Memorial Day Weekend

It just so happened that we had big plans and lots of exciting things on Memorial Day weekend, even though that isn’t a holiday here.

Mikko and Matthew and Seamus went camping on the Presa Peralillo. Some friendly fellows came with a boatload of kids, fishing poles and an air gun. They shared it all.

Butch and I stayed home and defrosted the fridge!!! I listened to NPR streaming through my computer, real loud. It was heaven.

Then on Sunday night the boys came home and Little Mary Wheeler flew in from Portland!!

On Monday we went to Escondido, hotsprings outside of San Miguel. This is the only picture from there.  I’d just like to point out – water distorts things.

We had a fabulous time waiting for the bus, with beers, and cards and an amazing girl who chatted, took pictures and played with us while her mother read at a nearby table.

Monte San Nicolas

A while ago, a new friend, Liz, took me to a small community outside of Guanajuato to see a three room, 1st-6th grade school. Unfortunately there was some holiday that closed public schools, that we didn’t know about so I just literally saw the school. I didn’t get to see teachers and kids.

The town is Monte San Nicolas and it was a mining town way back when. Now, the mine has closed and it is just a struggling little place on a dirt road about 10 miles from Guanajuato. It is quite beautiful though and there is a very lovely church that is being restored.

(Coincidentally, there was an article about the town last Sunday in the local paper.)

The old school.

New school, which was built a few years ago.

The town is incredibly old and there are ruins that are being preserved.

We drove through Santa Rosa on the way home, which is actually on the highway and Liz took me to this bakery, where they have the best bolillos around in the wood fired oven.  Bolillos are a white bread rolls that are ideally crusty on the outside and soft and bready  on the inside.  They also had a flaky pastry that was just like a croisant, except for the shape.  So GOOD.  The bakery has been in the family for years and is just a door with no sign so you need to know it to go.  It basically looked more like a mechanic’s garage than a bakery, but they sure make good stuff.

This last week…

has mostly consisted of a number of school visits for me and making plans for going home.

We have decided to leave the last week in June and drive home. I’ll be going up to Texas to buy a car to drive back. It turns out buying a car in Mexico to take back to the states is prohibitively expensive, because it would not only need to meet US emission requirements but safety requirements too, which would mean rebuilding the bumpers or something.

Now that we have a plan – I am letting myself think about all my friends and my home and getting very excited to return. It will be very bittersweet leaving here. I have loved it so much – but plan to figure out ways to return.

Here are some pix of the week:

We discovered the fun of combining bubbles and puppies.

We had a party on Saturday and played a very fun intergenerational game of Werewolf.

There have been a number of parades – the people I have asked are not sure what the occasion is.

I spent a few days observing in sixth and first grade classrooms.

And got some nice pix on a walk down a nearby callejon.

¡¡Happy dia de Maestro!!

This civilized country gives the teachers a day off on Teacher’s Day.  Hey!  They even have a Teacher’s Day!  Unlike us.  In the middle school I was in yesterday, all the teachers got slippers, to wear today!

This is an English class I visited, (the teacher is in pink on the right.)

It rained!!!! Finally!!!!!

The day we went camping….

Can you see the raindrops on the water?

We actually had a wonderful time. We had already had much of the afternoon at the site, swimming and frolicking, when it started thundering and lightninging and then raining. I was convinced it would pass quickly, because the only rain we have gotten here lately has lasted about 5 or 10 minutes. Luckily we had just got the tents set up and we huddled inside and waited it out. ( Though it did chase one of the families that we were with away.) It was actually pretty lovely and wonderful, but I was worried at one point that it would just keep raining and we would end up packing up and hauling everything out in the rain. That’s what would have happened in Oregon. It stopped after about an hour, and we all had dry clothes to change into. It was a chilly evening, but we had time to cook dinner before the sun went down. There were s’mores and guitar playing around the camp fire. I just kept thinking about all the fleece and gloves and hats I didn’t pack because it was 90 stinkin’ degrees as we were packing to go.

Butch did great. She loved being outside and finding sticks and horse poop. The next morning, as soon as the sun came up it was warm and then hot. We took a walk and took frequent dips before

we packed everything up and hauled it out again. Butch got out on a log and dove in to try to follow us, but made a hairpin turn in the water and ran right out. So cute.

Some more about Butch

Just FY everybody’s I, Butch is pronounced Bootch, with a Mexican accent.

She is adjusting very well, playing and getting into the chewing stage with gusto. We invested in some good chew toys right away – luckily.

She came seeming to know to poop outside on the balcony, we are still working on the peeing though. Mikko has risen to the occasion nicely. He is very diligent about cleaning up after her immediately. This is the perfect time for a new puppy, because most of our lives revolve around home. Matthew and/or I are home most of the day. And we have gotten all of our trips out of the way and are happy to take a break from traveling, possibly until our big journey home in July.

The dog below is who we believe to be her papa. We call him Shy Dog because … he’s really shy. We hadn’t seen him for months until the other day when we took her out, he emerged from his hole in the bushes. We couldn’t get close to him, so they never really met face to face

She has the same pensive look.

More of little Butch Napper and where she got her name

Well, her second name anyway:

She does like to NAP!!

So a continuation of the story that led us to this moment- the Friends of Animals ladies just disappeared, the phone was disconnected and everything. So finally last week I went over to the neighbors to tell them that and that I was still interested in the puppy. She came running out, but the white one wasn’t there. She had been stolen because she was pure white. The fellow thought he knew who stole her, so he told us to come back in a week and if he could find her we could have the black one. I was planning to go by tonight. After my little afternoon nap I went out onto the balcony and the fellow was on his roof and he whistled at me to come over.

Here’s Mama Dog (Rasputina) a few days ago.

He looked so sad when we got there Mama Dog was very happy to see us, but the puppy was quite shy. We sat around for a bit and he told me that they couldn’t find the white puppy, but he wanted us to take the black one anyway – right away. She has huge paws and looks like she is going to be pretty big. So even though they like her, they decided it would be better to give her a good home, than it would be for them to have two big dogs. He even had a little bag of dog food ready for us. He decided not to get Mama Dog spayed yet so he can try again, for a white one, I guess. It was a sad farewell. I almost cried looking at his big sad face.

Butch is adjusting well so far – mostly sleeping and a little exploring and whining. I feel like I am covered with fleas, so we will do some basic maintenance and make some purchases tomorrow. I suppose a trip to the vet is on order as well. Yikes – what a big responsibility. But can you even stand how cute she is?

And handsome, yes?

Meet Butch Napper

We now have our own dog for our own balcony (we don’t have access to our rooftop.) Thanks all of you who sent puppy thoughts this way. Our neighbors just decided that we can have her and here she is in our house – all of a sudden. I have more to post but no time now, and some technical difficulties with the camera. Stay tuned.

Saturday at the lake

The day after getting home we went out to Presa Mata to swim with our friend, Mary and her son Seamus. Matthew and the boys stayed and camped that night, while the moms got voted off the island and went back into town to do grown-up mom things.

The water has gone down a lot since January when we were there last. And it has warmed up considerably. It was the perfect temperature that completely cools you off, but you can stay in and play for a while.

These lovelies were on the side of the road as Mary and I walked home.

pacemaker…

Twice, there were metal detectors in the bus stations that we had to walk through.  Both times I remembered (always at the last minute – same thing flying down from Tijuana,) that I can’t go through those with my pacemaker.  Luckily it was hot and I was wearing tops that made showing my scar easy.  At the first one the fellow let me walk through the second metal detector that was turned off.  The second one, the woman just laughed like I was crazy and said it wasn’t on and had me walk through.  Both times I got my little card out but they never looked at it.  The scar was evidence enough, I guess.