An Average Weekend in Our Mexican Neck of the Woods

Since John usually travels out of town during the week, weekends are spent catching up on all that needs to be done at home, delivering supplies from the states to those around town, visiting family, grocery shopping and tackling myriad others tasks which can only be done on Saturdays.

Because the kids and I don't see him much during the week, we like to go with him where ever he goes, so when errands need to be run in the Big Town, I usually, and the kids always, tag along. Here is the routine of what we do.

First we go to the paleta store. Paleta means Popsicle in Spanish. Saturday's trip wasn't as idealistic as it could have been though, because the twins had fallen asleep in the car before we arrived at the store, and it was nearly impossible to wake them up and make them get out of the van. Why, you ask, did we not just forego the paleta store trip? The answer: John promised them we would go and if they were to wake up and realize we had gone to the Big Town and back without a stop at the paleta store, they would have realized a promise had been broken. John doesn't break promises, no matter how inconvenient it may be to keep them. So here's how they looked in the paleta store....

(Baby Hippo was chipper because he had taken a nap earlier and was well rested.)

Their surly moods didn't stop them from downing their paletas, though....

When that was over, we went across the street to the park. I don't know how many pictures of someone else's kids going down a slide you can stand, but here they are anyways...

But wait, there's more! We can't forget about the rock climbing wall that had only about 30% of the of it's rocks screwed in...

...or the slide with the two-foot crack in the bottom...

The kids really didn't seem to mind that the park was not up to par with U.S safety standards. The only unfortunate incident occurred when we turned our backs on Baby Hippo for a few seconds, then looked back to find that he had a lollipop in his mouth. These are also called paletas in Spanish....

We have no idea how, when or where he acquired this, but we figured it was too late to stop the integration of foriegn bodies into his system, so we let him finish it up. And then we left...

On the way home is a favored hill the kids love to climb with their dad. I don't always have the patience for it, so John usually climbs it with them when I'm at home, but as John pointed out, the lighting was perfect for photography, so perhaps we could give it a go. I agreed. The miniature houses in the following pictures dot many a roadside here in Mexico. Since I'm not Catholic, I don't know what they are used for, but I do know that people light candles and set them inside them. Here is the saint carved into the mountain that overlooks the hill we climbed. His name might be San Judas Tadeo, but I could be wrong....

And here are the kids on the hill, running up as fast as they could, to beat us...

...and running down...

...and stopping by another little candle house on the way down...

After all this adventure, we came home, gave the kids a bath, let them watch some Dr. Seuss videos on youtube, then put them to bed. Just another day in paradise! :)

Thanks for listening.