Celebrating Mexico's 200 Years!

Last month, here in Mexico, the 200th Independence Day was celebrated. Bicentenario, as they fondly referred to it, was a big deal where they had been planning and having celebrations for Mexico's Independence in various cities across the country all year long! (that was a mouthful, sorry!) The largest celebration, was of course, in DF (Mexico City). Though, Queretaro does play an important role in the country's liberation. Queretaro is a larger, colonial city, where peace treaties were signed and later where the Mexican Constitution was signed. Therefore, we had our own festivities as well!

Thursday night, the 16th of September, is the "kick-off" to the Mexican Independence festivities. At eleven o'clock at night, every body screams out "Viva Mexico" several times and is formally called "La Grita". Prior to the grita this year, we went to our ward's dinner. It was a potluck where each member brought some kind of Mexican dish to contribute. I didn't dare attempt anything Mexican in the wake of such talented chef's, so I brought Sprite:). Needless to say the food was delicious. The following pictures are at the dinner with some of our favorite ward members!

Below is me with two of my Young Women, Stephanie and Mirna!

Ryan excited to be eating some delicious Mexican food!

Another YW, Jenny, who came home from Benemerito

(the Church's "high school" in DF. It sort of reminds me of a mini BYU).

The next morning, on Friday, we woke up and headed down town to a parade. We waited nearly an hour for the parade to make it down to the end, where we were waiting. We had fun waiting with Violet as she kept trudging back and forth in a dirty puddle. awesome. When the parade finally made it down, I was shocked that 90% of the parade were different groups of students from different schools, marching. Yup, no clowns or floats at this parade my friends. Puro students! oh yes and some military with the latest and greatest at the end.

Below, Violet and I are waiting for the parade to pass by!

(Violet does great with crowds, so we continue to expose her as much as we can to make her friendly and unafraid.

We are also pretty proud of our dog, so you will see her a lot in the rest of this post!)

The students marching ... in uniform, ahhh I would overheat!

At the end of the parade Ryan found a sweet tank...

Later that night we went to Centro, where the philharmonic symphony of Queretaro was playing outside in a plaza. It was packed and so we didn't stay as long as I would have liked. I love listening to the live symphony! The music was played to a narrative of the Mexican Independence saga, with actors acting out the battles and scenes.

Ryan and I got a little tired of standing so we went to another plaza and enjoyed the dancing water fountain.

And of course, we had to try one of the many vendors that had conglomerated down town for the festivities. Nothing like a homemade churro straight from Mexico (it was filled with cajeta (a type of caramel made from goat milk)). mmm.

The next day we headed out to the park. For those of you who don't know, going to the park is one of my most favorite things to do, especially with Fronk. It's peaceful, beautiful, and a great place just to sit and talk. Below is one of our favorite parks to take Violet to, as there are not many people and lots of natural boundaries, we are able to let her run free a little.

and the dog pictures come full force!!

The next series of pictures are some of my favorites! Fronk loves to indulge Violet in long sessions of fetch.

Sometimes they have stare downs as Violet contemplates giving up the ball for another round of fetch

Also, sometimes Violet loses track of where the ball went!

She knows that jumping up most definitely does not speed up fetch! Sometimes she just can't help herself.

Fronk got creative with the camera:)

and this is where the fetch games end... Violet spied a small family on a picnic blanket not too far off. She is never aggressive with strangers, rather she gets really excited and tends to jump up. For people who don't know her, this normally scares the crap out of them. Ryan ran after her and this is her being "dragged" back to her leash.

She is extremely friendly and for the most part a pretty good dog! (aside from jumping up and the fact that she still mouths a little)

And what good weekend wouldn't be complete without a round of bowling? sigh. I have never been good but when the extra slick floors threw off Ryan's curve ball, I pulled in a pretty tight second!

and...

ba dah ba dah ba dah, ba dat's all folks! well, for this post anyways!