Work, Play and Party!

 I think that we have settled into a nice rhythm of working, playing and partying. Here, you can see homework in action.

 Here is Anthony's office at work, which Carlos is kind enough to share with him. The boys' uniforms finally arrived at the school, so Paul and Samuel are modeling the uniform for physical education days. We occasionally join Anthony for lunch at "his restaurant" across the street. It is actually a house that is about the size of ours where a couple of women cook something different every day. It is delicious!

 Here is a sampling of Micah's school work (including a Lego model of the digestive system and 3-dimensional figures he built from 2-dimensional drawings.)

 Samuel's first field trip was to the work-site of the new Instituto Adonai school for all three boys. It is supposed to be done by January, which would be nice for us, since it is closer to our home. Can you imagine bringing preschoolers to an active work-site?

 We find plenty of time to play. We went to the Aquarius Circus one Friday.

 I put a lot of work into preparing for Paul's birthday party, but I did not hire this bus even though it fit the "Cars" theme.

 Paul's playtime has included biking, now that we got him a used bike from the bike seller down our street. This scene is the end of our road. We still barely know any of our neighbors, which is a huge change for us.

 As promised, here is the update on the work at the construction site 1 block from our house. Yes, he is using a jackhammer to break up the boulder that he is standing on.

October 4th ought to be an international holiday -- it is the epenada party in Villa de Álvarez. We celebrated well, by getting empanadas every day for four days. Anthony's favorites have chili peppers, ham and cheese inside. Micah's favorite has cream inside, while Paul and Samuel prefer strawberry. I like them all.

 Our beautiful Villa de Álvarez is a nice place to play.

I think my quirk about wanting us to experience as much as possible during our playtime pays off often, like going to the Colima Mariachi Band contest. We heard great music. This blue band was Anthony's favorite, but my favorite band appeared to have a minimum waist-line requirement, resulting in booming voices.

 Our first piece of mail arrived! Thank you, Harold! As you can see, it gets left on our front porch. Apparently, we didn't get our electric bill this way, so they turned off our electricity for a day before we got that figured out. You may be appalled by the bars on our door, but I surprisingly like the bars on our windows and door, since it means we can leave them open and get fresh air (with our excellent screens keeping the mosquitoes out!)

 Hallelujah! We got our visas without much extra work on this last trip to Manzanillo. So, we had plenty of time to play that day.

 Beach = playa = play-a-lot

 We found our first beach here without big waves, so Samuel could play in the ocean without working against the undertow.

 The sand has a lot of mica in it at Playa Boquita, so it sparkles, especially when the little waves come.

Micah likes mica. I like playing at the beach this way -- being able to park ourselves at a restaurant, eat some ceviche, swim, drink some pina-coladas, swim, eat some tacos and shrimp coctail, swim  . . . You get the idea. No need to pack up the car or coolers or drag tons of stuff to the beach for the day! It was one of the most relaxing days ever. Yes! I am talking about the day we got our visas!

 When the boys had some free time without homework, you can see how they played with the names of our family. Their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are obviously on their minds.

 Now, for the PARTY -- the woman who made his pinata (just down our street) was so glad to see Paul's excitement about her impressive work.  (Jill - Katya's mermaid is ready for her next party, hee hee.)

The mom of one of Paul's school friends made the cake for Pablo's 6th birthday party.

Pretty much only moms and kids came to the party. It was a lot of work for me, but I found the stuff needed to pull off the party and a location for it (it costs the equivalent of 300 US dollars to rent a party place for the 5 hour parties, so we became members of an athletic club for a fraction of the cost and had the party there for a minimal fee.) We have been enjoying the added benefits of free swim and tennis lessons for Micah and Paul a few days per week as well as swimming and playing tennis together on the weekends.

Pablo enjoyed his party. Instead of posole, he requested pizza and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

"Dale, dale, dale. No pierdas el tino. Porque si lo pierdes, pierdes el camino. Ya le diste una. Ya le diste dos. Ya le diste tres. Y tu tiempo se acabó." It turns out that you are supposed to say the rhyme faster for older kids, so that more than 4 kids get a chance to whack it before it explodes. We'll know for the next party.

Paul has been blessed with sweet friends in his class. I can't imagine that Paul will have too many pool parties on October 7, but it is still hot here.

Gemma, Samuel, Joel, Arturo, Pablo, Miqueas, Ana Sofia, Diego, Jaime, Regina Pothos, Isis Fernanda, and some other friends and siblings (not pictured) came to celebrate. As you can see, this year we waived the Tongen family rule of only inviting one friend per years-old you are turning.

 The birthday boy was a good sport in participating in this Mexican tradition of taking a bite of your cake, knowing that someone will push your face into it.

Paul had a great birthday. On his actual birthday, we went to a party thrown by the families I am teaching tennis, but I forgot my camera.