Teotihuacan

The city is thought to have been established around 100 BCE and continued to be built until about 250 CE. At its zenith, Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas. At this time it may have had more than 200,000 inhabitants, placing it among the largest cities of the world in this period. 

TEMPLE OF THE SUN

Elijah wasn't pleased after the "do not play with rabid dogs" lecture.

On top of the Temple of the Sun, overlooking the Temple of the Moon:

Coming down the Temple of the Sun:

 

TEMPLE OF THE MOON

 Claire, the plumber is looking for his crack. Any ideas?

 

Elijah: "Mom, please stop trying to culture me."

The royal feet of my children rarely touch ground. Their regal steed obliges:

We are off to the States tomorrow.
Party on!

Eating!!!

After a comment on her leg rolls, Iris went through a bout of anorexia. I am VERY happy to announce that she has started eating again.

Below, she is telling me that she's 1. Not yet Iris, give it a few weeks.

Templo de Mexico

We went to a sealing this weekend. It was the kids' first visit to the temple here.

"Will fraternize for food and money."
E was caught panhandling at yet another temple. Bad habits start young.

Zoo again

We have been showing Karen some of the standard Garcia hangouts. We have done the Zocalo and here are some pictures from the zoo.
   A little taste of home: Pelicans.

Summer has begun

David, of course, wrote that last post. I’d just like to add a graceful “fat chance” in reference to the last sentence. I’d also like to add some details I heard. A few people said that as soon as they came out of the temple, Elijah started singing “Me encanta ver el templo” (I love to see the temple—Primary song) which invited a beautiful, pure spirit. I asked Elijah how he felt in the temple. He said, “Great, because there were cookies and juice.”

Now it’s been not yet 3 days since Karen has come to live with us. Of course my biggest worry about having someone live with us relates to my cooking insecurities. I have a meager bag of cooking tricks and have already managed to pull out a few duds in a short time.
I have not regularly cooked for an adult since…well, never. David and I have a “fend for yourself” policy, meaning I eat the kids’ slobbered-on leftovers and he has a bowl of lucky charms at midnight. And my kids are the best human scavengers this side of the universe. Even little Iris. I have been contemplating rolling vegetables in dirt and then strategically placing them in obscure corners and in the trashcan, thus increasing the likelihood that she’ll eat them. Poor Karen will not only have to deal with Mexican and American culture shock, but also Garcia culture shock.
Good news for my kids is that I’m usually a kinder/more patient mother when we are around other people. I think twice about losing my temper, which of course is only an annual occurrence anyway.

In other news, Monday started Elijah’s 6 weeks of summer break. Friday was the end-of-the-year show. There was singing, musical instruments, and dancing. Why they placed Elijah and his partner center-stage (although they wandered), I will never know. I got several comments afterward about him stealing the show, which I’m not sure whether they were meant as compliments. Anyway, E treated the show not so much as dancing, but bumper cars and tug of war. Here's a little taste before it got out of hand:

This is about when the party started:

El Salvador temple open house

(written by David)
Despite leaving for the airport three hours before our flight, the drive to the airport was a frantic two hour affair with much stress induced by the fear of missing the flight. Once we got to the airport the check-in was seamless and we had more than enough time to buy a lot of candy (and subsequently consume all of it) prior to our departure. The flight itself was calm, Elijah was very well-behaved, both on the flight and throughout our trip, though the seats were bound together with tape and I knocked over Elijah’s cup full of Sprite (hoping to prevent him from doing so).
Once we arrived in El Salvador, Jaime, Felix, and Felix’s father-in-law greeted us and took us to our hotel. Friday night, around 10pm, Elijah and I went out to grab some pupusas with about 30 of our closest friends in ES. We had a great time catching up with everyone and amazingly, Elijah did not demand the spotlight, perhaps because he was up about four hours past his bedtime.

We got back to the hotel around midnight, and while Elijah was ready to continue his freedom from mom’s rule. I convinced him we had a big day ahead of us and he went to sleep. Later, after leaving Elijah with Jaime, I went out with Susy, Vicky, Carlos, Donaldo and Felix to Mister Donut to get some donuts and cebada (my all-time favorite drink).
Saturday morning we all got up early and spent most of the morning and early afternoon at the El Salvador Temple open house. Visiting the Temple with Elijah and several of the people I taught when I was on my mission was a great experience; I was able discuss the Temple with Elijah what makes the Temple so important. Later we spoke with several friends we ran into at the Temple and took several pictures.

 After we left the Temple, some of the group returned to the hotel to go swimming while Elijah and I went to Pollo Campero with several friends to get some lunch. We then returned to the hotel and spent several hours swimming and hanging out around the pool. Elijah was a very aggressive swimmer and challenged several people to swimming races, albeit while he was on my back.

After swimming for a while, I took Elijah to McDonald’s and had him eat before going to sleep.
Saturday night, after Elijah went to sleep (and stayed with Sariah), I went out with more friends to grab some pupusas and then some more donuts and cebada at Mister Donut Blue (Mister Donut a la Frances). Sunday morning, when Elijah woke up, the first thing he asked for was his wide-stomached, fat friend (Felix). We went to Church and later started out for Chalchuapa to pick up Karen and her family.
On our way to Chalchuapa, we stopped in San Andres to visit Claudia and Daniela. Elijah got to play with the many animals on the property and even decided he needed to take off his shirt to blend in; he ended up not putting his shirt back on for several hours.
 
 After visiting Claudia, we dropped off Jaime and went on to Ciudad Real to visit Abuelita. We spent a good time with Abuelita, and as always, she had some very good homemade ice cream waiting for us. While Abuelita, Bladimir, Marielos and I caught up, Elijah decided to take a few pictures to pass the time.


After Abuelita’s, we went on to pick up Karen and her family to bring them to the airport.
 
On our return to the airport, we stopped in Santa Ana for lunch, at Pollo Campero, with our friends in Santa Ana.

After lunch we travelled as fast as we could to the airport. Again, we found much traffic on the drive and made it to the airport with only an hour before the flight (I tend to not learn to fast from prior mistakes). Karen was very apprehensive as it was her first time on a plane and leaving her family for an extended period of time. She didn’t realize that the plane wouldn’t leave without Elijah, so after explaining that to her she was calm. Once we got on the plane, Elijah was very confused and asked why she was coming with us. When I told him that she was coming to live with us, he didn’t believe me (I don’t know why) and insisted he speak with his mother. When Elijah spoke with Caroline and she told him that Karen was indeed going to live with us and explained where she would sleep, Elijah was fine.
Overall, the trip was a great experience to have with Elijah. Elijah of course was great and engaged as many people he could throughout the trip both those he knew and those he didn’t know.

I now look forward to the Temple open house this November in Quetzaltenango with Claire.

Good Memories

Ok, it’s been a week now. How can I harass you with my life?

I have been waxing nostalgic lately. A few good ones:

1)    After my baptism, my brother came home to enjoy a snack in front of the TV. He told me if I didn’t take his dishes over to the sink, I’d be un-pure and did I really want to tarnish my newly-purified soul?
2)    My mom has always listened to classical music which was horribly embarrassing to my 8-year-old self. Therefore, I rolled down my window to alleviate the Tucson heat but more importantly, to simultaneously let the world know that I was a groovy chick as I draped my fingers out and tapped them on the door as fast as possible so that all interested parties wouldn’t realize that I was being a dork, listening to NPR, but would think that I was listening to something with a fast tempo, like the Back Street Boys. Yes, I was cool.
3)   On the same note, in 5th grade, a nerd became my service project. I remember a well-meant lecture on how to properly roll and scrunch socks to perfection.
1)    Right around the time low-ride jeans and short shirts came into style, butt crack also came into style: a precarious style. I went jean shopping to try to avoid this trend. Buckle (swanky jeans store), I have never been a fan of yours since then. The sales attendant told me: “Just because you’re a mother, doesn’t mean you have to dress like one.”

My personal favorite:
5)    While my sister was in medical school, she diagnosed our dog’s nipple as a cancerous tumor.