Our first Quinceañera!

Our Neighbors, Maria and Luis, invited Ed and I to their daughter, Jocabed's Quinceañera.  What a lovely event and celebration. Ed and I couldn't help thinking"oh my... and you have to also pay for a wedding in a few years?". The quinceañera was just about as elaborate (and expensive) for them as a wedding would be. I will never look at a Mexican parent with more than one daughter the same again!

Jocabed and her court

Jocabed with her parents

The grand entrance under an arch of roses

Her blessing

Certainly would be a difficult job for a shy girl, poor Jocabed had to stand in front of everyone for a good 20 mins being serenaded.

A beautiful and elaborate cake, including lit fountain beneath.

 Jocabed is given her "last doll" and similarly to a bride tossing her bouquet, she tosses the doll over her shoulder to the children.

In this tradition, Jocabed gathers the balloons from the boys in her court and then they proceed to pop all her balloons. I searched far and wide to see if I could read about this, but could find nothing. So I am going to leave it to the mind of the reader as to what this symbolizes.

Jocabed handing sweets out to all the small children.

Class Projects

This is the third trimester at the school. It is always a tough trimester for my students. They have many exams at there regular schools so they have a lot of extra stress. To try and alleviate some of their stress I offer them projects they can do in lieu of taking Mid-Term Exams.

Again this year my students showed great creativity and talent :)

One group did their rendition of "Batman - The Dark Knight"

Another group did a spoof combining the movies "Twilight" and "Harry Potter".

One of my groups in the afternoons did "Yucatecan Idol". They only had two gals so they asked Zach to help them. Zach played the mean "Simon Cowell" judge.

Lot's of fun! I am proud of them all!

Mr. Redmond goes to Mexico City to compete in Mr. Mexico!

Ed has competed in 2 competitions since I last typed. He first competed in Mr. Vigor Y Fuerza. He landed a number one place in his age group.

To add to the excitement, the state of Yucatan paid for Ed to go this past weekend to represent the Yucatan in his age division in Mr. Mexico in Mexico City.

 I dropped Ed off at the airport Friday at 5 am. Here he is with the other Yucatan representatives in the competition.

Ed placed third in all of Mexico in his division. What an accomplishment.

Now it is time he take a break from the competing.

He has definitely earned some time off from the chaos of competitions!

Zach's 22nd Birthday!

The family of two of my students own a karaoke bar in Fco. Montejo called Foroum. We decided to throw Zach's 22nd birthday party there. We had a wonderful time with wonderful friends!

Zach with Ana and Cinthia (two of my students).

Laura and Priscila (Laura is a fellow teacher and Priscila is also a student of mine).

Rodrigo (student), Francisco (Lia's hubby) and Lia (Lia is the business manager at CIS), Ed, Ana, and Zach.

Ed, Alex and Javier (worked with Ed at the gym), Ana, Francisco and Lia.

Cinthia

Zach and Cinthia

Cinthia, Laura, and Priscila belting out the tunes!

Ana, Zach and Cinthia yuckin it up!

Zach, Rodrigo, and Priscila's mother, Laura, getting ready for Zach to make his wish and blow out the candles on his cake!

I certainly hope he gets everything he wished for!

Zach and Pricsila dancing his birthday dance!

The DJ announced Zach's B-day. They put up his name on the screens, played music for his B-day dances, then after the dance made him drink a shot of tequila!

Then Cinthia jumps in for part of the birthday dance!

Such talent! Lia, Laura and Priscila crooning tunes!

Hermosa!

We know where Priscila got her charm and beauty after meeting her lovely mother, Laura!