Milli's in Preschool


First day of school
In her uniform.

I agonized over this decision for a while, but it seems to be working out great. We chose to send her to a school other than the one Riley and Jane go to, called Tohui. It is only a preschool. Ages 18mo to 6 years (Kindergarten is considered preschool here). She has a Spanish and an English teacher. Her English teacher is Brandy, a friend of ours from Colorado. She goes from 8:50am to 1:30pm every day. She's exhausted at the end of the day, but there is so much more peace in our lives. She was so bored at home and had actually regressed in learning her alphabet and other things we worked on last year. She still says she doesn't like it (something she learned from the other kids), but talks about it all the time and seems happy when she's there. I miss her at home, her constant crafts, and playing with Charlie, but this is good.

Back up to around Christmas

I wanted to post about 3 Kings Day. I think it was on January 6th, or 5th. We did our stuff on the 5th, family night. First, there is this bread called Rosca that they sell in the stores. It has dolls of an infant Jesus hidden inside. You cut it open (the cutting is supposed to represent the danger that Jesus was in from King Herod) and whoever finds the dolls is supposed to make tamales in February for Candlemass Day. Not exactly sure what that is yet.

Here were our doll finders: (plus me)Not sure if we'll do the tamales, but you never know. I'd love to know how to make them.

We also read the part of the Christmas story about the wise men. I don't think the kids had ever heard that part before. Except maybe the "We three kings" song.

Also that night, the kids are supposed to put out a shoe for the 3 kings to leave a present in. In some places they do this in place of Santa. We were unprepared, so skipped this part. Hardly needed more presents.

I loved the focus on the Christmas story that this added and of course the extension of Christmas.

The beach in Melanque

We decided to take my parents to the beach while they were here. We had heard good things about Barra de Navidad and Melanque and hadn't been there yet. They are about 1 hour north of Manzanillo. We were recommended another bungalow to stay in in Melanque, but were wary of the bungalows after our last experience. But this one turned out to be great. The rooms weren't new, but they were clean and included all the usual things, towels, TP, drinking water. But it was the grounds that were awesome. We weren't on the beach, but only 2 blocks away. There was a really nice and big pool, restaurant with a good singer at night, ping-pong table, basketball court, tennis courts, and the kids favorite, a playground with merry-go-round. Keep in mind, this is still Mexico so everything is old, but they tried to keep it all clean and nice. The kids slept in the living room on beds we made out of furniture. Milli especially loved her little nook.

We didn't spend as much time at the beach as last time, but it was still heaven for me. Love the sun, sand and water. Almost no waves at this beach. Riley was disappointed; he brought a boogie board this time.
We ate lots of great food.
We were so glad that my parents could come. It was fun to show them all around Ajijic and let them see how we're living. But we miss seeing them more often.

Another Christmas

We had a great week with my parents. They brought with them more presents than the kids got on the real Christmas. :0 Of course the kids couldn't wait to open them. They all got things that they've played with all week long. And mom brought me and Dave tons of American food and spices. Plus our mail and packages we had sent to their house. I don't know how they fit any clothes in their suitcases. At least they had room for all the souvenirs they brought home.