Today we said goodbye to our minivan. We bought a Toyota Avanza within three weeks of moving here. We told the dealer we were going to sell it back in less than six months. They gave us an alright buy back, it still makes good financial sense to have done it this way. Especially with the pandemic, our mindset was to just take the bus everywhere, but I pushed a little hard for buying it. Had we just rented a minivan from a rental car agency, it would have been nearly twice as expensive when you factor in insurance.
I am not entirely sure our minivan was insured anyways. I emailed my insurance agent the day before we drove to San Miguel de Allende, and she made it seem like it wasn’t insured. We could not register this vehicle in Mexico because we are not citizens, and we did not register it in the states. We never got license plates on the vehicle, the dealership promised it wouldn’t be a problem to get plates, and the Mexican equivalent of the dmv here said otherwise. So we never had plates and probably not insurance either, thank God for not getting into an accident here. So we said goodbye to the car, the kids were a little emotional but they quickly moved on.
Today we woke up at 8am, got the kids out of the house by 9am. Went to the city center to buy some really nice journals for the kids, the store was closed so we drove back to our area to get a piñata and candy. We also bought a cake and attempted to pick up furniture that was being fixed. They are still working on it. We had a zoom birthday party for our oldest son and one of his classmates and his classmates sibling joined us.
We then drove to a party venue for kids parties and Bonnie drove the minivan to the dealership (which was a ten minute walk from the party venue).
We stayed at the venue between 1-6pm. The owners of the home made us what they think is pizza and the oldest child pulled a fast one on me. The host asked me what drinks to serve the children and my daughter quickly said a bunch of things in Spanish. I thought I hear “naranja” and “Fanta”. She said it very fast and I didn’t realize what their conversation was about until the refreshments were served. I turned to our oldest and said “you literally ordered this in front of me and spoke fast on purpose didn’t you?” Of course she turned red and then started giggling. 😐
Of course today wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the hospital. Our third child fell at this place and needed a stitch in his lip. Bonnie took him to the hospital while the other three played in the playground until 6pm.
We played duck duck goose for a while and I nearly killed myself sliding down that metal slide.
At 6pm I walked child 1,2, and 4 down the street to Applebee’s. 🤢
While at Applebee’s 🤢, the tv had espn on. They were broadcasting a cornhole tournament. 😕 I have never really been embarrassed to be Caucasian, until that moment the server saw me watching and positioned the tv so I could see it better. I imagine he judged me for watching. I judged myself as well.
Around that same time my third child was getting a stitch in his lip (not his first stitch, not the first time on his lips either 😀). Bonnie said he grimaced a little bit didn’t cry. He is the child who will play soccer or baseball and break his nose during play, and get angry if the coach takes him out. He’ll just set it himself and keep playing.
After “dinner”, we all crammed into an Uber and went home. We of course forgot the birthday cake we put in Applebee’s refrigerator, so I took an Uber back to get it. Tomorrow late afternoon we fly to Mérida. Maybe we can rest some time during the next two weeks.
Our Family Adventure 