Flowers!

Cubby and I tagged along with our favorite group of exploring Americans (so far we've hit the Abastos produce market - which was fantastic) to check out the Guadalajara Flower Market.

It too was fantastic.

We came home with 6 long-stem calla lilies and 6 gorgeous sunflowers.

All 12 flowers cost...around US$5.

I may become a fresh flower fanatic yet!

Good Things

There are so many good things about our life in Guadalajara. I could never capture it all. And what I consider a "good thing" often depends on the day, the hour, the moment.

So, for this moment...

A pretty awesome zoológico and parks in general. Seriously. And with great weather year-round, we need to go more often.

The sweetest, cutest, most delicious little bananas. I'm not sure what they're actually called (Apple Bananas?), but man they are good. (Esme just told me they are called "Dominicos." So there you go.)

Perfect and very abundant avocados (aguacates - there is nothing like a fresh, Mexican aguacate!), homemade multi-grano yogurt (filled with flax seeds, sunflower seeds and other grains), and fresh squeezed mandarin orange juice. All of these were bought from a little store that is a 5 minute walk from our house.

GUAVAS!! I seriously am in love with guavas and how they are always available. (Above is a picture of some getting ready for their 15 minute bath in filtered water and iodine sanitizer.) Any time I want to eat something sweet, like candy or ice cream, when I see these it's like my brain switches course and only wants guavas. Cubby and Deevie love them too, but not as much as me. I love to eat them like the Mexicans do - with lime, salt and chile.

Making bagged-lunches for the girls every day. (This is a total "moment" thing, because often I find this to be a big pain in the butt since it's all tied up in the morning stress to get out of the house. As I sit here blogging while Cubby naps and the warm Guadalajara breeze blows through the window? Making lunch is AWESOME.) Overall, I know it's such a blessing to be able to do this. Or I should say to be forced to do this - because sure, I certainly could have made lunches for the girls every day in the States if I didn't have the easy option of school lunch. In Virginia the girls bought school lunch, and celebrated pizza Friday, potato-faces Tuesday, and chocolate milk. All good ol' American treats :). Here, I take the time to make sandwiches, cut up vegetables (like red pepper hearts for Valentines Day - believe me, that was a one-time event), and always include fresh fruit. I am in a total bagged lunch rut though. New ideas are always welcome - as long as they take 7.5 minutes of prep.

Being with Cub all day (and his constant need to draw "tick tocks"), and yet also having the option to go out if I want to (thanks to housekeepers/nannies we can still afford to hire even on one salary), is still something I pinch myself about. No, it's not all bon-bons (just ask N how passive-agressive I am when he gets home from work!!), but the FS has certainly been a quality of life improvement for our family. And Cubby, my day-time partner, is amazing. He is such a funny and fun little boy, who is so full of personality and Cubbiness. Today, while I was at my Spanish class, nanny Esme taught him to say "Bien" when asked "¿Cómo estas?" It is the cutest little "Bien" you can imagine. So the whole Spanish thing is a blessing too. The kids may not remember any Spanish if we don't use it after GDL, but the exposure still expands their language world, and that is pretty cool. Just the other day Birdie had an excited realization. "Hey!" she said, "the word "library" probably has something to do with "libro"!" I myself realized this at the age of 37, when my 7 year-old daughter pointed it out...just the other day.

More Spanish

K and I had a fun Spanish class this morning. ¡Que chistoso! Is that even right? Anyway, we are both thoroughly confused by reflexive verbs. Bañarse. Arreglarse. Whatever-se. K thought "Dumbo" in a practice sentence was a Spanish word she didn't know (instead of the Disney elephant). Pronounced "Doom-boh", it kept making us laugh. At one point K said this: "Dumbo es un verbo reflexivo." It was kinda a you-had-to-be-there moment, but man how it made me laugh.

Cubby, now 17 months old, says two Spanish words consistently: "Agua" (water) and "listo" (ready). Even when you ask him if he wants his water in English, he'll nod and say "Agua." Or when you ask him if he's ready to eat, he'll say "Listo." (It comes out more like "deeh-doh," so it pretty much breaks your heart from cuteness.) The other day he picked up the lid to Chutes and Ladders and put it on his head, then began calling out "Paaan! Paaaan!" with a very self-satisfied, smiling face. I was very confused. Our housekeeper/nanny Evah laughed and explained that she had taught him that because there is a man who sells bread ("pan") in her neighborhood, balancing his whole lot on a board on his head. Cubby is our own little Mexican pan salesman.

Spanish

I just got back from Spanish. I love my Spanish tutor! Her name is Gaby, and she is the greatest. Today we (I do the twice-weekly sessions with K, wife of N's A-100 classmate) reviewed imperfect and preterite verb tenses. I really enjoy the challenge of learning language, and especially like trying to talk like I do in English in a new language. Today K said a woman had "verduras" eyes, instead of "verde" (green). Gaby stopped her and said that "verduras" means "vegetables" - oh how we laughed. K was like, "Well that's what I was trying to say - her eyes are vegetables to me." I told them about how I tried to order "buses" on my salad a few weeks ago. I kept asking for "camiones" for my salad and the waitress just looked at me very confused. Finally I said the word "seafood" (mariscos) and she said, "Aaaah! Camarones!"

Camarones = Shrimp

Camiones = Buses

(Camiones = Buses in Mexico at least. It means "trucks" in the rest of Latin America, just to keep me guessing. I figured this out when Esme (our MWF housekeeper) told me she rode the "camion" to our house. I imagined her riding in the back of a packed pick-up truck and told her I didn't think that was safe. Joke's on Señora Gringa!).

This is a picture of the room moms from Birdie's class. This was actually at her class "posada" in December. When I tried to order transportation on my entré, I was at the January "convivencia" with this same crowd of lovely, patient women. (A "convivencia" is another get-together of some sort, the exact definition of which continues to elude me. We've got desayunos (breakfasts), almuerzos (lunches), posadas, fiestas, siestas, and now convivencias.

So far they all seem pretty similar, mas o menos a piñata.)

Speaking of Spanish, we just had SKY satellite installed day before yesterday. So now after 6 months of watching DVDs and streaming Netflix, we can watch Mexican TV! We're not sure if the expense is worth it, but it'll be nice to have options -- and to be able to watch TV in Spanish. Just yesterday for the girls' TV time I turned on Nick Jr and "Ni Hao Kailan" was on...in Spanish. I stupidly fiddled with the remote trying to change it to English, but the girls yelled at me to stop interrupting the show with pop-up boxes. So I left it like it was, and the girls just watched in their normal vegetative state. TV is TV, even in a different language :). But soon Birdie was asking Deevie if she understood and totally began translating. Holy Cow. It's amazing to me to see them soak this stuff up without even trying. For example, Birdie was telling our housekeeper Evah that she had made a card that Evah was looking at. "Yo hice esto," Birdie said. I almost died. That's the preterite tense! I JUST LEARNED THAT!

Yesterday

Yes, we're still alive and well. Just not documenting very well. Christmas! N's parents' and brother's visit! Goodness.

For now, here is a picture I took yesterday of Birdie and Deevie waiting for their ride to school. They say one of the biggest advantages of FS life is sibling closeness -- since no other person in the world understands better what you're going through. I like to think about that.

I especially like to think about it when they're fighting like gatos y perros. :)

Dinner Options

Our first week here we heard about the man who sells tamales outside the Oxxo (Mexico's 7-11) down the street. He shows up a little after 6 with his silver pot of tamales and sells them until they're gone. I never think about him, though, because I'm often home before he gets there, or I just don't notice him. I saw him tonight on my way to buy dinner at Pechugon, the rotisserie chicken/yummy spicy potatoes joint. After purchasing a whole chicken/potatoes/rice combo (108 pesos), I decided to stop for some tamales. Tamale Pot Guy turned out to be a woman (the guy's wife, maybe?) The tamales, which come in several varieties, are 9 pesos each. I got two of the green sauce kind for Narra and I to try.

We just finished eating all of the aforementioned vittles, and I was inspired to come in here and write an ode to dinner options in Mexico, which are varied, tasty, and exquisitely inexpensive. At current exchange rates, tonight's meal cost about 9 bucks. The tamales were dellllicious. I predict we'll begin visiting tamale pot lady about once per week.

If I were a dedicated blogger, this post would feature a picture of the tamale vendor. To my own dismay, and as you may have noticed, I am not such a blogger. Fortunately, I married well.

Until next time. Which at current blogging rates will be sometime in mid-April.

New Favorite Thing

Elote = Corn. But as I mentioned in a previous post, it's different than the sweet corn we're used to back in the States. But man do I love the stuff. It's often sold by street vendors on the cob, roasted on the spot, seasoned with sal (salt), limon (lemon), and a mayonnaise-based cream sauce if you'd like. (I have yet to try the cream sauce.) Or, you can have it my favorite way -- in a cup with the warm broth it was cooked in, with a little sprinkling of rock salt, a squeeze of fresh lemon, and chili. Ooh la la! Delicioso!

Funny how I'm writing about corn and fail to mention all the other stuff we've been doing. We spent Thanksgiving weekend at the beach for goodness sakes! And did we write about "camping" in Tapalpa? And I hosted the girls in Birdie's class for her birthday with the help of my friend Ani. It's amazing how hard it is to keep up with a blog.

So for now, I write about corn.