Tuesday February 16th, 2mil10

Only 1 more sleep before we see all the kids! Hurray!

Stacy called me last night asking about how Jordan is going to get into the resort since she is booked in our room and arriving at the airport 5 hours ahead of me. I called Travelocity (I love these guys) they called the hotel and she is good to go, all I had to do was give them her name. Stacy and Jessie already have Cami and Melanie in their room and in order to have Jordan there too they would have had to upgrade their room for way more money, so I have put her in our room but she will stay with Stacy and Jessie.

I had gotten up fairly early to make the call as they were leaving around noon to drive to Atlanta to catch their flight (it is much cheaper to fly out of the Atlanta airport rather than the one in Greenville) early in the morning, so they are staying overnight. After I got that handled, I fiddled on the computer for a while then got ready to get my nails done for the wedding. I had an 11:30 appt and while I was waiting for my toes to dry I was reading the Amigos y Vecinos (it is a bilingual paper put out once a month on paper and on-line) and I found out that Gina, the owner of the place where I get my nails done, has a sea lion in her backyard in a pool! I asked her about it and she said it is very expensive to keep him so she sent him to work. He has his own trailer with a pool in it and every morning he goes and allows people to pet him, he hugs and gives kisses. See the article below.

Gina, the Diva
by Valiene Heckhart
If you have not met Gina Gambirasi, it is because she is always working. Between her two shops, called Salon Divas, and an eight month old baby girl, Aliyah, she stays busy. Gina was born in Lancaster, California, the daughter of two South Americans. She went to school in California but not to study cosmetology. She learned some of the techniques from a friend and did her own nails while living in Santa Cruz. Later she studied in books and through seminars to perfect her art. In 1995, she moved to San Pancho, Nayarit, because she wanted to live in Mexico and get a feeling of the country. Then she heard of a salon opening on the south side of Puerto Vallarta and went to work there. In 1997, she opened her first salon in south Puerto Vallarta. In 2002, she opened Salon Divas in Marina Vallarta. That same year, she met Paco and moved to Bucerias. Paco is the man with the very pampered South American sea lion named Flash. Flash has his own swimming pool!
Together, Gina and Paco have four children. There are three boys, Pancho, Alan and Emilio, and one girl, Aliyah.

In July of 2009, Gina decided to start doing nails in Bucerias part-time so she could spend more time with her new baby. For the first few months, she worked out of her home. She gained clients rapidly, many who were grateful not to drive to PV to see her. A couple of months ago, she opened her Bucerias branch of Salon Divas. It is located on Làzaro Càrdenas, next door to Yulima’s Boutique. The salon offers manicures, pedicures, and all the fingernail enhancements-acrylics, gels, silks, etc. And the pedicures are fantastic. I had only had one pedicure before and was very pleasantly surprised by the one in Gina’s shop. With the herbs and creams, the massage of calves and feet, you feel totally relaxed and pampered. Try it. You will like it!

http://www.amigosdebucerias.org/

And that is the truth; I have been very pampered today! Once I got home I finished packing the suitcase with all the gifts I got for everyone, the clothes we are wearing to the wedding and shoes, including the wedding present and Jordan’s birthday present. If that suitcase gets lost we are hooped! Ross and I are sharing another suitcase with our stuff in it; we are only going for 4 days, so we don’t need too much. I am so proud of myself; I am only bringing 2 pairs of sandals to wear (not including the ones for the wedding) one black and one white.

I have my Sony eBook plugged in to charge the battery; installed Boingo onto this laptop (a wireless internet server that I can use at any computer hotspot, Starbucks and other places, like the Mexico City airport that we have a 5 hour layover tomorrow), my little pink computer had the software on it so I had to download the software onto this yucky computer. I’m so excited; Stacy is bringing my little Sony pink computer to Cancun so I won’t have to use this one all the time. I have also charged my battery on my camera so I think I’m good to go.

Ross has gone to pick up Jennifer, a very good friend that is house and critter sitting for us while we are away. She will take the car to work tonight and will drive back tomorrow to stay until Sunday. We let her use our car as she doesn’t have one and there is no bus service here where we live at all and since she is doing us a great big favor, it is the least we can do for her, she won’t take any money! Harold and Sue are picking us up at 10am to go to the airport and they will come pick us up on Sunday night when we get home, 11:30pm yuck…..they are very good friends to be helping us like this. They did the same for us when we went to Vegas in September. We are so lucky to have so many good friends here in Bucerias!

Well I guess I will get back to doing, I don’t know what, maybe I will check my VHS dubbing to DVD to see if I need to change tapes. I bought 50 DVD’s from office depot a couple of weeks ago and I only have 2 left. When we get back we will have to go buy some more, I still have way too many VHS’s to dub.

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise!