Mexico!

The summer blew by and school is here.  I forgot how fun summer is for kids.  When we got in the car to come home from our last summer adventure Charlie couldn't stop crying and said that he didn't want to go back to school.  In fact he decided to move to Mexico...or Connecticut...or Long Island...basically anywhere but home.

After months of deliberations - okay more like procrastination - we ended up deciding to go to Mexico for our summer trip.  The hope was to expose the boys to more spanish again this summer.  I simply wanted to go back to Antigua, Guatemala but Carlos' stomach won out.  We ended up choosing Cuernavaca because it was somewhat easy to get to and we could find a decent place to rent.  Even though it was "easy" to get to this is what we looked like when we got to Mexico City....

Cuernavaca ended up being great for the kids and good for our stomachs, but not very scenic for me.  We found a nice little school where both of them to go to play with local kids and also a great soccer team for Charlie to practice with.  The whole country seems to be kid-oriented and Cuernavaca had really fun kid activities.  We hired someone to come cook for us and it took me a full two weeks to get sick on Mexican food!

Charlie had many favorites about Cuernavaca including the fact that he had 4 "best friends" in school, rode an indoor zipline, discovered a love of foozball and scrimmaged soccer everyday.  Diego was lukewarm about school - he cried at least 50% of the time when we dropped him off.  He did however love the giant bubbles, the big ball pit and the bungee jumping like thing.  His least favorite were the little dogs at the house where we stayed! Poor Diego was traumatized by these little tiny dogs.

Breakfast looked more or less like this everyday

my uncouth child

soccer practice

the hotel in Mexico City was ready for Charlie and Diego

The town itself was likely once a very quaint colonial town, but the population exploded after the Mexico City earthquake and lost much of its charm.  But it is still where many wealthy Mexicans have second homes and it is apparent with the huge walls armed with broken glass or barbed wires. 

The coolest trees at one of Cortes' old Haciendas!

Town festival with church covered in flowers

Peacocks and Flamingos at Las Mananitas restaurant!

Cortes' dining room...

Borda Gardens

 I really wanted to introduce the kids to the Mayan culture so we took a taxi out of town to see the ruins of Xochicalco.  There were surprisingly excited the ruins - climbing temples to see a cool view is pretty neat.  We got there just as it was closing so Carlos had to sweet talk his way in.  I was sure that meant a bribe, but he assures me it was just smooth talking.

They didn't dig the coconut milk we got on the side of the road

 My favorite part of the trip was waking up on my birthday to find this outside my bedroom:


One of the best birthday presents ever.  And FYI - these are not mariachis.  They are called a "trio" there and yes there are four of them....:)

My least favorite part was the lack of sleep due to worry.  Every night I was worried about the kids safety.  Even if the US media reports and travel advisories didn't keep us away they sure scared us!  I was a kept woman as Carlos didn't like me venturing out alone.  Locals didn't want to talk about the violence much so it felt like the elephant in the room.

My princess Sofia made it through the trip and was a big hit with everyone.  Unfortunately all the travels gave her a cold and cough.