The photo update

So it took me a while to work out how to re-size my photos to load them up on the blog.  The method I used previously was not available on my new laptop - hmpf!!

Anyway here are a few pictures from the first week or so.  

Dylan got some new toys.  He just loves putting on the gloves and goggles and chainsawing everything in site.  He says "like Grandpa".  

The view from what we are calling the play area (a space between our bedroom and Dylan's room).  

Cuddles with favorite friends.



Bath time.


We have a three bedroom apartment and each of the bedrooms has it's own bathroom but no bath tubs. We got this big plastic tub at Superama, which works just fine.

Sometime between Christmas and New Year I made my first attempt at Pozole. The recipe came from the cooking class we did while we were on our winter vacation in Puerto Vallarta back at the start of 2011. We have had some difficulty finding spices in the supermarket so I was short a few ingredients but it tasted pretty good for a first effort. Upon further research I found that there are two types of Pozole - red and white and many different versions within these categories. I guess we will have to do some eating around to see what version we prefer.

The first few days

I know you are thinking that it is really warm here and in truth it does reach 70F and is sunny on most days but we are at altitude (Mexico City is 7,350ft or 2,240 meters; Minneapolis 841ft; Stratford 1020 ft).  In my opinion 70F here doesn't really compare to 70F in Minneapolis.  The overnight temperatures at the moment are about 40-45F.  As you know we have rental furniture, which includes bedding but our first night we were cold!  We have since purchased another blanket and some heaters.

Our apartment is on the shady side of the building and while the windows are big and there is lots of natural light we do not get any direct sunlight - as a result our apartment is on the cool side. I am hoping that in the summer this will pay off.

Anyway on the first day Matt headed off to work and Dylan and I were left to unpack and explore the complex. We visited the playground twice. The first time a little boy, of probably 3 years, comes running across the grass to met us. He immediately grabs Dylan's toy digger from Dylan's hands and takes off.  I reassure Dylan that he just wants to play with it and will give it back.  Anyway the boy and his mom are friendly but we can't actually communicate as she speaks no English and I no Spanish.   On our afternoon trip to the playground there are a lot more children there playing - all with their nannies, not a parent in sight (except me).

On Wednesday morning Ada calls and invites us to her house in the afternoon. Ada is the wife of Matt's boss. They have been here for about 5 months and have two children.   Ada sends her driver to pick us up.

We arrive at the complex where Ada and her family live and the driver drops us of at one of the common areas.  Ada introduces me to two other mom's who are there and offers me a drink (you got it, one with alcoholic content).  It turns out that we have been invited to a party.

So one of the things they do here in the days before Christmas are Posadas, and Dylan and I are fortunate enough to experience a version of this.  As I understand it the Posada is a re-enactment of Mary and Joseph's search for a place for Mary to birth.  So after the children had played for a while and done some crafting (they painted paper circles to put one a paper Christmas tree - kind of like those glass ball decorations) the group split into two.    Part of the group was then "locked" outside representing Mary and Joseph and the other representing the various places Mary and Joseph stop at to ask for accomodations.  The two groups sing their parts and eventually Mary and Joseph are let inside.

There is also a pinata.  Dylan was more interested in riding on the little carousel with dinosaurs on it than the pinata but boy those kids sure learn about hitting pinatas early on.

We saw part of another posada at our complex a few days later.


We visited the Santa Fe Mall (which is supposed to be the second largest mall in Latin America).  The Mall is crazy, lots of super expensive stores and big play areas for children (you pay to use them).  Among the pricey euro style fashion I did see a yarn store (yippee).  I didn't go in as I need to focus on finishing the somewhat ambitious children's vest project before buying anymore yarn.

I have met a few people in the playground that speak English but the sooner we get started on lessons the better - of course I can't access my online learning until we get the internet sorted.

The "banging" continued the whole week (day and night) and I was certain that some of it must be from construction sites but Matt informs me that he has discussed this with the locals at work and it is all fireworks. Aparently anytime of the day or night is a good time to let off a barage of fireworks.

We cranked up the heater in our guest room and did a bit of yoga. My effort was pretty poor - I am going with the still acclimatising to the altitude excuse.


Sorry to disappoint but that really is about it for the first week.  We don't have the driver situation sorted out yet and I am not super keen on the idea of driving here.  Seriously the driving is crazy!  There are unmarked speed bumps all over the place (and they vary in size too) and at intersections it is pretty much a case of the person with the biggest "balls" gets to go first.  I am happily leaving the driving to Matt.  I have appointed myself as chef speed bump spotter - a very important job in my opinion.

The Departure and Arrival

In order to arrive at our new home at reasonable time (before Dylan's bedtime) we chose to catch an early flight out of Minneapolis...so we were up at 4am (Ugh!). Still the departure went well - no problems checking the ridiculous amount of luggage we had and no delays due to snow (ha! do they actually have that in Minneapolis now that we have left).

In explanation of the ridiculous amount of luggage - we have indeed had much of our things packed by a moving company but we will not see that stuff until Matt's work visa is processed and the various customs stuff dealt with. The visa process will not be started until we are in Mexico and this process apparently takes a month. Given the time for the visa processing and information from other expats about how long it took before they got their home goods we don't expect to get our stuff for 2-3 months. Oh, in case you were wondering what we were sleeping on, sitting on, and cooking with, we have rental furniture until we get ours.

We arrived in Mexico City and were fortunate to have a quick trip through customs and passport control. We found our ride and loaded the bags. The trip from the airport seemed to take forever but really only about an hour, which is pretty quick in the scheme of things (on a good day it might be half an hour to the airport, on bad day 2 hours).

At the apartment the first thing we noticed was the banging of fireworks. Not even dark and it appeared that the celebrations were on. We arrived on the day of the Fiesta of the Lady of Guadalupe. I had been warned that this was a big deal (especially in Mexico City) and no doubt it is but there did not appear to be a lot of partying going on in our complex.

Our trip was not totally without any hitches - when we arrived in Atlanta for our connecting flights Matt had a message from our security company to say that the alarm was going off and we needed to have someone go and check it out. In the short time we had while waiting for our flight calls were made to the security company, the property management company and our cleaners....eventually this was all resolved.

While Matt was out getting some dinner I met our neighbor (our floor only has two apartments). I missed his name due to my non-existent Spanish and being tired from the early start. Anyway they have two little boys who were racing around a table set up for painting in the foyer area.

We enjoyed our dinner of rotisserie chicken with fresh tortillas before heading to bed early.

Thanksgiving visit to the park

Mason organised a post turkey walk for those that were interested. Everyone that came had lots of fun at the park.

Bumper cars...

Dylan likes to push one toy around the back yard and have you chase and bump into his to with another.

A visit to the zoo

Enjoying the Fall Leaves

When the leaves finally fell we put Dylan to work or tried to. He did put some leaves in the bags but had more fun trying to mow the leaves with his lawnmower.

Fall at the Market

After a rough start to the day (read: Daddy has been out of the country since Tuesday; Dylan is teething, didn't sleep well, got up at 6am....) we decided to head out to the Fulton Farmers Market.  It was the last market day of the season and people were making the most of it.  The weather beautiful sunny and crisp.  As we stood listening to The Melvilles I looked around and  tried to commit to memory the day and how much I really like The Fulton Farmers Market.  The children walking and dancing around really made me smile.

After getting his fill of The Melvilles Dylan wandered off to check out the rest of the market.  The wandering ceased when he saw the big red truck (otherwise know as The Chef Shack).  I had to increase my pace to keep up as Dylan ran toward the truck.  Now I could say the excitement was because Dylan enjoys the Chef Shack food as much as I do but I think it was really the sight of a big red truck that was exciting.  We indulged in a hangover hash and pulled pork tacos.  After our meal I fueled up with a coffee and we sat down to enjoy some more music.  Dylan did a little maracas shaking, a little stick clicking and a lot of smiling.  When Dylan was done he handed his instruments back to the drummer.  I took this as our cue to leave.  So we purchased a couple of cute pumpkins for the front step and headed home.

On the way home we passed the Scratch food truck parked at 50th and Xerxes.  I was very tempted to stop but decided that the little guy need to get home for some sleep.

The Grandparents come to visit - Part 4

We enjoyed more wonderful weather at the Arboretum.

Hiding in the "Uff da Palace" (which was just beginning construction last time Nana and Pop-pop were here).
Pumpkins to look at. Dylan liked the ones with the bumps on them, he said they looked like corn. Water to look at.
There was a fountain to drink from.
There were leaves to play in and boardwalks to run on.
There were flowers to smell.
A tree for sitting by.

The Grandparents come to visit - Part 3

Dylan discovered how much fun tunnels are... We headed to Duluth (minus Matt, he wouldn't have fit in the car). First point of call after checking in at the hotel was the lift bridge. Fortunately a ship was not far off. Waiting for the ship and looking at the bridge. Dylan thought the bridge was pretty neat and talked about it a lot for the remainder of the trip. After seeing the ship go under the bridge we headed to Grandmas for dinner. Dylan enjoyed riding on the mechanical motorbike. We spent the morning of our second day wandering around the canal park area. Then while Dylan napped Mum and I checked out the Waters of Superior Store before heading off to post a gift for Hayley's Birthday. Well, of course the USPS location that we went to did not accept international packages. We later drove to the main post office and posted the parcel but even that was not a simple task with all the construction on the highway. And too bad the gift arrived after Nana and Pop-pop returned to NZ.

We headed to the Co-op for some food for dinner (a bit of a change from all the restaurant food). After dinner we went for a walk to see the S.S. William A. Irving Iron Ore Ship (we had decided that Dylan wouldn't last through a guided tour so we made do with the outside). The journey involved crossing over a little lift bridge which conveniently went up and down for us (actually for a boat) while we were there. Dylan liked this bridge too and would show how the bridge lifted up with his hands! There may have also been a stop at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate store.

The next day we headed up the North Shore.  It was a slow start...stones, a toy bobcat and seagulls that needed to be chased.

We stopped at Two Harbors and checked out an old train before heading on.  Then Dylan fell asleep....so I decided we would just keep driving.  Nana and Pop-pop thought I was going to throw them out at the Canadian border without their passports.  We ended up at Lutsen Lodge for a late lunch.
After lunch we rode the Lutsen Mountain Tram which provided us with some pretty views of the fall foliage.  At the top we walked a little trail, it really was a trail, I thought it a bit treacherous at times especially with Dylan in the Ergo on my back.

On the way back to Duluth there was just enough time for a quick stop at Split Rock Lighthouse.