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."

Plaza Sésamo

Oh my goodness can you say HOT? The boys got up at some awful hour and Eric took them out. Drew came back for a nap and then I got up. We went to Plaza Sesamo today. It is a combination theme/water park. It was Hot. I don't think Drew or I had recovered from yesterday but I really wanted to go. It was something we had talked about before we left Irving and today was the last day available that we could really do it- so off we went.

I couldn't handle the heat so I had us go to the waterpark after a few minutes. Drew thought it was the coolest thing so we were pretty pumped. He had never been in a water park before and this was the kiddie area. Eric and I took turns going on water rides with Jared. That was a lot of fun. The last time we were at a water park was when I was pregnant with Drew and I couldn't go on any of the water rides.

So it was all good until Eric left with Jared to go on some rides. Drew just melted down. He wanted in the water but only if I would hold him. I didn't want to do that the whole time and so he pitched a fit. Then he went hysterical and I had to just sit there and wrestle with him. I was already tired and I wasn't in the water so I was hot. Finally Eric and Jared came back and we got something to eat. Poor Drew was just wiped out so he and I came back to the apartment and Jared and Eric stayed and played. Drew slept for 3 hours. I slept for a little over an hour.

The boys came back at 4:30 and we played around here for a bit and Drew had some dinner. There was no puking today thank goodness! We went to the taco stand where we first had dinner that first Sunday night. Eric was really hankering for a real hamburger. So he ordered one and an order of tacos. Jared ordered a baked potato and I had tacos with mushrooms and bacon. Needless to say we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. We waited until 7 because that is when they opened but also when it is a more humane hour to be outside. It was downright pleasant. After dinner we went for some ice cream and that was delicious as usual.

The boys are in bed and I am finishing up these blogs and Eric is working on homework. I wrote my essay already for history class tomorrow... I still need to study though.

Today was our last Sunday here in Monterrey!!!

HOT

OK. Today was just plain hot. It got up to 107 that I saw. That is not including the heat index. That made it 109. Whoopdeedoo. This morning was not too bad but wow this afternoon that sun just made you HOT.
We had to go in early today because our teacher had an obligation last week and we missed an hour of the first class. So we are making it up a half our at a time. On the way to class today Eric saw the buck. He was just chilling in the grass and he looked great. I had to take the picture with my iphone so I couldn't zoom in really well. We also saw the fawn and its mom but I didn't take a picture of them. So cool. One of my kids lost their pre-paid lunch card so I took care of that during the first class. Got a new one for her and it will be active tomorrow. History class is covering soooo much this week it is a tad overwhelming when you break it down. I really enjoy the classes we are taking.

We picked the boys up from daycare and we came back to our apartment and a lot of the kids came by. Eric is working with 3 of them in a group and David came by to pick up his money. Drew loooooves Diana and wanted to leave with her but I wanted to go out to eat! So everyone left and we went to El Pollo Loco which is like a block from here. We have them in Dallas but I haven't been there before. Well we chowed down and it was relatively cheap for us to all eat there. $14 for chicken, tortillas, 2 drinks and fries. As you can see from the picture, Jared really enjoyed it. He gets corn tortillas at lunch at daycare so he knew to put his food in there. He had fun putting chips, chicken, fries all together in his tortilla. We ate outside... yes it was warm, but it was covered and there was a nice breeze. The bonus was we were right on the road so Drew could see his buses go by.

We walked to the Oxxo and Eric got an ice cream and Jared got a Twix. I got some weird breath mint that I thought was candy and just bit through it. It's cool but weird. Drew didn't get anything even though he did try to pull off everything from the shelves.

Boys are in bed now. Eric and Jared went to play catch again. That is a nice routine that they have. We watched some Mexican baseball game on tv too. Eric is going to go and study with his group and work on tomorrow's presentation.

Tomorrow after class we will get everyone packed up. Jared has his field trip and I am sure we will leave early afternoon. We don't know where we are going but hey- we got here just fine!!

Santa Lucia

Well today we had our classes and everything went well. Our history prof. told us about a place 30 miles or so from here that has good food and good shopping. HELLO! I want to go! We only had our business class for an hour today because the prof. had a previous commitment. We will make up the class in small increments so we don't have a 3 hour class.

I had tortas again for lunch. I brought them to the place we went yesterday and boy did they enjoy them! Good, cheap food. Tonight I mentioned to Eric that Dad would have made a pig out of himself in that place because he would have had to try a lot of them and then he would have ordered waaaay too much... Eric wasn't really hungry so he didn't eat with us. I came back and had a nap and then we picked up the kids. Brains are just full of class and Spanish and just the regular life here.

I started working on my homework for my grad class and the boys were bouncing off the walls. They had a great day at daycare and Jared ate his lunch! They were so happy they gave him a huge bag of candy. HMM. :) He really enjoys it there and so does Drew. It's about $539 a month for both of them- including 2 meals so that is a great deal. Anyway we decided to go exploring so we got a taxi and headed to downtown Monterrey. We didn't see a lot of the city, we went to the "riverwalk" of Santa Lucia. Those are the pictures I put on for today. It was really pretty- I liked it much better than San Antonio's Riverwalk actually. We did the boat ride. Before getting on the boat Drew kept acting like he was going to jump in the water. Yeah. No fear with that kid I swear. There are parks, flowers, fountains and art all along the way. It was beautiful and relaxing. Kids enjoyed the first part but on the way back they got a little antsy. We came home and saw some cool parts of the city along the way. Kids are now in bed and I am going to start working on my homework real soon... UGH I have a big assignment due tomorrow for the grad class and I am about halfway done. Oh well!