good opportunity. I took Jared out of daycare early and invited some of the kids to fill out the trip. Katie is not a fan of caves and it probably wasn't a great trip for Drew, anyway, so I ended up squeezing five girls in the van for the hour drive (that is right, 25 miles took about an hour. Love the roads and traffic in Mexico!).

We got there and I was pleasantly surprised. The whole rest area was new and well maintained. (In fact, they probably had the cleanest bathrooms I have seen in my three weeks down here!). Like I said, it was a cool day so we had a lot of fun playing on the playground equipment while waiting for our teleférico ride (that is a cable car to most of us) up to the top of the mountain where the cavern entrance is located. Once we got up there and were able to enter, it was just awesome. Jared was impressed by all of the stalactites, stalagmites and columns of rocks. He especially got into the game of trying to see the various shapes that have been identified in the rock formations. We spent about an hour being guided up, down, and around a series of caves before taking the teleférico back down the mountain and piling into the van. It was a great trip, but half the girls were so tired from spelunking that they fell asleep on the way back!

We got back around 6:00, collected Katie and Drew and headed out for dinner (I know that I am doing the blog for Katie today, but it wouldn't seem complete without a mention of food, right?) We tried a new restaurant and got some great service (a very nice waiter who tried to speak English while I tried to speak Spanish). He brought us all kinds of extra salsas, fresh limes, grilled onions, etc. to go along with some excellent steak tacos and quesadillas. It was one of the best places we have eaten while in Monterrey! On the walk back we stopped for at our new favorite ice cream place (of course). Drew started chanting "bite? bite?" before we even walked through the door :)

Jared and I played some catch afterwards while Drew and Katie got cleaned up. Jared's arm is getting stronger and he is doing well with pop ups as well. He is still a little afraid of the ball when I throw short hops, but given the unpredictable ground we are playing on I guess I can't blame him too much for that. All of the people walking around the park are really impressed by Jared. They frequently come over and compliment him on his "beisbol."

Cola de caballo

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Wow. We are exhausted. I am just going to post these pictures so you can see how sleepy Drew was after the trip, Jared on his pony and of course the waterfalls themselves. Everyone else is asleep and it is only 8:52 pm. I am still up because I was finishing my grad work for this week and am talking to a friend on IM. I think I will have to edit this tomorrow morning...

OK it's Sunday morning now. I slept in until about 10 am. Jared and Drew woke up around six. Wow. Eric took them on a walk and then Drew took a nap around 9. He is still asleep.

So yesterday we got to the school around 10. My kids were all there. There was another group that was going to go so we thought we could just share the same bus. We had to drive slowly up to the waterfalls. Most of it wasn't due to the winding roads but to the super slow speed limits in some of the places we drove through. No big deal, we drove up into the mountains and it was really pretty. Drew slept a little on Eric on the drive up there. Once we got closer to the waterfalls we were on some really tight curves. Of course there were houses and little stores right on the edge of the road so it was pretty wild driving there. There is a really nice hotel up there and I wouldn't mind staying there! We walked over to the entrance and we saw we had options of how we got up the mountain. We wanted to ride horses but all of the horses had been taken by students so we were just going to ride up in a little cart. As it turns out, there was one horse left and one pony so Jared and I rode those. I rode the horse and he rode the pony- just for clarification.

The waterfalls are magnificent. No other word to describe them. Just beautiful. The water was so clear too. Nice breeze too. There was a little food stand up there and I found my Precious POFFETS! My favorite cheese popcorn that is nearly impossible to find. I have looked in every store, tienda etc. trying to find that stuff and when I saw it at that stand in the mountains, I about passed out. I seriously bought 14 bags and left two. Nice of me huh?

So we rode the little horses down the hill and then walked over to where my kids were thinking about bungee jumping. I would NEVER do that of course but my kids well, they are a little different. Claudia decided she was going to jump. Sooooo... we watched. Of course we are in the sun most of the time and since we are in the mountains we are even closer to the blasted sun than we were just in Monterrey. So yeah it's hot. She jumps and it was great and I was relieved it all went well. Then it was time to head for the bus. Well an hour and 15 minutes later we finally get everyone on the bus. I was beyond irritated because the other group just decided to dilly-dally and well, that wasn't ok. We hadn't eaten lunch and the heat was taking its toll on me and on Drew. GRR. My kids weren't perfect either and I let them know it. They KNEW better than to even say anything when they got on the bus.

On our way down the mountain Drew decided to puke up everything all over Eric. No, really ALL OVER. So we got Drew cleaned up and Eric couldn't get that clean and so he wore puke covered clothes the rest of the way. That is a real badge of fatherhood right there.

We went to a market called Los Cavazos and we ate there and shopped. Eric, Jared, Drew and I went to a different buffet place than most of the others. Man was it good. My dad would have LOVED it there and would have made food fool of himself there. It was that good though. Even Jared had a lot to eat there. Drew was "ok" but didn't really eat anything. We went shopping but it was sooooo hot it was miserable. Eric tried to find some clothes he could change into but for some reason there weren't any extra tall shirts. HMM We made it back to the bus and got cooled down and headed back to town. Drew fell asleep on me and slept most of the way back. Thankfully the bus driver dropped us off at the apartments.

After a little while the boys ate dinner and everything was good until Drew threw up again. YUCK. He had been in here sitting on me but then he got up to see Daddy. Whew! I think he was just overheated, too tired and all that good stuff. We all went to bed very early and passed out. It was a very good trip though. I highly recommend it.

Week one is done!

Well today was a good day. It was Friday of course! We had our classes and then we met up at school at 3 so we could go on our first excursion. It was just our group so that was kind of nice. We had picked up the boys at 2:30 so we could be at school in time. Drew had only about an hour to nap. Oh well- it's better than nothing!

Our excursion today was to the planetarium. We had a decent drive and got to see more of Monterrey and that was nice too. We were in the ritzier part of town. The planetarium was in a really pretty part of town and there were a lot of trees. It was set up like the Science Place in Dallas and we had a guide go through the areas with us. It was much better than the Science Place and the kids really enjoyed the exhibits. I could only think of Mr. Flint and how much fun he would have with all of this crazy science stuff! The kids all played (including the big kids) with everything and then they watched an IMAX movie. Drew was not having any of that so we went outside. There are fish tanks in the entryway and we looked at fish first, then went outside. There were some outdoor science exhibits too (pictures above) and we had fun playing with those. His favorite area was the botanical gardens. It was so pretty and the breeze was blowing and the weather was just great. So we chilled for awhile and he played and played. The other kids got out of the movie and joined us outside. Jared tweaked his arm on one of the exhibits. He told me he tore his arm. He is fine and it only lasted 2 seconds but that is when I took that picture. Boy did he have fun with the kids. They hadn't seen the big kids for a few days so it was a good reunion. They had a blast as you can see from the pictures. We didn't leave there until 6:30. Bunch of traffic on the way home so we didn't get home until late. We walked back through the school and that is when we saw the baby ducks. Jared thought those were awesome. They were soooo cute walking through the grass. We also saw the peacocks again and Jared was very surprised to see one just walking next to him like no big deal. He did not get to see the deer though. He did get some money for PawPaw though and he had a death grip on it. Jared talked to Kyle tonight and he talked the whole phone card so that was awesome. I talked to Mom after the boys went to bed.

Tomorrow morning we will meet back at school at 10am for our city tour. It will be 4 hours and we have lunch built into there. I am excited about this and 10am shouldn't be too bad. The buses are not school buses either but the nice buses with air conditioning. The Tec doesn't do anything 2nd class! So we will have the afternoon and evening free- and all of Sunday too. I have 3 journal articles to write and need to take my final. I think I will do that tomorrow so I will have a six day break before my next class starts.

We have homework for history too. We have a 3-4 page essay (typed) that is due Monday, 3 "debate" questions and to study for our test on Monday. Should be interesting. Today's business class was awesome. We did skits and they were all very good. The teacher was very impressed with how easily the kids spoke in front of the class. I told her yesterday that they were used to doing that since they had to do that for me all the time (part of the AP Lang test requires them to speak formally for 2 minutes over a topic they find out about 5 minutes beforehand). So she was very pleased. Kids incorporated a lot of the new vocabulary they had learned as well.

The kids are very excited about the trip. Some went out last night to that school sponsored Salsa class and had a good time meeting new people. I am very proud of how they handle themselves. They are very pleased with how much they have learned this week even though it has been a long and tiring week.

I know this is long but there was a lot going on today! When we went to pick up the boys we spoke with the owner. She told us how friendly the boys are and how quickly they have fit in with everyone else. Drew made a little thing for Eric for Father's Day. It has his huge handprint (Drew's, not Eric's) and it says, "Papá a bordo" which means "Dad on board". It even has the suction cup to put it on the window. I was touched.

Well I guess this is long enough. I better get to bed. Drew went to bed early without much dinner so I bet he will be up early!

:) I don't like how the pictures ended up on this post but I can't do anything to fix it!!!