Mexican Turkey

Thanksgiving in Mexico!

It was such a good night! All the American teachers got together, each bringing a dish to pass. Thanks to Jenn, our wonderful coordinator, the school even delivered tables and chairs for us to set up in the courtyard of one of the houses! It was perfect. After school, my house had a cooking fest to get our part of the bargain ready. I made the ever so delicious Double Layer Pumpkin Pie. [Unfortunately, Mexicans apparently don't eat pudding, so the JellO I got was really vanilla flan, which made it a little different than I'm used to...aka it didn't really pass my test but I guess no one else knew right.] Tye came over to join the fun, he made a jalapeño corn bake and a green bean casserole type dish (again due to lack of american ingredients we're used to). Jenna had $17 worth of potatoes to peel, cook, mash and make glorious (a guess... it was maybe 10lbs?! I'm no good at that game but..). And Emily had large servings of carrots and green beans to cook as well. Our oven/stove was working its little but off!

When the main event finally got underway, we were able to see just how much food we had brought together. I think it may even have been more than our Amundson gatherings! (wait, can that be true?!)

How perfectly cute, no?!
We even had Pilgrims and Indians in attendance

Thank you to first in line and layering up the plates! :) It was alllll soooo goooood! There were two big turkeys, three types of potatoes, corn, beans, carrots, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cornbake, two/three types of pasta, a green salad, gazpacho, a fruit plate, a cracker-cheese-meat platter, and at least four types of pie, a few cheesecakes, and orange fluff! And I'm sure I'm forgetting something! Man, it was so worth the little belly ache!

The food... this is before some people arrived with their dishes too! and this is only the entree table as well! See those monster turkeys in the background!?

MMMM!!! :)

Once we all had a bit of time to settle we went back into the house and saw all the leftovers!! after 30+ people ate you'd think we could have dented it more than that! Leftovers are the best part though aren't they!? So Jenna and I walked back to our house to get some Tupperware. Just as we exit the gate of the party, we see the family that often comes by and asks us if we have any food! What a fantastic coincidence!!!!!!!! What they really wanted tonight was to sell me oranges or something but I told them we had just had a party here and had tons of leftover food so if they could just wait... I think we all felt very good that that happened, Jenn had just been feeling bad for having organized such a gluttonous feast ...'and then totally redeemed herself!' (another Dumb and Dumber quote, you'd think I love that movie....) No, but it was definitely a situation to make you feel better about yourself to see that family looking soo happy and grateful. 'Thanksgiving' at its finest. We sent them away with a both plate and a box full of food!
I then proceeded to pick away at the turkey for a good 10 mins to fill up our own leftover container, much of the time spent laughing at jenna getting more and more grossed out by it. and now the tryptophan is really kicking in! :) Too bad we have school tomorrow! geez. oh well, I guess I will survive. It was a great holiday!

Zacatecas, Zacatecas

Three day birthday weekend!!!!!!!! Love it! Jenna, Erin, Emily, and I (the same group that went to Mazatlan) decided to take a minivaca to Zacatecas.

I started the celebration of my birth by getting up around 430am in order to get my stuff together and ready to catch our earlybird bus. I believe I slept off most of the morning hours, but we arrived in good time around noon in Zacatecas. This city seems very European which was a welcome change from our drab Torreon. It was also quite chilly which made it seem more like the middle of November. One night we made a pit stop at the local Starbucks and being decked out in our 'its cold outside' attire and having Starbucks already changed over to the Christmas theme: cups, decorations, flavors, music, and all.... it felt like it might be December back home! For an hour or so we were surrounded by the Christmas spirit :)

My favorite part about my birthday was that the girls and I stopped to eat 3 times in the first 4 hours! And they weren't just snacks :)

Apparently, it is quite a touristy city... I guess I didn't know much going in. Shopping was abundant, we all got a few gifts for family and friends back home... and a few for ourselves too!

It was the super chill vacation I think we all needed. Saturday we just wandered around the city and did whatever, ie eat :) But we also took the trolley ride through the city which was a fun way to see a bit more.

Isn't it a pretty city

We went to a karaoke bar and
didn't even drink any of this
but asked if we could get a pic with it anyway....
get it.... J & B....

These pics are also evidence of my 4-5" haircut...doesn't even look different does it?!

Sunday we slept in late, another favorite! Then, we visited the mine. Complete with hairnets and hardhats we toured the depths... There is a club at the bottom of this mine! The other group of American teachers that went actually went to the club and said it was awesome, who ever thought of that was genius. Outside the mines we enjoyed the silver shops... we all got a new necklace with either a Virgen de Guadalupe or an Aztec Calendar pendant, they are pretty sweet :)

that's hot :)

Monday we had until 130 to take in the last delicious dregs of vacation. We got on the teleferico(cable car) and rode up to the Bufa. It was a fun little Willy Wonka glass elevator ride :)

The trip was much needed and I think we were all sad to have to come back to work, but who isn't sad when vacation is over I guess....

A weekend packed with fun

This weekend was quite exciting... we had a Halloween party, a house picnic, AND a Juanes concert to look forward to!

On thursday at school the Jardin de Ninos teachers/assistants dressed up
"Mira! una Abejita!" (look a bee!)

On Friday we then celebrated Day of the Dead, this is the altar the kinder kids made.

Lately, it has been getting more and more difficult to get up and get ready (and peppy!) for school, I'm still not using the snooze button, but I will lay in bed thinking about what I have to do as if thinking about it ahead of time will make it go faster in the end. This of course doesn't work, but sometimes it makes me feel better. You can tell the whole house is doing something similar as all of our arrive-downstairs-times are getting later as days go by. So, I definitely am working for the weekends right now: get through the week and then forget that I teach for a few short hours until I have to get ready again for school...

The schedule for this weekend was a great way to forget about school for awhile! Friday night we had quite a large gathering for a costume party at the neighboring house. Teachers getting together for costume parties is such a fun thing, just imagine the crafty-ness that comes when we all combine minds! 7 of us all decided to have a theme: the personification of different mexican beers, namely- Corona, Indio, Estrella, Leon, Modelo, Victoria, and Sol. So respectively we had Jenna as a queen (crown), Natalie was an indian, Tye was a star, Jenn a lion, me a model, Victor as Victoria, and Megan as a sun. I thought it was clever, and a lot of fun! The party was attended not only by the american teachers from Colegio Ingles, and some of the spanish ones as well, but also a few americans from a different school along with many of the spanish friends various people have made while here. The best part of any Halloween party is the costumes! Some were so clever or funny... one of my favorites was Wolverine, from XMen, it was one of the american teachers from another school but all he had to do for this costume was shave his chin and add some gel to his hair! thats what made it good. The Incredibles also showed up, along with some pretty good pirates, even Obama was there. It was a pretty good time!

Saturday I invited myself to a picnic put on by a few of the students families from CI. Many of the teachers were formally invited, I wasn't, but I figured no one will notice right :) There were quite a few people there and it was really fun to see this type of interaction for a change. These families apparently get together a lot as their kids are all involved in the same things. We met at this house with a huge backyard, so much grass! They had a big Rainbow jungle gym, a mini soccer field, a trampoline, a pingpong table, and more free space to run in! The food was quite good, they cooked the meat on a disco which is traditionally the tilling disc used in agriculture... why not just rip it off the tractor and cook on it ay?! It was fun to see the families playing their backyard games as well. They did everything from soccer (of course!), to sack races, to musical chairs, to kickball, to walking with not an egg on a spoon, but a lime, because that's the mexican way! Not only did the kids participate, but many of the adults and the teachers did as well. It was good wholesome fun :)

On Sunday we went to the Juanes concert!!!!!!!! it was a lot of fun. It started an hour late, but somehow I dont think we were too impatient. After a very short hour of performing he left stage but after much chanting of "otra, otra" he came back on and sang about 6 more! It was fun, he's good-looking, sings well, and we knew most all of the songs so we could sing along! I bought a cheap T-shirt outside as well, yeah souveniors :)