This summer has been so busy.  Summers used to be these l…o…n…g periods of life that seemed to d…r…a…w out with no foreseeable end.  But then, the kids grew up a little and became interested in other things.  Horseback riding, art and soccer, to name a few summer camps they attended.  That was this summer.  We purposefully planned our vacation for the end of summer, so that we would have something to look forward to throughout the hot, heaviness of the season.  It worked.  We might have to do the same thing next summer.  It seems to help the insanity.

This is where we went (about a month ago)–

Very relaxing, yes.  Except for when we were hiking and we’d come upon a stick that looked EXACTLY like a snake.  And there were quite a few sticks that would fall under that category.  And so, I present to you:  “Sticks That Look Like Snakes”.  Observe:

and

and

Trust me when I say that there were a bucket load more of these “snakes” (and pictures!  See?  I was thinking of you while on vacation!).  Ugh.  But we never saw an actual snake.  Just lots of sticks.  And rocks.  And a few stinkbugs.  Luke “made friends” with a stinkbug and named him “Sammy”.  My boy cried and cried when he had to leave him.  I think Sammy was relieved to see us go.

An entire week of spontaneous camping, hiking and tomfoolery (and rain and bugs and chipmunks and cool weather).  Oh yes, vacations are worth all the anticipation.  Very good.

2.  It IS possible to go to the elementary school’s open house until 8pm and then throw your luggage in the car and drive for 4 hours to stay in a hotel for 5 hours to catch a plane that you may or may not be on.  When you don’t get on the plane, use the next 5 hours before the next flight to entertain your children with your Netflix account via free WIFI (courtesy of the gracious airport).  Might I recommend the oldest possible episodes of both Batman and Scooby-Doo for your viewing pleasure?

3.   When you go to New York City, because you’ve never been there before and your super nice relatives live there and want you to come for a visit, go ahead and walk over the Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn into Manhattan.  Don’t forget your coat (and scarf and gloves and portable heater) — it’s frosty cold in March.  Also, when you see all those people walking from Manhattan towards Brooklyn with nice (and presumably hot) beverages in their Starbucks cups, hold your drool.  Finding the nearby Starbucks will be something of a trick.  And you DO NOT KNOW THIS TRICK.  The Starbucks is located another block past the subway station that will help you back to Brooklyn.  Heed my words with hindsight, friends.

4.  When you meet a brilliant up-and-coming choreographer, hug her!  She’s your sister-in-law!  (Hi, E!)

5.  Take lots of pictures.  Even if you feel stupid.  Take them.  And use more light next time.  Ugh.

6.  Eggs, bacon, sausage and blueberry pancakes make for a warm, tasty, cozy family breakfast.

7.  Tea drunk from the following cup will always taste like roses to me (this doesn’t make sense to anyone but me).

8.  This is now my favoritest sign of all time found in New York City:

9.  I’ve been using Facebook primarily as a dumping place for my really nice pictures.  I’m thinking of shutting down my Facebook page completely and investing in flickr instead.  Not sure about that.  Thoughts?

10.  Obtain a really nice video camera/camcorder while the kids are still little.  Our camcorder broke when Luke was about a year old and we finally replaced it this month.  All those delightful moments — LOST!   Well, ok, it’s not that bad — our kids are still fairly young, but we missed almost 4 years of pweshus footage (or blackmail towards the future significant others)!!

11.  Always include photos in your blog posts.  (And not ones of your odometer.  Ahem.)
Like this:

and this:

and of course, this:

Yeah, you could say that we’ve been travelin’……

It’s time for an odometer update (See here and here for the scoop).  Right now, this very minute, my van odometer is sitting at 76,516.  In approximately 27 miles, I will be at 76,543.  I am fairly confident this will happen today, because I will drive a lot today.  Will I have my camera with me in the car?  Will I be at a stoplight or parked in a parking space or flying down the highway unable to take a picture?  When, oh when, will this momentous event occur?

No one knows.  Stay tuned for further updates.

After we packed up our stuff, we went up on the roof for one last view before hopping into the cars.

Susanna was very sad to leave.

John and Kevin got invited over to the house owner’s BnB place to climb up onto her roof (it was higher than ours).

After all the luggage was loaded up, we hit the road.

Every driver has their driving snacks of choice. Peter is no different. It’s Killer Breath Mexican Doritos and a 2.5 litros of Coke for him. Whee….

Our carpool buddies in the Dreadfully-Difficult-To-Rent-Minivan with Captain David driving:

More Mexican roadside scenery:

There are cute little nursery-rhyme-type haystacks in this field (CUTE, I tell ya!):

Unfortunately, that is where our picture taking ends. I don’t have anything after the road trip. I can tell you that we hit the outskirts of Mexico City a little after lunchtime. We went to a mall to have lunch at a place that I can’t remember the name of–I remember that it looked a lot like a Cheesecake Factory. It was yummy. By then, we figured out that we had JUST ENOUGH TIME to make it to the airport for check-in for our 5pm flight. We drove like crazy people and got there JUST IN TIME. Just in time to find out that our flight had been delayed until 7-something PM. Ugh. But American Airlines gave us some vouchers for dinner at The Freedom Bar in the airport. So we went there and ate (even though we had just finished eating lunch about an hour or so before. Doesn’t traveling make you hungry? Plus, it was “free”). I got to try out some more Spanish without a live translator by ordering from the dessert menu. Apparently, “Strudel de Manzana” (Apple Pie) and “Jugo de Manzana” (Apple Juice) sound a lot alike. So we drank apple juice. Ah well. Probably didn’t need that extra 5 pounds anyway. And we ordered “Cheese Fries” by pointing and grunting. Well, maybe not so much grunting. But the pointing seemed to work better than the speaking.

Then we went through security. Then we waited some more for our flight. I snuck off and bought some chocolate and hid it in my bag. Finally, we boarded and left the beautiful country that we had all come to love. That sounds cheesy and dorky, but it’s true. We (at least, T5OU or some fraction of that) hope to return within the year.

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at our vacation slides! If you get the chance to go to Mexico, say “Hola!” to it from us!

That’s all, folks!!

The kids and I downed some corn tortillas slathered with peanut butter and honey (Luke’s new favorite food) and we (all 11 of us, that is) were off. Along the way, we met up with the lovely Ruth, who works with Peter at the UNAM.
Road pic

And closer up:

Pretty, eh? And I never noticed the cloud formation in this shot before…Hmmm.

So we got to the town around maybe 2pm (waaaayyyy past an American lunchtime) and went immediately to the gordita place. Gorditas are these pancake/sandwich/flat dumpling sort of things that are really yummy. These particular gorditas were made of blue corn flour and stuffed with everything from nopales (cactus) to carne al pastor (yummy meat) to chicharrónes (pork rinds) and I can’t remember the other stuff. It was all good, though. Mine was a bit spicy, but it tasted so good, I didn’t really care that my mouth was on fire. We washed it all down with warm Coca Cola in a bottle. I’m sorry that none of us got pictures of the gorditas. I think we were all too hungry by that time to bother with it!

After “lunch”, we walked around, shopped a little, and took in the sights.

Some of us clowned around a little.

Mark is wearing Ruth’s hat and and attempting to document his experience. Weirdo.

And what would a Dishman Family Trip be without a trip to the ER? So David threw Leif up into the air. Repeatedly. But no blood was spilt.

Then they all tried to draw blood by climbing up a steep rocky wall and falling, but no one fell. So, all that death-defying stuff was in vain.

After we bought our purchases (when it gets warmer, I will wear my purchase, ha!), we got back into the cars and headed to Ruth’s parents’ house, Casa de Martinez.

My lands, people! Those Martinezes are the nicest, warmest family!! First, Ruth’s nephews, David and Isai (not sure I spelled that correctly, please forgive me!) made us all nametags and performed a “show” for us, a tae kwon do exhibition, of sorts! They also made us all sweet little cards in English like this:

This is David (who is right in between my girls in age):

And this is Isai, who is a few years older than Susanna:

And this is David and Isai (on the right) doing their thing together. They were really good.

Luke and Sr. Martinez (Raul, with an accent mark) got in on the action:

No one was safe from Luke’s mad fighting skillz.

Meanwhile, our David and their David began to spar:

After all that fighting, it was time to line up by height for the hitting of the piñata. Leif first.

Kids ran everywhere to pick up their treasures.

Then we went inside for the meal.

Kids’ table:

Adults (or some of them) table:

I don’t think I got a good picture of Ruth’s mom or sister the whole time, but here is her dad:

Dinner turned out to be Mark’s ABSOLUTE favorite: Pozole. It is a soup that contains hominy, some kind of meat (chicken in this case) and is served with lettuce, radishes, limes (!), and Mexican oregano:

MMmmmmmm…..LIMES!!

The story is that when Mark and Peter drove through Mexico 3 years ago, Casa de Martinez was a stop for them. Sra. Martinez served pozole then and Mark (who LOVES oregano) doused his soup with the Mexican oregano. They told him that he didn’t have to eat it (I guess they thought he spilled the bowl), but he loved loved loved it. He became something of an oregano legend that day. And that’s the story.

After dinner, Peter and Ruth had a special surprise for us. FIREWORKS!! Dishmans love fire. So we played with sparklers. (This is the only clear picture of Ruth’s mom, on the right)

We were very sad to leave our newly found friends. Friends, I might add, who do not speak our language. We communicated mostly through Peter and Ruth and Ruth’s sister, Ester. Otherwise, we just laughed. It was really wonderful. Almost like heaven, how we will be with people from every nation and all there for the same reason.

We drove back to Querétaro ready for a good night’s sleep. We would be returning to Mexico City and on to Dallas the next day.

To be continued….

PS-I think that when I see pictures of our time in Mexico, I am in awe of the sky.  The color, the clouds, pollution?  Whatever.  It’s really an awesome and photogenic sky.

So, when we woke up on Thursday, December 27, it was snowing. HA! I kid. At a temperature in the mid-60s, it most definitely was not snowing. I was just checking your awakeness. hee hee….

Yes, anyway….I don’t know what everyone else did, but Mark and the kids and Peter and John and Kevin and I went out looking at more churches. When Mark was helping Peter move to Mexico City 3 years ago, they passed through Querétaro on their way and they found a very interesting church and convent. They couldn’t remember anything about it except that families brought young girls to the convent and grew them up in the church. They could see their families once a year–on Christmas–and only through a small opening in a door. Mark and Peter wanted to find that church, because they said the architecture was really beautiful and the story of the young girls was very interesting. So, the search was on.

We checked here:

Here is the inside:

And we found St. James’ cross (Cruz de Santiago) inside the church:

While there was a convent there, it was not the “right one”. Hmmm… But we did find this plaque:

A translation would be nice right about now, ya think? Here’s one (via Babel fish):

“To the memory of the heroic missionaries who during two long centuries left this convent to take the civilization to vast regions of America. Thanks to Querétaro.”

Across the street from this church was yet another church where the first baptism in Mexico is reported to have taken place:

We did not go inside of it. I know you are shocked.
Ok. Well, John and Kevin decided that Convent Hunting was not their thing, so they took off on their own. Peter, Mark, the kids and I continued the search. We walked and walked and walked. Along the way, we met many people. Most were charmed by Luke’s strawberry-blonde hair color. Funny, that was. We stopped here and there for a warm, freshly-made tortilla and a drink (Manzana Lift, anyone? It’s like apple juice and Sprite together. Yummy.)

Finally, a hundred thousand years from where we started, we found it. Very interesting architecture, indeed!

Look! It’s the Coordinating Tourists! Coming soon to a theater near you…. And yes, Luke is sticking out his tongue at the camera. Kids these days…..

The inside of the church was equally as stunning:

And a picture of the inside of the tippy-top round part on the top (steeple? turret? Me no expert.) where the artist had thoughtfully painted his own picture:

And facing the back of the sanctuary:

Peter later tested out the acoustics by singing in Latin for us. I have no idea what he was saying.

Peter boldly gave himself a refresher tour around the place and found the storage room where we saw the Apostles waiting for the post-Christmas season:

And the place they keep the Holy Water (the naughty child belongs to me–he can’t seem to keep that tongue in his mouth):

As we were leaving, we looked up at the clock tower, which also has some interesting architectural details:

We were starting to get hungry by this time, so we began to figure out what/how/when to eat and just where the heck we were in reference to our house. Mark kindly pointed out our location:

We rightly concluded that we were WAAAAAAYYYYY too far away to walk (see: Luke’s attitude in the previous pictures and tired, hungry, complaining people), so Peter hailed a cab and we were off. One thing about Mexico and driving is that child car seats are not really used. Just throw the kid in the car and go. So Mark and the kids and I crammed into the back seat of this little compact Nissan something-or-other while Peter sat in the front. Easy. And fast–Mexicans apparently like to go fast. And we didn’t even wreck.

We passed a lot of this:

and

I was hungry, don’t ya know?

Since this is becoming a lengthy post, I will continue the rest of this day in the next entry. Stay tuned!!

***I’ve been out-of-town over this past weekend (by myself!!), so my blogging has been stifled. But I’m back now. My plan is to finish up Mexmas ‘07, so that I can get on with the exciting happenings of ‘08. Which, in actuality, won’t be a long blog entry and probably not all THAT exciting, but who knows?!

So. Now we’ve come to December 26th. Only 3 days left. Time flies, doesn’t it?

We got up. I cooked breakfast, consisting of eggs and bacon with optional toast, for the family.

This is the actual picture that I took of the actual bacon cooking. Maybe there’s a career for me in food modeling. Maybe?

So, after breakfast, Peter and John had arranged for a private tour of Querétaro IN ENGLISH. We were to meet at a certain place at a certain time and get on board a trolley vehicle for a few hours of Querétarian history. It was very interesting.
We started out at the Cerro de las Campanas, or Hill of the Bells, so called because if you bang two of the rocks together, they sound like bells (I don’t know exactly why you would want to do this, but that is the reason for the name). This is the place where Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg and 2 of his close buddies/generals were executed by a firing squad in 1867. Now there is a small chapel over the execution spot. Here is the chapel and the view down the hill towards the back of said chapel (Look, Ma! No handrails!):

Here is the trolley we rode in around town:

We also got to see the 74 arched Aqueduct (you can sort of see it spanning across town in the background of the photo above), built in the 1730s. Juan Antonio de Urrutia y Arana built this contraption with his own money, hoping it would please the nun at the Convent of the Holy Cross with whom he was in love. In the end, she decided that she had a commitment to the church and to God and could not marry him. But at least the convent now had fresh water.

More aqueducto pictures:

Up close:

Here are a bunch of us on the trolley (I believe Elizabeth took this picture):

After the trolley tour, there was an optional walking tour (given by the same people). So while Elizabeth took Leif home for a nap and Kevin headed off on her own, the rest of us walked with Cesar, the guide, around the historical district. He took us to one of the plazas where long ago two guys battled for who had the biggest house (someone else can expand upon this, if needed). Then we went to the large house where it is thought the battle for Mexican Independence began with Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez. She gave signals to the rebels and I can’t remember what else she did, but there it is. Again, I’m sure someone else can expand on this. By this time in the tour, my brain was all used up. Anyway, inside of Josefa’s large house (her husband was a magistrate), there was a prison. We saw the beam upon which many people were hung. Under this beam, Cesar helped Mark to demonstrate how a prisoner died without the help of a rope:

As a person was chained up in this little alcove (there were many such alcoves around the jail), they were boxed in with something over the front of it and Cesar’s hand is marking the spot where your own filth would fill up and if you had any open wounds, you would die of massive infections. So, slowly die by massive infections or strung up with a rope? I don’t think you had a choice, but those were your only ticket out. Nice.

After the tour, we all split up in various directions. I went with Luke and David back to the house, but Mark and Peter and the girls decided to check out some old churches around town.

And even inside:

That evening, Elizabeth fixed a very tasty dinner for us and since we were all pretty much worn out, we went to bed. Another great day in Mexico.

The next day was to be filled with a little bit of travel, the making of new friends, and a whole lotta fun. Stay tuned for another exciting adventure!!

So, Christmas morning? Is that where we are? I think so.

Not to alarm anyone, but sometime during the night of Christmas Eve, we had one more “driver for the porcelain schoolbus”. I didn’t want to bring it up, but this was the final occurrence. There will be no more talk of vomiting. Lucky you.
We woke up and Peter had some gifts he hadn’t opened yet.

The children wanted to help. So helpful, those children. Dare I say, cute, even?

We walked back to VIPs for breakfast.

Elizabeth and Leif know to watch for cars.

Peter and Susanna ran off energy on the way.

We ate a yummy breakfast. And you know what? This picture might have been taken Christmas Eve. Well, it’s really the thought that counts, right?

Merry Christmas from the Dishmans!!! (This is one of my tippy-top favorite pictures of the whole bunch.)
After breakfast, we took a leisurely stroll back to the homeplace, just for fun. The “historical square” (right in front of VIPs) was set up with different biblical scenes, of sorts…. (Think about life-size mannequins and paper-mache animals. It was great.)

The Garden

The Nativity Scene

Giant Spider

Satan among the poinsettias

And finally, the large rat with a pipe coming out of his mouth…???

Ah, well. I’m sure it fits somehow.

After we arrived at the homeplace, I don’t remember what we did. I’m pretty sure the boys/men and the kids (except for Leif, he took a nap) went off to play the Annual Dishman Christmas Football Game. Kevin went shopping and Elizabeth and I hung out on the roof terrace/patio and read books like little old ladies. I’m pretty sure I was reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen and I think she was reading a Patrick O’Brian novel. She’s way tougher than I am, can you tell? Here’s what our view was like from the third floor rooftop:

Nice, eh? Very relaxing and it was probably about 70ish degrees Farenheit. Yessiree, very nice. Oh and we ate chocolate, Elizabeth and I.

Skip ahead to dinner, because I don’t remember what happened until then….

The lady who owns the house lives next door and runs a bed and breakfast. She offered to fix us Christmas dinner and bring it over. She is a former chef, so we were excited to see what dinner would look like.

Salads, of course…

We dined like kings. I couldn’t find any pictures of the main course(s). I was probably too busy stuffing my face to take a picture. There was pork roast and chicken and brisket and lots of yummy veggies and crusty bread and lots and lots of sparkling apple juice (to which the kids became addicted) and this for dessert (I think it was peach cobbler with whipped cream):

Here we all are (again, John is taking the pictures. Sad, really, isn’t it?):

And here are Kevin and Luke playing reindeer games before the meal (Funny people in our family) :

After dinner (which lasted a long time), we were milling about when we heard popping noises coming from outside. Someone ran to the roof and hollered for everyone else….it was……

FIREWORKS!!! CLOSE BY!!! And of course, the only pictures we have of said fireworks have half of the building blocking the shot, or I would show them to you. They were very close and very pretty and very sparkley (and very loud and made all the neighborhood doggies go crazy).

We put the kids to bed and then stayed up late to play Family Uno. I take it you might not be acquainted with this version of the popular Uno game, no? This is the game whereby if you win a round, Your Favorite Brother immediately christens you with a quick blow to the head. This schmack is accompanied by Eggshell Confetti. Eggshell Confetti (eggs that have the goopy stuff blown out of them and are filled with confetti) hurts when administered by YFB. Unfortunately, there were no pictures to commemorate this brand of familial fun.

This entry is taking up a lot of space, so I think I will write more later. I hope you’ve enjoyed this installment of “Christmas in Mexico with the Dishmans”!

So, I think I left off sometime around Monday morning (that’d be Christmas Eve morning, in case you’re keeping track). Earlier that day (like 3 or 4am), David, Elizabeth, and Leif flew into Mexico City and Peter and John picked them up. The plan was to drive to Queretaro Monday. Everyone was really exhausted from our adventures thus far: Mark and I, from dealing with sick child/children all night, Peter and John, from picking up airport people and arguing about minivan rental specs in the wee hours of the morning, and David & Family from being delayed in a New York airport and then flying internationally in the middle of the night. But surprisingly, we were all very friendly and no one got pushy or mean, as physically exhausted people can sometimes do.

Stressful times did happen on our drive. Some of us almost got run over in the parking garage while walking to lunch at El Porton (Denny’s-type place owned by and next to a Walmart). The kids were still feeling yucky, so I ordered my meal and zipped over to Walmart to buy a thermometer (and a few other items). When I got there, I searched and searched for a thermometer. Couldn’t find one. Finally, after looking for a LONG time, I decided I had to ask someone. But I was by myself!! Peter (the only fluent Spanish speaker among us) was eating his lunch in another store. I had to do it myself. Ugh. I didn’t know the word for thermometer, so I guessed. And I probably looked like a stupid gringo idiot, but my babies needed a thermometer!! I had to do it. Whatever the cost. So here’s what I said:

Me: Eh..Uh..Umm…..Tiene Ud. tayr-mom-met-tro?

I said this while using my finger as a visual aid, of sorts. Pointing my finger to the back of my throat, like a thermometer.

It must’ve worked, because the nice Walmart lady sprang into action. She turned around and grabbed two choices from the wall behind her and showed them to me. I looked at them (they didn’t look any different) and pointed to one. Turns out, I chose a thermometer that measures only in Celsius. I think they probably all do that in Mexico, right? It worked out fine and now I have an extra souvenir! Lucky me. It was then that I realized that the smallest bill I had was a 500 peso note. That’s about $50 US. So they had to send Some Important Looking Guy to the front for change, which took at least 15 minutes. By that time, the family was wondering what had happened to me. Most of them had finished their dinner already, but I hadn’t even started yet. Still, it was a good experience for me to be out of my comfort zone. It was scary, but good. I think my hang-up with using a foreign language is that I know what I WANT TO SAY, but I am scared of what the other person would say back to me. How can I be sure I will understand the words they use? Can I understand what they say when they alltalksoquicklyIcanhardlybreathe? And I’m not very quick with a pocket translator. I’m sure that’s a post for another time.

We (who traveled in the car as opposed to the minivan, at least) had a delightful 2 hour (not including stops) car trip from Mexico City to Querétaro. We saw the Mexican countryside. Here is a small taste:

and

and

and

Pretty great, eh? There was a donkey eating out of a trash can along the side of the road, but I couldn’t get my camera out in time for a picture. I have regretted it ever since.
This is us winding through the narrow streets of Querétaro looking for our bed and breakfast place.

By the time we found our accommodations, it was time for Christmas Eve dinner. We walked to VIPs (which is sort of like a Dennys, are you seeing a trend here?)! And, once more, John is missing because he is taking the picture. I’m not sure why none of the rest of us thought of taking a picture of all of us. Hmmmm….

And for proof here is my napkin:

Something you must know is that in Mexico, Christmas Eve is a super grande celebration. They have parades, pageants, fireworks, and all sorts of party-type fun. Querétaro is no exception. Here are some pictures of the parade:

We had to leave after just a few floats because the kids turned into zombies. We walked back to the house (it was not far) and gathered together as a family in the living room and sang a few Christmas hymns. Such a meaningful time in front of the Christmas tree with its blinky lights. Well, the blinky lights were somewhat distracting. But the singing part was nice and cozy-happy-Christmasy-feeling.

It was late. And even after we were tucked away safely in our little beds, we could hear the neighbors whooping and hollering, various dogs barking in every which direction, and the sound of large fireworks booming nearby. But we were so tired, it didn’t really matter much. Zombies, remember?

In the next post, we will discover how we celebrated MeXmas (hee hee) 2007, what we ate for Christmas dinner and finally, how to relax on the rooftop terrace with a tasty drink and a good book (I think I just told you how). So until next time….
Adiós!