"The Incident"

Well, as most of you have heard Race had his first accident-induced trip to the hospital. He was running and jumping on the bed, eventhough it has been explained in great detail why this is not a good idea. He bounced too close to the edge, and then off, but luckily there was a nightstand there to break his face, uh, I mean fall. Well, I guess Race learned Mom and Dad ARE right most of the time. Fortunately, as you will see, the incident didn't slow him down a bit.




This is the following morning, as you can see it didn't ruin his appetite or dampen his spirits.




After the nap it was time for a round of hide in the cabinets. If this game takes place in the pots and pans cabinet it must first be completely be emptied.No matter, this is still the preferred cabinet. This photo session was the first time Race played the "RRRAAAHHH!!!!" game back, trying to scare Dad.





When "hide in the cabinets" gets old it's time for the all time favorite "THE QUAD".
This is still by far the most used toy he has, but his ball is a close second, and the toy cars are gaining popularity.




And now for the unvieling of the wound. Good positioning, nice length, could have been a little straighter, I give it an 8.






We haven't figured out who he was talking to, but whoever it was they were pretty funny.




Did I mention it didn't affect his appetite? Race, as you can tell, is a good eater. In fact, his newest "word" is banana, it just sounds more like blablabla!




Here's a pretty good closeup. We are pretty confident that it will heal up nicely.




We were getting crazy in the kitchen one night, Race was running around with that tub on his head, and when he'd run up to you, he would take it off and go rrraaaahhhh!!!!




They had a small dinner at work for the employees to celebrate Christmas. So, after we ate, we wandered into the shop. This picture is taken inside the plattens on an UBE 3300 Ton injection mold machine, it is massive




Who can turn down a free ride on a forklift? Certainly not Race!





Well, that's it for now. The next post will be from our trip to Florida for Christmas. Adios, Hasta Luego!!

Trip to Taxco

Silver Galore! Taxco is a small old town in the state of Guerrero where they mine silver, and make silver jewelry and art. Fabulous!!!! We went on the last day of the Silver Fair, and checked out their expositions. There were some incredible art pieces! Very pricey (ouch!), but magnificent. Our pictures don’t do justice.


This first piece is a fish made of silver, precious and semi-precious stones, and wood. There are marine themed silver figures on the fish.





I would love to have one of these! Hmm, no price tag, that probably means we can't afford it. These were 3 silver vases, butterflies and animals.




Well, probably a bit breezy for my liking....

In the town square (zocalo) there was a gorgeous old church, Iglesia de Santa Prisca, with incredibly ornate details. And, lucky for us, there happened to be a wedding. They came all the way from Mexico city for this place. We were having lunch on a terrace overlooking the zocalo when the wedding had the “pre-show” before heading into the church. The bride arrived with much fan-fare. There were 6 trained dancing horses and many mariachis singing and playing. And all the guests watched as the bride arrived before entering the church. It was neat!





Front of the church with the intricate scuptures.



Bright, beautiful tiles on the dome.



The amount of work it must have taken to carve all these details, I can't imagine!



This is real gold paint they used to decorate the carvings. Awesome!





There were huge murals on every wall in one section of the church, probably 50 paintings total.


This is just an example of the mountainous terrain, and the hilly, winding cobble stone streets of Taxco. What a good work out!

The town runs up the side of a mountain, so all streets north and south are very steep. And some roads are so narrow that only one car can fit at a time, so someone has to back up to let the other pass! Yeah, Ron’s truck wouldn’t make it in this town.
…So we walked. It was fun. Bring comfy shoes. Lots to buy, everything from super-cheap to super-expensive. The streets are lined with silver shops, and every one sells silver.
We were told that there are over 1100 silver shops in Taxco, and I am not sure how accurate that is, but there are definitely hundreds and hundreds! Some are little stands and some are huge high-rent places. They also sell pottery, baskets, clothing and textiles and all kinds of hand-made items. Along with the dollar store stuff. We had a great time and Race was so good all day! Waving at all the people, and smiling at all the girls! And they all smiled right back.





La vista del puesto del sol en Taxco

(View of the sunset in Taxco).

This picture was taken as we were leaving the city. We pulled over to take a photo of Taxco at night. Beautiful! It was a great day. Very relaxing and unrushed. Good food, better views! Lots of stuff to buy, or just brouse through. We really enjoyed ourselves.

Race's Broadway Debut

So Race played the staring role in the Day-care’s Christmas Presentation for his room. He was Santa Clause while all the other kids in his class were reindeer. …and he wasn’t thrilled about it. I guess that day wasn’t his day. But the whole event was very cute!! They put on a good show for all the parents. Each room put on their own song and dance. And this was our first “school” event we have ever had for Race. It was cool.



First up, of course, we start the morning at the Day-care very pouty.


Here we are playing with our reindeer friends, not too many reindeer games going on in this room….


Hey, more reindeer friends.
Grumpy,…This isn't the production with the 7 dwarfs.



Come on, its not so bad!!



Hey, is that a smile I see startin’ ??????





This is the 6-12 month old class. Race has, of course, graduated to the 12-18 month old class. He is obviously not in this pic, but these kids were so darn cute I had to post it!!!



Here is Santa in his sleigh during the production. Notice he is not wearing the beard and Santa hat that mom stayed up late sewing together… hmmmm…



More Santa and his sleigh.



Well, after the hoopla of the production was over, he did finally wear the whole get-up. And of course he was all smiles after it was all over, back to flirting with all the ladies. Why couldn't he have turned on the charm a bit sooner??

Fun with Food!!!!

Dinner is always a good time. Race is a great eater (usually), and meal time is an event. He is getting pretty good with utensils, but still likes to eat with his hands, too. He also loves to feed the dog. At the end of dinner, any leftovers get thrown on the floor for Thai, until we catch him and put a stop to it. Then he tries to be sneaky, it's cute. The dog is always patiently waiting nearby.

Here we have an action shot of roast beef being flung around! …as I said, always a good time.

Mmmm, roast beast...

Dad and Race playing “airplane”. I can’t believe it, but it really works to get him to eat!

And for those of you who think he is nothing but smiles, here is the pouty Race. I can’t remember what he was denied, but out came the lip. It’s hard not to smile when he gives you this face.

Tenancingo

Well, it's been a couple of weeks, so I guess we should update everybody on life in Mexico. November 20 is Mexican Revolution Day, but it is celebrated on the closest Monday which was the 19th this year. Everybody gets the day off, so Sunday morning we went to a town called Tenancingo where Erika, a girl that works for April is from and her mother still lives. We went to her mothers house and had a couple of beers at the bar, in thier backyard! It was pretty cool; it is a big thatched roof hut that probably holds 75 people complete with DJ sound equipment, a disco lit dance floor, and of course, cold cervezas. In addition to the bar she also operates a restaurant and hair salon all without having to leave their own yard. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of any of these things, who knows maybe we'll go back again.

This is Erika with Race in the backyard, it was a perfect day for swingin'.


After hanging out for a while, we went to a market and in order to get there we drove down the side of a mountain probably 2-3000 ft. The scenery was phenominal, again no pictures, sorry! Once we reached the bottom we went to the market for a fish dinner, but first things first Race was parched!



Race is quite the social butterfly, it didn't take him long to make a new amigo. Who, by the way, fell in the fish pond, which Race had NOTHING to do with.



At the top of a mountain peak in Tenancingo is this statue of Christ that is about 100ft tall. There are 1200 steps up the side of this mountain to the statue. We didn't get the pleasure of climbing all 1200 steps, maybe we'll get lucky next time. But we did drive up to try and catch the sunset. Inside the statue are little places for the ashes of your loved one, and Erika's dad is there. It was all pretty cool.



Here is the view from the top where the statue is. It was pretty spectacular view from up there!! We watched the sunset and all the lights start to appear below us. The mountains are beautiful here!




This is a pic of the front of the motel we stayed in. El Porton is the name of the place, everything was perfectly groomed the rooms are small, but full of Mexican culture. The room was super cheap but not without some "Mexican culture".





These are a couple of pictures of the view from the courtyard. And as with any photo, being there is even more breath-taking.








Here is a shot of the flower garden, or maybe cactus garden is more appropriate. Either way it was beautiful.




On the way out Race decided he wanted an orange for breakfast.

Nevado de Toluca - Toluca Volcano

So we went to the Volcano, and WOW, is it impresive! We got so many great photos!! This place is beautiful! And high up there!! You really could tell the difference in the air when you breath, there is far less oxygen at 14,000 feet, and you run out of breath very quickly. And it was so immense, the pictures can't even capture the magnitude of this place. It reminds you how small we really are! The highest peak around the crater is at about 15,300 ft, and the crater floor is at about 13,800 feet (where we were at). There are 2 lagoons in the crater, Laguna del Sol and Laguna de la Luna, they are about 45 feet deep or so. We heard you can SCUBA dive in them, but we are not sure. If we did, we would need some serious cold water equipment, because the temp ranges from 35 to 44 degrees F. It was pretty chilly up there, but we were fortunate enough to have a sunny day.

Here is the view starting up the volcano. We are at about 8500 feet in the valley of Toluca. We have a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains everyday!


Here is the view of the volcano from across the valley about half way up. You can see the line across the mountain, that’s the one-lane dirt road. We are still about a half hour drive away from that point, and a few thousand feet down.


This is just a cool rock formation! There were lots!


Here we are on the precipice! You can see the mountain bikers ahead of us and the thousand foot drop down to those tiny little trees down there!! Most of the road won’t fit two cars at one time, one car has to pull over when they can and wait for the other to pass. This isn’t a high traffic area, so it wasn’t too difficult, but it was interesting, to say the least!


This is just a killer view of the valley below. We are above the clouds, and it is spectacular!


This is the view back across the valeey from where we just came from.


We are now inside the crater, and this is the view of the slope of the crater. It is a Where's Waldo game, can you find the people hiking up the crater? Trust me, they are there!


Race is practicing to be a toll operator as you will see.



A L T O !!!!


Trienta pesos por favor.


Muchas gracias! Pasen con permiso.


This was just an awesome shot of the crater with the reflection in the Laguna del Sol.