A Day in Cuernavaca

Pretty Pamela

After our day in MX City, we headed back to Cuerna.  The following morning we went to Pamela's 6th grade graduation.  Graduations are a big deal here.  The graduation was held at school, but the place was decked out and the kids had to dress up all fancy.  Their parents had to pay for their dresses and all of the decor.  I thought it was insane.  Of course they started late and the place was packed with not enough seats for all the people attending.  This wasn't only the 6th grade graduation, the younger grades also performed dances, as well as the 6th graders, and it was also an award assembly.  I think our family has ADD and decided to leave after about 45 minutes.  This event continued for another hour and a half.

The Ocampo's house.

We headed back to Chinito's to do laundry and coordinate our plans with the Romero's since they were staying at Karen's cousins's Karla's husband's sister's house.

Scooping out Nauhatl Art

Playing pretend

After chatting, we took off to El Zocalo and met up with the Romero's and Karla's sons.  We split up from the guys.  They were in search of a Chivas jersey for Arden and themselves, and the girls and I went to Cortes´s museum. They only found a Chivas jersey for Arden. It was a good size museum and we learned a bit.  Of course, for me, the highlight was Diego Rivera's mural.



Later, we met up with the boys for lunch.  However, Arden was feeling sick again, so Newel took him home to rest.  After lunch, we headed over to Teopanzolco...some small pyramids.  The girls loved putting on performances, playing princesses, and other pretending activities on top of the pyramids.  I thought it was really cute.  Also, what made these pyramids interesting is that some of the smaller ones were circular...all of the other pyramids we've seen have been rectangular.

The pyramids

A serious futbol match

After our pyramid excurtion, we took a taxi back to Karla's place and Newel met up with us to play futbol.  He had been wanting to play futbol. So they gathered the neighorhood kids and put on a game.   It was quite a hectic game, yet exciting and dangerous.  I was worried I was going to get hit several times as I tried crossing the street.  Newel was loving it.  After the game, HB and Newel bought the kids some beverages, to quench off their thirst.  It was a great way to end our day.

Teotihuacan and Xochimilco

This is our 3rd time visiting Teotihuacan, so I didn't take too many photos.  However, at the park entrance, they've set up a small museum and the hands on activity was having a virtual mask of some major god.  It was pretty fun.

At the top

We walked to the Sun pyramid.  Arden was sick, but he was such a trooper. Unfortunately, the top of the pyramid is under reconstrucition or they were doing some archeological exploration.
I think the kids highlight was playing with their bows and arrows.  Mia was an excellent archer.

After our pyramid hit, we headed over to the Grutas restaurant.  We've been wanting to eat there since the first time we visited Teotihuacan.  The place is pretty cool...how often do you get to eat inside a cave?  As we sat and looked over the menu, we noticed it was pricey...which we were expecting. However what annoyed us was a cover charge of 20 pesos per person for sitting there to eat.  We thought that was ridiculous, a complete rip off and left.

The Grutas

  So off we went to Xochimilco.  Urbano, Margarita's brother-in-law was our awesome, yet scary driver. There were a couple of times I thought we were going to die.  The trip across Mexico City was over 2 hours  long and once we arrived to Xochimilco, we still didn't eat.  We had fun in the boats.  However, I think the person who enjoyed it the most was Grandma.  The Mariachi Loco came over to our lancha to play some song for us.  Grandma even asked Urbano to dance with her.  She was loving all of the fun.

In Xochimilco

Sadly, Arden was still feeling sick with a fever and as we were getting ready to board the SUV, he threw up.  Poor guy.

Dancing to Guantanamera

Family of ducks

Getting treatments

Urbano took us back to Cuernavaca and once we arrived to Margarita's house, her mom was there and gave him some special home remedies and rubbed him with some type of ointment.  I don't know what she gave him, but by morning, our Jaguar was a new happy man.  He looked so much better. I was glad he was better, since I was starting to worry with such a high fever that wouldn't drop.
Hooray for home remedies.

The Romero's Arrival

The Hotel Lobby

On Monday, we headed off to Mexico City.  It's always fun to go to the city.  Our plan was to arrive to la Zona Rosa and check into our hotel. Our hotel was so cool...its name is the Geneve.  It's been around for over 100 years. It was like a museum inside the hotel.  We loved it, but postponed going on an exploration inside the hotel until we were with Mia and Mae. After we checked in, Newel headed off to lunch to meet up with some former classmates from the GSB and Grandma, the kids, and I started walking down a street.  A great thing about being in Mexico is if you're in the mood for a fruit salad, in a corner you'll find a stand serving some delicious fruits...and so we munched on fruits while we walked down the streets of Mexico.

The student demonstrators

At the Angel

Our first find was El Angel de la Independencia.  It's a really cool round about. I made the mistake of asking a police officer if the entrance underneath the angel was a bathroom.  He looked rather offended...it turns out behind that door are the remains of the fighters for Mexico's independence. Whoops! I apologized.  Also, they let us go behind the door and see their tombs.  It was pretty nice.

We also had a chance to see a peaceful demonstration.  The 'Students' were protesting about the results of the presidential elections.
Then, we walked to the next round about, which was a big fountain...I can't remeber its name.

The Fancy fountain

Later, we went on a hunt for a pizza joint for the children.  We finally found a Pizza Hut and they enjoyed their late lunch.  After lunch we headed back to the hotel and met up with the Romeros.

Rubbing HB's mustache in exchange for MMUs

It was so fun to see them again. They were hungry so we went out to eat. After our other late lunch/early dinner we walked back to the Angel.


It was starting to rain so we headed back to the hotel for relaxing and exploration. Like I mentioned, the hotel was really cool.  After the rain, we headed out in search of hot chocolate and yummy sweet breads.

It was a great start to our adventure.




































Day 2
The following morning we took the Romeros for a ride in Mexico's subway system.  Newel was our guide and I must say, he's superb.
Our first hit was the National Palace. I didn't take too many photos of the palace since this is our 2nd time there and you're not supposed to take photos of the amazing murals painted by Diego Rivera. Of course the palace was awesome and we enjoyed running around their gardens.  Maya even posed for a photo while Arden pointed at humming bird.

Touring the Castle

After the palace, we hit the cathedral and then the pyramid.  Later, we walked past the National Theatre in search for the park we went to on our last visit that had yummy foods.  Unfortunately, the park was torn down and under construction so we ate at an okay place.

Palacio Bellas Artes

The Mexican Crew

At the top floor of the castle

After we recharged our batteries, we headed over to the park El Chapultepec and hit the castle.  We like the castle and enjoyed touring it.  I think Mia and Mae liked the fact that it was a real castle and a real prince and princess lived in it.

Before it started to rain, we headed over to the mirror house for some goofy times.  Then, we headed back to the hotel and then out to dinner.

At the mirror house

Taking a break

Newel and Grandma Arrive

We were so excited for Newel and Grandma's arrival...we were counting down the hours.  Once they arrived, we took them to a restaurant by Chinito's office.  It was a feast and the food was delicious...Grandma ordered a 'Gringa' for the Gringa.   It felt like a party to us to have Newelly and Grandma there.
That night the Ocampos headed off to Mexico City and we were house sitting.

The following morning we headed off to el Centro.  It was a rainny day, but that didn't stop us from having our adventures. We walked around the square in search for the 400+ year-old cathedral.  We walked around quite a bit because of course someone gave us the wrong directions.  However, it was still fun scooping out the streets.

Grandma eating a Gringa

At the convent

The cathedral/convent was pretty cool.  It wasn't too dark or scary. There were actually 3 church buildings all within the same church square. What's impressive is that those churches are still in use today even though they are ancient history.  When we arrived at the cathedral, the priest had just finished performing an infant baptism. Also, at the convent, there were parents taking some type of baptism classes.

Old church in use

Another view of the cathedral

Grilling the meats

 After checking out the cathedral, we thought about going inside Cortez's house, but decided not to go, in case the Romeros wanted to go as well.  We walked down the streets some more and even bought some very useful umbrellas.  Those umbrellas went with us everywhere that week. We had a light lunch and then headed back to Chinito's house since we needed to get going on our missionary reunion party plans.

Couples posing

We prepared a lot of food and meats for the reunion and had it at Chinito's church.  It was a fun event for the guys and it was nice for me to get to know some of the other wives.  It wasn't as a big turn out as Newel expected, but the missionaries Newel really wanted to see were there.   They also had a phone conference with their old mission president, President Gillespie. They had a great time catching up. It was a good day.

Arden distracting other kids with his insect finds.

The following day was Sunday, so we went to church and hung out at the Ocampo's house.  Arden was so excited to show Grandma the canal that runs behind their house.

Ramos, ____, Yesques, White, Ocampo, and Pimentel

Shoe Making

Sanding the sandals

Costum fit

Look who is getting some new skills? That would be Margarita and me.  Vianey has a new hobby to make sandals.  She learned how to make them at a Relief Society activity and since she loves shoes, she got right on it.  Margarita also wanted to learn this new skill, so she asked Vianey to teach us.

I learned a lot, like the fact that most shoes are glued with special cement glue and not sewn.  The sowing part is just the sole  cover sewn to the sole.  Also, you cook the shoes for the cement to stick.   I had no idea.

It was so cool learning this, I even made my own sandals.

The best part is that they're custom made and they fit me well.

Also, my shoes cost less that $5.00 dollars.

Time to cook them

The finished product...don't mind the toes.

Karen turns 32

Monday, June 25 was my turn to celebrate my birthday.  My morning started by the Ocampos singing to me with a cupcake looking treat.  They only had the 3 candle, so I made up my own '2'.
I thought my birthday was going to be ordinary, but I was glad they had thought of me and had a small treat.  I loved it.

That morning, Margarita had made some arrangements for Arden to attend the school her girls go to, so he could practice his Spanish.  He protested, but I told him to try it out for 1 day.  That's all he went.  He said class was boring and during recess they didn't have any playground equipment, nor were they allowed to play with balls (I also thought that was odd).  So Arden decided to play with the giant ants.  Other kids joined him, of course and it sounded like it was fun.  However, when I picked him up from school he said he didn't want to go back. He also mentioned he was the tallest kid in the room.   I don't really think his day was boring...I think he just didn't want to get up to go to school.  About a week later when we (including Grandma and Newel) attended Pamela's promotion event, Arden was showing off his daddy...and showing Newel his 1 day classmates.  At least he had some experience of what is like to attend a Mexican school.

Weird political party get together

While Arden and Pamela were at school, we went shopping.  I bought a couple of things for my birthday.

Margarita and me

After school and our costumary late lunch, Margarita's friend, named Vianey, drove us to el Zocalo to buy materials to make our sandals.  More details about that later.   The Zocalo was packed with supporters of a political party.  A lot of the streets were closed and it was chaotic.  They had balloons, music, and people dressed in some sort of folkloric costumes that I'm not sure what it symbolized.  Anyways, it was so crazy that we decided my birthday dinner, later that night, was not going be at a restaurant there.

Aren't they cute?

Waiting for dinner...I'm starving

After dolling up for the night, we decided our best option would be Chilli's at the mall.  Here Chilli's is considered more of a pricey restaurant.  We were lucky that Chilli's had a play area and we let the kids roam wild.
If my mother happens to see the photo with my glasses on...and wonders why I'm wearing glasses instead of contacts...well, I brought my contacts to Mexico, I just forgot the contact case to place them in.

After dinner, somehow, Chinito managed to sneak off and tell the server it was my birthday and the servers came over and sang to me and played a musical instrument.  It was kind of funny and even a bit embarrassing, but it was worth my free dessert.