A Day with the Countess

We're really delinquent on the old bloggity-blog lately but it's not our fault. We are exactly 2 weeks away from the end of our DF Days and so we are knee-deep in preparations for another international move -- in fact the movers come tomorrow so we're deep in the weeds of HHE, UAB, customs forms, veterinary certificates, etc, etc, etc...

For those who don't know, Sasha will attend the Foreign Service A-100 training class that starts June 22 so she and the dude will fly to DC a week early to settle in to our new digs in Arlington. Meanwhile, Sergio will be trailing behind doing "Travels with LouLou" across Texas and the South in the old station wagon.

Lucky for us, Sasha's mom has agreed to be a grand-nanny while Sasha gets schooled in diplomacy and later as we learn Polish. And to give you an idea what we're in for there, check out the Embassy website here, and then click on the word "Polski" at the top to read it in Polish. Done? Crazy, right?

Anyway, the posts might be a little sparse in the weeks ahead until we get settled in DC. IN the meantime, here's what will probably be our last day wandering around Condesa.

As usual, food was the main agenda. This place is famous for liver tacos.

We passed on the liver. We've eaten enough weird meats in our 2 years.

No afternoon in Mexico is complete (for Sergio) without ceviche and a michelada.

Dude agrees.

Mariachis always seem to find Ivan. Perhaps because he's fascinated by them.

There's a great playground in the Parque Mexico.

Sergio appears to have enjoyed it a bit too much.

Dang teenagers.

Dude's hair is, as usual, on point.

Catching up on winding down

So things are speeding along here in Mexico City--we've got less than a month left before our departure. Instead of documenting our last days like crazy, we seem to have forgotten how to take photos. Distracted maybe?

So to recap the last month or so, we've dodged the H1N1 flu, Ivan has started walking like a champ, Sasha committed to joining the Foreign Service and we found a really super house to rent in Arlington.

Other highlights included celebrating Sasha's first Mother's Day. At her request, we made our first enchiladas verdes at home and went out for Coke floats.

Tomatillos!

Coke Float!

In other food news, we recently had a fun night making pizzas. We have a ways to go before perfecting the crust, but were sufficiently inspired to start researching pizza stone options.

Square pies are best.

We promise to be a little newsier in our last few weeks. We'll sign off this time with some shots of our very dapper babies...

Clearly employable.

Ivan Rotten.

And then, there was influenza...

LouLou likes to fit in.

So you might have heard, there's a bit of a bug circulating around here. We're fine, but obviously things are a little weirder here than normal. The news started coming in last Friday, and as the stories of sick people and deaths started to increase, the numbers of the people on the streets started to decrease. By Saturday, the streets were practically empty and what people were on the streets were wearing surgical masks. Now we're both fans of zombie movies, generally speaking, but living in a zombie movie is a different thing altogether.

The latest in influenza chic.

Then again, there's always room for PDA in the park.

He doesn't love the tapaboca.

COOKIE!

Being shut in though, didn't stop the neighbors from congregating. First, there was a BBQ for Shelly where Ivan got to see his new girl-neighbor Ruby.

Dig his shirt.

Then there was a dinnertime-breakfast birthday party for Ben, where folks set up a pork shrine to ward off the flu-formerly-known-as-swine.

Okay, so things are getting a little weird around here.

By this point, Ivan decided to get serious. There was only one hero to fight this menacing micro-organism...

SUPERBABY!

Able to temporarily stave off boredom with a single outfit.

Ruby went there too.

So here we remain, a little stir crazy but healthy and safe. Not much to do but we do have each other. One thing having Ivan has taught us is the importance of family to help you through a rough patch. And also, the joy of wearing no pants.