The Highlight Reel

Yeah, so we've been a bit busy.  Like more than a bit.  Our average wake ups have been 7:30am and the end of day doesn't usually happen until 10pm when the hotel turns the lights out on us.   So here's the highlight reel of the week 1 trip.

Tuesday the ladies of the trip were invited to a baby shower for Carmen.  Carmen is the house mom of Casa Golandrinas.  Julie has basically become the unofficial Casa Golandrinas mascota and would live there happily in exchange for hugs, kisses, and goofy songs everyday.  She'd probably even sleep on the floor there if they let her.  

Baby Shower for Carmen at Casa Matriz

Food and games I guess.  I don't know.  I wasn't invited.  Don't have a uterus.

Gifts of love for Mama Carmen

This cake may look delicious, but don't eat it. It's made of diapers.

Wednesday we invited the Unrau house to go on a trip with us.  Jupiter, our tour guide friend, always finds amazing places for us to take the kids to explore.  This time we hiked into a canyon after a refreshing lunch of sopes with guisado.  The boys were thrilled with the adventure of hiking over rocks and boulders.  Like our other experiences with hiking in Mexico, there were many places that were on that border of thrilling and terrifying.  Just perfect for a group of seven 11-14 year old boys and us.

Outdoor seating area directly above the canyon

Mark posing with Lunch

What is a hike in Mexico without safety ropes?

Ray and Mark pausing in the river

The steps to go down the canyon trail were more than a little steep

Here's the whole group hanging out at the overlook

Jupiter:  You like a little challenge, don't you?

Julie and some boys posing by a giant tree

All here for the adventure

And yeah, we did some stuff.  The big project after the fence was finished was to paint one of the homes a new color.  We didn't have the time to do the whole house, but we did paint one of the out buildings with the new color.  What we've gotten started, week 2 will sweep in and continue.

Francisco rolling the new color on the back of the building

Mark "cutting in" around the stairs

Julie unable to keep the paint off of her face for some reason

Finished with the first building, Week 2 paints the big one

It's good to see the kids cooperating, isn't it?

On Thursday we also had lunch at the Unrau house.  Toño and Nathy from Famoso made us lunch.  They are in town for a short while before they move to Puerto Vallarta.  I'm gonna miss Toño's cooking.  Maybe we'll have to take a trip to visit them after they move.  

Toño cutting up the stew meat to make some tacos

Naty giving the ladies tortilla making lessons

Coral pat, pat, patting

Julie was more kinda mashy squashy with her technique

Floury flattened success!

And we spent time Friday at Casa Cuna.  Cuna houses the littlest of the bunch.  These kids range from birth to five years old.  We spent the time with the littles doing a cute craft and playing with a parachute.  And we occupied them for about as long as it took to become exhausted.  For us that was around ten minutes.  These kids have got some energy!

The bumping and rollicking balls are always entertaining 

JUST STAND STILL WOULD YA'

Cute little birdie puppets

So the gang is now on the way to the airport, and I am waiting for week 2 to show up. Luckily we have something waiting at the hotel that they will all enjoy.

New mattresses!  The hotel upgraded while we were here.