September Happenings

Looking back over picture for September, I see that it was a month marked by sweet friendships and I'm so thankful.

The first week in September, my friend Amanda had her baby girl. They are expats here and therefore don't have family in town. We got to be the "on call" family to watch her son when she went into labor. What a fun job! We got to have little Harvey overnight at our house and he just loves playing with the boys, especially Josh. (In fact, he calls the twins the "other Josh's.") I enjoyed watching Harvey, but had definitely forgotten how much work it to watch a 3 year old! 

Harvey went with me to pick Josh up from school and was so proud!

 There's nothing like holding a newborn! 

I've been so thankful for my friendship with Amanda and was grateful that she entrusted her son into our care! 

Amanda went into labor two days before Tropical Storm Fernand hit Monterrey. Thankfully, the real heavy rain started after I was able to get Harvey to the hospital with his parents. By the time I returned home, the streets were starting to flood and we hunkered down at home to watch the storm. Least to say: that was a very interesting and weird 24 hours! 

Thankfully, the storm was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm and didn't do much damage to the city. Also, the city did a great job of basically shutting down for 24 hours while the major rain was happening. All schools were cancelled as well as Ben's work. It felt a lot like a snow day in Portland. We hung out at home, made cookies, watched movies and played games. 

 Weird pre-storm skies 

 The lighting was so odd 

 It was very beautiful, however.

 A few days later we were blessed with the most amazing full rainbow across our vista! 

One of the weekends in September we also hosted our friends' sons for two nights while they traveled back to their home city of Cuernavaca. We have become good friends with this Mexican family, despite half the family not being to speak any English. It made for an interesting weekend of lots of Spanish speaking! We had many moments of laughter as we tried to figure out how to say the most basic things like: "Time to get ready for bed," or "Get your own drinks." Sometimes the more familiar phrases can really remind us how much more we need to learn! 

Having three extra boys certainly gave us a house full! We had so much fun, though, and shared some of our favorite meals, restaurants and parks with them. It was a blast to treat them to a special weekend! 

Friday night ice cream at LaCreme

Then to a park...because I didn't want 6 sugar rushed boys in my household

 Saturday we visited Papalote Museum in Fundidora

 It was a fun children's museum

 Puzzles

Big boys doing puzzles

Favorite activity

 It was pretty cool 

 Learning about power 

 Watching the I-max film called "Little Giants" that turned about to be quite terrifying for Josh. Why do they have to make all movies (even nature ones) so intense?

 Hanging out at Fundidora park afterwards

 Then, of course, to our favorite tacos de trompo at Taqueria Orinoco

 My favorite part of the weekend was listening to all the boys interact using both languages. Even Josh was speaking some Spanish (always in the command form). Friendship truly spans race and language. 

Another delightful friendship we have been blessed with is with the Ehlbeck family. They moved here in August from Portland because the husband is now working with Ben. As a bonus, they also moved into our apartment building. It has been such a blessing to have them literally two floors up. Their two daughters, Helen and Rose, are similar ages to the boys and all the kids get along so well! They have spent many an hour together and Tim and Elliot have been a great resource for me when Ben has been out of town (which has been quite a bit: once in September and twice in October).  

 Playing basketball at the park 

 Taking pillows in the elevator for a movie party

I love that Sam and Seth have their stuffed animals here. The kids' stuffed animals are all friends too. 

 Josh and Rose: two very similar and rascally personalities. 

Planning a play with Helen after swimming

Chilling on the trampoline together. 

Tim playing on the trampoline with the kids while Ben was out of town. 

September 16 is Mexican Independence Day, so the kids had a three day weekend and we got to explore a cultural event and watch a parade. 

 "Mom! We can't take a picture here...it's in front of someone's house!" 

"Just real quick boys..."

 The town square decorated 

 I love the color of this building! 

 Greasy street food at its finest; we unfortunately didn't have the stamina to stay for the midnight "Grito" in the square. 

 Parade the next day with expat friends

 Nothing but trouble with these two

 I love this one of Josh

A final fun things in September was that Ben and I had a dinner with some parents from the boys' school. We've really struggled to make friends with people there, so this was really special and significant for us. It was also a very different cultural experience. First, the dinner was scheduled for 8 pm. We were the first to show up at 8:30 pm. We didn't start eating until almost 10 pm. When we started mentioning leaving at 11 pm, we felt like we were offending. We finally left at a little after 11:30. The hostess messaged me that everyone else was still there at 2:30 am...I don't know the last time Ben and I consciously stayed up that late (college?) It was such a wonderful group of people and we felt very included. By the end of the night (maybe it was the alcohol was speaking) everyone was talking about taking a weekend trip as families together. Not sure that will happen, but regardless, we were thankful for these families including us in their group. 

Gaby and Eduardo, Christian and Lore, Nidia and Adrian; they all have boys in our grade.