January and February 2007

Studying for the semester exams
The kids made a cozy corner in their closet
 

Don's Birthday dinner at Entrecote, a very elegant French restaurant in Morelia.  Notice the ladies with their shawls - we're hoping we'll continue to wear them in Vermont!

 


Valentine's day cookies

 

Sarah and Margaret created this Valentines day dessert:




Los Torritos paraded through the street in preparation for Carnival.  This was a (very) mini-Mardi Gras with men with painted faces dancing with each other, lots of goofiness.



 


 Sam, Emy and Lincoln came for a visit and the 5 cousins all had a great time.
Here they are in order of age:


At the ruins in Tzintzuntzan:  look how DRY it is!  We're in the middle of the dry season; it won't rain until June.
 




Margaret and Sarah taught everyone how to make tortillas:
 





Molly and Hanna came a few days later:



   

At Jesus del Monte, overlooking Morelia:



Those visits included more trips to nearby Patzcuaro, with the famous Patzcuaro dancers:

 

 



  

 



   

The source of all those shawls!        Don finally decides to buy a hat:
 



We've enjoyed walking in the dry hills just outside of town.  Only a few hundred yards from city we can be on top of a hill enjoying a beautiful vew of the surrounding hills.
 

 


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Miscellaneous pictures from Morelia

Templo de San Diego
 

                                                Morelia at night                                                        Mural of Morelos, revolutionary and local hero
 


Central market:

a local store owner likes to get his parrot out and have him sit on our shoulders:
 


 

We saw these jello desserts in the market- made entirely from jello. Pretty cool.
The girls said they didn't taste very good and we never did figure out how they were made, although we could take a course in Mexico City on gelatin desserts and learn to make them!

 
Tripetio

  

 



In early February Tzinztuntzan had a celebration of the painting at the front of this church, which apparently performed miracles in the 1500s

 



The next week the other church in Tzintzuntzan was decorated with sugar cane and bananas-- we're not quite sure why!

 

And of course we contine to go in to work at UNAM every day, even though there have been no pictures of that place for a while.

 

   


Here's our office, which we share with a post-doc from France:
 

A eucalyptus plantation exists behind the campus and extends quite a distance.  Here are some of the other plants that live there:
 
We are training hummingbirds to visit the feeder INSIDE the apartment.  At first they were hesitant, but within minutes they were flying right in.


 

At one point, the feeder was on the balcony outside the window but the window was open.  A hummingbird flew right into the living room, visited a potted flowering poinsettia and some fake red flowers before departing.