Tag Archives: Santiago

Santiago for Cellpic Sunday

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For Cellpic Sunday

Santiago for Monday Portrait, June 16, 2025

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Santiago, 3 years old, under the table with his cars during Father’s Day comida.

Santiago, Yolanda and Friends, For Cellpic Sunday, May 4, 2025

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For CellPic Sunday

Easter Egg Hunt (Post #2)

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Here’s a girl who loves to pose for photos..and her brother and sister and Mom. Isidro’s daughter Paloma and his grandkids.
Alejandra, Yolanda’s niece and her children.
Isidro and grandaughters.
Santiago, Yolanda’s grandson.
Yoli hanging from the Plumeria tree.
Our smallest searcher. Alejandra’s son.
Trying out the rubber duckies.
Isidro and grandkids.
Paloma, Isidro’s daugher
Juan Pablo, Yolanda’s son and his son Santiago.
Isidro and granddaughter.
Alejandra’s daughter and Juan Pablo’s son. Juan Pablo is Yolanda’s son.
Playing with the rubber duckies that were in their Easter bags.
Isidro’s granddaughters.
Santiago. He now likes me! When he was a baby, he was frightened of me. Last Easter cured that.
Yoli.
Checking out her stash.
Juan Pablo.
The hauteur of the artist!
Isidro immortalized. This is a reproduction of a self-portrait he painted rendered as a tattoo done by his son Wayan. Paloma’s arm is the canvas.
Alejandra and Jose
Marie Jose, Alejandra’s sister. She and Yoli and Alejandra and Yoli’s stepsister Carmen are my English students. Earlier this year, I published photos of Alejandra’s wedding.
Yoli, Juan Pablo, Ellie: sister, brother, wife.
Part of Yolanda’s family.
Eggs sorted and bagged and ready for next year.

This is only about 1/3 of the photos I took. Can’t resist showing them. I have movies of the egg hunt I’ll publish in another blog. The kids will enjoy seeing their photos. We had so much fun.  The adults are Isidro, one of the first friends I made when I came to Mexico. He is an amazing artist.  The tattoo is actually of a painting he did of himself. His son Wayan tattooed it onto his sister Paloma’s arm!  The children around her and Isidro are her and her sister’s. Isidro has 6 grandchildren who are all in these photos.  The youngest searcher is Alejandra’s baby. She is the niece of Yolanda(my housekeepr and friend of 24 years) and I first knew her as a student in the kid’s camp I used to assist with. Paloma, Isidro’s daughter and mom of four of his grandchildren, I knew as a small girl. She won an art competition I sponsored for kids to make posters to encourage people to clean up the lake..So I’ve made it through one generation in Mexico.

I’m going to post this. I’ll post a link to the videos later if you haven’t had your fill of Easter revelries. They are not professional level videos, as a matter of fact the last one I mistakenly recorded in slow motion .  I don’t even know how to do that! It did it itself.  I kind of like the effect, though.  At any rate, here are the stills.

Santiago’s First Easter Egg Hunt, 2024

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As always, click on any photo to enlarge all photos and to see them as a slide series.

Easter Egg hunts are unheard of in Mexico, so I have taken it on as my duty to introduce the practice to two generations of Yolanda’s family. Santiago, her first grandchild, has not wanted to have anything to do with me during encounters over the past two years, but for some reason that ended today with his crawling up into my lap, seeking shelter between my legs when the doggies got too enthusiastic, and even giving me a good-bye kiss. I’m in heaven!

I ended up hiding 20 eggs and Santiago only found 15 with his auntie’s help. I told the big kids (his uncles, 14,17 and 19) to go out and look for the missing 5 and they found all but one. Hopefully, I’ll find it before next Easter. When he discovered I was having two Easter Egg hunts for kids, my wonderful neighbors David and Sergio contributed extra eggs to fill plus these decorations made by David.

We had so much fun. They were here for 2 hours. Santiago took to the search much more than I thought he would and he was delighted with the big clear egg with handle I gave him to put all his eggs into to take home. His three uncles, one aunt and mommy came. All the aunts and uncles are teenagers.

After the hunt and drinks and snacks at the dining room table, we went out to play with the dogs. Santiago, who has discovered the delight of speech and discovers he is quite good at it, kept saying ‘Water! Water! Water!” He was intrigued by the pool but when I asked if he wanted to put his feet in it, he kept saying no. Finally, we took his shoes and socks off and he discovered he enjoyed soaking his feet a lot. As a matter of fact, the last picture occurred when his mom said he had to take his feet out of the water to go home!!!

I love what I consider to be my Mexican family and Emilia has added not one but five wonderful new members to it. One more Easter Egg hunt to go. I’ll take more photos.

Happy Easter, everyone.

Santiago’s Baptism

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Santiago and mom Emi.
Auntie Yoli, back view
Grandma Yolanda, Auntie Yoli, Grandpa Juan, Uncle Oscar and Dad Juan Pablo.
Dad Juan Pablo, Santiago, Mom Emi
An uninvited guest who slept through the entire mass and most of the baptism.
Emi’s family with her Grandmother and Uncle and the little intruder photobombing in front.
Juan Pablo’s family
Fashion plate Santiago, Godparents and parents
Santiago’s Auntie Jennifer, trying to cheer him up with the teddy bear I brought him.
Why Santiago needed cheering up.
Later on, he calmed down a bit.
It is tradition that the children of the village wait outside the church to go scurrying after coins thrown into the crowd by the godfather. Since this was a double baptism, they fared very well as Santiago’s godfather had a huge bag of 5 peso coins and the godfather of the other baby baptised had just done the same before we exited.
Yoli on our boatride.
Emi’s happy brother Ramon and sister Jennifer.
When Mount Garcia dons his sobrero, you can usually expect rain.
A happy Oscar
Yoli
Some of the 16 family members at the celebration dinner.
It was by accident that we all ended up wearing the same color!

Santiago’s baptism turned out to be a six hour bash, including a one hour mass, the baptism, a family dinner at a local lakeside restaurant and boat rides on the lake. Here is pictorial proof of the fun.

 

 

Newest Little Monster in Town

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A few weeks ago, I showed you this little monster, along with the teddy bear I got for Santiago  (not yet born) in the states.

Now it seems that little monster I brought back to Mexico from the U.S. has turned into a little angel!  This is Santiago who at a little less than a month old, fills out this 3 month old outfit pretty well.            Click on photos to enlarge.

Santiago is my housekeeper/friend Yolanda’s grandson. His folks are her oldest son Juan Pablo and his wife Emilia. I showed photos of their wedding celebration earlier this year. I am so happy to be this little boy’s honorary Grandma. Looks like he is all ready for Halloween!

Win Some, Lose Some

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It is such a wonderful synchronicity that Santiago (Yolanda’s grandchild and Juan Pablo and Emilia’s baby) would be born twenty years to the day since Bob’s death. If living so closely connected to my pets and nature for the past two years since the Coronavirus sent us all home to play has taught me anything, it is to have an intense appreciation for being a part of it all as well as an awareness that nature keeps recycling us along with the rest of its creation.

In addition to photos of Santiago, I thought I’d share with you the little memorial to Bob I have installed for the day–the 20th anniversary of his death–as well as this snuggie that hopefully Santiago will fit into by the time the weather gets cold, holding the Teddy bear I couldn’t resist buying for him in the U.S. Yes, I know I just published a photo of the little jumpsuit, but the Teddy bear just looked so cute on its lap that I had to show it again.