Toddlerhood

Our once tiny baby is a toddler. Developmentally, he has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few weeks. Many of the toys that he had no interest in when I packed them in December are mastered now. Blocks, check. He stacks them and then releases a high-pitched scream as he knocks them over. Sorting shapes, check. Puzzles, check. Books, check. Finger painting, see pictures below. He painted, said "Agua," and then proceded to lap the paint off the paper. We have some work to do on painting.


Running, check plus! He can boogie. He was trying to catch this bear of a dog named Toby. He's an Old English Shepherd that belongs to a co-worker of Esten's.

We were at a party honoring Dr. Borlaug and Rowan didn't leave Toby's side, except to eat and watch the mariachis. Someone at the party snapped a photo of Rowan on all fours, next to Toby. I wish we had the picture. He loves dogs, just like his Mom and Dad!

Climbing, see photo :)

He is mastering the skill of napping once a day. He's not what you would call a nice baby come bedtime but refuses to take more than one nap a day.
He speaks gibberish most of the time but he can say, agua, bus, this, night-night, Mama, Dada, bath, Ava, Rowa(no N is his pronunciation) and probably others I'm forgetting clearly. He also signs please, more, all done and as of last night is dabbling in signing thank you. And nevertheless he can get his point across by taking you by the hand and putting your fingers on exactly what it is that he wants. No communication problems here!
Yesterday we took a Sunday drive to a little village about an hour from here called Alamos. It was quaint. That's all I can say about it.

It's Semana Santa here. I don't think the Easter Bunny comes to Obregón or Mexico for that matter. The plethora of pastel, plastic eggs, baskets and stuffed rabbits are not to be found here. If I get really crafty I might dye hard-boiled eggs and hide them for Rowan on the beach in San Carlos. We'll see. People will think we're crazy.

Cumpleaños de Shannon en San Carlos

Living in Ciudad Obregon does have some advantages over the interior of Mexico, one being that the ocean is located only a short drive away. For Shannon's big 30th we decided to head to San Carlos, a beach community about an hour and a half north of Obregon. We were planning on leaving Saturday but got sidetracked taking Rowan to the little animal safari near the Laguna by our apartment. I say little, but this thing has a lion, huge black bear, and a number of other large predators who's living conditions would have PETA up in arms if this place were in the states. Rowan loves animals though, and was of course naive to their poor habitations, so we let him enjoy himself. So being that you really don't want to drive to an unfamiliar place in Mexico in the dark, we decided to leave early Sunday morning. Monday was a Mexican holiday for former president Benito Juárez, so I had the day off.

Having received mixed reviews about San Carlos from my co-workers, we really didn't know what to expect. I booked a cheap hotel on-line, as it was really rather difficult to find an expensive one, packed up three six packs of Pacifico beer, some fruit and snacks and set out. The drive was easy, as most of the time we take the cuota (toll-way) as oppose to the libre (free-way) and these roads are generally very good, better than Louisianna for example. Apparently we must have gone to a different San Carlos than some of my more negative co-workers, because this place was beautiful. The water was clear and the view was excellent. Mexican beaches, like the rest of the country are often mountainous, which gives them a different feel than in the states. In addition, the humid and sticky feeling was missing, I'm guessing because this area of northwest Mexico is mostly dry and desert. We arrived before check-in so we spent some time in the sand followed by some excellent fish tacos and shrimp stuffed avocados for lunch. This is Rowan fourth trip to a beach. He's been to Padre Island, Galveston, and Mazatlan as well. He loves the water, but I'd say it is a love-hate relationship between him and the sand. He hates for his hands to be dirty, so he's not much for building sandcastles at this point, but he loves to run into the tide. He'll also pick up the occasional shell, making sure to use his finger tips and get as little sand as possible on his hands. Nonetheless, he had a great time, we did as well. Our $70 hotel (San Carlos Plaza and Resort) could have easily been $170 in a more touristy local, beers were only $280 pesos (or about $2.30 US) and food was extremely cheap and very good.

Rowan running in the sand and me trying to finish as much Pacifico as possible. Shannon said I would come home with a 12-pack of my 18 left. I came home with 11.



There is a story behind the hat, it finally fits him now.



No worries, we rubbed him down good with sunscreen and he had a shirt on most of the day.



He only got in to about knee deep, no tumbles into the ocean water. The kid pool, that is a different story.




Dunes and some mountains in the background.



A little Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See before Rowan called it a night. He partied pretty hard up until around 7pm.

All in all a very good time and we will definitely be planning a return trip, or trips when possible. As part of my birthday present to Shannon, she wanted me to write a blog, so, feliz cumpleaños mi amor!

La Purificación to Obregón

Well it happened. After nearly 3 months we received our shipment from the United States. Apart from a few broken glasses and banged up furniture it arrived unscathed. Our new gardener, Hector, helped Esten unload things from the huge trailer into a borrowed CIMMYT truck and then unload them again at our house.


Our street was too narrow and the power lines too low for the truck to make it to our house.

Esten, Rowan and I unpacked most everything as quickly as possible, packed up some different toys and clothes and headed north for our "two-month vacation" to Obregón.
While Esten and Hector were working hard, I took a few pictures of plants in our yard.
Some apples are blooming.

Some are small and tasty.

And the avocados are bountiful. We’ll likely miss some of them but there are plenty more on the way.


We left for Obregón last Saturday and let’s just say, Ro and I are flying home. We live just east of D.F. (Mexico City) and had to drive through that unorganized, over populated city (you can only drive your car certain days according to your license plate number because there are simply too many cars) to be on our way. We had a GPS system that works really well, minus the times when it told us to turn left into a field or onto an unpaved road, but still managed to miss ONE turn. That one missed turn cost us three hours of two lane, slow, windy, steep, tiny village, mountain driving. I was pretty sure we would never get to Guadalajara. That was our first stop. We made it, barely, but later than expected. We couldn’t find a hotel for over an hour but while stopped at a red light, low and behold a cop pulled up beside us. We asked him where to go and he told us to pull over ahead and we did. He asked if we were looking for a particular hotel but we told him any nice hotel would do. He must have saw our diplomatic plates because he kindly weaved us through centro (downtown) Guadalajara and led us to Hotel Moreles. We passed the valet parking, but no problem, he held up the traffic while we backed up and pulled in. The hotel was very nice and we were so tired that we ordered room service and passed out. The next morning we grabbed breakfast at Chai, a hip bistro and hit the road. Day two goal: Mazatlán.

Oh bless you day two, long, straight, toll road the whole way. We arrived and downgraded our hotel (mistake) but enjoyed ourselves anyway. We took Ro down to the beach and at first sight he was frightened by the waves, but after we played run away from the waves he warmed up.


We walked on the seawall and watched the sunset that night and packed up and left for day three early the next morning.


Day three was uneventful also and after paying at least $200 from D.F. to Obregón, we arrived.
Obregón is a newer city and is much more like the US compared to Texcoco. It's easy to navigate, restaurants are abundant (hot wings, sushi, tacos, Spanish, etc...), and get this, people stop at red lights. We’ve been here a week and it’s been rough. Let’s see: Ro's first head bang resulting in blood, no hot water in the kitchen (good thing about the restaurants), and a rollover stroller accident. Rowan was in his caddy of a stroller so he was fine. I almost boxed a 200 lb man, came up with muddy shins, shoes, hands, and clothes, bloody knuckles and knees. It’s a long story and we're getting ready to leave for San Carlos for my birthday so it’ll have to wait. Things can only get better from here.
And I'll leave you with Rowan getting busted unrolling the toilet paper.

La Casa en La Purificación

The entrance from where we will park our car:

The inside of the dome:
The foyer/sunroom:
The kitchen:
Death trap stairs:
The back corner of the yard:
The orchard:
The secret plant room:


The back patio:

The avocado tree, it has fruit the size of limes now:

Falling Into Place

It just seems to work that way for us. Just as I'm getting annoyed with this "minimalist" lifestyle everything is falling into place. Last week we got our official visas and our "get out of jail free cards." The day after we had them in hand Esten booked a flight home. We just returned from that very short trip to Texas and were able to bring back several things that I was missing. Spices, soaps, candles, baby essentials, Mason pecans, etc.. We got the "red" light at customs but they very briefly searched our bags and let us through without a problem. We got our diplomatic license plates for our car so we can say goodbye to our expired paper plates now. We're looking at a big house with a big yard to rent in a small village just about 10 minutes up the mountain from where we are now. We went to meet the gardener this morning and checked it out. It's old and there are some things I don't like but the yard is fabulous. It's probably close to an acre completely surrounded by a brick wall covered in ivy. There is an avocado tree, peach trees, a guava tree, several citrus trees, apple trees, fennel, and who knows what else that isn't blooming yet. Our dogs will love it. CIMMYT gives us a stipend to do some work on any home off campus so with that and a little love, this place might just be our new home. Just in time too, because our shipment with all of our belongings that has been sitting somewhere in Texas since December should be heading south this week. We'll be waiting here to accept the shipment, move it under a roof somewhere and packing up the car to drive to Obregón for a few months. We have an apartment there that Esten rented when he was there a few weeks ago. He left me and Rowan here to go scope it out and I was lucky enough to have my mom come and stay. The highlight of her trip this time was a visit to the Pyramids. It was a first for all of us and they are amazing. Come visit and we'll take you too. That's a quick synopsis of what we've been doing and here are some pictures taken recently.

The two snow covered peaks in the background are the volcanoes that we live really close to. The half finished building in the foreground is very a typical sight in Mexico.

Here are my boys with their new sombreros we bought at the pyramids. We should have bought them in the morning instead of just before we left.

The pyramid of the Sun in the background is the one that Esten and I climbed. We'll climb the Moon next.
Rowan and I bought sunglasses at a market in Texcoco. He loves putting them on by himself and will wear them for a long time before throwing them off.
My mom and Esten with their Coca-cola sweetened with real sugar, imagine that. I've noticed that a lot of foods that are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup in the US are sweetened with sugar instead here.
Ro still likes to climb stairs, especially in the nude. These are the very hard stairs in our current house.
I love this photo of Esten and Ro because of the eyes. Esten may or may not have been drinking at the Rincón that night :)

Watering Plants

I was trying to water these plants yesterday that were in desperate need of water. Rowan decided to "help."







The carpenter brought us the gates for our stairs and surprise, surprise, Ro thinks they are to try climb over, squeeze through or hold on to and jump. We bought some soft ABC letters to put around the bottom of the stairs to try and avoid an ER visit.

Book Worm

Rowan loves to read! He'll bring you a book, turn around, sit in your lap and let you read him as many as you'd like. We've also discovered that he knows a lot of words. He'll point to several things in his books like, juice, cow, ball (and pelota), baby, strawberry, banana, tomato, hat, eyes and tons of others. But wait, I'm not sure I'm getting my point across, he is obsessed with reading so much that he takes his books outside to read. In his spare time, when he is not reading, our boy is also learning Spanish. He knows, hola and pelota. If someone says, "Hola, bebe.", he'll wave at them.

We went to El Mercado a Chapingo last Saturday. There are tons of vendors selling fruits and veggies, meats, toys, garage sale quality clothing, etc... Look at these yummy chickens with heads and no refrigeration.
We're sticking with the fruits and veggies for now, except that chorizo we couldn't resist.

We have new wheels. Sorry VW but the Nissan is free. We got the ride yesterday and with the help of someone who knew someone, Esten got a driver's license. It's official we're mobile. We ventured out to Wal-Mart last night since it's the only place we knew for sure how to get to. But we have plans to try to get to a health foods store, back to Chapingo, and to the pyramids in the next week.

I love our little clothes line setup so much that I just had to show you a view from our tiny balcony. This is Ro and Esten on the balcony that overlooks the front courtyard.

This is where we hang our clothes to dry. The doorway in the far right corner of our wall is the maids room where the washing machine is and where Socorro keeps all of her cleaning supplies. She also changes her clothes in there. She comes well dressed and changes before she cleans.

The Masons and Mexico seem to be getting along just fine for now.