365 days in Mexico

One year ago from January 12, Ryan and I came to live in Queretaro, Mexico.

I can hardly believe that we have been here a full year. It has been such a fun and interesting experience. After having this epiphany, Ryan and I started reflecting over the year...
here are some of our Mexican highlights and things that we have learned while being down here

1. I think one of my favorite things about Mexico, which I relive each week, is the ridiculously inexpensive food at the outdoor Market. I love bringing home 2-4 bags of delicious fruits, veggies and fresh chicken for only $15. It really just makes my day every week.

2. Tacos al Pastor- These are my and Ryan's favorite Mexican dishes! Tacos al Pastor are made with tasty pork smothered in seasoning, slow cooked on a rotisserie and then sliced into a hot, fresh, greasy tortilla. Finally topped with cilantro, yummy hot salsa, onions and pinneapple. Heaven!

3. Watching Ryan learn Spanish and adapting to the Latin culture. I think he has more patience with some of the cultural isms than I do. (Ps, Thanks babe for all the mutual giggles while learning this language. Example, using "azteca" for "estaca" throughout an entire meeting or the infamous "pajero" en vez de "pajaro" at girls' camp! haha, never gets old! ... oh yeah, and como va tu oyo?)

4. Learning to pay electric bills five days before it's due. If not, they shut off your electricity for days!! Refer to past post for details

5. Realizing that Google Maps for Mexico is completely off and ends up sending you in all directions. I refuse to use it anymore.

6. Understanding what a guiso is. The typical Queretana comida.

7. Avoiding taxibuses like the plague! They are the most reckless drivers and every time I am driving near one of these beasts I realize that I am holding my breath and clenching the steering wheel.

8. Accepting the fact that the work day doesn't end until 7 pm or later for most. So when Ryan has meetings going into the night, don't get frustrated...

9. As much as Mexico City is great with what it has to offer... my motto is "get in, get out, get on with your life" for this place. There are sooo many people, traffic's crazy, and you don't want to get stuck in the wrong places.

10. I ironically enjoy the well known fact that the Narcos families tend to live in Queretaro. That's why it's nice and quiet here, nobody wants to get things wriled up... it's a family sort of town

11. Don't take your shoes off. Barefeet doesn't exist here... (You'll get weird looks if you attempt it)

12. Dressing normal here is dressing up for me normally

13. There is a ridiculous amount and variety of chilies here and I think they are eaten at just about every meal!

14. C on the water faucet doesn't mean cold...

15. You will not find Halls cough drops in the pharmacy section, but in the candy section of the grocery stores

16. Driving isms:
Emergency Flashers don't mean emergency, it means there is traffic ahead.
People will turn right/left from any lane
Don't worry if you see police lights behind you, the police keep their lights on all the time

Im sure we could come up with a bunch more... but I think this is a decent start.

Week 29

Just a couple pics from yesterday's appt. Again, he was face down and scrunched up. Sorry no great pictures. He is growing big and doesn't have as much space as he used to. Dr said he was about 1.4 kg (which is 3.1 pounds)!

Doodle all balled up

(His head is on the right and the Dr. is checking

his food supply)

And this my friends is a part of the reason why we can't see his face.

He made little fists and hid his face behind them.

I think he wants to keep us in suspense and make a grand debut in a few months!

What a tease.

What the?

Most of the time I can't believe I am pregnant. In fact, almost every morning I forget that I have a belly. It's quite the shocker when I look myself in the mirror. Doodle moves quite a bit though to remind me he's around and growing. I love that.

Why is it that I still don't feel that pregnant even though I am further along? Don't get me wrong, the baby kicks, acid reflux, and throwing up in my mouth never ceases, but the fact that I will have a baby in three months still seems out of this world.

Maybe I am just in a daze in my life... I still can't believe it's Christmas time and it's 3 days before the big day! I have baked well over 400 cookies in the past three weeks, read Christmas stories, spent nights decorating and doing Christmas crafts with Ryan, listened to hours of Christmas music, watched Christmas movies, gone to Christmas parties and plays and have been spending extra time on the people around me in various ways... and yet I still can't believe it's Christmas! Ryan has even been giving me the 12 days of Christmas this year! Maybe it's the swaying palm trees and the lack of decor around town that is throwing me off. Still, I am trying to absorb and think about Christ and Christmas, culturally, as much as I can. I love this time of year and I don't want it slipping by without a good fight!

A Moment of Kahn

For those of you who don't know this, there is a common family heritage among the female members of my Mother's side of the family. It's called ridiculously strong women... (emphasis can be put on ridiculous in certain situations). My Great Grandmother Kahn being the one who carries this trait strongest. When we went to Grandma Kahn's house as a girl we were expected to sit quietly on her couch listening to conversation or to go outside. Even though she can be a tough cookie, I never thought of her as mean, on the contrary, I absolutely adore this woman. BUT you could not pay me to cross her!

So the qualities of such a personality trait sometimes include the words, spitfire, sassy, stubborn/unbreakable, opinionated/sure, and most often loud. Though the trait can be a weakness it has also been a strength from past experiences. After all my Great Grandmother is in her 90s and I think the only thing that will break her is her own body not cooperating to her mind's demands.

This trait has definitely trickled down the bloodline and with a latin background (meet a latin woman to know what I am talking about here) on my fathers side and the Kahn trait on my Mother's, I am bound to have moments of being a ridiculously strong woman.

So now that you know what a "Kahn (maybe I should say Harde since that is my Great Grandmother's maiden name) Moment" is... I can tell you that I had a moment of it last week. Ryan and I went to the Nutcracker ballet here in Queretaro. The ballet was accompanied by a children's choir and the Orchestra Filarmonica. It was a fabulous show and exceeded my expectations. Their was a lot of talent and many many hours had obviously been put into the music, costumes, dance, and props. I always think it's a good sign when the orchestra starts playing and you have to make a double take to make sure the musicians are playing live and it is not a recording you hear.

Well, I loved the entire performance, but was very disappointed with the audience! In my defense, I really did try to ignore the heels going up and down the passageways during the show, the chatter during the scenes and the random scattered applause at mere music pauses... but the end was unacceptable in my opinion. At the end of the performance the dancers, choir and orchestra were given different spotlights, of course so that we could applaud them. You cannot imagine what happened... maybe only half of the people there applauded! No whistles, no standing, no woots .... there was hardly even an applause. In fact several groups of people got up and left prematurely, when they were supposed to be applauding. I felt so embarrassed! I couldn't believe it so of course I can't keep my mouth shut and start bursting out words of disappointment. I just couldn't stop going off on how horrible our audience was and I kept glaring at the young adolescents sitting in front of me that stared at the stage with crossed arms (I can understand this behavior a little better if their was disorganization and bad planning, but this performance was wonderful and the tickets were very inexpensive!). I was so upset and it wasn't until Ryan started telling me to keep it down and nudging me to let it go that I realized... ops I had a Kahn moment.

Yup, that's how it goes... you start getting loud, animated, passionate, and can't let it go. At least glaring was the most I did... but I got a pretty mean glare.

Just saying... sometimes I try to keep this Kahn trait in check... but sometimes it just can't mask itself! and sometimes I think people just need to hear it.

Am I ridiculous sometimes? Yes, very. Are some of the woman in my family ridiculous at times? Yes, they have their moments. But I do love how strong the women can be in my family, so here is a shout out to them!

Doodle

Okay, so I decided that it's about time I add photos of Doodle... (I need to do more shout-outs for this favorite tyke of mine!)

I can't find week 16 photos, which is a bummer cause those were the best ones. and our doc

only gave us the video and not the MP3 pics from this last visit, week 24:(

I will add the others as soon as I can!

Here is week 6 of our little bug

This is week 11, now more like an alien than a bug

I wish I had week 16! This is when he starts looking more like a baby!

This is week 20, of course I had to put a crotch shot up... finding out the sex was a highlight at this u/s

Another week 20, he was nuzzled down so we couldn't get a very good shot of his profile:(

Here is a pose of his meaty thigh though

So like I said, I don't have week 24 in picture form:( The little squirt took the same position as week 20s though, so again we haven't had a shot of his profile in a while!

Instead, here is a pic of the lovely stomach instead...

24 w 2 d

So Doodle still doesn't have an official name. But, he is full of personality and moves uncontrollably sometimes. Ryan has been feeling him a lot lately. I can feel his little hiccups, but my favorite is when he bounces on my bladder like a trampoline!

haha, I really have liked second trimester! Other than occasional nausea and maybe a little more emotional temperament, there have only been highlights the past couple of months!

Monarch Butterfly Excursion!

Up in the mountains in Michoacan, Mexico (a 3 hour drive from where we live), you'll find Monarch butterflies that migrate from the US and Canada. They make this migration every year in November and stay there until February. Monarch butterflies only have a life span of 8 months, so it's quite miraculous that generation after generation, these butterflies continue their migrations to the same exact spots in Mexico.

So, since, I am not getting any smaller these days, Ryan and I decided to make a list of all the little trips we want to take before baby Frank comes. Seeing the migrating butterflies was one of them. We drove to a small town, Mavatio, Friday night and slept in this tiny and very old hotel room. In the morning we drove to the mountains, then up up up to the top we went. Thankfully there is a road for most of it. Then, you hike (more like a stair stepper exercise, if you ask me) for 45 minutes till you get to the top of the mountains where you see the branches of dozens of trees weighed down by all the butterflies. There were thousands of them perched in the branches. The butterflies do not leave the branches and fly around

unless the sun shines on them. And unfortunately for us, it was pretty cloudy. We had a burst of sunshine for maybe ten minutes and several of them started flying around.

It was so neat to see them all. These photos don't do justice, but the quantity of monarch butterflies hanging out in the trees was pretty incredible and as you looked around yourself you would find more and more trees in the distance with the same thing. The place we went to was

a reserve so they have many of the trees roped off to protect them. and even crazier to think about is that there were several other reserves and locations to see the butterflies in the neighboring mountains!

We had a beautiful weekend! Enjoy the pictures!

Here is Frankie, posing for a pic as we hiked up the mountain

A view going up the mountain with a pretty decent slope

This little one was perched on a twig next to me with an injured wing.

Poor thing wasn't doing so well.

Fly my pretties! Fly, Fly!

(It was pretty hard to get a shot of them flying around unless you caught

their silhouettes in a patch of blue sky)

Most of the butterflies were high in the trees, but occasionally a few

would come down and model for us:)

Here is my attempt to show you the butterflies in the trees.

Basically all the brown on the branches are them. With their wings closed,

you don't see their orange until they fly. You can make out the shapes of

their wings a little better in this picture.

We met up with a bunch of other people when we got to the top.

Everybody was very respectful and quiet as we all watched.

Woohoo, here comes the light...! Can you see how the branches are all heavy looking?

Basically the leaves on those branches aren't leaves, but butterflies.

Here is another shot, where I think you can see the

reddish brown of their wings better

Another butterfly gone solo and not too shy to come say hello down by us

(Though he was still pretty high up!)

Go Belle!!!

Belle had her first cheer competition of the season Nov. 20th.

She and her team ROCKED!!

of course, they took first in their division....

and they were even rewarded the highest scores that they have had in awhile!

NICE JOB BELLE!!!

High kicks, jumps, and screams!

Getting ready on the bus at 6 am! That's my girl!

Havin fun with the girls before the performance