Ya creciste Hector?

So I went to Zacatecas, a city about 5 hours south of Monterrey, to celebrate Independence Day. We stayed with my friend Sal's family who were awesome. His girlfriend is one of my coworkers and his family did a fabulous job of hosting us for the weekend. Pictures to come, but for now, a cute story...

Sal has a brother that is 12 years younger than him named Hector. They are completely identical, Hector is just a few years behind.

Anyway, Sal was letting the dog out on Saturday afternoon and this little neighbor kid was riding by on his bike. Apparently he stopped abruptly when he saw Sal and stared for several seconds. He finally said, "Hector, did you already grow up?"

My new happy place

I finally got the pictures to load for "Chiapas Part Two" and for some reason, it didn't pop up as my most recent post.


In other news....
After weeks of brainstorming about how to put this thing up, I finally put aside my pride and asked two handymen friends if they would hang my hammock. From here on out, if I have a phone conversation with you and I'm at home, I'm probably sitting here. (Please note the excessive amount of chain I bought and how they have to loop it back several times so it wouldn't hang down).

Why I Love My Job Today...

Assignment on the board this morning:
"Write down 7-10 things you did this morning. Example: I brushed my teeth"

Student response:

"7. I got dressed
8. I ate breakfast
9. I drove to school
10. I got dressed."

The Industrial City

The longer I live in Monterrey the more I learn about how unique and sweet of a city it is. On Saturday I spent the day with my friend Nelly, a girl I met through some missionaries that is from here. She recently got married and moved to Texas, but she's in town visiting and taking care of some things, so I've seen her a few times this week. She was driving me around near her mom's house where there are TONS of factories. She pointed to one and said, "that one makes soap. Many days when you drive by, it smells like soap." Really? How odd to drive down the street with the smell of soap in the air. She continued, "there's a Gamesa (cookie) factory nearby too so a lot of times when you drive by there it smells like cookies. AND there is a Bimbo factory (the most popular brand of bread in Mty and yes, its called Bimbo bread) that smells like fresh bread." She went on and on about the different factories in the northern part of the city, there's a Kraft plant, a huge steel plant, a huge cement plant, a Mary Kay Distribution Center, a York Peppermint Pattie Factory, and I just found out tonight that my favorite chipotle salsa is made there too. I've been told that Monterrey has some of the hardest workers in Mexico. I believe it.