Grammie and Grampie Visit

Karl's parents and brother Greg came for a visit at the end of March.

Chiara went right over to Uncle Greg and sat on his lap, even though she hadn't seen him for months.  The kids always love Greg!

They arrived during our spring break, so the day after they arrived, all ten of us piled into our van, and we headed for Oaxaca. 

We stopped about 20 minutes after leaving to visit the smallest volcano in the world, which is located here in Puebla.  This is what it looks like from the outside.

Looking down into the volcano.

Heading down the narrow staircase.

There is a small cave like space at the bottom and some pools of water.

Joseph heading up.

Chiara loved the stairs and had to climb them all by herself.

After several hours on the road, our car died!  It didn't seem like it had over-heated, so we didn't know what was wrong.  Karl was pretty worried.

We headed for that tiny tree so that we could wait in the shade, while Karl went for help.  He hadn't walked very far when a passing driver told him to go back because someone would come.  Sure enough, along came the "Angeles Verde."  They are like a road patrol who help stranded motorists.  They got the car to start, and even drove it a little ways to see what the problem was.  I guess the transmission wouldn't shift down when the car got too hot.  We were headed uphill, so the car couldn't keep going in the gear we were in.  (We had tried starting the car before the Green Angels arrived, but it needed to cool down before starting).

 

We had trouble finding the hotel that we had booked online, so it was evening when we finally arrived (this picture was taken the next morning).  Most of us were starving, since we'd only had snacks all day since breakfast.  Joseph, on the other hand, wanted to go straight to the pool.  We convinced him to go to dinner first, and the kids got in the pool when we got back - around 9:30 or 10pm!

The restuarant we ate at was right downtown.

There was live music playing outside the window we were seated by.

Elena and Stephen inside the restuarant.

Elena ordered a Tlayuda, which is a specialty of Oaxaca.  We had no idea it would be so BIG!

The food was good, and we enjoyed seeing Oaxaca's Cathedral while downtown.  It rained on us a little, but not bad, and it had cleared up by the time we got back to the hotel for a swim.