Lisa n Tom (n James n Joseph)

 Mexico takes El Día del Niño seriously. It's sort of like Spirit Week in school, where every day was a different theme with snacks. Costume Day: Joseph went as the DJ,  Marshmello Pajama Day: And it also happened to be coach's birthday:

 

 In the past nine months, we've been gradually collecting some friends/acquaintances. I finally gathered almost all of them into one room today. The boys -- all eight of them -- had a blast. From left to right: Finn, River, Leo, Joseph, James holding Hugo, Leo, and Eli The adults sat around the dining room table and talked about the school system, because we're boring like that.

 The Yucatan Leones are the local baseball team. They don't win a lot, but they have a really nice, modern stadium and they sell a lot of snacks. There were at least four sets of cheerleaders. The cheerleaders are all coorporated sponsored by differnt companies. We were playing the Nuevo Leon Bravos. We lost, 2-1. But it was a fun night.

Aunt Christi came to see us on her way to Peru, where she's going to hike to Machu Picchu for her 50th birthday. (I celebrated my 50th birthday in COVID quarantine. Not bitter.) We took her to some cenotes and hiked up a little pyramid (they're everywhere , ya'll) and then dropped her back off at the airport within 72 hours. Thanks for coming to visit, Aunt Christi! P.S. The boys' favorite part was that she hid money for them in the house to find after she was gone. They will never forget this.

We got a call from school that Joseph fell and hit his face on his water bottle on the way down, giving himself a nice shiner. A few days later, I tripped up the stairs in a dark movie theater and banged my eyebrow on the banister. So now we match.

Spring Break in Mexico is two weeks long. Joseph is going to a week of day camp at his school. He was reluctant at first, but has decided it's fun. This is his buddy Angy. He reports that they were playing volleyball in these pictures.  

Last night, Tom and I hung streamers and blew up a bunch of balloons and then constructed this crazy door surprise with flattened trash bags. It's full of balloons and the idea is that when he opened the door, the suction would make all the balloons blow into his bedroom. A fun surprise at 7 a.m.; a terrifying surprise at 2 a.m. if you're just getting up for a glass of water. Luckily, he slept through the night. Is that leftover Christmas wrapping paper? Why, yes. Yes, it is. He got shirts and sugar cereal from Tom and me, Minecraft bucks from family money gifts, and a Nerf bow and arrow set from Joseph. He also got to stay home all morning and play Minecraft while Joseph went to Spring Break day camp. After Joseph got home, we met up with all the boys in James' class at a trampoline place and then went next door to the little park for cake and ice cream. From left to right: Santa, James, Max, Zahir, Leo, Zahir's little brother Yohan, Joseph, and I love the little extra...

 It is Holy Week and Mexicans seem a little divided in their celebrations. The ones who celebrate it, celebrate it a LOT; and the ones who don't, don't even bother with the candy and bunny commercialism that even most agnostic Americans embrace.  One guess which crowd we run with? Maundy Thursday, the local parish had a play of the Last Supper, arrest, and trial of Jesus. Good Friday, they walked from the cemetery to the church with Jesus carrying his cross. (In a nice touch of pathetic fallacy, we got rained on.) Easter Sunday, we went to Mass and watched LDS General Conference on TV and then the Easter Bunny came. In the afternoon, James was invited to a friend's birthday party. It was hours of tween-aged boys running around and squealing. He loved it so much.