Yesterday Sarah drove in the Cities for the first time. She's enrolled in a softball batting clinic run by the fast-pitch softball program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Pete and I both brought her down so we could spend some time together during the clinic. Sunday afternoon is a great time for the first exposure, though I'm always amazed by the amount of traffic even then. She even got to experience about two minutes of stop-and-go traffic getting onto I-94 East from I-394; I have no idea what could have caused that, as the Vikings lost another game on the road yesterday. Why can't we have Tim Tebow??
Anyway, Pete was talking the whole time as Sarah made her way through the city; he is so good at training by talking through things, and he is so observant of every little detail, both what she is doing right and wrong, and everything that's going on around the car. Sarah learned a great deal in those forty-five minutes, and experienced success as well.
Pete was telling about a friend who can't talk people through things - he has to show them. So when he was teaching his youngest daughter to drive, he wouldn't tell her what to do - he'd grab the steering wheel. After the umpteenth time of this, and promising his daughter he would never take the wheel again, they left their home and within a mile, he had grabbed the wheel again! They turned around and went home, and her mother taught the daughter to drive! It was hilarious the way Pete recounted what his friend had told him....
Joel and Daniel took turns driving the Jones' new car from Phoenix; they reached Liberal, KS on Friday night, stayed with David in Sioux Falls on Saturday night, and came home yesterday. Today Joel will bring it to its rightful owners, but last night on his way home from Willmar he had a scare when a deer jumped out from the treeless ditch. For some reason he had a premonition and was telling himself, "I know there will be a deer," and looking around carefully, but it was so sudden that after braking and honking, he swerved around the deer and barely missed it. Thanks, Lord, for safety for Joel and the deer - and the new car!!
Showing posts with label trip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trip. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Beautiful Puebla
We are currently in Puebla, Puebla, Mexico (Puebla is the capital city of the state of Puebla). After a two-hour car ride Tuesday evening to a Park & Fly hotel, a 15-minute shuttle ride to MSP airport, a three-hour flight to Phoenix, a half-hour wait on the tarmac until a gate opened and a rush to the next flight when we finally got off the plane, a three-hour flight to Mexico City, a two-hour bus ride to Puebla and a 15-minute car ride to the Cuevas home, we enjoyed great conversation and food until after 11pm and then slept soundly until 8 this morning.
Of course there are many cultural and other differences here, which are always fun to discover. Everything is smaller - cars, rooms, buildings, shops, streets, even the people, it seems! Pete's red head is even easier to spot towering over all the black hair. He is impressed with the solidity of the buildings. Everything's made of cement, so there is no give at all to the floors. The altitude is over 5000 feet, with four volcanoes ringing the city.
The Cuevas home is just one block off a main street, but very quiet. The floors are beautifully inlaid wood, and the many built-in cabinets are either painted white or stained wood. Our bedroom has white built-ins and a white quilt; the living room has white built-ins and white upholstered furniture; the dining room has a
white crocheted tablecloth (which Martha made!); there are doors to many rooms, and they're all white. No wonder Saul remembers his mom always making them keep everything perfectly clean! They have a stained-glass window of a peacock in the stairway going up. Michelle is staying in a little room with a bathroom up on the top, which is accessed by a separate outdoor stairway.
We slept very well. The last time we went to Mexico, we slept in Laredo with a dog who barked continuously through the nights, and in Saltillo on a main street with a bus station outside our window. This time it was quiet and dark, and the little dog who barked only did so about three times. More later on our warm welcome!
Of course there are many cultural and other differences here, which are always fun to discover. Everything is smaller - cars, rooms, buildings, shops, streets, even the people, it seems! Pete's red head is even easier to spot towering over all the black hair. He is impressed with the solidity of the buildings. Everything's made of cement, so there is no give at all to the floors. The altitude is over 5000 feet, with four volcanoes ringing the city.
The Cuevas home is just one block off a main street, but very quiet. The floors are beautifully inlaid wood, and the many built-in cabinets are either painted white or stained wood. Our bedroom has white built-ins and a white quilt; the living room has white built-ins and white upholstered furniture; the dining room has a
white crocheted tablecloth (which Martha made!); there are doors to many rooms, and they're all white. No wonder Saul remembers his mom always making them keep everything perfectly clean! They have a stained-glass window of a peacock in the stairway going up. Michelle is staying in a little room with a bathroom up on the top, which is accessed by a separate outdoor stairway.We slept very well. The last time we went to Mexico, we slept in Laredo with a dog who barked continuously through the nights, and in Saltillo on a main street with a bus station outside our window. This time it was quiet and dark, and the little dog who barked only did so about three times. More later on our warm welcome!
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