Mexico Part 25: Panamerican Games in our Backyard

This year, the Panamerican Games, which happen in between Olympic years, were in Guadalajara.  How cool is that?  I have never been in a city where such a huge event takes place.  With everything said and done, I think the city did a pretty impressive job in managing the event.  I didn't get to see all of the new facilities that were built, but what I have seen are quite nice.  I was worried that traffic would be a nightmare around the game times, but I don't think I was affected at all.  One of the things that helped was that private schools and some of the public schools were closed during the games.  The kids had two weeks off at the end of October.  Needless to say, I had to keep the kids busy.  Eva is so used to doing things that every morning she woke up she wanted to know what we were doing that day.  So, here you have it.  A documentation of some of the things that we did during the two weeks off of school.

To kick off the vacation we took a trip to Colomos.  It is a big park that is nearby to where I live.  They have a Japanese garden, a Mexican garden, a castle that holds art activities on the weekend, a playground, and a ton of animals that are too used to humans, in my opinion.  The squirrels, birds, ducks, fish, turtles, have been feed so much by humans that they are a  little too in your face.  But, it is a fun place to spend some time and where the kids can wear themselves out by playing in the play structures that are there and walking all over the park.

Matthew and I were able to go to a soccer game.  A friend of ours who works for Nike gave us a couple of tickets for a woman's preliminary soccer match.  We watched Canada and I can't even remember the other team.  Since it was early in the morning and early in the games, it was pretty dead, but still fun to be able to go see an event.

The mascots for the games were from left to right, Leo, a lion who represented the strength of the people of Guadalajara, Huichi, a deer representing the southern state of Guadalajara, and Gavo, or blue agave representing the agave that makes the tequila.  We bought Eva a Huichi.  She's pretty cute.

Later in the week we went back to Trompo Magico.  I am telling you the kids and I never get sick of this place.  Thank goodness!

One day we went to Krispy Kremes.  I swear, I never went there back home but since it is close to my house and they have an indoor playground upstairs we go quite often.  I mean, who doesn't love an overpriced donut?

Eva scored a trip to the circus with her little friend Luna.  We didn't do it on purpose but it's kind of funny how they match.

One night, coming home from a relief society activity, Eva asked us when she was going to see the "americanos."  We eventually figured out she meant "panamericanos" and the poor girl wanted to see a game.  Well, by this point, it was pretty hard to get tickets to games.  They were being really weird about selling them.  The venues were dead, but they kept telling people they didn't have tickets.  And really, the tickets to the games weren't expensive.  You could get in if you bought tickets ahead of time for about three dollars.  Worried I wasn't going to be able to get Eva to a game, my sweet friend, Dany, was going to be heading to a soccer match.  Lucky for Eva and I she had an extra ticket and she let me pawn Eva on her and she took her to a game.  I was SO grateful for her.  She loves my kids and they love her too because she treats them as if they were her own niece and nephew.  And when you are away from family, it is great to have people like her.

Towards the end of our vacation we took the kids to the Fiestas de Octubre.  For whatever reason, October is a popular month for celebrations.  And for one month they open up this huge carnival.  We didn't get to see its full potential because it was early in the day, but we still had fun getting on some rides and eating yummy food.

One last picture to show what I love about this place.  After the primary program rehearsals that we were having, my friends Kim and Dany, would go out to eat.  At one place, Cabo Grill, which is delicious by the way, they had a kids table where someones job was to play with the kids.  After Eva was done with the table, she looked like this...Too cute.  And that's a wrap folks.  Vacation is over.