La Stabioneta

My Valentine While serving my mission in Philadelphia, one of the areas I served in had so many members from Puebla that we used to call that area Puebladelphia. Since that time, coming to Puebla has been part of my bucket list.  Puebla is known for 5 de Mayo (May 5th), great food, and volcanoes.   Cinco de Mayo Celebration Outside of the US, Puebla is the only place that celebrates “5 de Mayo”. The 5th of May festivity is a yearly celebration of Mexico’s victory over the Second French Empire in 1862 at the Battle of Puebla, not Mexico’s Independence Day. Perhaps the Stabios should start to celebrate Dec 18 to commemorate our victory over France during the 2022 World Cup. "In case you're living under a rock" picture We are here for a month so we should be able to do a lot of fun things. Shameless plug for ChatGPT and Bing that has also given us solid itineraries to do while we are here.    Calle de los Dulces  During V-day, we went to “Calle de los Du...

As we walk into the center of town, we start to see different vendors selling their crafts - from dolls, to bags, to magnets. There are thousands of items to buy. Some of the sellers are locals to the city while others come from further out.  Here are some of the things that our kids have noticed: Items / crafts are made up of multiple colors, Some sellers provide some sort of entertainment, The bigger the items get, the more expensive they become.  The kids woke up a few days ago and decided to open their own shop. They got some papers, scissors, and closed the door to their room For the next few hours, they were quietly working, giggling, and having a great time together. I was so happy but also confused by such 'amazing' behavior lasting so long...  After a few hours, they came and asked me to come to their shop, and they "strongly" encouraged me to bring my pesos with me. When I walked in, Nico was drumming on a book and the suitcase, and then handed off to Camila...

In Mexico, some cities are considered to be “magical cities”. These  are towns recognized by the Mexican government for their “magical” qualities, whether that be their astonishing beauty, rich history, or extraordinary legends. Bernal is also home to the 4th biggest monolith on Earth.  We spent most of the time there walking around town. You are able to hike up to about 3/4th of way up, but the line to get in was crazy long so we skipped it. The hiker and outdoor lover in our fam was quite disappointed, but we at least got to see it up close. Plus, the hike was quite steep, and our kids would've hated it.  Family We went to Bernal with my cousin and her family. On our way there, we followed them, but we eventually got separated. After parking our car, we probably walked about 2-3 miles around town until we finally found them (parts of town had a very spotty cell service).  We went to this really cool restaurant that had a great view of the Peña. While waiting t...