Rainy Day in Reynosa, Tamaulipas Fronteras, Mexico

We spent the afternoon in Reynosa today, the Mexican border city just across from McAllen, Texas. This picture was taken on the first street in Reynosa that parallels the Rio Grande River. We had lunch at McDonalds, drove around the perimeter of Reynosa, and visited two small shopping malls. The one shopping mall was very modern and spotless. Its anchor stores were Sanborn's and H-E-B. Sanborn's is a famous restaurant in Mexico that has an attached department store. H-E-B (pronounced one letter at a time, not "Heb") is a large grocery store chain that we also have in Texas. The Soriana's in Reynosa (like a Mexican WalMart with a grocery section) features several areas where you can sample food such as yogurt or our favorite, freshly grilled tortillas filled with -- a mildly spicy chicken stew. Sounds a bit odd but we really like these full-sized samples. It turned out to be Ahava's lunch because she was too distracted by her toy, the playground, and other Mexican children at the McDonalds who had earlier "prevented" her from eating her little hamburger.

Our two little girls had a ride on the carousel at the mall - it wasn't West Edmonton Mall but they still enjoyed the ride. Marcel sat on a bench with little Ahava to wait while the big girls went into a costume jewlery store. Another dad with a toddler sat beside Marcel and struck up a conversation in Spanish. The other dad is from Veracruz but is currently working in Reynosa. The older girls offered to "help" their dad practise Spanish using this wait-on-the-bench-while-we-shop-for-jewlery technique but Daddy declined their gracious offer.