The Tongen Family Blog: I love my mom.

Is this image what it looks like when "it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas?" Fall-colored leaves, flowering bushes, and a Coca-Cola star on top of the big metal tree?

Is this image what it looks like when you are "checking your list" to make sure that you have a candy goody bag for your family members in New Orleans? I admit it -- I regifted our last month's birthday party loot into Christmas candy bags for my family.

Things that are now normal #25: formal flower boquets on old pick-up trucks, #26: ladders on others, #27: statues of teachers.

We had to say "goodbye" to D'Anna and "see you in a month" to Darla.

I love my mom. She and Keith were willing to come and visit us because they love us. The week felt too short for me, especially when I wanted to show them the peaceful, relaxed lifestyle on one hand along with wanting to show them many cool things here in a short amount of time.

I love that my mom is sneaky about taking a picture of her grandsons in order to get a picture of the dress-code of various, ordinary people on the street during the Virgin of Guadalupe festival. No, the people on the boys' left are not in the parade.

This picture makes me smile, because my mom was here and can understand more of how beautiful and pleasant it is here than just a picture can show.

We found a new favorite restaurant right in el Centro -- La Preferencia. Delicious Margaritas and food that all 7 of us enjoyed. Plus, you can't beat the location for people watching, music-listening,

and Christmas-light enjoying.

Frequent parades led by indigenous people with bows, arrows, and feathers,

followed by Catholics with the Virgin of Guadalupe on semi truck beds are great examples of the mixture of two cultures here in Colima. A parade like this one happened multiple times per day for at least 3 weeks here.

I am glad that my mom was willing to take excellent pictures that I am too embarrassed to take.

While the boys were at school one day, we drove the "Ruta del Cafe" which took us through some cool mountain towns.

Carmen, our Spanish tutor, came with us.

I love my mom.

If I were in charge of publicity, I would rename this road "el ruta del photografía."

We didn't find barely any coffee plants, let alone a coffee plantation for Keith to talk to a farmer, but we saw beauty.

I like Poinsettas; I have decided that I like the perennial, more wild-looking ones even more than the force-bloomed ones we can buy in December.

I think we are living in a beautiful place.

Alas! We got to eat a delicious lunch under coffee trees!

My mom was great about documenting some of our ordinary life stuff, like the boys in their practice uniforms

and like my time with Samuel in the library before we get his brothers.

My mom came with me to see the beautiful estate of the family to whom I give tennis lessons. The trees are spectacular!

I often have a scavenger hunt of things that I need to find for the boys' school assignments. They are usually things that would be easy and inexpensive for someone to find, except when you are in a different culture and learning the language. The week my mom was here, the hunt was harder than ever -- specific items of clothing of specific colors for the boys' Christmas performance.

Unfortunately, I had a melt-down (or maybe two?) before finding all of the things that we needed. Can you see me in this picture asking the umpteen millionth vender if he has a dark brown shirt? I'm thankful for my family's understanding and God's grace.

Tonight (since I am writing this on New Year's Eve) Paul said that one of his highlights of 2012 was taking Grandma Bev to the beach for her birthday.

Fun with the foca (seal)

extra lime for Samuel's ceviche,

digging in the sand,

while Keith checks out the fisherman's catch with many others.

La Boquita is just so relaxing.

My mom and Keith are the ones walking, not running, along the beach.

Sam has learned to sleep wherever or whenever, like I see many Mexican children being able to do.

It really was fun to celebrate my mom's December birthday on the beach. Can you see that Paul let me pull out his first two baby teeth? You can't see, however, the huge fish my mom saw while snorkeling.

I love my mom. We enjoy being outside together.

I have been told that this horse path leads directly from our road (where it ends for cars one block past our house) to Nogueras (a neat, tiny town 20 minutes away by car),

but we came to a dead-end at this sugar cane field.

Mexican sunflowers and butterflies were enough to satisfy my longings

and we found the lake near our house that Micah has been wanting to hike to for months.

My mom, who grows flowers, loved the buganvillias near our house.

The next day, we hiked La Cumbre. Keith waited for us towards the top.

They had beautifully clear weather to see the mountains! (Returning to present tense of New Year's Eve, it RAINED today! Hooray! It was the second rain we have seen since October 6th.)

I love my husband.

I love my mom.

I also love Scott and his family. Who's number 1?

Sam loved building the little Lego sets Grandma gave him all by himself.

For their school performance, 3rd Graders needed to be Mexican workers. 2nd graders needed to be pirates. Kinder-Uno kids needed to be tourists. I had no problem at all coming up with Sam's costume.

It was such a treat to have Grandma and Granddaddy here for the boys' performance.

Another family photo!

What kind of trick did my camera play on me in front of the mural at the Universidad de Colima before the performance?

It was an amazing victory for Sam's teacher to get him onto the stage happily, since he violently refused to participate in the first rehearsal. There he is, in the middle, in front of probably 1,000 people.