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...

Cola de caballo

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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.