Scouting Mission

Last weekend we sent the boys up to Torch Lake with their Grammie and Grandpa for some fun quality time. They seemed to enjoy themselves, although Zac took an unplanned dip in the VERY cold lake. Joe and I flew down to Monterrey to scout out schools for the boys. It was HOT down there. As I walked off the plane onto the tarmac I was about knocked flat on my rear by the 108 degree air. And mind you, it is not a dry heat, it is muggy as well. Joe came down 2 days before me so he picked me up from the airport. As soon as he pulled out onto the road I realized that in those 2 short days he had already started driving like a Mexican again. It was a white knuckled ride to the hotel! Just to give you a little bit of an idea about Mexican driving/roads - there is a tremendous amount of merging going on at all times it seems you are going from 4 lanes to 1 and of course there sometimes aren't even lines to show how many lanes are suggested - just whatever fits. Also, this is a big city so there are TONS of buses, so these little cars are trying to merge between two or three very large buses who apparently think they are sub compact cars - at least that is the way they drive. So I tried not to watch the traffic too much but instead used my time reading billboards and signs - which I found made me carsick. On Saturday we drove to Los Cavasos which is an open air market with lots of Mexican pottery, furniture, knick knacks, and pirated videos, AND the best ever pan de elote or sweet cornbread fried in a skillet over an open fire. It's making my mouth water just writing about it! Then Joe said, "I want to drive down this road, I've never noticed it before." Now just so you know, Los Cavasos is a good deal out of town - in the sticks. So off we go on an adventure and as we drive we see signs for a cave and low and behold we look up and we see this cave up on the side of the mountain. So we park and walk across this stream but there is no marked path to get up to the cave, just what looks like a rock avalanche. But if you know Joe that doesn't stop us and up we go. We climbed a good ways in what seemed like a path straight up a cliff when we started to wonder how much further, we of course couldn't really see the cave any more. And then a group came climbing down and said it wasn't much further and I figured if a 3 year old and a guy with no shoes on (he had been wearing flip flops - not good mountain climbing footwear) then surely I could do it, so we pressed on and reached the cave. It was pretty neat but VERY stinky - from bat guano. We could see lots of bats flying around near the back but I didn't really want to explore further - at least not without a hat! Then we climbed/scooted down the mountainside and continued on our adventure. We drove quite a while and saw a lake, beautiful countryside and a lot of dry desert land. On Sunday we went to the church that we had attended when we lived there before. It was so nice seeing everyone - they all remembered us and were so genuinely happy to see us. We took one of the families out to eat and then spent a while visiting with them at their house. Then that evening we went out to dinner with one of Joe's friends/past colleague. It was an exhausting day for me - because everything was in Spanish. You just can't imagine how tiring thinking and speaking and absorbing everything in a language that is not native to you can be. I was falling asleep before 9! On Monday and Tuesday we visited schools and I believe we found the one we will send them to, it is called Colegio Ingles. It has 2 beautiful campuses right across the street from each other ( nursery - 3rd grade and 4th - 9th). The older kids have a full professional sized soccer field - they are crazy about soccer! We also drove around the neighborhoods around the school scoping out houses. And we visited a car dealership - everything is much more expensive there. Anyways, that's all for now.