Sunday to Tuesday August 29th to 31st, 2010

Not much happening lately, Sunday we went to our weekly BBQ and pool volleyball game, it was great as per usual. We normally bring something to eat and this time we decided to bring a coffee cake from Mega…………………….guess what……………………..it was a birthday day so there was already cake, so we brought ours home , I chopped it up in 4 pieces and put it in the freezer for us, yeah! Paul came this time, he is from Mexico City taking music in University and spending his holidays with his parents in PV, nice kid, plays a really mean guitar!

Monday we got our money from Betsy so we started on our list of things we need to get done. Since our roof is leaking which is making the paint on the ceiling of 3 of our rooms flake off, I have started vacuuming the ceiling so we don’t have so many flakes dropping onto our floors and kitchen table. It is so hot here right now that I did the bedroom today and the kitchen will be tomorrow, once I did the bedroom, I was dripping wet ready to collapse, you can’t spend too much energy in this heat, but I am tired of cleaning white flecks off everything!

We went to Walmart last night to pick up some medication and guess what I found….some Christmas stuff, hurray it’s almost here!!!, and we had supper at the new restaurant in the parking lot of Walmart that has opened up this past month. It is a shrimp place, I had a shrimp soup, which I really didn’t want but it tasted good (he called it soup, I told him I didn’t want soup he said it wasn’t???) Ross asked for Garlic shrimp, he got a plate of garlic shrimp and that’s all, the waiter said they don’t have this on the menu but was made for Ross. It only cost pennies so we weren’t too terribly upset.

Ross filled up the pool, lord knows where the water is leaking, it very well might be on the bottom which will be impossible to fix.

Today we got up early; there was another meeting for the chili cookoff and I wanted to see if I could get an appointment with Gina, I hate not having nails!!! My own are so weak and are constantly splitting so much that it is going down to the quik, ouch!!! Because of the bridge falling down (PV bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down….) Gina didn’t open as usual as her staff couldn’t make it and her husband needed to get to the airport, so they were trying to arrange a boat! Only in Mexico!!! I have an appointment for Thursday, I can hardly wait.

Ed came by (our mechanic) to see about my scooter (it’s dead again) and found out that my alternator is now gone, so Ross has driven my scooter over to the bike shop, with Ed following him, Ed will tell them what is wrong and they will fix it, we are going to ask them to check it out all over cause I really don’t want this to continue to happen!

Well we are just putzing now, have pork chops thawing for supper, Ross got applesauce from Paradise Village and I am making a potato salad, yes I am cooking. I have tried to call Dr. Marianna for Bagel but she wasn’t there and her assistant does not speak English. I will call again tomorrow; we don’t want Babygirl and Bagel to make babies!!!

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

I could only download a few pictures

Tuesday August 24th to Saturday August 28th, 2010

Wow where did the time go?????????

We had a really good picture of Larry to give to Lorena, so we went to the photographers to have them take it from the camera and make a 8 X 10 Photo of Larry that was taken just weeks ago at the Twisted Rose restaurant. We couldn’t get it today for the party so we went to Walmart to have the picture done with their one hour photo. While we were waiting for it Ross had a free cone and I had a frappuccino, and we sat in the mall watching kids play in big blow up balls in a small pool, kinda cool, we saw the same thing at the Ex! We walked down the mall, looked in the fabric store, then we went back into Walmart to get a couple of inhalers for me. Once we got everything we went home, I detoured to Mega and got a couple of salads for the do tonight and got some scooter gas.

Part 3 of a Mexican funeral

We got to Larry and Lorena’s house at 8:30 and there were chairs out on the street and on their driveway. Sue, a friend of ours, had explained to Lorena that our custom (US and Cdn) is to bring food over so the bereaved doesn’t have to worry about feeding the people that come to pay their respect. We picked up 2 salads from Mega, a macaroni salad and a potato salad, but didn’t even think to bring plates or forks/spoons, but someone brought some. Mary Carmen brought deviled eggs, yum!
Larry requested a mariachi band play and tequila run freely so at 9pm the mariachi band came and performed, they were the same ones that performed at Larry’s house on the night we were saying goodbye to our good friend that moved to Colorado, which was kinda cool. We all nibbled and chatted among ourselves and after the band played everyone chatted about Larry, who he was, how much he was loved, and how silly he was. Lorena brought our Larry’s ashes to listen to the band, I asked her if she think he enjoyed it, with a twinkle in her eye she said he moved a little bit with the music, he sure loved mariachi music! We must have left shortly before midnight, it was a good day!!!

On Wednesday we scooted to Galleria Mall to see a show, anything to get out of this heat for a while. Lo and behold when we went to get our tickets, Mike and Mandy were in line (there is no line they were ahead of us) to see the same move “The Destructibles” , with Sly Stallone with a cameo appearances by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, it was shoot’m up kinda movie (well of course with Sly in it) Ross loved it, it was ok, I loved the air conditioning though.

Thursday Ross had a meeting at 10 for the streetlight committee and I was over at Rita’s at 9:30 to help with the crafts to be sold at the charity event the sorority sisters have in November. I helped threading elastic into material which will be a water cooler bottle cover. I also made a chain out of some funky wool type stuff, when you put 5 chains together it makes a necklace, how ingenious! Lily came today to clean my house, hurray, she even swept our outside patio and cleaned my burners on my stove, I think I may love her!

Friday we had a BBQ after the meeting of AA. Karen and Bob hosted it, it was Karen’s 33rd birthday with AA congrats! When we were scooting home after the BBQ we saw at least hundreds of crabs going all across the street (the main one in Nuevo) it looked like they were going towards the ocean, why they were away from it I don’t know (Ross thought maybe mating???). It was very difficult to swerve around them, so many were squished by cars, they weren’t little either, kinda saucer size. I wish we could have taken a picture, but it was on the road and very dark, very interesting though another first for us!!!

Well it is Saturday now, Ross had a breakfast meeting at Sweet Things for the Amigos de Bucerias, as he is the acting interim provisional vice president, hey, I got to sleep in, not much though. It started lightning around midnight last night, but no thunder! Every time I woke up I could see the lightning!!! Ross got up a few times to watch but it was all up in the clouds.

I am doing the Saturday routine, laundry, so the sheets are being washed as we speak (or you read, not it will be done by then). We got the good news that Betsy (it isn’t good news as we really really loved her) was definitely sold and we should have the money shortly. The man who bought her is heading to Nova Scotia!
The supper club tonight is going to Brazil, a special restaurant in Paradise Plaza where it is a buffet and they actually bring it to you!!! I’ll let you know how good it was tomorrow!!!

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

Monday August 23rd, 2010

Happy Birthday Lexi

Part 2 of a Mexican funeral

We picked up Christy at her gallery then got to the church shortly before one, We met Dick outside and I went in to say hi to Mary Carmen. We went back outside and coming up the street is the hearse with Lorena and her son holding hands following it along with about 20 of her relatives. After they got to the church they lifted the coffin out of the hearse and they carried it up the stairs onto a table with legs, the American flag was draped on the coffin then Lorena, (his wife) Michelle (his daughter) and Joe (his brother) followed while the coffin was moved to the front of the church.

It was a catholic ceremony all in Spanish of course, but it was beautiful. There were several of us “gringos” at the church and of course we were all crying! After the ceremony they opened the coffin one more time then closed it up put it back in the hearse to go to the crematorium. We went back to the parkade and as we got up above ground again I saw Lorena walking along the sidewalk, she looked so lost, like, what do I do now? It was so sad.

We dropped off Christy at the gallery and drove home, we didn’t do much, Ross left for his meeting, the propane guys came to fill our tank, after Ross got home we went over to Mega for a few groceries.
Now we are just trying to deal with the present, we are going over to Lorena’s tomorrow for part 3 of the funeral.

I am going to try to attach some pictures (last time I tried it didn’t work) of Larry and the service.

Still sad Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

Ps: I forgot to tell everyone that when we were driving home Sunday we saw a turtle on the highway. We zig zagged around it, and we are sure it got across as there were no cars behind us for a while. Where did He/she come from???

Sunday August 22nd, 2010

Dinner was fabulous! Ross had pork stuffed with something and I had liver and onions, wow, I didn’t know they made liver and onions down here, they were great!
We got a phone call today from Larry’s daughter in Arizona letting us know that Larry had a heart attack while driving, which is what caused the roll over. She was at the passport office getting her passport when she called; they opened the office just for her!

Part 1 of a Mexican funeral
We were supposed to be at the funeral home in Puerto Vallarta at 7 so we left around 5:30 to stop off at McDonalds before going over there. We found the home and parked across the street, we were 15 minutes early so we thought we could help Lorena with something. There were some people sitting at the side of the home and there was an open casket where people were viewing a body, thinking it would be Larry Ross walked over there, oops not Larry! We walked to the front of the home and walked inside, there were 3 men in there, of course non spoke English, so in halted Spanish we asked about Larry, they said it was tomorrow. Thinking we had a seniors moment and read the email wrong, we walked out and called Dick. He said oh no, it was tonight but it won’t start until Larry gets there (he was transported by truck from the hospital to PV) he was going to leave his house (he is a couple of blocks away from us) until after 8! Here it is 7, what do we do, we decided we would drive back home and get a ride with Dick and Mary Carmen. On the way Christie called asking where we were, I told her, she said they were almost at Church’s chicken do we want to meet up with them, then go together in one car, so off we went to meet up with them.

After an hour or so we took off in their truck to the home, chairs were set up outside on the sidewalk, Larry still hadn’t arrived, we hugged Lorena then sat and talked among ourselves. Lorena kept looking down the street waiting for Larry to come home. It’s kinda funny; Larry was from the US but 90% of the people that were there was Mexican!!! Larry got there around 9ish, Lorena went in with her family and when our friend popped her head in, they were saying the rosary. Some went in to see Larry (Ross included, I don’t do that, I would rather remember them as they were), you see they don’t embalm down here, that is why they are cremated so quickly.

Part 2 of the process is tomorrow which is the mass and the cremation and Part 3 is the next day where the ashes are presented to Lorena and people go to her house to pay their respects.

We are numb right now, still not believing this is happening. Larry’s daughter Michelle will be here tomorrow for the mass and the cremation.

A very sad Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

Friday and Saturday August 20th & 21st, 2010

With a heavy heart I have to inform you that a good friend (Ross’s bestest buddy) Larry Hurliman, died in a one car rollover somewhere in Mexico apparently near Hermosillo, he was returning after a visit in Arizona to see his new grandson for the first time. We got the phone call last night, from another good friend Dick, letting us know that he had passed away. There sure wasn’t a lot of sleep in a lot of people’s houses last night, Lorena, his wife flew out at 7 this morning to claim the body, there has to be two people to do this so they have contacted his children in Arizona to fly to help Lorena. What a marvelous guy Larry was, he knew he wasn’t perfect but he still got out there and did the best he could, and that was lots! He had a kind heart and a ready smile for anyone and everyone. He will be sorely missed in our little community!

Friday Ross went and paid our water bill (finally it was due on the 25th and we know what happens when you are late paying a bill in Mexico!!!???). At 3 we scooted down to Christie’s house (she is a local artist down here) to meet up with her to go to lunch to a wonderful little restaurant up on the hill in La Cruz. Wow, what a view and the meal was fabulous and super cheap, they even served Tequila for free! Its weird cause on the way to the restaurant we saw a one car rollover on the highway, we don’t know if there were any injuries but what a foreshadowing thing!

I had a great talk with Stacy earlier in the evening, he had phone and left a message thanking me for the flowers I sent them for their wedding anniversary. Wow 8 years, time sure flies. They are both still working and they are looking at purchasing a new car next year, Stacy’s is giving up the ghost and both are way too small for this growing family, no they are not having any more children, theirs is just getting bigger. Stacy is still working at Mustang Engineering and is on a job now which will keep him working until at least next year, which is very good!

Ross was to go over to Larry’s house this morning to get a table, signs and stuff for our food drive at Mega this morning. We just kinda winged it and went to John and Christie’s office for our sign and over to their house for a couple of signs and handouts. We also had the pet adoption today, what a zoo, literally! We had 2 separate cat places bringing cats, another lady trying to give hers away (same thing as Babygirl, she hand fed him) and another lady with a beautiful older cat……………………I wanted to take at least 3 home with me, but I stayed strong and John blocked my view a lot! I stayed with the food drive baskets so I wasn’t too likely to bring another one home. We did great on the food drive, John and Christie took the food and will give it to the church to give out, we also got quite a bit of money too, so all was good with the food drive. The cat people however didn’t fare so well, I don’t think we got rid of any, oh well, next time for sure!

As it is Saturday we are doing laundry and stuff, I put a new tarp on our roof for the office now, that roof is leaking like a sieve also. Pam called to let me know Lexi will be at her house for her birthday so I have a call into the florist to deliver her flowers there rather than Jodee’s. She was also very excited as she just bought a new laptop, she got a Sony and they are putting in all the software for her, she got it at Future Shop, I really like the store, their prices and their service.

Well we are going out to dinner with the dinner group to a new restaurant (not new just one we have not been to) called Los Helechos, we hear it is very good, I guess we will find out.

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

Here are some nice pictures that I have been taking. I can't remember which order I have downloaded these pictures. A couple are of BabyGirl, one is our new generator and one is of Karen's restaurant

Here is a picture of the policia cars we had parked outside our house on Sunday

Monday August 16th to Thursday August 19th, 2010

I haven’t been up to writing my blog for the past couple of days as I am still so angry about someone coming into our house and taking something that is not theirs and didn’t work for! Sleep is sketchy at best even though we got our backdoor working (it locks now). I am looking forward to the new security system we are putting in, as soon as it gets here. One of our good friends, Gene, has called and suggested we get an alarm system like he has, it alarms winds and doors with a high pitched scream. He sent over the info and he will order it for us and has someone bringing it down for us, I think on the 23rd. It is going to cost a bit extra for the fast shipping but we feel it is definitely worth the extra money.

Monday was a really down day, I guess we were shell shocked, we had had a break in, in Edmonton years ago, but you never get used to it. I got my scooter fixed, and we treated ourselves to dinner at Karen’s, Ross had the Mahi Mahi and I had the pasta,(and ate the leftovers the next day!).

Tuesday Dick and Mary Carmen came over at 11 and we went to the Ministerial Publico to file the complaint of the break in, if you don’t do that the burglary won’t be registered. It normally takes a long time for the procedure so we decided that we would go to Torito’s for 2 for 1 ribs, but it hardly took any time at all so we just went back home.

Wednesday went to The Galleria Mall to see a show yesterday. We saw the sorcerer's apprentice; it was ok, not great though. We don’t normally go to movies like that but the other one we wanted to see had already started, I can’t remember the name of it, it was the one with Sylvester Stallone and gang! We were debating whether or not to park underground (pay) or park at Walmart (and not pay) since we were having problems with the scooters starting, I didn’t want to have to fix anything in the pouring rain so we decided to park underground. We were turned away at the main entrance and told to go to the other side of the parkade??????, we got there and guess what, we could get in for free, nice to know! I realized that they got my iPod touch too, along with a speaker for it, that got me upset all over again, I typed a short letter in Spanish and took it around to my neighbors to warn them and to let them know if they find out about anything for sale that was in the letter to call the police because it is stolen!!!

We drove the scooters to Torito’s today to meet up with Sue and Harold as they took someone to the airport and decided to go for lunch there. We ended up driving through Nuevo Vallarta as the 2 lane highway goes down to one lane where they are building the overpass and it is taking up to close to 2 hours to drive to Vallarta via the highway! It sure is a prettier drive than the highway, lots of palm trees and of course the golf club. It started to rain after lunch so I put my new poncho on and off we drove in the rain! My poncho kept me nice and dry (it is red like my scooter) but I put the hood under my helmet so the rain wouldn’t go down my neck and it started working its way down my forehead over my eyes so at a red light I took off my helmet (lost my headband) and took the hood off, it was ok until we drove cause the wind caught it and it felt like I was choking, I had Ross tuck it in at another red light!

That’s it for now, I have to put some software into my pink computer (it was in the HP) to make more address cards for us.
Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

Sunday August 15th, 2010

Nothing like waking up in the morning and finding two computers and my Sony reader stolen! We are lucky that was all that had been taken; my iphone was sitting on the table just asking to be picked up.

We phoned Mary Carmen to ask if she could phone the police (she is a very good Spanish friend who helps us out when we need her) to let them know we were robbed. They came over shortly after we called then not long after the police came, 2 cars and 4 guys with guns! They asked questions, wrote things down, took pictures now we have to go to the Ministero Publico tomorrow to do it all again. Ross went to the Campo at the mouth of the river to see if he can purchase them back but there were just some guys’ playing cards. We won’t likely see our stuff again. Lesson learned, we are now sleeping with our bedroom door open and all our doors and windows are to be locked!!!

AS much as we really didn’t want to go to Mandy’s house for our weekly BBQ, we are now glad that we did. It took our minds off the morning, but we were kinda scared also that someone could be coming back, but you can’t let these thoughts stop you from living! We had a great time; we had fish tacos for dinner along with 2 types of beans and 2 salads and of course pickled onions (Peggy made way too many). We had a grand time visiting and playing volleyball, it is a lot more fun in a pool!

Ross Kim and Critters in paradise!

Here are some pictures from tonights dinner

Saturday August 14th, 2010

Well, I of the reasons I love living here is we are very old fashioned! Ross and I took our scooters over to Walmart to get some things, and when we went out to go home, guess what………………my scooter is deader than dead! HELP!!! We called Ed our auto guy, he was in Nuevo but can get there is ½ an hour??!!??!! He got there (with no tools of course) and with a 300 pesos tool kit found out my battery was dead dead dead andhad to start her with Ross’s. I drove home, he is coming on Monday to see that the heck happened!

We went to El Recuerdo for dinner; I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon again. After 2 hours 12 of us got our dinner, Harold and I got ours at the very end (1 3/4 hours into getting there) and it was cold, oh well lesson learned.

It is raining right now (8:45pm) and very humid (The temp is 27, relative humidity is 88% and the real feel is 35) and we are both tired. I have been working on my macaroni salad to bring to Mandy’s for our Sunday BBQ, just have the eggs to cook (I forgot about them, it’s been awhile!) then mix them in then I’m done! I haven’t cooked in a very long time, but I do watch the food channel, which Sue says is the same as cooking, kinda sorta!

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

Wednesday to Friday August 11th - 13th, 2010

I’m just going to write off Wednesday entirely! MIGRANE!!! Ross went out with Larry for a lot of the day getting donations for our Bucerias Street Festival; they sure are getting a lot of really nice prizes. A couple are, swim with the dolphins with Vallarta Adventures and rent a dune buggy for the day and get the second day free!

Thursday was a much better day. I got up early and went to Rita and Oliver’s house to help with the book sale. We had 5 (?) tables set up just loaded with paperbacks, of course I bought more than I brought, oh well, I’ll bring them back anyway! And, when I got home, Ed had been to the house and he fixed Baby for me, hurray. We went to Walmart to pick up a few things then had a Blue Bell cherry ice cream cone, yum!

Thursday night we went to Philo’s for the open mike to listen to some great music by Nick, Mike, and Carlos with Russell, Paul, Gene and Ross filling in. Paul is a young man from Mexico City that is visiting his parents and he plays a mean guitar, so effortlessly! Russell Gene and Ross are the old guys, Russ and Gene also play guitar.

Today we are just putzing around, doing as little as possible as it is way too hot to do anything, a bit of laundry, a bit of fixing, a bit of journaling……………

Well, sorry guys, that’s about it for us, hope everyone has a great weekend!

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise!

PS: We just looked at our journal for last year at this time and guess what, we didn’t have any power………………………………..almost to the day! I found this kitty, had to post.
See ya

Sunday and Monday and Tuesday August 8th and 9th & 10th, 2010

(I really gotta finish this blog)

Another beautiful day in paradise (except for the frickin’ noise of the genset)!
We just kinda putzed a lot of the day until 4 when we made it over to Mike and Mandy’s for our weekly BBQ and pool Volleyball! Every week someone else brings the main course and everyone else brings a side dish. This is for us folks that stay in the summer heat, it’s always at Mandy’s as she has a most fab pool!

Once we got home I flaked out in the bedroom to watch Ty and his amazing house building, Ross had to take the fan off my tummy when he came to bed, I had fallen asleep!

What a lousy sleep last night, soooooooooo hot and muggy. I got up to get a drink of water from the kitchen and found the roof leaking right around the fan, I knew we had to get the roof done, but I didn’t know it actually leaked!!! Hello dry season! Then I went back in the bedroom to go pee, and I got dripped on again, through the skylight in the bathroom this time (it has always leaked when it rained and it rained most of the night). We left the big door open to let some cool breezes in and it was cooler out in the living area than the bedroom with the air on, so I grabbed my pillow and slept on the couch. If you could call it sleeping, between the noise of the genset, the smell of gas, a light on so Ross won’t walk into walls at night and all I mean all of the cats needing snuggles, it was a long night. I finally fell asleep then at 6 an alarm woke me up, do you think I could find it, it was on the buffet in the kitchen but of course it is dark and I couldn’t see it, so it rang then stopped, then rang then stopped, then rang then stopped………………………………. It is Ross’s other weather station that is going out to the shed when I’m dressed.
We didn’t do a hell of a lot Monday, just basically sat and sweated! Ross had a meeting in the morning with the people involved with our Street festival in November, I’m not sure what happened there.

We took Gracie to the vet at the request of the vet that Felix took Gracie too which was not the vet we took her too! Now did that make any sense whatsoever??? The vet we took her to was not the one that Felix took her to so we started all over again. He took blood and requested a urine sample, yuck!

Hurray! Ross went to CFE this morning to see why they haven’t turned our power on yet, apparently (no one told us) they were waiting for us to come in and pay a 91 pesos fee! Ross paid it and the power did come on sometime when we were gone this afternoon.

I get a head of myself, we got up early (8am) so I could take Gracie for a walk on the leash so I could get the urine sample the vet needed, alas, it was raining which I guess was ok as I needed to take a shower anyway. I got the sample and got back home sopping wet, so the shower felt good. Ross took off to pay CFE and drop off the urine sample, then we left again at 10:30 for a meeting at the office, I brought our bedspread along as the vet wanted to see the blood that was on it. After the meeting we stopped at the vets and we decided to bring Gracie in tomorrow morning and keep her there all day so the vet can watch her, where is the blood coming from??? We think it is from the spots she has been licking, hopefully that is the case as all we need is a cone to put on her so she won’t lick and the wounds will heal, what I’m worried about is her picking at her feet, she has been doing that since Bandit passed, I don’t know whether or not stopping her doing it for a while will work!

After our meeting, we drove to PV to get more batteries for our very old phones so they won’t die so quickly. We picked up 3 then went to Autozone to get more adhesive for our rear view mirror and we stopped at the huge market type store south of Walmart that I have always wanted to browse! Wow, it is huge! We will have to go back when we have money!

We got home and Ross (unfortunately) decided to see if he could get the piece off his windshield to hold his rear view mirror so he can adhere it correctly, oops, we didn’t want that windshield anyway!!! I was just thinking how lucky we were that it had no stone pits or cracks……………………………….

After cleaning up our extension cords and dirty floors and all the stuff we used for the generator we took some tarps up onto our roof to see if it will help with our leaking……….it started to rain shortly after, so far we only have a couple of puddles in the kitchen, I moved the kitchen table this time, just in case, good thinking!
We decided to play in the pool for a while, we tried to lay on our floaties but it was too cold (go figure) we stayed under the water! We were trying to figure out what we could do, I thought of strip poker but we don’t have much on to begin with so we thought of put clothes on poker, we could end up with our parkas and mittens!!!
Ross is chowing down on guacamole and salsa and I have some potato chips in a bowl watching discovery channel, WTF!!!

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

Saturday August 7th, 2010

Ross and and twins and Larry and the twins

Hi all, another beautiful day in paradise, except of course for the god awful noise of the generator (I have to be nice to it though as it is giving me power to do laundry……..oh just a minute laundry, siesta, laundry, siesta…….)

I asked my facebook friends what the name is of those pink and blue round candies you get in licorice allsorts. Kat came up with the closest one that I knew, she said spog, I remember them called sprogs! Funny name heh! We bought some when we were in Banff, but obviously not enough as they are all eaten and I want more!
Ed came by to check out my scooter, seems I need a solenoid and a couple of bulbs, he will try to find them for me. We still don’t have the rear view mirror attached to our windshield………………..mañana.

We had a great dinner with our friends at The Twisted Rose, always a hoot! The children, Larry and Ross were having conniption fits in regards to the twins that were either in the band or were helping the band, it didn’t really matter. They finally got pictures of them with the girls, ……………..MEN!!!

We are home now, Ross showed me how to turn on the genset, now it is running like crazy, and we are going to fill it up before bed to make sure we get Corrie Street recorded for tomorrow! We are hooked!!!

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise

I thought I would send a picture of our new generator!

Thursday August 5th, 2010

What a day……………………..I have to go back to before we left though. When we left we didn’t have our CFE (power) bill or our Telmex bill yet so we paid CFE what we normally pay and paid Telmex in full. Today we wake up to someone pounding on our back gate, it was CFE putting a lock on our electric meter, and we have been shut off! NO POWER to run our fans, TV, internet, fridges, water cooler, etc, etc, etc! Yuck!!!

Ross ran down to pay the amount owed, 142 pesos (14 bucks) then ran all around Bucerias on his scooter to find a CFE truck to get them to turn it back on……………do ya think he can find one…………….NO of course not, that would have been too easy. Now what do we do, the guy said we will be lucky to have it turned on tomorrow it will probably be Monday. Now you have to realize it is a zillion degrees outside with the humidity at 200%, it’s flippin’ hot!!! And we don’t have any air flow.

Off to Home Depot to see how much their generators are. We have been talking about getting one since last summer but never did get around to it, so since we need one NOW we thought we would try Home Depot first. Believe it or not they don’t carry generators so off to Sam’s Club, they had one just at the right price, it would have been nice to get a little bit bigger one (we got the 5000), but now that it is running, it is doing what we need it to do, but boy is it noisy, we stuck it in the outside bathroom to have a little more quiet.

We got one of the car wash guys to help us put it in the car, then we went to AutoZone to get the correct sticky stuff to put the rear view mirror back on. Just as we were about to leave the 200 our exhaust pipe burst open so now we sound like a truck, the trials and tribulations of our lives right now. We still don’t know if Betsy passed her inspection, I have an email into Pam to see what happened.

We are now sitting with fans blowing and my office light on the table to see, it’s 8:30pm and we, I think are ready for bed. Ed never did call to come over to check on my scooter and Ross called him about the exhaust pipes, maybe mañana.

I think that’s it for today, we are laying low.

Ross Kim and Critters being very hot!

Wednesday August 4th, 2010

Are you impressed, you should be, I’m actually writing my blog on the same day…………….and the next day from the last one!!!

We had to get up early for Ross to get to the meeting for The Bucerias Chili Cook-Off and The Bucerias Street Festival, so the alarm rang at 9 I got up around 9:30. Lily was a little on the late side, instead of 11 I think she got here around 1:30 or 2. She helped me (she actually did it) clean the top of the stove where Felix got it all dirty (remember we don’t really cook so our stove is normally clean) and then she did her normal cleaning, bathrooms and such, I am spoiled!

After the meeting Ross scooted over to Costco to see if all the tool boxes were the same (the one he brought home doesn’t have a closure on it), but they were all the same. I cleaned and moved a shelf unit from the kitchen over to where the office is and moved the magic jack computer to my office, it made the kitchen so much larger and I still have shelving for canned goods.

Ed didn’t have the car done and brought back when Lily was done so Ross drove her to the highway on his scooter without incident and when he got back Ed came. He fixed our air conditioning and our alternator and will come back tomorrow to see if he can fix my scooter.

Felix has found a place to live so he will be moving out tonight sometime. It is very warm (30) but it wasn’t as humid today as yesterday, maybe cause it rained last night??? Everybody is doing well, Baby Girl is settling in, all our suitcases are unpacked (I actually packed one of them with warm clothes that I can’t wear in this heat, I’m going to put it up on top of our closet, if there is room enough.
There are more bugs (BIG) now than I can remember from last year, I’m keeping Ross busy getting them.

I’m gonna say bye for now

Ross Kim and Critters very hot in Paradise!

Wednesday July 28th to Tuesday August 3rd, 2010


Well we are home, hurray! It is great to see family and friends, but boy it’s nice to be home.

What did we do????????????????? We had to drop Betsy off at Pam and Derek’s for Derek to sell her. We sure miss her. We dropped her off at 5ish, cleaned her out then went out to eat at the Sawmill, Ross had the salad bar and I had French onion soup, yum! We took a picture of a billboard, if I remember to post it you will laugh! After supper we went to the apartment that Ross’s Mum Barbara rented for us that is in the same building as she is.

Wednesday we went out for lunch with Ross’s ex co-workers which was great then went to Ashleigh’s soccer game, wow, lots and lots of mosquitoes.

On Thursday we went to Capital Ex, the exhibition that comes to town once a year. We got our parking free and our admission with our Indy credentials, cool heh. We got to see our good friend Tim who was selling his really neat t-shirts and Ross tried to win me a stuffed animal, but I had to do that all by myself, I got a red stuffed frog. We also got a steak sandwich each from the food vouchers we received during the race; all in all it was great. We thought the dream home was kinda lame, but oh well, we have never purchased a ticket on it anyway. We ran into our good friend Ralph from the race and walked around with him for a while, he is our age and I think he said he had never been to the exhibition in Edmonton. Wow! We also went to the U of A hospital Thursday before the ex and visited our good friend Lynn, he is in intensive care after a motor cycle accident a couple of weeks before, he is so lucky to be alive.

Friday was our last day in Edmonton; after stopping at Walmart for a couple of things we met up with our good friend Paul and went back to the Spectrum at the ex grounds for more free food from northlands (the group that put in the Indy). After dropping off Paul we drove downtown to meet Darren, a friend from the race that is looking to build in Mexico. Ross’s Mum Barbara, Pamela, Lexi, Ross and I went to the Olive Garden for dinner it was terrific, but I did notice that the Fettuccini Alfredo at California Pizza is much better. Pam and Lexi were late getting to the restaurant and by the time they got there Ross had to leave for his meeting so Pam drove us back to Barbara’s house.

Saturday was plane day, we dropped stuff off at Barbara’s house and stopped at Timmy’s before heading off to the airport. As we had baby girl with us we had to go in a different line than most and with 5 bags we were surprised that only one was overweight, so we changed things around a bit and off we went. We had breakfast at the airport, then fed baby girl and had her go potty (I had brought so litter for her in my backpack) and boarded the plane. You are not going to believe this but she slept the whole way, only to wake up at the airport in Vallarta where she went potty again before we got to immigration. Sue and Harold picked us up from the airport and brought us home to our waiting critters, well, we were waiting for them. After dropping off the suitcases, saying hi to Felix and our babies we went out for dinner with the supper club to Ixta, a restaurant we use for our Amigos meetings. Supper was good, seeing our friends was better.

Sunday we were invited to Mandy’s house for a BBQ, wow what fun, we played volleyball in the pool, I have never done that before!!! The BBQ hamburgers were excellent and so were the friends we saw there.

Monday Ross and Larry did a Costco run, I stayed home to finish the unpacking, yuck. We went and visited John and Christie for a bit then went to a restaurant called Matsuri for dinner (a sushi place) and the food was incredible, yum, we will definitely go back there again.

Tuesday (today hurray) Ed came to get the car to fix the ucky sound (it was the air-conditioning pulley that was making the racket, and he heard our alternator make a funny noise so he has kept the car to fix that, I forgot to mention that on Monday when we drove to Walmart to pick up a few things our rear view mirror fell off our windshield! I guess the heat got to it so we had to get some sticky stuff to put that back on. I want Ed to check out my scooter tomorrow too, see why it won’t start. Lily is coming over to clean the house tomorrow, so I’m going to stay home while Ross goes to the meeting for The Bucerias Chili Cook-Off and The Bucerias Street Festival.

I’m finally finished, wow, cool. If I forgot anything, Ross will remind me. I have already told him if he finds fault with my blog he can do it himself next time!!! He says I should have kept better track of things, I'll better track him in a minute!

Ross and Kim back in Paradise with our Critters.