Moving Day

Today (and yesterday, and the day before) we packed up our whole house in preparation for our big trip back to the USA and onward move the the Marshall Islands.

 Mt. Boxes!

"Don't take my toys!!" - Quote of the day courtesy of Ms. K

 Celebratory pink champagne in our former toothbrush cups!

 Recife in all of it's summery glory!

 Last views of Boa Viagem

 A sparkling blue ocean day!

 Oh look...a parade!

 Dancing to the beat!

 More parading!!

 Inland view heading toward sunset

 Our Bomfim wishes that didn't come true...

 Man, those are tough little ribbons!

 

 More daddy-daughter parade play time

 The parading continues at full volume, in spite of baby naps!

Happy times!

Let's Have a Parade!

This morning we arose bright and early and made our way to town to see the much anticipated Colville Fair Parade!

Top o' the morning to you!  It was a little colder than expected...

Chilly morning cheese!

Soon, we were greeted by royalty!!

Then it was time for the local floats...well, most towns had floats.  Kettle Falls had an old pick up...

There's Ron in the parade!  Everyone wave!!

I think the tractor portion of the parade was the largest.

And this might have been the oddest....

Super fun parade, and now it's off to the fair!

Carri Visit: Day 1

Autumn's best friend Carri came down to visit us for the week before Thanksgiving. We kicked off day one with a trip to the market to buy groceries for the week, and of course it was Dia de la Revolucion! So, there was a big military parade...something that we've grown accustomed to here I suppose as this is our second one in 4 months! The military equipment was awe-inspiring / frightening as usual, so afterward we took a stroll through the park. While on our walk we stumbled upon a "show" being put on by the Nahua and Totonaco descendants. It was a fertility ritual that apparently is an hourly / daily thing just blocks from our house! Afterward, we headed home for a relaxed evening before our big trip out to the pyramids!

I guess Autumn thought she got a bum deal!
I thought that 5 pesos was pretty good for all those green beans!

Usually this street is choked with honking traffic, so it was fun to wander around in it on this empty Saturday morning.

Checkers or chess anyone?!?

BFF's with their new friend from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun

Carri really was an angel of a house-guest!

Bazookas and tanks and semi-automatic weapons. Oh My!

A slightly less dangerous parader...

The voladores...or "flyers"...we paid them 5 pesos!

Weeeeee.....

Military Parade

Day two of the independence day celebrations was capped off with a military parade. We had never seen anything like it. Literally thousands of soldiers parading down the street with rocket launchers, tanks, boats, bazookas, nurses and trained birds. It was crazy to say the least. We made an attempt to watch the parade downtown, but apparently we would have had to arrive about 4 months early in order to get a spot. Luckily we found a shady spot back in our neighborhood and had a great view of the show. Unluckily, we left the house at 9:30 for a parade that allegedly started at 10:00, but did not, in fact, reach us until 1:00 in the afternoon. The people watching was good and we enjoyed the sunny day.

2010

Chicharrones cart...aka deep fried pork skins! MMM!

This guy was carving roses out of mangoes...
I would have tried one if I didn't see the dirty box these came from!

Blissfully unaware that we still had a good 4 hour wait ahead of us.

There was a pretty good airshow going on too...
I never realized that commercial airliners could fly in formation!

Canada eh?

Nothing says best army in the world like plumed caps! USA!

A small sample of the hundreds of tanks that day.

This annoying old man wouldn't stop fishing cans out of the overflowing garbage can and stomping them?!?

Only the finest of modern warfare displayed here...bayonets!

And finally, the trained army falcons!
FYI we use carrier pigeons instead of email here!

Happy Birthday Mexico!! x2!!

So it was Mexican Independence day this week, which was the 100th anniversary of the revolution and the 200th anniversary of independence from Spain....needless to say, it was a fiesta gigante!

That being said, we got a whopping 5 days off for the celebrations! (I heart gov't work!) Additionally, we FINALLY got our Mexican license plates!! SO, the weekend was filled with parades and attempts to get the car up and running...as well as some FAILed fast food drive through attempts. On that note, I will say that the used-intercom-from-the-80's seem to have arrived at our McDonald's just in time for us to try to order a couple of McBreakfast Sandwiches which came out as an odd Styrofoam plate of pancakes topped with a sausage patty that immediately infuriated my lovely wife. Anyway, the parade was very nice, and we saw some great fireworks...I don't know if they were $23M pesos great (that's approximately $1.9 MILLION dollars... as in US DOLLARS!!!), but they were nice.

Traditional dancers

The parade was so colorful! It included groups in traditional dress with dancing and music that was really cool. There were also floats from each continent, each type of latin dance, traditional and modern arts, day of the dead and a myriad of other designs.

1-2-3-4 I declare a skelly war!
 Ooh-aaah-ureshii! Oh wait that's Japanese! Que im-pre-sio-nan-te!

DRRAAAGOOON-HEAAAD!

Oh traffic! Que barbaro!

Can you tell we're excited (for 5 days off!)

GO-GO-MEXI-CO!

Hey dragon! Stop eating Torre Mayor!

???

Con-quista-tastic!

IS that Ms. America?

Go Go Gadget Lasso!

Wouldn't want their job!

Filed under WTF!

See above!

Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni...oh wait wrong independence day!

Just Dance!

According to the sign...modern art and popular culture

Ranchero...Cumbia...Samba and Cha Cha!