Feliz Cumpleanos!

February 9 was Molly and Allison's 17th birthday! It was quite the celebration, let me tell you. haha. We slept in a bit and then made some chilaquiles, which is my favorite breakfast, and one of their's too. We got stuff ready for their party, which was at the Hacienda, ate some lunch and I don't remember what else. ha ha. 

The night before we blew up a TON of balloons. ha ha. This was one of their birthday presents, they learned a new skill. Neither knew how to blow balloons before that day, but they sure knew how to after! haha, there was no way I was blowing up all those balloons by myself. I surely would have passed out. haha. 

We had two pinatas! A burro and a star. :) Our housekeeper, Lupita was so sweet! She brought a stick over for the pinatas and she decorated it so cute!

Want to see how many people I can name? ha ha. Ok, here we go. From left to right. Back row: Carlos, Brian, two of Dulce's friends (don't remember their names!!), one of Rosie's daughters, Adeline, Rosie's  son, Hector, Norman and Molly. Middle-ish row: Ana, me, Adrianna, Esmerelda, Tatiana, Dulce, one of Cecy's sisters (Mele I think?), Sarahi, and Cecy. Front row: Allison, the burro and Cande. Whew. . . 

Can I just tell you. . . the food was SO good! I'm going to miss Sorianna desserts!!

Getting ready for the pinata!The birthday girls get to go first!

:) 

Pobre burro! ;(

Comemos pastel and mucho helado! We ate cake and lots of ice cream! It was a great birthday! It was fun to see so many of our friends in one place. :)

But just wait, this is one part one of the birthday celebration! There's more to come! :) 

Oh and one last thing, just remember, if you happen to be in Mexico for your birthday, if you want people to be there at 4, tell them to be there at 3. ha ha. Good times. . . :) 

El Cementerio!

Molly, Allie and I took a walk out to the cemetery the other day and let me tell you, it's quite a different experience. To me, cemeteries can often be places of peace and beauty where you can take come time to contemplate, etc. I enjoy going with my grandparents or aunts and learning about my ancestors and their stories. There are just as many stories in a Mexican cemetery, they are just told in a different way. It would be fascinating to go with someone who knows the area and could tell me about the history of the people here. So many of the families are related, I'm sure there is much to be told. 

 A fancy decorated tombstone.

 I think this picture is so cool. The dead tree kinda sets the tone. ha ha.

 Only in Mexico would the company who made the tomb have an ad on the actual grave. Am I right?!?

 This is the inside of one of the family tombs. There are slots for three caskets on each side. It's down in the ground and kind of creepy to look down into.

 The headstones range from very primitive to very fancy. I thought this one was neat.

 This is Ted and Susan's burial plot. See the Rotary symbol there? Their mothers are both buried here, as well as one of Ted's friends who died while in Cofradia. You can fit multiple people in the plots, I think there's room for four? I don't really know how it works. haha.

 Check out the volcano there! The cemeteries in Mexico don't really have much grass and the grounds aren't very well kept up. On the day of the dead, November 1st, there is a big celebration and people come to the cemeteries, clean them up, bring decorations, food, etc. They believe on that day that the spirits of those who have passed on come to visit. I can't remember exactly, but I think it's from early in the morning till the mid afternoon or so that they believe they're there.

An example of the other kinds of tombs. I don't know how they get people in the one below. . . but I guess they figure it out. ha ha.

When I get back home if you want to hear a really crazy story about Mexican cemeteries ask me to tell you about Guanajuato. :)

La Campana!

I'm sorry for being so far behind in these posts! I've got so much to share! This is La Campana! It's part of Mayan ruins that they found while trying to build stores and such. It was so neat! They haven't even uncovered half of what there is! They're going little by little!

 Pyramids!

 So they have a little tomb you can walk down a set of stairs to see. A little freaky, but cool! You can see inside that there are ceramic pots, Colima dogs, some bones, etc. They believed the Colima dogs were good luck and would bury them with the people. Most likely this contained more than one person and the family would have been well off to be able to afford a burial like this.

More ceramic figures in the tomb.

 The freaky set of stairs you have to climb down to see the tomb.

Part of the ongoing excavation. :) Cool eh? It's just kind of popping out of the vegetation!

 In the center of a bunch of ruins. I felt like I was in The Testaments movie! ha ha. So cool!

 Carving of a rattlesnake.

Don't do it!! ha ha. 

 And of course! We saved the best for almost last! ha ha. Take a close look at this picture. What do you see? That's right, those are hundreds, maybe thousands of daddy-long leg type spiders in a hole in the ground! SO CRAZY! There were SO many spiders in that hole! That must be the way they catch their prey of something. We saw it one other time, but in a much bigger area, but it's the weirdest thing. It was fascinating.

 We got the BEST ice cream bars in Comala! Check it out, there are WHOLE Oreos in that thing! And not just one! There were probably about 4-5 Oreos. It was the best! Day made!

Molly, me and Allie. :)

Mercado!

Every Tuesday is market night in Cofradia, our little village. Vendors range from tons of fruits and veggies, electronic gadgets, hairbows, wallets, clothes, super cheap shoes, Mexican pizza, tostadas, cheese, fried hot dogs, etc. It's a fun time to be out and about and talk to people in the village. 

This picture goes out to my roommates from Spring and Fall of 2010, most especially Rebekah Bradley. Too bad she won't see it for about another year, but oh well. ha ha. This is real Mexican Corn or Elote. And man was it spicy! If a Mexican tells you it's picante, you better believe them. ha ha. It was good though. They roasted it over charcoal then dip half a lime in coarse salt and rub it against the kernels, then I added a tiny bit of some kind of spicy chili powder stuff to it. It was good but my lips were burning!

So. . .this is Mexican pizza. We got half Hawaiian, half Mexican. Also notice the "pepperonis." Is it just me or do they look like sliced hot dogs? Interesting. Definitely not American pizza, but it was decent, especially for 37 pesos. 

So we got the idea to sell cookies in the market from one of the ladies here in town. It's been great! We sold 50 cookies last week and 42 cookies or brownies this week. The first week we got the craziest looks, but it's been going pretty well! People even asked if we were going to sell them again this week. So there's at least some demand! ha ha. 

 This is the crazy gas oven we cooked them in. You have to take out that bottom metal part in the bottom part of the picture, turn on the gas dial and use a lighter to light it, put the metal part back in and hope it gets up to the right temperature. ha ha. Gotta love Mexico.

 These are the chickens we found in our yard, they also walked through our house at one point. That was quite a surprise. ha ha. 

 Huge sugar cane truck driving through town on our way to the market. 

Our friend Adeline who comes and works on her English homework with Molly and Allie while selling cookies. :) We sold all but 10 of them! We also made those t-shirt bracelets while sitting there and gave them to some of the little kids. :) They loved it! Oh and I totally wanted to exchange roping lessons for a cookie or two! Totally should have done it! ha ha.  

BEST FIND OF THE NIGHT!!!! This week at the market they had vendor selling super cheap (pirated most likely) DVDs. We bought Les Miserables for 20 pesos! Which is $1.65! AND the best part is it's in English with Spanish subtitles! And the video quality is pretty good. It doesn't even come out on DVD in the states for over a month yet AND it hasn't even come to the theaters here in Colima. Anyway, that was the best find of the night for sure. :)

Exploring

 Tuesday we decided to explore the Hacienda del Arroyo where Ted and Susan, the founders of Project Amigo, live. They plan on staying in Cofradia after they retire from Project Amigo in April. Both their mothers left them quite a bit of money when they passed away so this is part of what they did with it.  There are two condos and a guest room surrounding the main gathering place you see below. I love the table cloths!

 Isn't this cabinet beautiful? I love the paintings!

 Dang, I want a kitchen that big!

 This is the view from the back deck! The tree was ENORMOUS!

 This beautiful brick work is a little cupola type thing in the front entry of the gathering area. Love it!

 There's a big staircase off the back of the Hacienda that goes down to a stream where they've created a kind of swimming hole. This picture is in front of that stream. :)

 This is the trap door in the guest room! It goes down into a wine cellar. Kinda freaky, but cool. :)

'Nother pic.  

They have such beautiful sinks down here! 

 The chairs in one of the condos (Antonio and Isabel's condo to be exact). I love the sun carving especially!

The cool loft in the same condo.  

Nighttime treat! Sliced bananas with cajeta (delicious caramel stuff) and milk. Yum!

Beach of the Sparkly Sand!

 Last week we went to Santiago Beach in Manzanillo. Which is the largest port on the Pacific coast by the way. It was awesome! It's in a bay and the sand is amazing! It's probably the coolest sand I've ever seen! The part in the picture has quite a few rocks cuz it's close to a reef, but the sand is sparkly! You can't see it, but it's amazing! There's some kind of mineral in the sand and it sparkles beautifully in the sun. I should have brought some home. You'll just have to go there!

 You can't see it but out in the bay there is a sunken ship! We thought about paddled out onto it on our boogie boards, but I wasn't feeling quite that adventurous. I don't like swimming with fish. . . or snorkeling, at least not very much. I'll do it, but it's not my favorite thing. But it was cool to see all the pelicans out on the edge of the boat. 

Allie working on our awesome sand castle! It doesn't look warm because of the clouds, but it was beautiful weather. Especially when you take into account that most of my family and friends are freezing up in the states on the last day of January. It was a great beach day. :)