I have about 3 days worth of blog coming your way!

Thursday August 27, 2009

Hi all,

It has been another great day in paradise, UPS came today and brought Ross’s long sought after power conditioners, yeah! We won’t have to worry about that any longer, Ross promised that when he orders something else to be delivered it will definitely be under $1,000.

Another kinda sorta milestone, we went over to John’s to use his internet and I asked Shay, John’s daughter, if she would call Telmex for me to see when we should expect our phone and internet, they told her between tomorrow and Monday, Hurray! From John’s we went into the Pharmacia and bought an elastic bandage for Ross’s knee, it is really bothering him. We got an e-mail from Lynn and she will be here, tentatively, Sept 16th to the 26th, we are so excited. Lynn is Albert Blain’s x-wife from Vancouver.

He has gone swimming for a bit (I needed some down time), we are going to eat some BBQ pork chops and some stove top stuffing (you can only get the stuffing in Nuevo Vallarta at the Paradise Mall) but I don’t think we have any veggies, Oh well. Then we are going to the jam in La Cruz again tonight. Ross is bringing his drums with him this time and will be leaving them there.

I started some laundry this afternoon and am using my dryer for the first time, hurray! It works great. I seem only to have one heat setting so what I’m doing is using the dewrinkle cycle so the heat is only low.

I think that’s all for today, I’ll update you on the jam in tomorrows blog.

Love Hugs and Peace
Ross and Kim in Paradise

Friday August 28, 2009

The jam was great, Ross brought his Tama drums and they are now using them at Philo’s. Ross got a gig last night; he is going to be playing about ½ hour north of La Cruz on Thursday nights with a great bass player he met.

Today is a monumental day; we got our phone line put in today. Our Mexico phone number is 329.298.6394 and as soon as the internet is working our VoIP Edmonton number will be 780.669.7720. I am just waiting for the ADSL light to come on on our modem and we are good to go! Our phones are very dead; I have plugged them in so they are charging, so hopefully by tomorrow they will work. Hurray! Telmex came at about 4 this afternoon and started talking to me in Spanish then asked if I knew someone who could understand him, help Zac, I called him and he talked with the Telmex guy and I found out that he only puts in the phone line, the internet we have to call an 800 number. John said they are in our neighborhood so they came over but couldn’t do much as the phone line wasn’t in yet. I called at 7pm and said “help” it’s not working, so they came over and I found out then that I have to wait for the ADSL light to come on, on the modem, before it will work.

Ross got home from his meeting and we took off to Oasis, a restaurant we like by the beach, and Ross had poutine and I had pork tacos with a salad. We are vegging out in the living room watching Southland and I am watching my modem. They say a watched modem does not turn on an ADSL light so I am going to have to stop looking and watch TV.

I’ll say goodnight now and hopefully everything will work tomorrow!

Ross and Kim in Paradise!

Saturday August 29, 2009

Fiddlesticks, no internet yet! It’s 12:30pm and I have both sets of phones organized, one for our main line in Mexico and the other for my VoIP line, they are all labeled so we will know which one is ringing and they have separate ring tones. All I need now is “you know what”.

I took both Tigger and Shadow into the vet for grooming, Tigger was just one big mat and Shadow has them on his side. I picked them up at 3:30, the vet is on the highway almost in Nuevo, they were not impressed going and they sure weren’t impressed when I picked them up! They gave them a bit of sedation in order to groom them and they both were so snokered they could have been on the town all night the way they were staggering, I think they gave them too much! Now I have two cats that look very funny and Sunshine doesn’t know what to think, I don’t think he recognizes them because he keeps hissing at them. Tigger is being very cuddly and wanted attention, Shadow on the other hand went under the bed and won’t come out.

Ross is still limping around a little but I think it’s not quite as sore as yesterday. We had a very nasty downpour later in the afternoon, but by 7pm it looked like it hardly rained. It’s been cloudy all day, which is a good thing every once in a while as it keeps the heat to a dull roar. I bought 3 trees this afternoon, a lime, orange and avocado. The lime and orange trees are fairly little, but the orange tree has an actual orange on it, soooo cool. The avocado tree is quite large it cost me 120 pesos (12.00) and each of the other two were 70 pesos each (7.00). We now are in desperate need for plant pots and more dirt!

Handyman came over (in the rain) and we have agreed to pay him 9000 pesos to clean up the weeds behind our gate, and pour concrete there, make a pad for the pool and put that up, silicone the skylights and something else, I just can’t remember it. At the back of our gate (outside our yard) the weeds were probably 2 feet high, it made it almost impossible to walk to our mailbox and for the mailman to deliver our mail, so I’m looking forward to that being done.

We went out for dinner with our friends to a restaurant on the beach called Fat Boys the food was great but it was sure expensive. I had lobster (my first since coming here) and Ross had bacon wrapped jumbo shrimp. After dinner we drove to La Cruz and listened to Philo and his band for a bit, Ross got to play some so it was all good. Coming home we stopped at a couple of pharmacies looking for some amoxicillin as Shadow bit into my arm just after I brought them home from the vet and I just wanted to make sure it doesn’t get infected. Neither store had some so after we got home I put some antibiotic cream on it and will hope for the best. When he bit me I kept the wound wet with Hydrogen Peroxide so I think I’ll be ok.

I guess that’s another day in Paradise.

Ross and Kim

Wednesday August 26, 2009

I went to a little Mexican restaurant in Vallarta for lunch with the girls. 3 of us had the special which was macaroni soup (very good), refried beans, and chicken in a red sauce with rice. Including the drink it was 34 pesos (about 3.40). Sue drove us and I met another Sue and a Mary Lou, all from the states and once we got to the theatre we met about 5 or 6 more girls, I can’t remember all their names but we had a great time. We went to a show called “The Hangover” and it was great. The theatre is just the same as the theaters at home (South Common or West Ed) except the film had Spanish subtitles. There was quite a bit of swearing (it was a bachelor party in Vegas where they got wasted) and some ladies (not in our group) were offended and some left and some just could not believe how some people would find this humor funny. We figured they should have left too. It cost 38 pesos (approx 3.80) for the show so for 7.20 I had lunch and a show, get that in Edmonton!

While I was gallivanting around Vallarta Ross tried out his new scooter. He said he didn’t think it had so much oomph and he ended up with his front tire in the field across the street. Once he got used to it he thinks it drives great. I asked him what his scooters name is and he figures it should be a Bob. He also put up our mailbox and ended up stepping in a hole and he twisted his knee, ankle, toe and back a little bit. He is stiff today but everything is good!

Handyman showed up with his buddy to fix the big hole under our house and we left him to it and went to Rivera restaurant where Jenn works and did our interneting. Ross had the burger and I had a salad with Mahi-Mahi, I really didn’t like the fish but the salad was great. We got home and we now have a drain that will work! Yowza it doesn’t take much to amuse us these days! We went up the ladder and sat on our roof and listened to the crickets, frogs, bugs and dogs and enjoyed the country quiet. We can hardly wait until our steps are up so we don’t have to climb the ladder to get to the roof.

Well, I think that’s all for today, oh a good friend of ours from Vancouver is coming to visit us next month sometime. Lynn will be our very first quest, so I guess we better get the guest bedroom ready for her! Right now it has a lot of Ross’s band stuff in it. Hope everyone has a good day!

Ross and Kim in paradise

Tuesday August 25, 2009

Hola,

Another wonderful in our new home! We looked at the temperatures for the next couple of days and it’s gonna be hot. I think Ross said 39 by Friday, we have been told this is going to be a very hot September, I guess they were right.

Off to John’s at about 12:30ish for Ross to e-mail his UPS gal in Guadalajara as she said she has not received the e-mail with the bank receipt and if she doesn’t get it soon she will send the shipment back. Ross looked at his email and found out that Zac e-mailed the scanned copy to Ross but not to UPS girl, so off goes the e-mail she needs and she e-mailed back to let us know they are going to release the shipment, yeah! John gave me the Google Earth Plus and I can see our house on Google maps, it’s really cool!

We drove to Vallarta so I could get my nails done by someone that knows what they are doing so we went to the Soriana Mall across the street from the hotels and I found a wonderful place. She did my nails for 350 pesos (which is about the same as Edmonton) but she used a powder for the French tip rather than a spray, it looks so much better. I have booked another appointment for 3 weeks along with a pedicure. Handyman was to come over at 5 and I wasn’t nearly finished by 4:30 so Ross took off home and after I got my nails done I wondered the mall a bit and stopped at a little restaurant and had Paella (I think that’s how it is spelled) which is a really yummy rice with mussels, shrimp and I think calamari. I tried to take a bus home but every bus I stopped I asked if they went to Bucerias they said no, so after about 5 buses, I took a cab. It cost me 200 pesos but it was definitely worth it as it would have taken 6 times longer by bus.

Handyman was here when I got home and he extended my roof drain off the kitchen and put it into the ground, Ross wanted to know where the water went and we found out that our drain for the washer is missing around 1 foot of pipe so all that water was going under the house rather that out the pipe into the sewer system so our laundry room, after time, would collapse, this is the pipe he attached the roof drain to. So he is coming back tomorrow night to fix that, boy we are paying for his kids Christmas this year. Actually that was wrong, we pay him so little it’s ridiculous, but he is happy for the work.



Guess what I am doing tomorrow! I am going out with the girls for lunch and a chic flick, I have no idea what movie we are going to see, but I’m meeting Sue and her friend Gail (I haven’t met her yet, according to Sue) at 12:55 at the Oxxo (Mexico’s 7-11) at the Decameron gate and we are going into Vallarta for a girl’s afternoon out. It makes me feel good (actually it makes us both feel good) that we have been accepted and liked by the Gringos here. We seem to have fit in quite well; we certainly have a good time when we are out with any of them!

Well, it’s 9:30 and NCIS is on, I’ve already seen it but it’s a very good one. So I’ll say adios for now, everyone take care and we’ll talk to you soon.

Love Hugs and Peace
Ross and Kim in Paradise
(and ROCK N ROLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Ross

Monday August 24, 2009

Hi all, I might start writing this blog every 2 days or so cause I really don’t have much to say today. We cleaned up the back yard a bit and I got all my Christmas stuff in plastic bins so they don’t get wet in the shed (actually just the bottom of one box got wet, but I don’t want anything else to happen). I put up some netting up along one wall where the palm tree is so my flowering plants will crawl up the netting (I hope since they are crawly plants) and tidied the patio. I never thought I would be sweeping my back yard!

Ross’s scooter came today, hopefully mine will be here next week, I think I told you that I’m getting the red one. Ross cleared more out of the trailer today (all my stuff is out) and lots went into the band room. I sitting at my kitchen table listening to some tunes, Ross has gone off to his meeting. Handyman is coming over soon (he was working today in La Pinta) to fix my dryer and maybe to see why my roof is draining when it shouldn’t be wet. According to Lily my maid he also needs to chip away at the shower drain a bit so she can lift it up to clean up the hair and stuff, also the bathroom outside needs the sink attached to the wall, it’s kinda just standing there. It was funny, Lily went into that bathroom to clean it and noticed the sink is not attached to the wall and she comes out with her hands in the air just letting me know she did not break it. We both had a good laugh at that.

Handyman came and I finally have a dryer, I wanted to cut my clothesline as a grand gesture of “yeah no more clothes line”, but no, Ross didn’t want to cut a perfectly good piece of rope, so we went” tada” and Ross untied it and we put it away. Handyman is coming over tomorrow night to fix the bathroom sink, make the shower drains so that we can pull the filter out so we can clean the hair out and he is going to extend the roof drain in the laundry room so it will be coming down the side of the wall not almost on your head.

We went to Tower pizza and picked up two pizza’s, hoping to share with John and the kids but they were busy so we sat outside and did our internet stuff. Let me tell you the signal does not work really well in the parking lot, I got my blog posted but for the life of me I could not get some pictures uploaded. I tried 3 times and it wasn’t going to happen so I gave up and went to watch the surf until Ross was ready to go. It is nice to have that option! When we went to Telmex to order our internet they told us about 3 weeks, which will be this Wednesday, I think we might go down there tomorrow to find out if they will be coming soon, some people we have heard have waited up to 6 months, yack! I’ll never make it.

We are going to watch the rest of Corrie Street now and maybe sit outside for a bit before turning in. Hoping everyone a great day tomorrow!

Peace Love and Hugs (Since we are going to the Summer of ’69 in Vegas on the 4th we need to get into the mood!)
Ross and Kim in Paradise!

Sunday August 23, 2009

Happy birthday to my Granddaughter Lexi, she is sweet 16 today. Happy anniversary to Stacy and Jessie, my Son and Daughter-in-law, who is having their 7th wedding anniversary tomorrow! Happy engagement to my daughter Pamela and almost Son-in-law Derek, they are getting married next spring in the Mayan Riviera Wow, August is an awesome month.

We have booked our Vegas trip and will be leaving paradise September 4th and coming back on the 8th. We are going to see Three Dog Night and Canned Heat on Freemont Street! I have booked my trip to see my new Granddaughter Melanie and of course my other granddaughter Cami, my son Stacy and Jessie my daughter-in-law. I leave on the 3rd of October and coming back on the 10th. I thought Jessie’s Mum was going to be there so I only booked a week because I didn’t want them to have too many people in their house but I found out today that Jessie’s Mum won’t be there until 6 weeks after Melanie is born so I could have stayed longer. I can’t change my ticket now I’m afraid.

We took off to John and Christie’s to do out internet stuff and so I could use their VoIP phone line to call Pamela, Lexi and Stacy. Ross talked to his good friend Brett and he asked for more pictures so that is why I have attached so many. After we did that we took off to Vallarta to pick up some plumbing stuff from Home Depot, (that is where we bought our mailbox for way too much money, but that is how much they are)(we found our mail outside our gate the other day, soaking wet from the storm, so it didn’t matter how much they were we needed one). After that we went to Wallyworld to pick up a few groceries then off to Liverpool Mall to go to the Sirloin Stockade for a marvelous buffet with a 2 for 1 dinner. Something that we found shocking was when we tried to enter the restaurant, a guy wearing a mask gave us some hand sanitizer and then he took our temperature before allowing us to go into the restaurant. Because of the N1H1 scare Mexico is being proactive rather than reactive. It was disconcerting but then again it was reassuring. We are very impressed with the Mexican public safety system for example, 2 weeks ago someone from the health department came by our house looking for standing water, we had some in a sink in our back yard so they gave us a small bag with chemicals in it to put in the water that kills the mosquito larva to keep Dengue fever in check. They spray the fields every once in a while, again to keep the mosquito population as low as possible.

We are now at home relaxing watching Criminal Minds and as soon as I have finished my blog we will watch a bit of Coronation Street before bed. There is a Gecko crawling across my ceiling as I am typing we have named him Herman! He’s about 5 inches long and really skinny and such a cute face!

I am going to say goodnight for now, I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow.

Ross and Kim in Paradise

Saturday August 22, 2009

We woke up to no hot water and no dryer. Handyman came over and the pilot light had gone out of our water heater (remember it is outside and it rained like hell last night with a lot of wind) so he lit it again but it’s been a couple of hours now and still no hot water. Handyman is coming tomorrow or Monday to hook up my dryer. Juan sent a couple of his boys over to adjust the doors of my china cabinet and tried to put in one of our shelves and it is too small and the other one is not a mirror image, I ended up having two rights, Juan just left and put up the correct shelves, finally, they were supposed to in when they were delivered in April.

Not much to say today, Lily is here and I have laundry up on the line. We hear thunder every once in a while, I hope it doesn’t rain like it did last night, or we won’t be able to go out for dinner. We are going to a very Mexican restaurant tonight along the lateral (the road beside the highway) and it was running like a river last night when Ross went to his meeting last night. I found the DVD that has Ross’s old band on it “Capital Newz” and we are watching it and realizing we are missing every one so much!

It is now 11:45 (10:45 your time) and we just got back from our new favorite restaurant in Nuevo called Riviera where Jennifer works, she is going to house sit for us when we go to Vegas for the 3 dog night and the Canned Heat concerts. I think I told you this Laurie, but I told Jen about you and your heart to heart hugs, she is now doing this also. We got there tonight after our wonderful dinner at the new restaurant and she met us with a heart to heart hug. We could get a ride on the 40’ sailboat of Maurice’s but there is a tropical storm off the coast tomorrow and they are calling for 100% humidity, too rainy for me I’m afraid!

I guess that’s it for today, we are just going to veg out and watch tv. Ross reminded me to let you all know that when we were driving home from Nuevo tonight we were pulled over for a check stop (well actually everyone got pulled over, they closed the highway and made everyone stop). He asked what Ross was drinking and he pulled a bottle of water out of the cup holder and told him agua (water) he pointed to me and said she drinks. The guy laughed and let us go through. It is great that Mexico has adopted the no drinking no driving concept, and it is somewhat to do with the gringos, they have been trying to educate everyone here that drinking and driving does not go together!

Ross and Kim in Paradise

These are the pictures that I couldn't attach earlier

I have been trying to upload pictures and it's just not happening. We are sitting outside the house in the parking lot and the internet is not great here.

Kim

I forgot Thursdays so Friday will be next, sorry about that

Thursday August 20, 2009

Hurray, today is our one month anniversary! We celebrated by going into “town” to pay for Ross’s scooter. I talked to Carlos the store supervisor and asked him how long it will be before I get mine back, he told me he had no idea. So I have ordered the red one to replace it and I might get it in a couple of weeks rather than a couple of months. That’s ok, I never bonded with the black one.

When we got back Ross went with handyman to get some pipe to attach my stove to the propane, now all I have to do, is wait until tomorrow, then I’ll have propane. When Ross got back I decided I needed some me time so I took off to Centro Bucerias (where the market is, the community square, and some food vendors, along of course with some really good restaurants) and got my nails done. Now, they charged me 100 pesos for gel nails, but wow, they used a nail file and some gel in a nail polish bottle. Very low tech but it did the trick, the only thing is I didn’t get the French manicure. Then off to Mega again because the shower rod I bought for my bathroom was too short.

I am sitting at my kitchen table, there is a horrific rain storm right now (I tried to type outside by my computer was getting splashed, that’s how strong it is raining) so I’m in a dry place. Juan still hasn’t delivered my shelves so I still have glassware all over my kitchen table. We are off to La Cruz for an open jam session with Gene, the guitar player. So that will probably be it for today’s blog unless something great happens.

From paradise
Ross and Kim

Ps: we drove to John and Christie’s house to do our internet and it is raining so bad that our streets are running like rivers. Ross took a picture and I will add it to my blog.

Friday August 21, 2009

Today is a monumental day! I have gas (well really butane) so my stove works and I am going to have hot water. I am going to make grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, which is right now so I’ll get back to you after lunch! I have a gas stove with 4 burners and then a griddle in the middle and I put our grilled cheese sandwiches on the griddle and promptly burned the back one a little but they were good.

I putz around for a bit this afternoon and got a phone call from Ross, he had gone over to John and Christies to see if he got any e-mail from the UPS guys) telling me that my daughter Pam just got engaged to be married to Derek! Congratulations to both of you, I am sooooooo happy, I can’t wait to hug you both!

Oh my, my heart is just so happy it’s hard to get back to reality! Our handyman is now gone until the pool install then November sometime to finish painting the roof with a rubber paint cause he painted part of it yesterday and a lot of it got washed off the roof when it rained last night. Since our roof is flat there are 3 downspouts, one on the front and 2 on the back that rinses away any of the water that accumulates on the roof. If you look at my rain pictures you will see a stream of water, which is the water coming off the roof. When it rained last night our water was white because the paint needed 24 hours to cure!

I finally got a hold of Lily today; she is coming tomorrow to clean, yeah, I thought I might have to clean the bathrooms, yuck! The animals are still really shedding so we are still getting fluff balls everywhere, we vacuum every day. Ross got back from John’s with my shelves, Juan said we can put them in ourselves; all we need to do is screw them in. We went to put them in and they made 2 the same, they should have been opposite each other, so back they go to Juan’s, to make it right, he is coming on Monday to fix the doors on my china cabinet, the left one needs a bit shaved off the top and the right one needs a bit shaved off the bottom.

I had to leave you for a bit, it is still really, really raining outside and I had to check on the water level of the sump, another couple of inches and I will have to close the big back door to keep the rain out of the house! Handyman put silicone around all our skylights this afternoon and they are all leaking, the only thing he fixed that isn’t leaking is our bedroom window, go figure. Oh well, rainy season doesn’t last forever and a little rain never killed anyone!

Ross has gone to his meeting but we might do some interneting later, we’ll see. If not you won’t get this until tomorrow, which is ok cause I am really trying to be a day behind so I don’t feel pressured to get this done by the time we can find internet. Once we are hooked up it will be fine.

So congratulations to my daughter and son-in-law (it has taken forever for me to be able to say that) I can hardly wait to hear from you. Adios to all our friends.

Ross and Kim in paradise

Wednesday August 19th, 2009

We woke up at 10:15 because handyman is come over at 11:00 to put in our propane tank up (that was not delivered yesterday) so Ross and handyman went to go get it. Now, John came over to ask to use our ladder because his sign was falling off the office, so I said sure thinking he would bring it right back. Well, Ross and handyman came back before John brought the ladder back so handyman is coming back tomorrow to hook up the propane (yeah stove and dryer) paint the roof and silicone our skylights.

I called Lily to make sure she was coming over today (I told her not to come last week because we didn’t have any water) and left a message. She never called me back and she didn’t come over so I guess she is not coming this week. Maybe she will call later and come over tomorrow or Friday. I found out that her daughter fell and hurt her arm so she will be here tomorrow.

I called Juan to ask him where my shelves were (they were supposed to be here Monday) and he apologized and said his guys were working on them and he will deliver them later today. I hope he isn’t coming over too late because it is our turn to bring pizza to the turtle volunteers and maybe see a release. Wow!

Ross is over at John’s and Christie’s house for Zac’s help in filling out more papers for his stupid power conditioners, go over to the bank to pay for something, I can’t remember what he had to pay for, then scan the payment in and e-mail it back to them. We are told after this they will deliver the units and finally be done with them.

It doesn’t seem as humid today, yesterday was cloudy all day and it looked like there were 3 storms brewing, but nothing happened except for a bit of rain we got in the very early morning. The sky is very blue today; it’s 35 degrees without any storms that we can see. We got a phone call from Liverpool last night to let us know that we can come in to pay for Ross’s scooter. I asked how mine was doing (they took it away to fix the mirror) and they told me they would let me know when we pay for the other one. We were going to go this afternoon to do all this but I think we’ll end up going tomorrow as we have had so much happening today, or lack of happening in Lily’s case.

We did not go to PV this afternoon, Ross didn’t get home until 6ish and we had to leave to go to the turtle release at 7, so I watched Oprah and Dr Phil and then we watched global until about 6:50 then got ready to go to Bahia Del Sol (Bay of the Sun) where they do the turtle thing. We stopped at Pemex to get gas then got there about 7:20 but no one was there so off we went to Rivera for supper, this is the restaurant in Nuevo (real close to the hotel) that one of the girls from Ross’s AA meeting owns, for a great hamburger. We stole her internet and that is where I posted the blog from (we were sitting at the bar me, with wine glass in hand, Ross and another guy from AA were drinking some really fine line juice they make there). After supper we went to tower pizza and ordered 4 med pizza’s (buy one get one free in August) and brought it to the turtle people to snack on during the night. They work from about 11 pm to 5 am! We met Maurice at the restaurant (a guy we met that looks like Jr from the sopranos) and he gave me his blog address on-a-beach-in-mexico.blogstpot.com and the newest blog explains all about the turtles if you are interested! Awesome for Maurice! I e-mailed him some info of the gal that we are involved with cause he wants to help too. Yeah for Maurice! Laurie, I can hardly wait until you meet Jen from the restaurant, she is a hugger and I told her about you today and she can hardly wait until she meets you.

Well Juan didn’t show up today so I am hoping that he will bring my shelves tomorrow so I can finally clean up my kitchen table from china that needs to be on the shelves. I am sitting outside on our patio listening to the crickets, birds and geckos so enjoying living here. I am so excited to be able to walk on the beach (which we did about an hour ago) and not have to go home in 2 days or a week, the humidity is high but being here is so worth it.

Well it is 10:45 so I think I’m gonna say adios and we will talk to you real soon!

Ross and Kim in Paradise

Tuesday August 18th, 2009

Hola, and how is everyone this fine day? Fabulous I hope!

We got up early today to register our FM3’s, which we just found out yesterday we had to and you’re supposed to do this within 30 days of the date we crossed the border. We are a day late but they didn’t say anything. We got there at 9am and was second in line, we got up to the counter she wanted copies of every page of our passport and FM3, more pictures and 3 pieces of paperwork to be filled out the best we could before we went back there. What happens is that they have to start a file for us here. We walked across the street and got our pictures taken, one front and one side picture. We went back home and I copied all the pages and Ross filled out the papers as much as he could. We went back to the picture place, gave her 320 pesos and walked to the immigration office. We again were second in line, it’s a good thing this is the low season because we have seen a lineup a mile long in high season! She started filling out my paperwork and once a page had been completed she gave it to Ross to copy for his info. The only glitch was that Ross copied my papers to the letter, including using my name, we all had a laugh and she put white out over my name and Ross wrote his.

When we left the immigration office we saw 2 people that we know before even getting in the car, Harold is married to Sue and they popped over yesterday to drop off some food colouring we needed, and Larry passed us and honked. We followed him home (1 block) and we are going to meet him and Lorena tonight at 7 because we are going to follow them to Nuevo to watch the turtles being released. Mexicans are very proud of their turtles and they collect the eggs, incubate them, and then release them in the ocean once they are ready. There is a very hefty fine for anyone that disturbs any turtle eggs on the beach, there is a story we heard that a Mexican was caught stealing turtle eggs he was running away from the police, was running across a river that was emptying into the ocean and a crocodile got him and bit off his arm. I think the police thought that was punishment enough as we never heard about him being jailed.

Ross and handyman went out to get our propane tank and picked up some paint for our roof and silicone for our skylights so they don’t leak anymore (both our bathrooms leak where the toilet paper rolls go and the skylight over the buffet leaks). Ourn propane tank was to delivered this afternoon but they didn’t show up. I really want hot water and a dryer that has heat! Maybe minana!

We are providing pizza every second Wednesday for the turtle people, we went out tonight to Nuevo to see a release, but there wasn’t one so we are going again tomorrow night with pizza so we might see one then! We stopped at Carl’s Jr. for a burger and fries and brought them home to eat however we did finish the fries before we got home, excellent!

I finished going through the box that I have with all the card Ross and I have ever received since we first met, except for me as I have collected them since my children were born. I found one from Pam when she went to a camp for gifted children and another from Pam when she went to live with her dad in South Carolina when she was 17! I have insisted we keep all these cards, even though Ross thinks I’m nuts but I showed him a few cards when Ash and Tara where little and he had tears in his eyes. I have given Stacy and Pamela, the cards they received since they were little, Tara and Ash always took them home with them, I hope they have kept them. It is so cool to read them from a long time ago.

I guess you are wondering why I have pictures of cows on the blog today, they just wondered by the front of our house to go home. Only in Mexico!

Ross is eating Bob’s Bluecheese dressing (with a spoon, not on a salad) and we are watching America’s got talent and just chillin’. I think I will say goodnite for now and we’ll talk to you tomorrow!

Ross and Kim in (ya know) Paradise!

Monday August 17th, 2009

Actually it is still Sunday night, I’m watching Holmes on Holmes and he is in New Orleans helping out the people there after the hurricane, Brad Pitt is on the show too. It’s kinda neat. Anyway the reason I am typing right now is cause I forgot to tell you where Ross and I went on Saturday. Ross had actually gone here a couple of days ago driving our handyman to get supplies and also to his home. He thought it so neat he took me there too. The 200, about half way through Bucerias, goes over a river that floods in the rainy season (now). When you drive east on the river (Of course when it is not flooded) there is a whole new world that you wouldn’t know existed. There is a wonderful community that I can only describe as you will not believe it. We drive by houses and land with horses and goats and chickens and roosters and anything else you can imagine that a 3rd world county would have. Our handyman is a father of 2 where both his wife and children has had Dengue fever very recently (he is paying for the doctors partially, by working for us as much as possible. Ross drove him home and decided to explore and found this wonderful road. It is paved and winds through farms and gated communities, and wonderful restaurants (which of course we have to try). The more we live here the more we want to be here.

We went out to a new restaurant tonight with Larry and Lorena and had a marvelous dinner, so cheap and soooooo good! We will definitely be back! Well Holmes on Holmes is over so I’m gonna go to bed now. It’s 11:20 Bucerias time (10:20 Edmonton time) and I’m tired!

Good morning – today is another good day in paradise. We woke up at the crack of 11am and sat outside to drink our coffee and wake up. I had two things I wanted to get done, plug in the dryer and clean our patio off. In order to clean off the patio I needed to put some stuff in our new shed, however, I wanted to make sure my Christmas boxes were put in the shed before anything else, so I opened up the trailer and got the Christmas boxes in and then started cleaning off the patio. It looks so nice now.


Ross went to his AA meeting tonight and came home to find some friends that had come to visit us that we met Saturday night. They left shortly after Ross came home cause we had been invited out for dinner from a guy from AA. We had chili and cheese quesadillas, excellent meal, they have autistic twins that keep them hopping.

Well that’s all for tonight.

Talking to you from paradise
Ross and Kim

Saturday and Sunday Aug 15th and 16th, 2009

A tremendous 2 days. Handyman came yesterday and put up my roof over my laundry area, it took him 5 hours and it cost us 500 pesos, which works out to less than $10.00 an hour for labour! So I did 2 loads of laundry yesterday, still no dryer so on the line they went. Handyman is supposed to have our propane hooked up next week, I can so hardly wait.

Juan came over to drop off the table he did for me and Ross’s speaker shelves.

The temp has been staying around 35 degrees with high humidity so we are moving really slow as we are so tired. Christie left for Edmonton for 3 weeks, that’s where her Mum lives, and left John and 2 kids to fend for themselves. I asked her to bring back some food colouring and a cat door, the food colouring for the barometer that Tara gave to Ross and the cat door so we don’t have to open the bedroom door for the winy cats at night. We went out to “The Best Argentine Restaurant” last night for supper and it was very good. I had spinach cannelloni with Alfredo sauce, wow was it different from what I’m used to. You could really, really taste the spinach and the Alfredo sauce is a lot more watery than what is back home. Ross had a steak with potatoes, not as good as he was expecting, but it was very palatable.

We stayed until 9ish then came home and vegged, watched a bit of TV before hitting the sack.

Today Handyman came and put up the shelves that Juan built for Ross for his speakers in the living room. A guitar player by the name of Gene (just as a sidebar, he is from Greenville SC where my son lives) is over to meet Ross to see if they hit it off to play some music together. He is very good, 63 yrs old and lives in Bucerias full time. They are planning to go to a restaurant to play a little.

We are meeting Larry and Lorena at a new restaurant that just opened up on the 200 (just a little south of us, about 5 Min) at 5pm then I guess we will be going over to John’s so I can post my blog. I am so excited; Juan is supposed to have the 2 shelves I need for my buffet tomorrow. They were actually supposed to be put in before it was delivered but I guess he forgot. The two glass doors, which look like there should be a shelf in them don’t, so the whole top space is wasted.

Well, I guess I’m done for now, we are hoping to get our internet in sooner than 2 more weeks as we were told that if we see a Telmex truck in our area, show them the work order and they will do it for you right there and then. I gave the work order to Ross to keep in the car glove compartment so when we see one, and if we remember, we will grab them.

Talk to you soon from paradise!
Ross and Kim

Wednesday August 12th to Friday August 14th, 2009

Before I start my blog for Wednesday I have to tell you a ha ha funny, that Ross did (well he actually did it on Monday and today is Friday and I try to keep the blog in order but this is too good to wait!). If you remember as of Monday we have not had any, I repeat any water. We thought because the power was off our pump that pumps the water from the lines in our street up to a holding tank on the roof stopped. So we figured once the power came on everything would be good. We kept turning on faucets and nothing would come out so we waited and waited and still no water. So a friend of ours wife speaks Spanish and she called the engineers at the water department to see why we didn’t have any water. They came out this morning, we weren’t here, and it comes to find out that Ross shut off the valve to allow water to come onto our property, picture will follow (I think I found out how to attach pictures to the blog). The line comes in (from the street) and there is a shut off valve at the top then there is another pipe that heads down for the regular tap. We (our friends and us) could not stop laughing.

Ok, so let me try to remember what happened on Wednesday. Francisco came over about 10 (all by himself, he had a buddy with him the first time so we thought he would have come too) to start putting up our shed. The shed is made out of thick plastic and is approx 8’ x 10’ and the instructions were, guess what, in English! Francisco can speak a fair amount of English but can’t read it so there we sat. Ross is not up to putting up a shed (especially in this heat, which is why we hired our handyman), we had asked Zac (his Mum suggested I get him to put my file cabinet together) to come over this morning and we asked him if he could help explain the instructions to handyman also. So while handyman was working on stuff he could, Zac and I got the filing cabinet together. His allergies were really acting up so all that needed to be done was a little bit drawer assembly and I told him I would finish up. Ross and I put the drawers in and the sides came apart. So yesterday he came over again, tightened up a few bolts now I have a filing cabinet, yeah!

Ross went to his first AA meeting today in Nuevo and there were 6 people there. After the meeting they went to a restaurant that one of the girls in his meeting owns. Ross and I went there for supper last night and it was terrific. We met some more people (from New York) that has a blog same as mine called on-the-beach-in-mexico.blogspot.com (that is how I found out how to attach pictures) and had a great night.

Yesterday before going to dinner we stopped in at Juan’s to see if we could find a table for Ross’s mixer (he is getting his band room in order) and walked out with one a perfect size in red! I ordered a little table to go underneath my tiger picture between the plants; and he promised us that he will be here today to deliver the shelves also along with the new table.

I got ahead of myself, Handyman came again Thursday to finish up the shed (it looks beautiful) and Zac came over for a bit to help handyman and help me with the cabinet. I really hate doing this in date order cause I keep forgetting things! I’ll try to do one every day, even if I don’t post every day.

Now today is Friday, hurray! I am sitting at my kitchen table; my computer room is still unusable, writing my blog. It’s 10 after 4 and Ross is with handyman to get the materials for my laundry room roof, sealing of the skylights, painting the roof (for another type of sealant), putting a propane tank on the roof so I can actually use my stove and dryer and last but not least putting some stairs up to the roof so we can sit up there and watch thunderstorms. We still can’t see the ocean from the roof so we will have to build up higher at some point, but not right now. Ross was on the phone again today with the lady in Guadalajara for the rest of the power conditioners he ordered and they keep insisting that we are a business and wanting a lot of paperwork filled out. Between Zac and Ross, with scanning in proof of residency and id, filling out paperwork and sending it to them, we think that everything is good to go and he should be getting them soon. What a pain in the you know where.

We had gone to John and Christie’s and Christie said to me, Kim, how would you like to go to the market with Shay and me to buy some jewellery to take to Canada (she is leaving tomorrow for 3 weeks) to sell at the flea market in Sylvan Lake . So Kim said yes! I hadn’t been to the market since we got here and we really had a good time. I was looking for a spoon rest and found the perfect one but he wanted 160 pesos for it (16.00) and I said no way too much he went down to 140 I still was shaking my head. He asked me a question and I answered letting him know that I lived down here and he said oh, for you 50 pesos. So I have a very pretty spoon rest!

We went to the Oasis restaurant to lunch and it was closed so we went to Mega, got some lunch at a kiosk that advertised Mexican food and got 3 big bottles of water, some watermelon and a few Pepsi’s and got home 15 minutes to spare before handyman was to meet us to go get the supplies. Off Ross and handyman and handyman’s son go and here I sat typing my blog. About 20 minutes ago a truck parked outside my house with 2 guys in it and they spoke not a word of English. I didn’t know what they wanted so I told them I don’t speak Spanish and told them I didn’t want any. Ross just got home and the truck was from the building supply place that they just came from, they sure are quick!

I don’t think I have any more to say, except that I watched the Edmonton news this morning and saw the weather forecast, I’m sorry, did I hear frost? The temp right now is 38 with the humidity at 65.

The Celtic festival that we put on last year for The Albert Blain Performers aid Society is again at Hawrelak Park (sp) this weekend starting tonight and going all day tomorrow. It’s at the amphitheatre and it was a blast last year, Celtic music, Celtic food and lots of beer. Go down and enjoy!

We stopped at a beach restaurant for dinner last night and it was great! We actually sat on the beach at a plastic table and I had a fantastic shrimp in avocado salad and Ross had a burger.

Talk to you real soon!
Ross and Kim

Monday August 10th & Tuesday Aug 11th, 2009

Okay, you are looking at 2 people, ok, if you could see us, you would be looking at 2 people that have spent 2 flipping years planning our trip, you would think that we would have everything covered. Ha

We woke up this morning and were just lying in bed minding our own business when all of a sudden the lights go out. We thought nothing of it as this happens quite often, except I didn’t get my coffee this morning, heaven forbid. We called John and Christie to ask if we could come over and have their son Zac look over some papers that UPS sent to Ross in regards to his ordering his power conditioners. Thank God Christie made coffee and everything went great, except for our power. I had asked Christie what we owed them because they paid our power bill in June when we weren’t here and we owed them money. She dug it out and it seems they paid on May 26th and they bill every two months. OK, if you have been following this you would realize that we are 2 weeks late on paying the power bill, even if we haven’t received a new one! Off we went to CFE (the power company) which is right beside Telmex where we have our internet (cross your fingers, 2 more weeks) scanned our bill in and it asked for 34 pesos (approx $3.40 cdn) and we paid it.

We went back home to see if the power was on, and no it wasn’t, Ross went to talk to our neighbours and they said (he thinks) that they didn’t have power either, so we took off to go to PV to go to Office depot for a computer chair and filing cabinet and then to Sam’s Club to see if we could get the shed to store all our shit in.

I got a 2 drawer lateral filing cabinet and an office chair from Office Depot, and then went to old town to Pepe’s tacos for some very excellent tacos, then off to Sam’s club for the storage shed. They had 2 left and we are having it delivered along with a pool that Ross found for ½ price that I think will work in our backyard. Just to remind you that we are in Mexico, nothing is fast, after about 2 hours in Sam’s Club waiting for the guy that speaks English to get everything in order (he mentioned that getting the paperwork in order was close to filing papers for the government) we took off.

So today was a good day in regards to getting stuff done that we needed to get done. We got back home and guess what... no power. We called the Forget household and asked Zac to call to see what the problem was...........are you waiting for it.......................our power got cut off because of non payment. Go figure, if I hadn’t asked Christie for our power bill that they paid we would not have paid it and CFE wouldn’t be coming tomorrow to turn our power back on! So here we sit with battery lights, candles and flashlights!

We sat outside and watched a most excellent thunderstorm (I think 3 cells were colliding), the lightning struck and then instantly the thunder came. Wow it was spectacular! The rain was just pouring down and it was quite windy, which, we hope stays, cause our fans aren’t working or for that matter our bedroom air conditioning because of the power. So being Canadians we took off in the car and drove to tower pizza to have a great pizza and lime ice tea. We drove through (it seemed like) rivers until we got to the highway, and still the water was quite high is parts.

It’s 10:03 Jalisco time and Ross is lying in bed giving our critters their bedtime treats, and I’m sitting in the kitchen table with a battery operated light over my computer so I can see something, the candles aren’t really helping a whole lot. It is raining gently!

We were going to have a bonfire by the ocean tonight, as John, with our chainsaw, cut us some wood, but it was called off because of the rain, we are hoping for tomorrow night.

Tuesday...................We didn’t get a great sleep last night and was up quite early for us this morning. We started the generator in Betsy and plugged our fridge and water cooler in, that was of course after we made coffee. Dick came over to go over with Ross what we will need for another power meter and when we told Dick what happened to our power he went out back and got our power working for us! While Dick was here John Forget called to let us know the power company wants 90 pesos to turn our power back on but when Ross told him what Dick did he said ok. We are still out of water, Christie says that our tank will probably fill tonight to we will be in the ocean for sure tonight and John said that the bonfire is a go for tonight too!

I started to put my new file cabinet together but it is too complicated to put together with Spanish instructions so we are going to have someone from office depot to come to put it together. I am sitting in my office on my new steno chair that I got together without a hitch.

UPS came early this afternoon with one of Ross’s power conditioners (it is now residing in the bedroom) so he is a happy camper. Sam’s club came by with our new shed and swimming pool and Francisco is coming over at 10am tomorrow to put it together for us. I just got a call from Yuan and he is coming in a couple of hours with my dresser, table, cd and dvd cabinet, the shelves for my buffet (hopefully) and the shelves for Ross’s speakers.

So all in all it has been another grand day in Paradise! Oh yeah, I put a pot on the BBQ with a pot of cold water with 6 eggs in it to hard boil them.......................I had it on for an hour and they still could have had a few more minutes. Being at sea level water takes forrrrrrrrrrrrrrrever to boil!

Well gotta go and get the stuff out of the other dresser so Yuan can take it away so I’ll say bye for now
.

Luv and Hugs
Ross and Kim

Monday August 10th & Tuesday Aug 11th, 2009

Okay, you are looking at 2 people, ok, if you could see us, you would be looking at 2 people that have spent 2 flipping years planning our trip, you would think that we would have everything covered. Ha

We woke up this morning and were just lying in bed minding our own business when all of a sudden the lights go out. We thought nothing of it as this happens quite often, except I didn’t get my coffee this morning, heaven forbid. We called John and Christie to ask if we could come over and have their son Zac look over some papers that UPS sent to Ross in regards to his ordering his power conditioners. Thank God Christie made coffee and everything went great, except for our power. I had asked Christie what we owed them because they paid our power bill in June when we weren’t here and we owed them money. She dug it out and it seems they paid on May 26th and they bill every two months. OK, if you have been following this you would realize that we are 2 weeks late on paying the power bill, even if we haven’t received a new one! Off we went to CFE (the power company) which is right beside Telmex where we have our internet (cross your fingers, 2 more weeks) scanned our bill in and it asked for 34 pesos (approx $3.40 cdn) and we paid it.

We went back home to see if the power was on, and no it wasn’t, Ross went to talk to our neighbours and they said (he thinks) that they didn’t have power either, so we took off to go to PV to go to Office depot for a computer chair and filing cabinet and then to Sam’s Club to see if we could get the shed to store all our shit in.

I got a 2 drawer lateral filing cabinet and an office chair from Office Depot, and then went to old town to Pepe’s tacos for some very excellent tacos, then off to Sam’s club for the storage shed. They had 2 left and we are having it delivered along with a pool that Ross found for ½ price that I think will work in our backyard. Just to remind you that we are in Mexico, nothing is fast, after about 2 hours in Sam’s Club waiting for the guy that speaks English to get everything in order (he mentioned that getting the paperwork in order was close to filing papers for the government) we took off.

So today was a good day in regards to getting stuff done that we needed to get done. We got back home and guess what... no power. We called the Forget household and asked Zac to call to see what the problem was...........are you waiting for it.......................our power got cut off because of non payment. Go figure, if I hadn’t asked Christie for our power bill that they paid we would not have paid it and CFE wouldn’t be coming tomorrow to turn our power back on! So here we sit with battery lights, candles and flashlights!

We sat outside and watched a most excellent thunderstorm (I think 3 cells were colliding), the lightning struck and then instantly the thunder came. Wow it was spectacular! The rain was just pouring down and it was quite windy, which, we hope stays, cause our fans aren’t working or for that matter our bedroom air conditioning because of the power. So being Canadians we took off in the car and drove to tower pizza to have a great pizza and lime ice tea. We drove through (it seemed like) rivers until we got to the highway, and still the water was quite high is parts.

It’s 10:03 Jalisco time and Ross is lying in bed giving our critters their bedtime treats, and I’m sitting in the kitchen table with a battery operated light over my computer so I can see something, the candles aren’t really helping a whole lot. It is raining gently!

We were going to have a bonfire by the ocean tonight, as John, with our chainsaw, cut us some wood, but it was called off because of the rain, we are hoping for tomorrow night.

Tuesday...................We didn’t get a great sleep last night and was up quite early for us this morning. We started the generator in Betsy and plugged our fridge and water cooler in, that was of course after we made coffee. Dick came over to go over with Ross what we will need for another power meter and when we told Dick what happened to our power he went out back and got our power working for us! While Dick was here John Forget called to let us know the power company wants 90 pesos to turn our power back on but when Ross told him what Dick did he said ok. We are still out of water, Christie says that our tank will probably fill tonight to we will be in the ocean for sure tonight and John said that the bonfire is a go for tonight too!

I started to put my new file cabinet together but it is too complicated to put together with Spanish instructions so we are going to have someone from office depot to come to put it together. I am sitting in my office on my new steno chair that I got together without a hitch.

UPS came early this afternoon with one of Ross’s power conditioners (it is now residing in the bedroom) so he is a happy camper. Sam’s club came by with our new shed and swimming pool and Francisco is coming over at 10am tomorrow to put it together for us. I just got a call from Yuan and he is coming in a couple of hours with my dresser, table, cd and dvd cabinet, the shelves for my buffet (hopefully) and the shelves for Ross’s speakers.

So all in all it has been another grand day in Paradise! Oh yeah, I put a pot on the BBQ with a pot of cold water with 6 eggs in it to hard boil them.......................I had it on for an hour and they still could have had a few more minutes. Being at sea level water takes forrrrrrrrrrrrrrrever to boil!

Well gotta go and get the stuff out of the other dresser so Yuan can take it away so I’ll say bye for now
.

Luv and Hugs
Ross and Kim

Saturday August 8th & Sunday August 9th, 2009

Here I sit at my kitchen table (still the one too big), it’s 4:45 pm and I am on my first glass of wine. We got up quite early as Dick, our new friend, came over to take a look at our house electrical. We are going to get another service put in just for the air conditioning (when we get it) and we are going to get everything grounded in the house. Our electrical is not grounded! Only in Mexico! Ross is waiting for more power conditioners (they are in Guadalajara right now, they were originally mailed from New York, and they sent Ross a bunch of papers to fill out, of course in Spanish via e-mail) We sent the e-mail to Christie to have Zac let us know what they want) because our power fluctuates soooooo much and they are for brownouts and blackouts and surges and anything else the power throws at us.

We are listening to one of the satellite radio stations we get with Star Choice (Hello Marylou good bye heart is playing right now) and getting a few things accomplished today. Ross is still not feeling well and is laying down right now cause we are going out to dinner with some other gringos to “The Best Argentine Restaurant in Bucerias” (ok so it’s the only one, but that’s what the sign says) at 7:00. I got another load of laundry done, its Saturday so it’s sheet day, and I added a few towels and dishcloths. It’s so cute, it takes about 3 hours for one load of wash cause the water pressure is soooooooooooooo low. I hung them up on the line (again Little House) and took them down when they were dry, about 1 hour.

I tidied a bit, squished the wine glasses with the other ones (I’m still waiting for my shelves to be put in my buffet for all that, Monday I’m told) so now my kitchen table is now free of stuff, of course it does have my computer, wine, mouse and a bowl full of Werther’s (I love those, I haven’t seen them here, I might have to stock up when I go to South Carolina to see my new granddaughter in October). I wiped down the buffet and Ross helped me hang up my “Life’s too short to drink bad wine” plaque right at the back door so you can see it every time you go outside with your wine!

The animals seem to be acclimatized kinda sorta, they seem to move around more in the daytime, where before they were all under our bed just wiped! They are still losing a lot of their undercoats, we have hair everywhere, yes I know Pam we had it before, but this is just ridiculous, Lily just shakes her head.

We were thinking about going to Vallarta today to take a look at the shed at Sam’s we want to buy, but we thought about driving there last Saturday and the highway was a parking lot, most of the way, so we shook our heads and said, not today. We will probably go on Monday, and pick up a few things at Costco also.

I am assuming we are going to go to John and Christie’s after supper so I can post this...............I guess we will have to see!

Sunday......We didn’t get to John and Christies, we went out for dinner at the Argentine place and just as they finished blending our Margarita’s the power went out! Whewwwwwwwwwwww, it’s a good thing they got our drinks before, one of the best Margarita’s I have had for a very long time. We sat for a while hoping that the power would come back on, but alas, not. So we apologized to the wait staff and told them we will come see them next time, we took off and ate at a restaurant on our side of the highway, I think called Fumar, and had a wonderful meal. Ross had grilled fish in hot sauce, it was very good, a bit dry but that’s probably because it was grilled and I had garlic shrimp, to die for! I had rice and veggies and Ross had fries and veggies with our meals and with a glass of wine for me I think it came to 310 pesos a bit on the expensive side but the food was good.

We got up this morning, had our coffee and watched corrie street, wow some stuff is happening. Rosie has been kidnapped by John and Liam has been killed! You really don’t want to hear about that do you? I didn’t think so.

It is now 7pm Jalisco time (6 pm Edmonton and Bucerias time) (everyone goes by Jalisco time) and Ross is sitting outside, still not feeling very well and I’m sitting at the kitchen table getting the blog ready for...........are you ready for it..............posting. As soon as Ross is feeling up to it we are going to John and Christie’s for interneting (sp) then for a quick dip in the ocean and back home to have something to eat. At least that is the plan right now, it is of course subject to change at any time!

Bandit is telling us that it is time to do something so I will say goodnite and hope everyone has a great Monday!

Peace Love and Hugs
Ross and Kim

Wednesday Aug 5th & Thursday Aug 6th & Friday Aug 7th, 2009

Hi all, we got home last night and watched a bit of TV then said goodnite. We were woken up at about 5ish with a thunderstorm which cooled us off a little.

Didn’t get up til 11:30 this morning, wow that was a good sleep!, and we had coffee, as per our custom now, outside on the patio. Today is Lily’s day to come and clean my house (did I mention I pay $5.00/hr?) so we stayed home and I got the bedroom and computer room slightly more organized!

I forgot to mention that we were given the name of a handyman (Fransisco and friend) and they are coming to do some work we need for $3,000 pesos (approx 300.00 cdn), they are going to build me a roof above my backdoor and over my washer and dryer, they are going to install a propane tank on our roof so we can have the stove and dryer working, put rubber paint on our roof for better protection and they are going to fix our skylights so they do not leak! How we are going to get all this stuff in the convertible, if the stores we go to don’t deliver, I’ll never know. I am so looking forward to a roof over my washer and dryer.

It’s Thursday now and Ross is sick, he has a bit of a fever and is very tired and his joints are sore. I think personally that he just wanted a down day, but no, he can’t make up a fever, can he? All along the highway on the laterals there are dozens of restaurants (3 or more tables) that look cozy, so Ross and I ate at one of these last night, I wonder if his taco’s are to blame.

I got a call from Liverpool and Baby won’t be delivered until tomorrow between one and four. I’m disappointed as I was really looking forward to getting her today. Liverpool was to call me today for delivery, which they did, but guess what......no English! We both got frustrated that neither one of us could understand the other so I said adios and called Zack. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind calling them to see what the scoop was. He called back to let me know that it won’t be delivered until tomorrow.

I did another wash and hung it up on the line, I feel like Little House on the Prairie. It is hot and muggy again today; I think it rained a bit last night as the ground was wet, and Gracie brought in some muddy wet paws after her walk this morning. It’s a good thing I have ceramic floors it just wipes right up. It is such a different way of living down here, outside of the house is just a continuation of the inside. We have never once closed the big front door, we just have the screen closed, the back screen door has never been closed, let alone the big door. My kitchen window is quite big (it looks out onto the back yard) and I just have the screen closed. I was putzing around in the kitchen wiping counters and spilled some water onto the floor, back home I would have sworn and made a big deal out of it. Here you just get your mop, and wipe it up, no big deal.

I went into the trailer and got another box out and found out it was more of my good china and Dena’s tea tray she gave me. They all came out in one piece, hurray. I am really surprised on how much did not get broken. We were one some pretty rough roads and it didn’t help that the trailer was packed twice at the beginning of this adventure and some boxes got shoved in quite roughly!

We were going to go get the stuff we need for our house repairs today but with Ross in bed it’s not going to happen. If we don’t get them tomorrow we will have to wait to have the stuff done next week. There is also a shed we are going to buy from Sam’s club for about $13,000 pesos, it is fairly large and is made of plastic (I think) and we are going to put it at the end of our property to store stuff in. We have more stuff than house, go figure! It kinda looks like a little house with a door and windows, we could also use it as a guest house, well maybe not, once we have our stuff in it I don’t think a bed would fit!

Well today (Friday) started out with a phone call from Liverpool that baby will be at the Oxxo at the De Cameron in 30 minutes. I was soooooooooooo excited, Ross still feels like shit but he drove me down there. In the meantime the rain started coming down, we had a really nice thunderstorm, so instead of unloading her at the store the delivery guys followed us home. Now you have to remember that we are living in a Mexican neighbourhood, so the roads, because of the rains, are bumpy and in some places impossible to drive through, so here we are with a fairly large truck following us home. Once we got here they brought her down and started to unwrap her and her rear view mirror is broken. Now as you know I am an Aries and Arians really do not have any patience, I have been very proud of me to be able to calmly wait for internet, phone, baby, but she’s broken! Ya just want to scream. My shorter dresser was to be here today along with my smaller table and shelves for my buffet but there was a problem with the dresser so they won’t be here until Monday. Aggggggggggggggggggggggggggg. I’m much better now, thank you.

A new friend Dick came by to let us know that all the gringos meet at a different restaurant every Saturday night to help the local economy. We are meeting tomorrow night at an Argentine restaurant across the 200 from the Telmex office, (these are the people we had to go to get our phone and internet from) right by the pharmacy. Don’t you love our directions! He also wanted to know why our garbage was piling up. I told him that it hasn’t been picked up since last Saturday, he let me know this happens to someone he knows so he will call to get it picked up for us as he is married to a Mexican and she can call as there is no English spoken there.

Ross is still in bed but feeling better, his fever is gone so I’m hoping he is on the mend. It sure is quiet around here with him out of commission. Well gotto go and get some housework done.

Talk to you soon
Ross and Kim

Tuesday Aug 4th, 2009

I want to hear everyone to say, all together, awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, I was at the beach tonight and a big wave caught me and I scraped my leg on the sand! Come on.....it hurt! Hi all, another day in paradise.

You know you are in Mexico when you are driving home at night and in the middle of the road is a dog sleeping. Now where we come from, the dog would jump up and get out of the way, oh no, not in Mexico, you have to drive around them! He was still sleeping when I watch him/her in the rear view mirror.

Today has been an exceptional day. The cell phone I bought yesterday at Mega (remember it’s like superstore) wasn’t working, it took Zack (John and Christies 18 year old son) thanks, about 2 hours to try to register my phone, they even wanted my passport number and I still don’t know if it will work. Zack told me to wait 24 hours to see if it will work. My cell phone number (when it works) will be 011 52 1 322 229-4947, I just tried it and it still doesn’t work, it’s 10:05 right now which is 9:05 in Edmonton.

We got our letter from the notary today which is the letter that tells everyone that we own this house, which we were supposed to need for getting our internet done. Well, we went to Telecable, (10.00 a month), and they don’t go this far from the highway so we ended up going to Telmex (who owns the world, all right, not all of it, but all in Mexico! We didn’t need the letter, but we now will have phone (I don’t know the number) and internet in...........wait for it...............maybe 3 weeks! It’s better than a couple of years ago, it was 3 months!

We also went to get the license plate for Baby (My new scooter) and we have to wait until it is delivered on Thursday (2 more sleeps) and then I will have to drive to Mezcales, another town over south of us, to get the plate, the insurance is not mandatory! So we will wait until we get both of them, Oh yeah, I bought one for Ross too, Baby is black and Ross’s is blue. Ross is getting his in about a week.

So today we have ADSL coming in 3 weeks, maybe a cell phone tomorrow and license plates in a couple of weeks. A great day in Bucerias. But then of course even in a normal day in paradise is still a great day!

Ya know, they say, or we say, that everything happens for a reason. Everything that we needed to do to get down here, seemed to just fall into place. Well you will never believe what happened tonight on the beach. To give you some history, a friend of ours that has a time share at the Mayan for the whole month of January, that Ross worked with at CRA, asked if we could bring some jeep parts to a friend of his that worked at the Mayan. We brought them down for him and he picked them up a couple of days ago and left to visit relatives in Toronto. Well.............. we took the dogs to the beach the other day, and big dog went to sniff a dog that a girl had on a leash and she was quite concerned because she was dog sitting the dog and this was the first time she had taken her out and she didn’t know what the dog would do with another dog, so she was concerned. They sniffed and all was well. I chatted with the girl for a bit, she speaks English really well and then she walked on. We met her again tonight and we started to talk. I told her we needed someone to house sit for us when we go back to the states to sell Betsy (sorry, but the land next to us is for sale and we need to get some cash) and we need someone to housesit for us while we do this. She said she wasn’t married and didn’t have any children so she would be glad to do this for us, she said she worked at the Mayan. I told her we know someone that works there and I asked her if she knew Scott. Well, you are not going to believe this, she not only knows him, she is walking his dog as he is gone! She said that she can give us references but if Scott says she is ok, that will be good enough for us!


Talk to you soon
Ross and Kim