Quatro de Mayo

Most folks tend to hold annual Cinco de Mayo celebrations that consist of going out to eat at a Mexican restaurant and ordering a Corona Light or a Margarita. Not our family. That stuff is for Gringos. No, our family celebrates the Quatro de Mayo, a lesser known ethnic celebration, rich in tradition and honor. If you've never heard of such a holiday, let me walk you through some of the basics.

The day starts off with the elders in the village teaching the youngsters wood working skills. Here, Jeremy teaches Henry the fine art of assembling a new kitchen table probably made of some sort of wood indigenous of old Mexico. Notice the fine motor skills Henners exhibits as he uses the Alejandro Wrench for the first time. He's used the Allen Wrench before, but it's Quatro de Mayo, so today we use it's Latin cousin, the Alejandro.


Lot's of patience. Muy bien, muchacho.


Did I also mention that on the Quatro de Mayo, it is customary to use as much third year Spanish, or Espanol, that you remember from high school. Si. All day, Jeremy and I were asking Henry to put on his pantalones and to arriba.

Here, the Elder assists the nino with some detail of the chair.

See how happy the Elder is to have his young son trabajoing next to him. (I can't conjicate verbs too well anymore. I'm a bit rusty.)

Si, feliz indeed.

These are skills passed down from padre to son go back generations. We're pretty sure furniture in a box will be huge during Henry's lifetime.

Back in old Mexico, during the Quatro celebration, the ninos and ninas in the village would hide small colorful toys or handmade candy in the family's living quarters. This was typically done at night while the adults were sleeping. Even historians are baffled as to the origin and it's significance. In modern times, this custom has been adapted to include larger toys, balled up socks, fruit snack wrapers, DVD covers and discarded blankets. Our children left exactly those things for us strewn about our living room floor. Tradition is very important to Henry and Reesie.


Yay! Madre y Padre were so happy to find these "treats". We picked them up knowing that this "mess" was all part of the Quatro experience. Ah, ninos! You are so much fun during the holidays.

Also part of the fun? The stealing of the guacamole. Many think this tradition started out as some sort of tribute to the avacado crops that riped around the first part of February (strangely enough, that is also Super Bowl weekend). Our interpretation included, me preparing the tasty dip and Henry eating as much of it he could in one sitting.

Ah, si, little man. You are definitely muy bien at stealing the guac.

Reesie was unable to take part of the thievery due in part to her age. She just sat near by and gave Henry dirty looks for eating in front of her. As far as we know, this is not a customary practice in Quatro de Mayo. So, good on ya, Reesie for bringing something new to the table.

Instead of guacamole, Reesie ate her new favorite snack, banana puffs. Except for today, we called them puffs de plantane. Ole!

After a short siesta, the familia sat down for a wonderful Mexican meal of homade chile rellanos, garden fresh salsa and meat and chorizo tacos. Also, we put lime, or limon, in our coke. We were so authentic it was awesome.


After dinner, as customary down south on this day, the children played with colorful play-dough balls. Here's Reesie enjoying hers.

Here's Henners using advanced techniques. Clearly, this was not his first Quatro de Mayo.

Donde esta los ninos pantelones?

That last phrase was from pure memory, people! In addition to asking where the child's pants are, I can also ask where the bathroom is, tell you I have a cat in my pants and tell you that my pencil is yellow. I'm a wizard at third year Spanish.

Reesie rolls the amarillo (yellow) dough around in her manos.

She holds it up to her cabeza. (That means head. I forgot the word for mouth)

Mirra how bonita ella es!

Si, muy bonita.

The next part of the celebration consists of feats of strength. This year, to demonstrate his talents, Henry thought he'd drag me down the hall. Henry es muy strong.

For Reesie's feat of strength, she attempted push ups on the floor. She actually did quite well. I didn't document this, but trust us, it happened.

The celebration begins to wind down with the Elders reading the child's favorite book to them. She how the child loves this tradition.

After all the dough playing and reading, the men of the house recline in bed and eat Mexican Angel Food cake. If I'm not mistaken, I believe the official name is Food Cake de Los Angelos.

So next year, if you want to steer clear of all the crowds at Cafe Rio, Baha Fresh or other authentic Mexican eateries on Cinco de Mayo, please visit us for Quatro de Mayo. The lesser known, but perhaps mas fun celebracion!

The Zoo & Rural Farm Development

Friday I thought it would be fun to take the childrens to the Hogle Zoo for an activity. The primary goal was to allow them to experience wild animals in captivity. The secondary, but equally important goal was to wear them down so that they would nap and be rested for the evening.

Henry was buzzed all morning about the impending visit to the zoo. From the moment he woke up, he was planning his day. We have a season pass, so he's quite familiar with the layout of the zoo. His goal was to ride the train there and also visit the giraffes which I thought odd, since he's never taken a particular interest in giraffes before. He's been all about the bears and the snakes at most of our other visits.

Here, Henners found my camera and told me he wanted to take a picture of us getting ready for the zoo trip. Here I am getting ready. I now realize that I have completely lost what was once a decent waistline.


After a few brief stops to take care of errands, we arrived at the zoo. This is the hat Henners wore to the zoo. You might think that his "RFD TV" hat isn't of much importance, but keep reading.


This hat is in almost every picture I snapped on our adventure. Henry is so proud of it. It stands for Rural Farm Development Television and he snagged it from Grandma Granny the day before. He likes to wear it really, really low. Too low. It actually bends his little ears forward a bit and makes them stick out. He looks adorable, but still, it's light, acid wash denim for crying out loud. I tried to get him to wear a different hat, but that was met with, "But gra-ma-gra-nee-gave-it-to-meeeeeee!" Well, if it makes him happy then he can wear it. And boy, does it make the little guy happy.

When we first walked in the gates at Hogle Zoo, Henry spotted the train ride. He screamed. Here, Henry and his hat wait for the train.


"I think I see the train now!" he says.

Yep. He did see the train.

Here's me and Reesie on her first train ride at the zoo.

Wait, let's get a better look at that.

He, Henry and the hat are excited to ride the train too.

After the train ride and a quick pit stop, we ventured down to see the monkeys. Here's a little momma monkey with her baby on her back. (Forgive me. I don't know the specific species.)

Henners pointing out another monkey.

A close up of the stoic monkey.

Henners noticed monkey poop at the bottom of the exhibit. He made sure I snapped a picture. In case you've ever wondered what monkey droppings look like, here they are.

Also, just in case you've missed the RFD TV hat, here it is again.

Next stop was the elephants. One of the trainers was feeding the big guy.

Henry and his hat observe the elephants.

More hat, and more observing.

Reese didn't care about the elephants. She was interested in her turtle.

We visited the cougars. This one was feisty and was hissing at everyone.


He also saw bears, zebras, penguins and apes, but Henry couldn't be bothered to stay around them long enough for me to document this. We ran, not walked to the giraffe exhibit.

Henners was so exited to see the "Melmans" as he calls them. (Madagascar character)

Henners' hat blocks out half of the Melman.

Henry kept whistling and calling the giraffes Melman. Finally, one of them looked over our direction. Henry was ecstatic. "I think that Melman sees me, Mom," he said.

Yet again, more giraffes. I told you he was obsessed with those things today.

After the giraffes, we headed over to the cheetah area. There, Henry ran into a gang of fast girls. I don't mean morally or socially, but rather physically fast. These girls were running and chasing. Henry joined right in and made himself a part of all the chasing for about 20 minutes.

Here, he and his hat hatch a plan to chase the girls.

Henry and the hat in action.

With all the excitement going on, the cheetah got worked up too. She let out a loud hissing noise and it got the kids attention.

Henry declared that cheetah was the meanest cheetah ever and we decided to bolt. Next up, we visited the Asian Highlands. We were hoping to run into a tiger, but no, as usual, he was lazy and sleeping up top. We did however see this guy.


Here' Henry got to get up close with the leopard while I relaxed and fed Reesie.

Henry thought he'd relax with us too. So much that he got a little tired.

Henners told me that he was so tired and that he was ready to go. After one more train ride and an unplanned orange creamcicle treat, we were packed up and back on the road.

This was an excellent trip to the zoo. Reesie had a great time too. She would let out a few laughs if she caught site of an animal, but she mostly enjoyed just watching her older brother.

Thanks, zoo. You were awesome.

She Did It!

Here's Reesie. You all know her. She's awesome. Awesomely cool and extremely cute. Yesterday. Reese decided that she was fed up being on her tummy.

She was determined to find another way.

She thought really hard about other ways to view the world. She even bit her lip she was concentrating so hard.

Then she had a brilliant idea. This idea made her smile.

She'll just turn herself over onto her back. She will do this without any assistance.

As a reward, she might nibble on her toes.

Reesie is now officially the best roller-over in our house. Way to go, girl!

Birffdays

Today our family celebrates Meesha and Bat's birthdays!

You may know that Meesha is our well-tempered, Calio cat who is extremely social, loves to eat, tolerates Reesie pulling on her fur and follows Henry pretty much everywhere. Henry has dubbed her "best friend Meesha". He says he shares her with Reesie. For her part, Reesie squeals and laughs whenever she sees Meesha. She also tries to eat her tail. Today, our lovely lady is 14. Wow.

Bat, or B.D., as I call him (for Batty Dog) turns 6 today. He's our big, blockheaded chocolate lab who really only cares about food, Jeremy and Jeremy giving him food. He's definitely the little brother to Maxie and loves to pester him and taunt him with toys, bones and tennis balls. Batty Dog knows that Henry, Jeremy and Max exist. That is it. He's not too concerned with the female species at all.

To celebrate their special days, Meesha received her very own can of tuna fish which she guarded from Taz. Batty and Maxie shared another sponge cake and some bones.

If you thought these parties were off the hook, just wait for next month when Master P, Henry's betta fish, turns 1! It'll be crizazy in the hizows.