Watch Out!!!

 I am sure there is an element of care you have to take in every city while walking. Here are some examples of things we have to watch out for. (I am pretty sure the safety inspector hasn't been to some of these places. :))***UPDATE*** I was talking with my mother and she said, "Wow you have seen all this since you have been there?"  Actually no these pictures were all taken on ONE walk to and from a market that was about 10 blocks away.

Watch out you might run into a car that is parked over the sidewalk.

OR tires, but at least you will just bounce off tires.

Or you might step into a hole that is not covered.

OR it might be covered with just two sticks to help you know that there is a hole.

Or it might have wire in it and you might not fall in, just twist your ankle.

Or you might just drop down into a pot hole filled with trash.

You might not fall into anything, just trip on random pipes that come out of the sidewalk.

Or you might just twist your ankle on the random tiles missing from the sidewalk.

Or the branches, chunks of sidewalks that rise from branches, or who knows what else.

Or there might not be anything wrong with the sidewalk, it just might be that there are ramps for the cars, but you can't see them because of the optical illusions.

When you are not worried about falling from the sidewalk, you have to be careful about stepping on dead animals, like a cat OR

A rat, OR

A pigeon OR

It might not be dead at all, you just may have to watch out for dog poop, lots and lots and lots of dog poop!

or random disgusting glumps of who knows what!

If it is not dead animals,  or poop, maybe it is just the trash for the garbage men to come and pick up that you have to watch out for.

or huge piles of trash even in front of signs that says don't put trash here.

While you are looking down trying not to fall or step in anything you also have to be careful of the random wires that come out of nowhere.  I still haven't figured out what these wires are for.  I hope they are just internet or telephone wires.

 When you are not stepping over or ducking down, you have to watch out for cement poles that are just the right, (or wrong, depending on who you are asking) height for some people to really hurt themselves.  H ran into one once.  It was hilarious.  The new name for these are crotch crunchers. I am glad to say that he is still a man. ;-) 

In the end we have become good and multitasking while walking.  It was hard when we first got here because there was so much to look at but we had to spend so much time looking down.  In truth we all tripped a couple of times, but luckily no one completely fell down.  I am very grateful for that.  It would have been really embarrassing!

Taking all the Advantages

We are trying to take all the advantages we can while being here.  H is one of the largest examples we can take with his teeth.  I am not sure what we are going to do when we got back but while we are here we are going to take the $2750+ savings if we can!

Merry Christmas

We have had some traditional Christmases and thoroughly enjoyed them, but we have also had some not traditional Christmases.  This one was one of the not traditional Christmas.  I enjoyed learning the traditions here.  I don't think we ever heard the word Santa Clause, but we did see baby Jesus all over the city.  The bells rang and rang through Christmas and onto the New Year.  I loved it.

We went out Christmas morning, in our new soccer jerseys, to the park for the kids to crack the piñata which was filled with fruit, nuts, and candy. (C. said that now we are real Mexicans!)

Some people had a Christmas tree, but a lot didn't.  We put a small one into the apt.  (It is not real if you can tell). But it was perfect for our needs.  The ornaments were cut out figures from another sheet of wrapping paper.

The largest Christmas present for the kids was being here, (or was it just mine, I forget. (-;).  We tried to keep the gifts small because we don't have any room to add more stuff.  But the kids were perfectly gracious.  They were happy with their gifts.  We even got a few gasps.

We ran out of ideas for Zion, so he got a (homemade) gift certificate to flip out, a trampoline park.  His "gift certificate" included the price to bring three friends.  It was hilarious to watch him think about who he was going to bring.  I guess the older siblings were lucky he didn't have much of a choice! :) He even tried to give the cashier our homemade gift certificate.  It was cute!
Unfortunately I didn't get to go.  My knee has really not been doing well!  Oh how I hate lame, long-lasting  injuries.

The bus

I love taking the bus.  I might love it so much because S does so much of the figuring which bus to take and when we need to get off.  He pays for everyone and we just all climb aboard and enjoy the ride.

I think that the bus drivers are some of the most talented people I have ever seen.  It is amazing to see them drive on tiny one way streets while, giving change, shifting, turning corner, keep track of all their stops, talking on their cell phones, and answering questions.  **update, today we were on the bus when the bus pulled to the side of the road and bought some shoes.  S. was on the bus when the bus stopped at the stop light, the bus driver ran out and went to a convince store bought a couple of drinks and ran back on before the light turned green!  AMAZING!!!****

X throughly enjoying standing up while the bus is going.  Z too! :)

ward Christmas party

We have been to a lot of ward Christmas parties.  Most Christmas parties start around 6.  There is usually a dinner and some sort of small program and then Santa comes.  That was not the case with this party.  It was suppose to start at 7:30 but it didn't end up starting until almost nine.  Dinner started around 10.  We were all starving by the time dinner was ready, but I would wait that long again, it was amazing.

There was no Santa here but the piñatas were a good replacement.

They even had a piñata for the relief society, (aka the old women).  The ladies were so into it, they even fell over each other fighting for the candy.  I stayed on the outside and couldn't bring myself to get that into it.  (That is not my personality!).  I was lucky enough to come out with three pieces of candy.  I guess that is what I get for being wimpy.  :)

The kids were super excited for the candy.  Once Z was done with the young boy's piñata and had his candy, he was so excited to eat one of his suckers.  He asked if he could have one, not knowing that it was covered in chili and I said yes, knowing that it was covered with chili! :)  I wish I would have been prepared with the camera to see his face when he put the sucker in his mouth.  It was so funny!!!

I also wish I could have taken a picture of C, but every time I went to find her she was surrounded by boys.  Once I went over to talk to her and she gave me a glare and then preceded to tell me to go away and I was ruining everything for her!!!  Too bad I didn't care! :-)

X also had a good time.  She found a little friend Migelito who kept grabbing her hand to come and run around with him.  It was cute.  Somehow he didn't notice that she didn't speak any Spanish.  Maybe this is a reason why we need to be more like children.

We kept looking at this kid because he looked so familiar.  Cariña and I both couldn't figure out why this kid looked so familiar.  Then finally we figured it out.  He looks like a picture of my dad when he was a little boy.

Block Party

There was a block party last Saturday.  S found a flyer and it sounded fun, so we went.  It did not disappoint. They had games, dancing, singing, a little food, and other stuff.  It was super fun.

My favorite thing about this block party was the free hair cuts offered to anyone!!!  The boys didn't need a haircut quite yet but I wasn't going to pass an opportunity to avoid paying for 3 haircuts!  I wish I had a video of the glare the boys were giving me but it might not be as funny to anyone else.

The games were awesome, pick up sticks, chess, checkers, and tick-tack-toe.  All game pieces were huge and you played them walking around.  They also had stilts, drawing, and other things I didn't venture to find out.  I am still not very good at my Spanish, (I am trying not to get frustrated with myself).

And of course it ended with a live band and dancing.  Okay, actually they ended the party with live Lucha libre, (wrestling).  S and the older kids stayed for awhile for that but the younger ones and I went home.  I don't know if I will ever be able to attend another block party and not be disappointed. :-)

Book Fair, One of the largest in the world

Getting ready to go on the bus.  Yes we had to wait it the shade, we were sweating in the sun.

This is us entering the fair.  It was huge!

 I had to take a picture of theses Harry Potter books.  I am not a Harry Potter fan, but I might collect the books if I get to have those cool colors on my bookshelf!  This whole fair was filled with super cool book displays!!  I might become a book collector just to have cool book displays around my house.

 My Girls love Roald Dahl.  But they weren't willing to read them in Spanish.  Wimps!!

 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a booth at this fair.  I heard that a local stake was running the booth the booth.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  Would it be small, I didn't know.  When we found it, I was amazed at the beauty and grandeur of it.  I don't know why I was so surprised at how large the booth was.  The church never disappoints!  We had to go so Helaman could visit with his friend Captain Moroni!

The picture behind C and Z is a puzzle.  If you look closely at the top left you will see how many pieces there are.  Way too many for me, but I am sure there are a few of my family members that would love to try a puzzle like that!

 This is an example of the types of cool books at this place.  There was everything.  Unfortunately, for the kids, the only books we bought were English grammar books for the kid's homeschool.  They were not happy about that.  Luckily for me all the books were in Spanish or otherwise I am sure the kids might have asked for a lot more books and we might not have been able to afford a flight back home. :)

We ended up ending the day with a perfect dinner of tacos.  I am sure you all were surprised to see soda.  We usually don't order anything to drink.  We always have our water.  Everyone is so confused when we don't order any drinks.  It is pretty funny.  But in this situation the soda came with the meal.