to the cabin and beyond

 This Christmas we went away to Tapalpa, a little town about 2 hrs away up in the mountains. It was cooooold!! But we knew it would be :-) it's always about 5-10 degrees cooler there than here in Gdl but this week was actually cold and rainy even here in Gdl. Our lows were 3 degrees there at the cabin, and in the cabin it was only about 8 degrees or so....so we slept with plenty of layers on, plenty of blankets, the fire going, a little heater going, the cracks around all the doors duck taped :-) and an electric blanket for heat!

It's fun though and a nice getaway during the boy's holidays. We hauled all the gifts there to open and had a nice cozy time in front of the fireplace reading the story of Jesus' birth and then opening them. Of course...we would rather be with our families. No surprise there. So it's nice to make these traditions and holidays together with just our little family even though we are here without the rest of our families.

These are good holidays for these boys! They get to run around, get muddy, play with random dogs, and explore in the bush. They were concerned with getting mud on their shoes though. ahh these city boys of ours.

Carter and Logan enjoying the fire. This electric blanket was used pretty well 24 hrs a day :-)

For our Christmas Eve supper we had perogies! Made by yours truly and Carter Isaiah. We had them Christmas Eve as in Mexico the big family gathering is Christmas Eve, with the tradition of eating around midnight and then opening gifts together! We ate earlier. and we should have been eating tamales or posole or turkey but we love our perogies once in a while.

The first full day we went to check out an adventure park we had heard about. It had a number of things to do there but the only one our kids could do was ziplining!! The rest was for older kids, this they could do b/c they could ride tandem with us.

It was so much fun!! It's so fun being able to do fun adult things together with the kids. Carter could go alone, and I am so impressed with his fearlessness with these types of things. He is often our more cautious child but he is becoming more confident in doing new things especially if it's something he really wants to do. He had done short ziplines before and really wanted to do these, it was 9 ziplines with some hiking between each one.

Logan rode with Dallas, and Brady rode with me.

They were so cute!

 

Carter getting ready for the first one

It took a couple of hours mostly because at each zipline we had to strap ourselves on, strap the extra kid on, and then at the end unstrap ourselves again. It was a little strange for me not to hold onto Brady :-) I was supposed to hold on to the top pulley to do the braking and Brady just dangled there on my lap! He was totally buckled on though no worries but it felt really strange to zipline high above the trees with the valley below and just have him hang there. But he grinned the entire time.

Improvising on the bbq-ing to not have to stand in the rainy cold :-)

 On the 2nd full day we decided to check out a waterfall that we had been told about. The night before I was up quite a bit of the night with a headache and throwing up so I ended up finally sleeping really late in the morning. So it was mid-afternoon by the time we headed out and I kept wondering if this was such a good idea to do this knowing it would be dark in a few hours.

Well we drove the 1/2 hr to get there, then it started raining, then we saw the road we had to take to get there (not the one below) but some narrow dirt road half washed out by the rain, and I wondered how crazy Dallas was for taking us out here! But he is quite determined when he wants to do something and Carter said he had never seen a waterfall and wanted to see one so onward we went.

The rain stopped just as we were going to start the hike...phew :-)

We hiked up the mountain and then all the way down. Trusting we were following the right trail in the un-marked Mexican paths :-) Dallas decided he had seen enough episodes of Mantracker to pick out slight footprints on the trail made by others ahead of us.

In the end we came to the bottom of the valley to the waterfall! So hard to tell in pictures but it was quite high, we're told it's the 2nd highest in Mexico. It was a really pretty spot and would have been perfect for a picnic or something.

Unfortunately we could only spend about 15 minutes there so we could hike back up the mountain before dark! Dallas randomly found a flashlight in his jacket pocket and I said...uh oh that means God knew we wouldn't get out of there before dark.

But it was fine :-) We hiked back up and were on our way!

I am so thankful for this little family!! It is so relaxing to be together and be able to do things like this together. The boys are all so relaxed and go with the flow and Dallas and I actually enjoy each other's company so that's a bonus. ha!

Merry Christmas!

Today is Christmas Day and we want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and blessings as you celebrate Christ's birth!

Being away from home and away from most of our Christmas traditions makes for a different experience but like I've said, it doesn't change the fact that who we are celebrating is Jesus! I've felt that it's been a good season of looking forward to Christ's coming and of focusing on that, especially as this is the first Christmas we had with our new church body here and we wanted to make sure we focused on Him with our new believers who are celebrating Christmas for the first time since coming to Christ!

We do miss the family times, we miss certain foods (although I made a lot of our family foods), we miss snow at Christmas, we miss singing Christmas carols with large groups of people singing in 4 part harmony, we miss sacking out on the rug after eating a big meal :-) but we also have traditions here...

We are making Mexican Christmas traditions with having posadas (Christmas gatherings with piñatas, food, etc.), with planting poinsettas next to our green grass, with seeing palm trees decorated with Christmas lights, with listening to English Christmas carols in the stores and malls, with getting together with Mexican friends for parties, and with English friends for parties.

Since I've been behind on posting, here are a few pictures from the last few weeks (although many of you will have seen these on facebook already!).

On the last day of school before the holidays, the boys had a Christmas program! It was so good and we were so proud of them! This was Logan's first program so we were wondering what or how he would do but he loved it.

Logan is the 3rd from the left. This is his class - 2nd Kinder, which is the same as Preschool.



And this is Carter's class. He is about the 4th from the left, in the middle.

And, a few more pics from the cabin! We did get to experience some cold, as it's cooler up in the mountains. The mornings and evenings really were chilly and so the boys were waiting for the cabin to warm up here.

This waterfall is at the same place where we went ziplining for Carter's birthday. It's really pretty, not very big, but pretty.

It's nice living with mountains all around us...the song that we sing and that comes to mind often is by The City Harmonic, called Mountaintop. All 3 of the boys love to sing it too!

quick trip to Tapalpa

 

On Sunday morning our friends that come to our church asked if we wanted to go away for the night with them to Tapalpa, a touristy town in the mountains just over an hour away. We had lunch commitments already but after that, we decided to go with them!

We'd never been there and we'd talked about it with them before so now was the time to go :-) and Monday was a holiday because of the Mexican Revolution.

We get along really well with them so it was fun to just take off for a night and part of a day to get out of the city. As you leave the city of 7 million (give or take) and drive the highway out into the mountains...it's just nice and relaxing.




They introduced us to the town, to fruit or cream filled empanadas, and to ponche - a hot fruit drink.

After sleeping the night, we headed to some big rocks where there was also horseback riding...spent several hours there just running around and climbing!

Carter and Logan had their stuffed animals with them b/c they wanted to pretend they were climbing the rocks. But I ended up holding on to them most of the time.

Brady is so crazy! He literally ran for a couple hours straight and did not want us to help him, not even to help him climb. He climbed right up the steepest part of this rock all on his own (with Dallas close behind of course!). The other 2 did plenty of climbing too.

Mountain biking

Dallas is a mountain biker and fortunately for him, John and LeRoy are also into mountain biking! So that has been something they have gone out and done on many an early Saturday morning.

They have gone on their own but often there are others that join them. For a while Dallas was trying to go with a local biking shop group that went on Sat mornings...but soon discovered that they didn't necessarily always show up since not enough people signed up! So now they have been inviting others to join them that are interested.



Dallas arriving at the top of a mountain to outlook Tower #3

Well anyway, I should probably let Dallas write about this but that wouldn't happen too easily. So here is my version of the stories Dallas tells me.

They go biking in Bosque la Primavera which is less than a half hour drive from here since we live closer to the outskirts of this 7 million people city. There are different towers at the top of different mountains. And they bike up to these towers...up and up...and think that it is fun.

And then they bike down and down. And sometimes fall. And think it is all fun, too. Although they fall b/c they are dare devils not b/c they are bad bikers :-) thought I should clarify b/c I think it is great that Dallas likes to bike and that he has a chance to get out of the city and do something he loves to do.

This tower was funny b/c they got to the top and discovered a man living there, who stays up for 8 days at a time, as a guard. So he made them some tea and some hotdogs and the guys say they were the best hotdogs they've had in their lives. With onions and bacon wrapped around and all.


Dallas and John with the guard in the tower

Lately they've been biking with a new friend, Ivan, that we met at a neighbourhood bbq. He doesn't live in our neighbourhood but he is the cousin (or nephew) of one of our neighbours. He is just getting into biking so they've been doing some lower key trails with him (although now that I see these pictures, I gotta wonder what "low key" actually means).

Ivan, Dallas, and John

Ivan, Dallas, and John
{all pictures were taken by LeRoy, who was also biking with them on both of these}

Question: What is it like parenting in another culture?

The answer to this would depend a lot on what the culture is like in the country you're living in...

The difference in parenting that first jumps into my head is bedtimes! In Canada, people tend to put their kids to bed earlier, let's say around 8 pm, and then the parents have the evening with a quiet house, if they're home that evening anyways. If you're out visiting that evening...people will put their kids to bed at other people's houses and then wake them up to go home when the parents are done visiting. Keep in mind my experience is with little kids and friends with little kids :-)

Kids in Canada also tend to have regular, set, naptimes.

NOW, this is all "for the most part", there are exceptions even in my own family! It so much depends on the parents and what they do, but would you agree that in general set bedtimes and naptimes are normal??

I am also like that. I like my kids to go to bed around 8:00 (sometimes 9:00 especially when there's no school) and until a certain age, they have regular naptimes during the day.



Brady, Carter, Logan, and I

So, the latin culture is not so time oriented as we up in Canada are (and the States as well). They are relationship oriented, which is awesome. Both have their merits. The thing is to find that balance when you are a Canadian living in a latin culture. It's hard to completely switch your brain to a different thinking, but at the same time.....the new culture becomes such a part of you that sometimes you don't even realize when you have changed your thinking! And that's a good thing, especially when you live in the culture and want to and have to adapt to it in order to be fruitful in what God has called you to do there! (never mind that you would find it very hard to live in a culture that you didn't love and appreciate).

Bedtimes here...are more so that the kids go to bed when the parents do, or whenever they are tired. It's not like, it is 8:00 pm children, get to bed. Some parents do that, but not most. It's like...why do you want to get rid of your kids for the evening?? Some do put their kids to bed around 10 or so but all depends. Naptimes also depends on the family but in general kids sleep if and when they are tired.

We have found a balance with this that works for us. Our kids do have a regular bedtime, like I said 8:00 or so, because we do like our quiet evenings on our free evenings, but if we are out or have company over, the kids just stay up and play and hang out till we aren't busy anymore. Which means that at least every Friday night when we have Bible study here, they are up till about midnight! and they love it and it works and it means a sleeping in Saturday morning for them :-)

I hesitate to write about cultural differences b/c people will say, hey we're not like that, we don't put our kids to bed at a certain time, or latins will say, that's not true, we do put our kids to bed super early...but these are my observations.

I think I will leave this at that one point on parenting in another culture....

The 30 Day Blog Challege: Day 12

{a photo of your town}

This "town" is just a tad big to show a pic of the whole town...
but here are some places we commonly go to.

The terraza in our neighbourhood.
It is a short walk or bike ride or run as fast as you can distance from our house and the neighbourhood kids hang out here in the late afternoon/early evening. Most are older than our kids but the moms go out with the younger kids sometimes.
There is also a basketball court here to ride bike on and this is where we have our Kids club every Wednesday afternoon.

Terraza

 If we're getting away, away...for a day or afternoon away...we sometimes will go to the zoo. It's an awesome zoo and we always have fun there.



Zoo - back in August 2011

 The other park - Parque Metropolitano - is a large park and is about a 5 minute walk or bike ride away and we go there maybe once a week with the kids to play in a bigger area.
In the mornings it is fuulllll of people running or walking for excercise and also the evening has a lot of people exercising. There are several different loops you can take, depending if you want pavement, gravel, dirt, etc. and depending how long of a loop you want to do.



Ready to bike - Aug.2011 - in front of our house

You can also see that picnic area with the green things over top in the background...we have bbq's there sometimes, meet as a church group there sometimes, whatever.



At the Parque Metropolitano

You can see most of the places we go in the city are actually in parks! That's what makes a good city...plenty of green space :-)



Team GDL post

Gdl = Guadalajara :-) b/c it can get to be a mouthful. Or a typing...full.

anyhoo, we are posting over HERE today at our Team blog so go on over and have a look! You'll find a good post written by Dallas and some pictures of him sporting his neon yellow racing shirt...and some cutsey pics of Carter running his first race!

school lunches

Carter starts school at 8:15 am which means we leave the house at 7:45 am to get him there on time (well we usually try to get him there early). So he eats breakfast quite early.

anyways, at 10:30 am it's breakfast time at his school...which is more like a lunch

fyi: Mexican mealtimes look something like this...
7/8 am - coffee & maybe a little something
10/11 am - breakfast
2-4 pm - lunch (biggest meal of the day)
8-9 pm - light supper

{mealtimes are 2-4 for example b/c it depends on the family, school, and work schedule, etc. as to when they eat}

We've adjusted it a bit for our "regular at home schedule and we eat at these times for the most part...
7:30 am - breakfast {Logan & Brady eat around 9 am}
11 am - snack {Carter has this meal at school at 10:30}
2 or 3 pm - lunch
6 or 7 pm - light supper
8 pm - boys go to bed

anyways......back to the the school lunches :-)

At Carter's school we're not allowed to send sweet stuff in their lunches - no cookies, candy, etc. So I send either a sandwich with meat & cheese or a rolled up tortilla with pb/honey or whatever. Then I give him fruit, veggies, or cheese on the side, and a juice box.

at 7 am...I am not very awake. So I put all of his lunch making stuff into this container in the fridge so I can grab it all out in the morning to take to the counter...much easier! {and conveniently I make his lunch by the coffee maker so that smell can wake me up....}

Carter needed a new backpack, his other one was too small and he would end up carrying his homework in his hands. So...to the store we went for a new one and this is the one he chose...

Has never seen Spiderman, but loves Spiderman. go figure.

a kindergarten graduation

Yesterday morning we went to the Kindergarten Grad at Carter's school. Carter isn't in 3rd year kindergarten yet, so he wasn't graduating, but his class was participating.

Grads are big deals here. I know...12th grade grad is big elsewhere too but here there is a big grad for kindergarten, for elementary school, for junior high, and then for high school. The little grads even wear the cap and gown, walk very ceremoniosly up to the front, and recieve a diploma.

Here in Mexico everything is done with much more ceremony than in Canada. I would say that their patriotism is much more evident....may sound bad but in Canada the only display of equal patriotism that I can remember seeing is at a hockey game!! :-) where they actually salute the flag and sing the anthem...

But at the grad {and at several other events we've been to it's similar} the flag is marched on stage, everyone present salutes {with your hand held firm at chest level}, and the national anthem is sung. Kids from early on learn to march and do the salutes...Carter also has been learning to do these things at school. It's very cute :-)

Below is a group of those that were graduating {without their cap and gown} on stage preparing to hand over the flag. What they did was go on stage and then a group of the class that next year will be 3rd year kindergarteners came on stage. One little kid very solemnly stated that they were now handing the flag over to the new class as a symbol that they new class would promise to carry on the traditions and patriotism of Mexico, something to that effect. Then the new class responded promising to uphold the values of Mexico.

Below is a shot of the stage. to the left is where all of the school's directors are seated and to the right is a class of kindergarteners performing. The theme was a circus...and each class did a presentation.

Carter's class did a lion presentation...bugs me I accidently shot the video in bad quality which makes it smaller and...less quality. But nevertheless, Carter is the third lion from the right. He walks to the stump and does a roar and later walks back and starts pawing it his friend to the right of him {watching it "right of him"...that is his friend René, his best friend at school he tells us}.

along the trail

Well I was just about ready to leave for my Thursday morning Bible study when they called and asked if we could cancel it. The lady who I have the study with is also pregnant and SICK...like I have never seen a pregnant woman so sick. So she was going in to the doctor today {her mom also comes to the study but is going with her}. That all leaves me with some spare time this morning...to blog :-) and then some other stuff...

ok this is kind about Carter {again!} but also about the way the school system works here...

For an explanation and introduction of the "along the trail" series, go HERE.

when to start school?

There are 3 levels of kindergarten in Mexico. Level 3 is like kindergarten as we know it back home, which starts around age 5. Here, level 1 starts at age 3, level 2 starts at age 4, and level 3 starts at age 5. After that the school years keep going the same up until grade 12.

You can decided at which level you want to start your kid, but some schools require your kid to have at least the level 2 before they can get into level 3 kindergarten. I think basically level 1 and 2 are like preschool, but it's expected that kids start in these levels.

Carter just turned 3...

We decided that it'd be a good thing for him to start school this coming fall, mostly so he can use Spanish every day and also to find some friends his age! seriously {besides Brooklyn and Emma} all the families we know here have OLDER kids....the youngest we know is a 5 yr old girl, the rest are all older. Which at his age probably doesn't matter much but that's what we are thinking :-)

Because he will turn 4 during the next school year, he was automatically placed in level 2 by the school and so will start level 3 kindergarten when he's almost 5.

oh the school we decided on is called COLEGIO LA ROCA which means "The rock college/school". It's a Christian school that's really close to our house. We know one of the directors and her husband and felt it'd be a good school. Dallas had been talking to the husband about it {well he actually teaches music and gym at the school} and so yesterday he called us up and said the directors would like to meet with us that day.

so we go over there at noon, are sat down in an office with all 3 of the directors. Before talking to us about Carter coming there....they asked if they could hire Dallas to teach english at the school, 2 hours every morning, mon-fri! We were taken aback haha we thought we were there to talk about Carter. Anyways so explained to them we couldn't, with our work with our mission etc and they were totally fine with that. {so if anyone wants to come teach english....we'd love the company!!! seriously anyone from Canada would have a job here at a number of schools in an INSTANT, with no training whatsoever}

But then we had our tour of the school and signed Carter up for August.

uniforms...

Every single school here has a uniform the kids have to wear - be it a public school or a private school. They're all different depending on the school. This is a picture of the school Carter will go to...

suit and tie!! haha poor guy We found out though that they wear a suit and tie on Monday's and the other days it's more of a casual uniform. This class is older kids though. Carter's class had little tables and chairs. oh the other thing we liked here was that the student/teacher ratio is smaller. There are about 25 kids per class, but there are 2 teachers in each class.

Maybe once August comes around we'll decide to postpone sending him til January :-) he's gonna be so little still! but we think it'll be good for him and he'll love it. He loved daycare last year while we were taking Spanish classes. and this will also be just a few hours in the mornings.

along the trail

For an introduction and explanation of the "along the trail" series, go HERE.

HOLIDAYS

So Christmas is just past, and now New Year's Eve was last night. The celebrations are different than at home...

Christmas...

The 24th in the evening is the big celebration. Family is very important here, so it's a huge family gathering with food. Since supper is typically after 8:00 pm (all the time) there's a big meal late in the evening - on Christmas Eve we hear the meal is closer to midnight. The 25th is a holiday so is a day off. We were with my parents for Christmas so I can't tell you what their typical food would be...maybe next year...

New Years Eve...

Last night for New Year's Eve we were invited to the family's house we were have Bible studies on Thursdays. New Years Eve back in Canada is usually spent with friends. Here, it's spent with family. So the party we went to last night was one big family gathering, but we had met most of the people that were there before.

It really wasn't the greatest evening for us, but mostly because Logan and Carter were really tired and Logan has a cold and things related to all that. The party was at 8:30 so by then the boys were already tired!

Here, too, supper is served late in the evening. I think we had our first course of supper around 10 pm. This food though wasn't very typical - smoked ham, spaghetti, and mashed potatoes... We left at 11:30pm and I know after that they were going to be eating MENUDO. Which is a very typical meal, especially around the holidays. That's like a soup with various things in it, including the lining of cow stomach (I think that's what it is - correct me if I'm wrong!). But it is an inner cow part, and that's the specialty part of the meal.

along the trail

To see an explanation and introduction of the "along the trail" series, go HERE.

WINTER!!

I have not been a huge fan of winter. The cold...the snow...the icy driving...not for me. I DO like wearing sweaters, drinking coffee together, the cozy indoor parts of it. Dallas on the other hand loves winter hiking in up to your knees snow, ice skating, playing hockey, building quincey's...and generally anything outdoors. {that goes for summer, too}

now when you think of Mexico, do you think of WINTER??? That's exactly the season we're in right now. Where we live in Mexico, it's just starting to get cold. At night we have our little electrical heaters going, one in the boy's room and one in our room. During the day we have a heater going downstairs and make sure we have on our slippers and sweaters.

The difference between the cold here than at home is that here the houses don't usually have heat in them so you can't escape the cold by going into a house! sure it's not as cold as -40 outside, but you're chilled through nonetheless.

poor Logan's hands are cold from crawling around on the tile floor all day. But on he goes.

{it was actually pretty funny one day, I was in the middle of changing him when he escaped down the hall without his pants on. You could tell his legs were cold b/c he was trying very hard to just walk on his hands and feet without touching his knees to the floor}

from here on in it's only going to get colder. December-February are the coldest months.

We're leaving in an hour or so for Bible study...going to be cold!! Where we are going they don't have heat going in their house yet.

along the trail

To read an introduction and explanation to the "along the trail" series, go HERE.

burger king

Today for lunch we headed over to Burger King {it's one of 3 American chains in Delicias so when we're in want of a burger that's where we go}

The first time we went there when we got here to Delicias we saw that most of the menu was in English - the names of the items are mostly the same - whopper, combo, whopper junior...etc.

So Dallas goes ahead and orders and the girl says "mande??" {which means "what??"} He had ordered saying the english names how we would say them in english. Tried again.

We discovered that we must order using a spanish accent on english words. So pronounce the word like a spanish person would when trying to speak english...

Today as we ordered we were laughing about it with the girl taking our order. We ordered a plain burger for Carter....so she yells out behind her "un whopper junior plain!" all pronounced like spanish words.

She then tells us that they always laugh at people like us who don't know how to pronounce words like "whopper" properly.

In other Burger King news.......seeing as our boys are a drawing factor everywhere we go, one of the workers came over while we were eating and talked to us the entire time, mostly making faces with Logan {who is quite the little charmer when he has attention like that}

We talked to her for quite a while and found out she goes to one of the churches close to our house. It was fun talking with her, a fellow Christian girl, since we've visited with only a handful of Christians in Delicias so far.

along the trail

For an introduction and explanation of the "along the trail" series, go HERE. To see previous posts in this series, go to the column on the right titled LABELS and visit the link "along the trail".

Before arriving in El Paso TX back in August, I personally did not know that pecans grew on such huge trees! While we were there, we headed a short distance up into New Mexico and visited a pecan orchard. Since arriving in Delicias, we've seen tons of pecan orchards, they are big producers of them here.

So here is a quick tutorial for you on the process of harvesting pecans...

Above is a pecan orchard. The trees are planted in straight rows. Right now {October} is harvesting time. Depending on the orchard, the pecans will be harvested in different ways.

The poorer farmers or ones with very few trees will shake them loose from the branches by hand. But the ones with large orchards use a machine that has claw type things that hook onto the trunks of 2 trees at one time. This machine then shakes the trees, causing the pecans to fall to the ground. On the ground huge nets have been laid to catch the pecans. Once the trees have been shaken, the workers gather up the nets to collect them, and then later workers walk around the orchard picking up stray pecans that may have escaped the netting. I'm not sure if here, but in New Mexico instead of netting, they had a street sweeper that would go through the orchard after the shaking to pick up the pecans.

This process of shaking and gathering is repeated 3 weeks after the first harvest, to collect pecans that were not loose enough on the branches the first time to fall.

On the tree, pecans look like this {above}. They are surrounded by a green shell.

As the shell begins to dry out, they loosen from the branches and this makes them loose enough to fall to the ground. When you take the green shell off, your hands get very stained!! There's some kind of oil or something that stains very dark brown.

The way you would pecans at the store {if the shell is still one them}

And of course, the inside, the part that you actually eat! which I'm sure you are all familiar with.

We collected pecans from an orchard floor so I was looking for recipes to make....came across this one...soooo good... It's a brownie on the bottom covered with caramel, pecans, and cholocate chips. The only problem is that it takes so long to actually get the pecan out of the shell...