Mackenzie Turns One!

Cute little Mackenzie is turning 1 on Dec. 2nd but since we won't be here to celebrate with her, we had an early party on Friday night!Papa Murphy's pizza was first on the list that night - we decided that Mackenzie ate WAY too much pizza because she wasn't too interested in her cake!! We watched and watched her, just waiting for her little hands to dig into that cake but she just wasn't going to do it! Jessi put a little bit of frosting in her mouth and she did like it, but the usual grabbing of the cake and getting hands full of the sticky concoction to stuff in her mouth just didn't happen! We still had fun watching her though and nothing is sweeter than to watch your grandchild have a birthday!

Happy 1st Birthday Mackenzie!! Nana and Papa love you!!

Black Friday

We were slackers this year - Jaime and I didn't even LEAVE the house till 6:30am!! Because of Gary's work schedule, Jessi didn't get to join us till a little bit later!

But we had a gorgeous day to shop - soon the coats were off! Because of our late start, we didn't even encounter the long, long lines that we ususally do so that was nice! People seemed to be much nicer this year and I couldn't believe all the HELP in the stores - several times we were ASKED if we found what we were looking for! It got to the point where when we walked into a store, we just found a salesperson to show us where the item was we were looking for - a huge change from last year!!

We headed over to Southlands after a while which I was extremely excited about since that's where Caribou Coffee is - not only was it buy one get one free day (I LOVED that!!) but Caribou now is using NEW exotic chocolate and they ask if you want milk, white or dark chocolate in your coffee!!! DARK CHOCOLATE!! MY ULTIMATE FAVORITE!! I was in heaven - I took that first sip and looked at Jessi and just smiled...........

All in all, the day went great - my shopping is probably 90% done and all stashed in one of Jaime's closet! Another Black Friday is over..................

Turkey Day - 2009

A day of giving thanks - a day to be with family - a day of eating all that wonderful food!! This indeed was the scene of our Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Day dawned bright and sunny at Jaime and Brad's house in Denver! I awoke with a start and glanced at the clock - oh my gosh, it was 7:45 and I jumped out of bed, thinking we needed to get the turkey in the oven!! You see the night before was a super late night!! Because Glenn had a granite install that he had to finish, we knew it might be a little later than usual before we got up to Jaime's house - I was thinking 8:00 or 9:00 at the latest!! Right - we arrived at midnight!

So feeling blurry-eyed, I hopped into the shower, grabbed my bib overalls and raced to get ready for the day - but when I came upstairs, it was nice and quiet and only Brad was up - hmmmmmmmm, what's the deal here! Oh right, Jaime forgot to turn the clock back downstairs when daylight's savings time was over - it was only a little after 7:00am in the morning! Darn, I could have used a few more minutes of sleep.........

Soon Jessi's were over, the Smiths were all up and breakfast was cooking!! We missed Jill, Robby and Aleah this year as they went to Iowa for Thanksgiving! After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese and sausage casserole (this is the BEST!), we proceeded to work on our big meal which was to be eaten right at 12:00 since we knew the kids needed to nap, Gary had to go to work, and Glenn had to head back home to work for a couple of days before driving back up to Denver so we could fly out on Sunday morning!

Our meal was delicious - a little chaotic with both boys thinking they were dying of hunger before the meal was actually ready and then not really eating that much once they sat down! But all in all, our meal was fantastic!! Brad had smoked the turkey for a couple of hours before we put it in the oven and it was wonderful!! This along with our mashed potatos and gravy, crockpot stuffing, Hawaiian sweet rolls, corn pudding, crunchy coleslaw, relish tray and delight salad stuffed everybody to the max!! The pumpkin and apple pies that Jessi made had to be saved for later.........

The house seemed empty after Gary and Glenn both left - our usual Thanksgiving afternoon is looking through the ads and planning our shopping day for Friday so our lists were made with a plan of attach, that soon was squelched when Gary learned he DID have to work after all so Jessi had no sitter for a while! Bummer!

Rayna and I went for a long walk after lunch and I even had to rest for a little while when we got back -after all, that's what lazy afternoons are for!!

It was a truly wonderful Thanksgiving - I'm thankful for my wonderful family, good health and bountiful blessings!

Save That Wreath!

I forgot to mention in my Christmas decorating blog about the "wreath"!

Each year, the 4-H Junior Leaders sells fresh wreaths - and ever since my girls were in Junior Leaders, I have always purchased one to hang outside the house - the going joke was I usually kept it up till Easter! Since it's so darn cold here, it always lasted a long time!

So when I was getting the Christmas decorations down, I noticed that I had 3 black garbage sacks - each one holding a wreath! I couldn't figure out where that 3rd sack came from because I remembered only using 2 wreaths! You'll never guess what was in there when I opened the sack - you guessed it - the FRESH wreath from the Jr. Leaders that I purchased LAST year!! Only it wasn't so fresh anymore!

I can't imagine how it got put with the decorations because as I stated before, I always leave it hanging up for a couple of extra months! But lo and behold, somehow it was - I PERSONALLY took the bag to the end of the driveway this morning and placed it with the trash! Just in time to now hang my new "fresh" one!

Christmas Decorating - HO HO HO!

Yes, the weekend had FINALLY arrived and my list was super long - first on the list was the Christmas decorating along with a trip to the Springs for some shopping and lastly to start the packing for Thanksgiving and our trip to Walt Disney World!

The shopping went fine - luckily the traffic wasn't too bad yet as I had an early start and the best part was finding nearly everything on my list - that doesn't happen too often!!

Decorating for Christmas is always a joy - I put on the Christmas music and decorate to my hearts' content!! Note to self - next year plug in the lighted garland strings BEFORE wrapping them around the staircase railing (which takes a LONG time!) I left the lights on all day but because the sun was shining in most of the day, you couldn't really see the lights - so when darkness came, I stood back to admire the staircase and about started crying!! Amidst all the brightly colored strands of light on the railing were 2 strands of white lights!! These 2 strands were SUPPOSED to be on top of my cupboards but since I failed to plug them in before I started, I had put the colored lights on my cupboards!!

Now to anyone else, this would be no big deal but to those who know me, they know it IS a big deal because I'm such a perfectionist on decorating!! But you'll be proud to know that I LEFT the lights as they were and decided it just adds a little bit of character........

I also got a lot of the preliminary packing done for the weekend! Thanksgiving is up at Jaime and Brad's house and because I will be staying up there till we fly out on Sunday morning, all the suitcases and clothes must go up when we leave on Wednesday night! I need a list just to keep track of all of my OTHER lists!!

Is Thanksgiving REALLY Next Week?

The one thing I DO NOT LIKE about the month of November and December is that it virtually flies by so fast that I feel I don't get to savor the holiday seasons like I should! But that being said, I AM getting organized very quickly for the holidays because I REALLY want to enjoy the month of December, just sitting in front of the fireplace, apple cider and book in hand, watching the lights on the Christmas tree!!

This week has been a busy one (aren't they all???). Sunday night was dinner at a friends' house, Monday night was church ladies night out, Tuesday night was a massage, and last night was choir girls night out! I am extremely excited that nothing is going on the next 2 nights, nor on the weekend as tonight I will start the Christmas decorating!!

Of course, the decorations can't come out until I take down all the fall decorations and get them put away - and then there's the dusting to do before the holiday things go out!! One of the MAJOR cleaning jobs is on the top of my kitchen cupboards where I have a lot of fancy wine and liquor bottles and some of the pretty "stuffed food" bottles, along with lights and grapes and vines!! It all gets VERY dusty during the course of the year so that all must be cleaned good before it's taken down to the basement to store for a month and a half!

On the bright side of things, my Christmas cards are all ready to be mailed - yes, I ordered them early, wrote and printed the newsletter and they're setting on my desk (probably gathering MORE dust!!) Leaving the Sunday after Thanksgiving for another vacation leaves me no choice but to be even MORE organized this year!

On the not so bright side of things, Glenn was in the ER yesterday with heart problems - he's been having some issues lately and either today or tomorrow, will see a cardiologist where they can determine what the real issue is - it's nothing life threatening at this point but if the condition is not treatable with medication, he may need to get a pacemaker.

Between Thanksgiving and the trip, you can't imagine how many lists I have going..... But as long as something is crossed OFF every day, I'm happy!

Snowstorm Fun!

Let me start out this blog by saying that it was DARN cold this Monday morning - we woke up to 10 below temps!! Now that's January weather, not November weather!! As I drove to work on the icy roads, the temp dropped to 21 below outside of Divide - I have dubbed that stretch of the road Siberia!

I had kids and grandkids again this last weekend! How fun!! Jaime, Kylan, Rayna, Jill and Aleah all came to visit! We did an outing on Saturday morning - with ALL the kids! But they were great so no worries! We went to the craft fair at the high school in W. Pk - Jaime and Jill had not been in the school since they've done all the remodeling so that was fun to show them! But alas, I was disappointed in the craft fair - I haven't been to one in several years so was excited to go to one but it just didn't seem the same as years ago! We enjoyed looking at a few items but came away empty-handed! On the way home, we stopped at another one in Divide and even though it was more of the same, the stop was worth it because the girls saw 2 of their favorite elementary teachers and they enjoyed catching up with them!

Rayna loves holding Aleah and little Aleah was full of smiles this weekend!


Jill's reading a book to Aleah here but took time out for a smile!

Rayna was excited to get on the computer as she is playing that game where she has a little pet and you can do games and buy things for this pet - she was NOT happy Friday evening when the phone lines were down and we had no internet!! Kylan decided that he wanted to watch her so I got out the little step stool and he would stand for a LONG time and watch her play the games! (Note my pink reading glasses that I keep by the computer - you'll see them later!)

It started snowing a little bit on Saturday but did stop long enough so us girls could get in the hot tub - I lit the lamps and that hot water felt GREAT on the cold, cold night! Pretty soon the snow started coming down heavier and by the time we got up on Sunday morning, it was coming down pretty hard!

But the kids wanted to go out and play in the snow so as soon as it stopped, we got the kids dressed and I went out with them - they had a ball playing in the snow and sledding! We DID get 8 to 10 inches so the picture above shows the deck AFTER I scooped it!!

Rayna loved going down the hill and had a nice slick patch by the time Kylan and I came over - we mostly ended up just sliding down WITHOUT the sled but the journey back up was hard as little Kylan could hardly walk in the deep snow so I had to walk right behind him and help him up - let me tell you, I was thoroughly exhausted after playing in the snow for an hour!!

Jaime and I saw a nice buck in the driveway on Saturday so I had taken a couple of pictures to show Glenn - and then on Sunday afternoon, the herd of deer came around again, looking for some food and once again a HUGE buck was there - to me he just didn't look like the one Jaime and I saw on the driveway so I had Glenn look at that picture and sure enough, it was a different buck!! So we have 2 of these majestic ones roaming the neighborhood!!

Rayna wanted to go outside one more time before they left on Sunday afternoon so I donned the winter clothing again and went out with her -and while Jaime was packing up to leave, Kylan decided he wanted to look really silly so he donned my pink reading glasses, put my hula-hoop around his truck and proceeded to race around the house!! What a ham!!

I almost forgot to mention that I showed the girls the DVD's from the 8 mm tapes - Jaime of course was THRILLED that the 3rd one (the longest one of course) was mainly of her!! But the look on Jill's face when she saw herself being born was just priceless - she could not believe we had it on tape!! Ah, another memorable weekend!

Memories To Last A Lifetime

Have you ever had one of those projects in the back of your mind for years and years that just never was completed? I am so thrilled and excited to say that after many years of contemplating this project, that it is FINALLY completed and the outcome is a treasure that all of us will enjoy throughout our lifetimes!

When Gale (the girls' dad) and I were married back in 1972, we had an 8 mm movie camera - it was one of those pretty large contraptions and it used 8 mm round tapes -of course I don't remember buying it or even using it much but at that point in time, not many people had them! But I do know that my sister Patty and husband Leonard had the same type of camera!

We did USE the camera - and I remember nights where Leonard and Gale would actually splice the little blue 8 mm tapes together and put them on a large reel, kind of like what an actual movie reel is! They had a splicer type thing that would connect the little reels together and I remember it taking a LONG time to do it!

Fast forward - For the next 30 years, everytime we moved, the box of 8 mm tapes and the old movie projector moved with us!! And I believe about 15 or 20 years ago, we actually dug out the old projector and watched a few movies - now mind you, these old, old tapes were extremely brittle and while trying to watch them, part of the reel would actually burn as it went through the projector. So we decided NOT to watch them anymore for fear of losing the content!

I had decided years ago that I really wanted to get these old movies put on DVD - but the price was WAY beyond what I was willing and able to spend at that time! But with all the new technology out now and with a bonus from my boss that didn't need to be used for anything special, I decided to once more check into getting these old tapes put on DVD!

After calling a couple of places, Jill told me that a friend of hers said that Walmart actually did it!! I was so excited that I went there on lunch hour to talk to someone in the camera department about it, and YES, they did do it! At the time, we thought the price would be per reel, but come to find out, it is charged by the foot!

I had 13 small 8 mm tapes and 3 large reels to do - I knew the tapes only went up through probably 1982 when Jessi turned 1 - (who knows why nothing was recorded after that time - I have a feeling the camera must have broke) but I was still very excited to get them done! It was funny because when I took the first set of little tapes in, the guy asked me how much footage was on each one and I said I believed it was 30 minutes per tape - duh - how fast we forget - the little tapes only had 4 MINUTES! Of course with no sound, just action, the 4 minutes is actually a long time!

The last of the DVD's were done when we returned from Mexico and I picked them up - was it expensive??? In a way yes, but knowing that these memories are now preserved FOREVER made it all worthwhile as I'm not sure we could ever watch the actual tapes again!

Minute wise, there is not that much - 2 DVD's of about 30 minutes each and 1 DVD of an hour and 38 minutes! The 2 30 minutes DVD's are of Jill's birth and Jessi's birth - and we watched them up at Jaime's house the day we got back from Mexico - how fun was that???

Last night was the first chance I had to watch the long DVD - you could tell that Jaime was certainly the FIRST child as 3/4 of the DVD was of her! It was SO NEAT to see not only Jaime being born and a toddler, but of my family - my mom and dad, grandma and grandpa's, aunts and uncles, siblings, and old friends!! Most were just a glimpse but it was enough to make me smile and cry and reflect on all of those wonderful memories!

Tonight, Jaime and her 2 kids and Jill and Aleah are heading down for the weekend! And the first thing on the agenda is to watch the DVD's - Jaime has seen 2 of them but not the one of her birth and Jill hasn't seen any of them - I can't WAIT to see the expression on their faces when they watch them!

My memories of my little girls are now available to watch any time I want to - and if you need a good laugh, just come on over and check out the hairstyles and clothes of the late 70's and early 80's! Now THAT'S a trip down Memory Lane.............

A Hunting Widow - AGAIN!

Yes, once again Glenn is hunting - this time with son-in-law Brad and good friend Martin! We don't need any more meat because we have plenty to get us through the winter - but when there are extra tags available and people to go with, he just couldn't resist!!

I actually don't mind it at all when he's gone - no cooking is required, no picking up after him is required, and I don't have to watch any football games - he he!

Even though I set the alarm at 3:30 on Wed. morning, he was too excited to sleep and was up by 2:30! Of course I woke up too, even though he was very quiet, and couldn't get back to sleep for a LONG time - sigh...........

Before Glenn left, he actually had me go to the lower level with him so he could ONCE AGAIN show me how to light a fire in the wood stove - as I wrote before in another blog, this is my downfall - I could NEVER make it on Survivor because I just can't seem to light a fire! This time I had a secret weapon though - Glenn said to squirt a little bit of lighter fluid on the sticks and bark and it would easily go!! And he was right - save for the fact that the house smelled like a BBQ going, the fire went and I had a nice warm place last night while I watched the CMA Awards!

Tonight a friend and I are heading to the Wines of Colorado for their famous wineburgers and grilled chicken, and probably a glass of wine to go with it! And after that, I will once again try my fire-making skills when I arrive home - if all else fails, I have lots of blankets.............

Back To Regular Blogging!!

The week went by VERY fast with all the catch-up work I had to do!! Of course I had a pretty good list for the weekend but Jessi called Friday afternoon and said her and the kids were heading down early Sat. morning!! I NEVER pass up a chance to see the grandkids! So Friday night I spent getting the house cleaned so little Mackenzie who is crawling wouldn't be covered in cobwebs and dead flies!! (Actually the house wasn't THAT bad, but I couldn't believe how many cobwebs cropped up while we were on vacation!)

Saturday was a gorgeous day!! We spent a lot of time out on the front deck and Evan had fun bringing all his trucks outside! He spent some of his time out with Papa in the garage and that always brings a smile to his face!!

While the kids were napping, Jessi and I even got in a couple of games of bananagrams before Evan climbed up on Jessi's lap, wanting to play! Of course Jessi beat me ONCE again!!

Now who couldn't love this face???? I'm going to start calling her Pebbles pretty soon with that hairdo!!

Saturday evening we went to Martin and Joleen's house for a fantastic dinner! The kids loved playing with "different" toys and we had a great evening! But morning came WAY too fast as for some reason, Mackenzie just doesn't sleep well at our house!! She woke up about 4:00 and cried and screamed for a long time!! I went downstairs about 5:15 and took her to the lower level - I would just get her to sleep and she would wake up, take one look at me and start screaming again! (Guess I must have looked PRETTY BAD at that time of the morning!!) Eventually I got her to sleep for a while until Evan got up - so it was a short night for all of us!

Since Jessi was up early, she grabbed my camera and snapped this sunrise picture - we've had some awesome sunrises lately!!

Jessi and the kiddos headed home mid-morning (to probably get some sleep - ha ha) and I started in on my list for the day! Too bad Monday rolled around that fast.......

Homeward Bound - Day 8

The day was absolutely gorgeous with sunshine and NO clouds - was I really ready to go home? Of course not, but one must!

Packing to go home is never much fun but at least it's easy as you don't have to worry about folding everything just so - but of course there was a bottle of tequila to pack (and no matter how tight the lid is, it always leaks - this time was no exception -luckily the zip-lock bag held!!) I also had bought a couple of ceramic bowls and they made it home too with no breakage!

We actually got ready early so we sat on the gazebo the last hour just gazing at the ocean and the waves, knowing that SOMEDAY, we would come back here!

The drive to the airport was without incident and we turned the rental car in with no problem! With a couple of hours to kill, we shopped - there were 3 or 4 stores that had Christmas ornaments AND book marks. Note to self: don't bother shopping for these 2 items until you get to the airport to go home - seems like they are ALWAYS available at the airport! I indeed bought another ornament for the tree, this one with Zihuatanejo on it and it's cute as can be!

We grabbed some lunch, headed through security and soon were in Phoenix! Customs went just fine but the luggage took FOREVER to come through - even though we had an hour layover and customs only took about 15 minutes, it was NOT enough time with the darn luggage taking so long! I truly believe ours was the LAST two to come out and by this time we were down to 15 minutes before take-off! No problem, right?? WRONG! We still had to go through the checkpoint with our luggage and then recheck the luggage - and then we started running! Of course our gates were about as far away as you could get - and when we FINALLY got to the right section, we could hear the last boarding call - we raced down to the end and our gate wasn't there - I had taken the wrong turn and went the wrong direction - duh - so back up that section and way down on the other end! We raced up to the door, completely out of breath, and they shut the door behind us! WHEW - I really didn't want to spend the night in the Phoenix airport as this was the last flight of the night!

And soon we arrived in Denver, again picked up our luggage, took the shuttle to our car and made it back to Jaime's house by 9:30 - in our shorts of course - we had planned on changing into our jeans in Phoenix but of course that didn't happen!

All in all - one fantastic trip!

Vacation - Day 7

Our last full day of vacation - where did the week go?? Again we had some cloud cover but it sure made for a nice walk on the beach in the morning without that full force of the sun hitting us!

We took a drive up the road as I wanted to check out a gift shop that the Iowa man's wife worked at! Below are pictures of the vegation on the way - I have never seen such dense, tangled vines as this - pure jungle -and I was silently thinking to myself of all the creepy crawlies that were probably lurking on the floor of the jungle!

We found the gift shop and talked to the gal quite a while - it was definitely NOT a trinket shop - a lot of expensive, nice items! Then it was back to our place where we swam in the ocean and the swimming pool!

Our gardener, Elfonzo, came and started cutting vines and thorny bushes on the lot next door and TRYING to burn them! Glenn watched and watched him until he couldn't stand it any longer - he put his jeans on and headed over, determined to show him how to start a PROPER fire! So for the next hour or so, he helped Elfonzo cut and burn - it was hot out by this time of the day and by the time he finished, he was to the point of being over heated! But a cool shower helped!

Below is a picture of the dogs that followed us on our walks on the beach - they certainly wouldn't stand still for any length of time so it was hard to get a picture of them!

Sunset was going to be better than the last few nights so I raced upstairs to the rooftop as I wanted to capture the palm trees in the swimming pool next door - it did turn out better than I expected it to!!

And our last sunset over the ocean........................

I just had to have the grilled shrimp again next door (as did Glenn) so we headed over for our last night - we enjoyed talking to the people at the next table who had been coming to Troncones for years and had just bought property a little ways from where we were staying and were starting to build!

Bedtime was interesting as the air conditioner (which was located on the wall over the bed) started dripping - of course Elfonzo had already went home by this time - Glenn looked at it but couldn't figure out either why it was leaking! Of course the leak dripped right on the headboard and had soaked down into the bed and pillow - and I thought the logical thing would be to put a pan there to catch the drips - but I didn't think about the dripping sound - not a good thing when you're trying to sleep - so we ended up just shutting it off for the night and using the fan which was fine............The Journey Home will be our last, to be continued..............

Vacation -Day 5 and 6

Wednesday we woke up to rain - I knew it was bound to happen on at least one day since it's still the rainy season there.......... Cooking breakfast just didn't sound like fun so we hopped in the car and drove down to the cafe to eat but guess the owners thought they could sleep in since it was raining as it wasn't open - it was back to the house for cereal.........

We decided since it was raining to go ahead and drive into Zihuatanejo for groceries, my Christmas ornament and bookmark, and some fishing supplies for Glenn! It rained the entire time we were gone - I don't mind the rain of course but the bad part was trying to keep the windshield clean from all the rain and humidity! About the only way to keep it from fogging up was to turn on the heat - and let me tell you, even though it was raining, it was NOT cool outside!

Traffic was awful in town - again I'm SO glad Glenn drives as well as he does in the Mexican traffic!! We found the same store from before so stopped there to get groceries but needed to head to the "centro" to get the rest! I think everybody and their dog was in the centro that day - my, my it was busy!

We parked the car and headed into this HUGE indoor market - I think everything under the sun could have been purchased in there! Glenn actually found the fishing stuff he was looking for but the Christmas ornaments were not out yet - I settled for a cute shell with a frog on top that was attached to a key chain - it will work just fine and I'll write "Troncones" on the shell! We looked and looked ONCE AGAIN for fresh flour tortillas but none were to be found - darn!


Neither Glenn nor I are big shoppers so we basically found what we wanted and got the heck out of there! Just TOO many people in that crowded spot for us!! And guess what we did on the way home?? Took the WRONG turn AGAIN and had to backtrack - that's how confusing the road system was!!

After arriving back home, I checked my email through the property manager's computer and found out via Jill that it was snowing like crazy back home - I just giggled to myself and wondered if I was missing a snow day (yes, I was!!)

It rained and rained the entire afternoon - I didn't mind it - books can be read in the sunshine and in the rain too! Luckily it stopped enough so we could grill hamburgers and foil potatos for dinner that night!

So the only photo I took during the day was in the early evening when the rain let up a little bit!

Thursday dawned extremely cloudy in the morning but by afternoon the sun was out! This is basically what Glenn did all morning!

As you can see by the picture below, there were still a lot of clouds around but that only made for more dramatic beach pics!

This is a photo of where we stayed taken from the beach! I should have waited till the sun came out though!

In the afternoon, Glenn and I walked over to the little cove I had found where Glenn went fishing - yes, he bought line and hooks and weights and wrapped the line around a bottle, just like the locals do!! I took my beach towel and book and read for a while but forgot to put on sunscreen so I didn't last too long!

Late afternoon we walked uptown for more smoothies - I tried the tropical one this time - it was great but I actually liked the berry one better! Another walk on the beach completed our lazy day and we grilled chicken and more potatos for dinner that night - Glenn fell asleep by 7:30 - what a life!! To be continued.........

Vacation - Day 4

Glenn was up early for his fishing adventure - I guess that's what you call it - I couldn't imagine going out in a boat for 3 or 4 hours with someone you couldn't communicate with!!


Anyway, I was stiff and sore when I woke up, probably from sitting in that lawn chair hour after hour reading so actually did some exercises to loosen up! After breakfast I took a long walk on the beach and of course ended up back on the gazebo with my book - the maid was cleaning our room at this time and I was reading "The Shack" - well, the tears started flowing as I was reading this book and I had no kleenex on me (I know, that's hard to believe!) so I sniffed and sniffed for the next 1/2 hour until I could get into our bedroom and retrieve my kleenex!!

Glenn came back earlier than I expected - it was not a great fishing trip for him - he did catch about 3 fish but not the ones he wanted to catch - oh well, that's life!! He wanted to make "shushami" which I believe is how you spell it so we walked into the village and luckily they had soy sauce so he mixed up some garlic with it and ate the raw fish dipped in the sauce - I declined his offer to help myself!

Our afternoon was a typical one - siesta time for Glenn, reading for me! I decided to shoot a bunch of pictures of the lovely surroundings as it was just so pretty. This shot is taken from the roadside as soon as you walk in the gate.

I'm not sure what kind of berries these are but they looked delicious!

This picture was taken from the side of our house, looking back towards the street! In the area to the left is an outdoor seating area for the guests that stay in the 2 casitas (in the right of the picture) and the palapa style building is the kitchen for them!

Another shot showing some of the bushes around the gazebo.

And this photo was taken from our rooftop kitchen, looking back at the casitas!

We took a long walk on the beach late afternoon and were joined by Bobby, a dog who looks like a black lab but of course who knows? The owner next door told us that he used to belong to the cook who worked there but when the cook left, Bobby stayed. I'm not sure if Bobby belongs to anybody now but he loved us and followed us wherever we went! He would sleep outside our door at night, follow us down the beach, and sit patiently on the sand at the restaurants and wait till we were done eating!

Also joining us were the 3 calico cats who I named Tom, Dick and Harry! Tom slept up in the kitchen ALL the time and sometimes the other 2 would join him - naturally we fed the cats and Bobby so we were all good friends!

Dinner that night was back at the Burro place and they cooked up the fish that Glenn had caught and served it with the most delicious rice and veggies - yum!! Another night of lightning and thunder and unfortunately RAIN!! To be continued..........

Vacation - Day 3

Monday dawned bright and sunny, hot and humid! We're not used to sleeping in air conditioning of course so unfortunately, I didn't sleep great the night before - but no matter, I could sleep in! Glenn grabbed his coffee and I got my juice and we headed to the gazebo for a while before breakfast! There was a nice breeze blowing on the roof while we cooked breakfast so that was nice!

The property manager stopped by for the rent on the house so we visited awhile - he spoke great English! Also our maid and her husband Elfonzo who tended the gardens came by but of course they spoke very little English!

Glenn headed up to the fishing area to talk to some other people who were fishing with Oso for the day so I decided to grab my suit, lather on the suntan lotion and do some sunbathing! I pulled the lawn chair out on the sand and thought these 2 palms made a neat picture! It was VERY hot just sitting in the sun reading so I actually only stayed out a little while! The tan I DID get was just from walking on the beach!

We strolled up to Cafe del Sol for lunch - I was having trouble reading their Spanish menu when the lady behind the counter handed me a sheet of paper - not only was everything in Spanish AND English, but you actually marked on the menu what you wanted - I thought that was a neat idea! They served smoothies - berry and tropical - I tried the berry first and it was awesome! My turkey/avocado/bacon sandwich was out of this world!

While we were sitting at the outdoor cafe, I looked over at this extremely vegatated lot that had lots of coconut trees on it and there was a huge iguana - and I mean huge - his tail alone had to be 2 feet! During the course of our meal, several iguanas went up the trees - must have been having a party or something..........

I took a walk after lunch down the beach but you can only go so far this one way because of the rocks - but I saw a pathway that went through so walked on it and it came out on the other side of the rocks - a neat, small cove with a great sand beach - I can never resist taking pics of my footprints!



On the walk back, I saw this bird sitting on a post - a most unusual bird and I have no idea what kind it was! I tried to get closer but he flew off!

Glenn took a LONG siesta while I read out in the living room area - the views aren't quite as good as on the gazebo but the padded couch was a lot easier to sit on!! (just for the record, you might want to know that I read 8 books from the time we left till the time we arrived home!)

After naptime, we put on the swimsuits and headed out to the ocean! And yes, I LOVED wearing my new suits!!

The ocean was wonderful - I have never felt such warm water before - guess it's because we were so far south! Because of the large waves coming in, you really have to be careful and it was all I could do sometimes to hold my footing when a big wave came in!! All the same though, it was great fun! After the ocean, we headed next door where we had stayed the first night and swam in the pool - that water was even warmer than the ocean! So we had the best of both worlds!!

As evening approached, I was hoping for a good sunset -it was cloudy enough out that I thought we would have one - I loved the way the ocean looked at dusk!

And sure enough, there was a sunset!

We headed to a new restaurant for dinner that night, Cafe Bravo - it seemed we were always eating earlier than everybody else and I thought that was a little strange so when we sat down and our waiter spoke a little English, I asked him the time - duh - I had set my watch wrong!! It was actually an hour earlier!! Didn't really matter since we were on vacation but arriving at the airport to go home an hour EARLIER than we needed to be there would NOT have been fun!! So we got a chuckle out of that!

The pina coladas at this place were HUGE!! And because we ordered guacomole as an appetizer, by the time my chicken fajita came, I could hardly eat any of it!! The waiter (a young guy who was fun to talk with) asked me if something was wrong and I said, no, I was just full! When he came back later to wrap up my food he asked me "Are you still drunk?" Apparently he was a little mixed up on his English - ha ha!!

That evening there was a lot of thunder and lightning so I sat on the gazebo for a while and watched it!! There is also a beacon light at the end of the beach that I guess was for the boats as it would flash on and off 4 times, then wait a while and start again - I had fun dreaming up stories that the drug runners had put it up and were sitting in their boats out in the ocean, waiting for the right light to come ashore! To be continued...........

Vacation - Day 2

Glenn and I both slept like rocks (thanks to the air conditioner) and didn't bat an eye until 8:00 the next morning! We cooked bacon and eggs on our rooftop kitchen and loved sitting outside to eat and watching the waves!

We drove up the road a few miles to the next little village of Majahua where we knew we would find "Oso", the guy who takes people out to fish!! I loved driving by all the places that I had looked at online - there were also several private homes on the road and one neat thing about Mexican homes is they all have names!

After parking the car, we walked around on the beach and saw a 5th wheel all set up on a small bluff overlooking the ocean - what a view - and after seeing that the license plates on the truck were IOWA plates, we hollered over the fence and met the owner! It's always fun to talk to people from the midwest!

We located "Oso" and found out he didn't speak ANY English at all - after doing a lot of looking in the Spanish dictionary and gesturing with our hands, he went and got the neighbor who speaks English so they could get a date set to fish - whew, I was sweating like crazy by this time - just not used to the humidity!

After doing some reading on the rooftop and peeking over at "our" place, just wondering how soon we could move over there, the time finally came! I'm always a little worried to actually see the place I rented online - in fact, I don't have high expectations at all - that way I'm not disappointed! I spend hours and hours doing research to find the perfect place and I was hoping this would be a great spot - it was!!

Our place was called Las Casititas De Margarita - and it was just beautiful - brick walkways through the small complex, beautiful gardens with trees, bushes and all kinds of flowers with solar lights lighting the pathways, and the main house which was ours, facing the beach! It was MUCH, MUCH more than what I expected!

Our bedroom and bathroom were on the main level - don't you just love the bright colors that are always in Mexico?? I was REALLY happy to see there was air conditioning because this was something I had no idea that we would need! The headboard and end tables are all built- in concrete and the place was beautifully decorated! Across from the bed was an entire wall of built-ins, with one corner full of books - I was in heaven!

I have never seen a place with so much storage - besides the place to hang your clothes, there were shelves after shelves for folded clothes and another huge storage space in the bathroom! Of course the shower was huge as most Mexican showers are and the tilework was gorgeous!

Below is a picture of the steps that you went up for the rooftop kitchen and dining area - again, the steps were all inlaid tile with recessed lighting ! Believe it or not, there was actually another bathroom on the top floor too!

Check out this view -it sure wasn't hard to cook up here when you could look at the ocean while you were cooking! Although the kitchen area was small, the appliances were nice and new and we enjoyed many meals up here!

This is a picture of our living room - yes, it was outside too! 2 sides of the house had wrap-around porches so along with the wicker furniture, there were more tables and chairs and rocking chairs!

But the BEST part of the entire house is the picture below - the gazebo (as I call it although technically it's not one) is where we spent hour after hour after hour - just watching the waves in the ocean and reading - it's what made the place!

This place had a lot of little details that I really appreciated -lids on the wastebaskets (in Mexico, the toilet paper goes IN the wastebasket), nice teflon pans to cook with, not only a frig in the kitchen but one in our bedroom, rugs on each side of the bed so you could wipe your sandy feet off before climbing in, a lamp on each side of the bed for reading along with recessed lighting built right into the headboard, books and a stereo system, lots of hangers, plenty of hot water, maid service EVERY DAY, and a nice built-in BBQ! As you can tell, I was impressed with the place!

After unpacking, I spent the rest of the afternoon on the gazebo watching the waves - this place has huge waves and is a great place for surfers - we enjoyed watching them but decided we were too old to try it!

Dinner that night was next door again - the food was just so good that we decided to eat there again and I wasn't disappointed with my chicken enchilada with lots of guacamole! To be continued.............