Huatulco

This was one of our best family vacations...we all had a wonderful time! The beach was excellent...no big waves and the water was warm...the kids were always with buddies to play with since we went with the Bocigas family and their 5 kids. I fell in love with Sarita, their 3 year old daughter and Miguelito, their 5 year old fell in love with Jose and kept calling him "Jose Rios...." Julia their older daughter and Santiago got along great and were always together.

The kids dug holes, built castles, rolled in the sand and burried themselves over and over again...

Here's Sarita and Lucas!!

And then, let's swim some more...why not!!

Then it was lunch time!! and the buffet was great...the kids would all be in one table and were very hungry usually after all the excitement and exercise!!

The hotel was very big so we had to take a cart to go from the rooms to the beach and restaurants and the kids loved the rides!!

Mami and papi enjoyed the restaurants at night...I loved the mediterranean restaurant...their salads were excellent!!

And at night, there were shows that we all enjoyed...with mariachis, folkloric dances and lots of music!!

Easter

This year we did something different for easter. We painted the eggs as every year, but then, we left them for the easter bunny to fill them with goodies!! We were all pleasantly surprised
to find the very same eggs filled with tiny treasures and of course some candy. Now that we know the easter bunny can fill our very own painted eggs, we will continue to do it from now on!!
How clever he is!!

The easter bunny hid the eggs all over the backyard and there was no confusion for the kids since they knew which eggs they had painted.

It was a very short easter celebration. We had breakfast and left to the airport, since tia was going back home and we went to the beach. Thank you tia for coming to spend time with us...we can't wait for the next time!!

Last days with tia Mary

We had been meaning to come and take a picture with the big angel wings near the zoo and now that tia was here we made sure to take her there so she could also get her own picture as an angel!

Aren't we all cute angels??

Then we all went to the museum of Anthropology and saw the amazing aztec calendar!!

Then we saw "Los hombres voladores de Papantla" when we were walking out of the museum...it's always a treat to see them perform.

Here is some history of this ceremony which I find fascinating!!


Los orígenes de la ceremonia de los voladores se remonta a la época prehispánica. Aunque no se tiene una fecha exacta, se sabe que a la llegada de los conquistadores, sus principales cronistas consideraron esta danza como un juego, quizá porque originalmente el atuendo empleado consistía en trajes confeccionados con auténticas plumas de aves que representaban águilas, búhos, cuervos, guacamayas, quetzales, calandrias, etcétera.

Si bien los antecedentes de la danza no están plenamente identificados, existe una leyenda que describe el posible motivo de la ceremonia: Hace muchos años, una fuerte sequía en la zona del señoría de Totonacapan [que comprende los límites de los actuales estado de Veracruz y Puebla] causó estragos entre los pueblos de la región y diezmó gran parte sus habitantes.


Un grupo de viejos sabios encomendó a unos jóvenes castos localizar y cortar el árbol más alto, recio y recto del monte, para utilizarlos en un ritual complementado con música y danza, con el fin de solicitar a los dioses su benevolencia para que les concediera lluvias generosas que devolvieran su fertilidad a la tierra. Este culto debía realizarse en la parte superior del tronco, para que las oraciones expresadas con fervor fueran escuchadas en las alturas por sus protectores.
Al parecer, el buen resultado que dio esa celebración fue acogido como un tributo que debería realizarse periódicamente, convirtiéndose en una práctica permanente, que en un principio se llevaba a cabo al inicio de la primavera, para esperar una buena fertilidad. Actualmente, las fechas varían según la región.

Here's cookie trying to steal the carrots from the bunnies and he got trapped!! silly dog.

The day before tia Mary left, we took her to a restaurant just otside the city where we had a nice lunch and the kids got to pet some farm animals and had lots of space to run around and
play!

Las Piramides de Teotihuacan

We went to Teotihuacan in the morning with Tia Mary and the drive was not so bad. The kids were very patient and when we got there we found a very nice restaurant that was inside a natural cave....very cool!! lots of small tealights all around and little "houses" to play in.

Jose and the kids went up the pyramid while tia and I looked from the ground and took pictures...Santiago brought his walkie talkie and we were informed of every little step they took along the way!!

We all got lots of exercise!! Of course, some more than others! jejeje

There was also some botanic gardens to stroll around in and we learned a lot about medicinal plants.