Weekend Away

We had an awesome little vacation this weekend! A friend from Winnipeg was in Saltillo on business so we headed out there Thursday to hang out with him. Friday morning we got up and headed to Monterrey. It is the third largest city in Mexico located about an hour east of Saltillo. We hadn't booked a hotel but headed to the Crowne Plaza because we liked the location and it had good reviews. We had seen a pretty good rate online. When we got there they told Andrew the best rate was way out of our price range. Andrew mentioned the rate he had seen online. She did some more looking and quoted him $50 less. Andrew politely thanked her and we prepared to leave. As we were rounding up the kids the manager approached him and offered a rate $30 lower than the online rate! Including breakfast. The buffet was AMAZING. You know it's a good one when you don't have enough room for all the great food. And the service was fantastic. Our room was awesome- we had a super cozy king sized bed, and Eva was quite happy sleeping on her "special bed" on the floor (why didn't we think of this before? It was joy, pure joy.) The room had a TUB. The hotel had an awesome pool, including a 12" deep heated kiddie pool, pool toys, and a not-too-hot huge hot tub. We swam up a storm! Eva didn't want to go home.

After we checked in we headed south to the Bioparque Estrella. It is over an hour's drive from Monterrey. About halfway there we were lucky enough have a run-in with the traffic police. We had forgotten copies of our visas which made it a bit tense for a few minutes, but it all worked out. I felt bad for the kids who were already tired of driving. After all that, it was frustrating to have to wait in line for 45 minutes just to pay to get into the park, but fun once we were there! The best part was the Serengeti Safari, for sure. Both kids absolutely loved it. We got on a big open bus with our cups of animal food and got to offer it to all sorts of fun African animals. Unfortunately we didn't get to see all the attractions. It was not only hot but also humid so 3 hours in the park was plenty. Plus we needed to leave time at the end of the day for swimming! And tubbing!

who doesn't have a family photo like this?

Eva decided to try out the waterslide. It was a good start....

...then things started to go wrong...

...and it ended in tears

Here we are plotting the second attack. She did go up but cold feet got her while she was standing in the lineup. Maybe next time!

Safari animals up close and personal

In the morning we checked out the recently opened Santa Lucia Riverwalk. It was beautiful. Tons of fountains, great architecture, floating bands. We took the boat tour which was a nice way to see it. We wished we'd had time to spend in the Parque de los Fundadores at one end. There is an awful lot to see and do in Monterrey. Looking forward to another excursion there one day.

Paseo Santa Lucia

Statue in the Macroplaza, downtown Monterrey

Cool Neptune sculptures in the Macroplaza, downtown Monterrey

The kids did great on the way home. Shortly after, Eva's gymnastics teacher Bertha came over to babysit while we went out to a farewell dinner for a couple from Circle of Friends. The kids were ABUZZ with excitement to have Bertha in our house!