School and local adventures

First day!

After Newel and the rest of the family went back to the States, we were back to our "normal" life in Mexico.  By this time, the kids's Spanish language skills had improved significantly. In the summer time, the school next to our place had a summer program and we enrolled the kids in it.  The program was for 2 weeks.  It was great for the kids and for the moms.  We all got a break.

Dancing 

They mostly did arts and crafts.  What I was mostly interested was for Arden and Maya to improve their Spanish.   Arden didn't really want to go at first, but then he made a little friend named Diego and he did well.
We had some outings to the local parks...Maya and Eliza really enjoyed dancing to the music of the musical fountains.  I helped Margarita learn how to drive, although it was kind of tricky because there weren't too many places for us to drive.  So we just went around and around the church parking lot, until we got dizzy.  I also drove around, quite a bit...I know, in that crazy traffic. But believe me, there is organization in all that madness.

Party Time

Playing games

On Danna's birthday, we went to some place (I can't remember the name of the place) at the mall to celebrate her birthday.  We played games, the kids won prizes, and overall had a great time.  We also treated the Ocampos to pizza and bought Danna a small cake just for her.

People watching

Casa Borda

The beautiful grounds

El Mexicano

A few days later, I ventured to go out with the children all on my own. I had a bit of an upset stomach (one of the only 2 times I had an upset stomach in MX), but that didn't stop us.  We took the bus to the zocalo in Cuernavaca and hit the Casa Borda.  Before we hit the Casa Borda, the kids and I treated ourselves to some burgers and just relaxed while we 'people watched' pass by the cathedral. The grounds of Casa Borda were beautiful, and again, it was a house that was over 300 years old...and still in use.  It had multiple fountains, including its own man made pond we could canoe...but didn't. I had a great time going out with just Arden and Maya.  We didn't get lost on the way there and back. This gave me some courage to be more adventures for the remaining weeks we had.

Ice cream time!

Once we were back in our neighborhood, the kids were not ready to go home yet, so we treated ourselves to ice cream at our favorite ice-cream parlor.  Oh, we also stopped by the pirated music/movie store and bought some sweet movies for less than a dollar each...What a day!

Taxco

Walking in the street

This was such a cool city to visit.  It's a mining town on top of some mountains.  The town was built on the slope of the mountain, so if you're not going up, you're going down.  The streets are super narrow and there weren't any side walks in the central part of town.  Also, it had the smallest zocalo I had seen.  It had to be small since it's on the slope, there's no space for a big zocalo.
We had so much fun just walking around the streets of the city. It seemed like it was an adventure everywhere we turned.  Not too far from the zocalo we found a cute hotel called Hotel Arcos or something like that.  It was so cute.  We loved it.  Our suite was priced very reasonably and it was way cool.

Our hotel room

Newel left us in the hotel while he went to exchange some money or make a phone call.  Anyways, the kids, Grandma, and I spent over 20 minutes just exploring our suite and gushing over all the details.  Once Newel returned he asked us if we had finished exploring the hotel, we laughed because we had barely finished exploring the room.

The kid's bed

Our bed

The entrance to our room

Arden relaxing on the rooftop

At our hotel

Taxco was such a pretty city.  I loved it.  I loved our hotel.  It was so charming.    Every room in the hotel is unique.  We know because we kept peeking in the rooms. Then, we spent another hour just exploring the hotel.  The food at the hotel was pretty yummy too.  It's one of our favorite hotels ever!

Some R and R while waiting for lunch

 We loved walking around the city and you really can't get lost, because the cathedral is at the center and it's your reference point.

Hotel's courtyard

HB and the girls didn't get to enjoy Taxco as long as we did.  They didn't arrive until early evening and weren't planning on staying, since they were traveling with Karla and family and didn't bring change of clothes.  We were glad they changed their mind and stayed the night.  They were so nice to go back to the Grutas the following day...even though they had just visited them with Karla and family.

At the rooftop, with the cathedral

Grandma's lunch.

The streets

The girls arrive

While we waited for HB and family, we walked around the city and one of our most entertaining spots was a narrow weird curve in one of the streets.  All of the bochos (VW buggie taxis) and other vehicles had to do a 3-point turn to make around the curve.  It was most entertaining.  There was a building that prevented a normal turn and we measured that part of the building, it was probably just over 6 feet long.  Grandma has a photo of that.

ancient organ...really cool

The following morning we went inside Taxco's really cool church.  the golden paint is not paint...it is real gold! Then, we hiked to another church towards the top of the mountain and the view was incredible.  After our sweet hit around the city, we took the curvy road to the Grutas.

At the top of the other church 

Maya's flower on our walk

I haven't visited too many in my lifetime, but these were by far the biggest caves I've ever been in.  These caves are so big, they have a concert hall/theater INSIDE the caves. Oh, they also have a bathroom for men and women...again, INSIDE the caves.  The boys had fun being naughty turning on the lights as we ditched our guide.  The guide didn't miss us, there were so many visitors.  The place was amazing.  It was such a sweet hit.

GRUTAS

Another church on our way to the bus 

The cousins loving the sparkling cave