Sunday, January 29, 2012

last of the pix from Christmas



These are the last...

More Christmas eve pix





Photos of our odds and our ends (rear ends?)






This was from our first BIG potluck (all cruisers know that we are big on potlucks in this group) on Christmas eve. I took these pix even though I barely knew some of these people and NOW i know them pretty well

Rain, rain, rain?

Another day, another day frozen out of Fb. I guess this could be a good thing, in that I am now blogging more often. Today was a beautiful day in Bahia Banderas (Banderas Bay OR Bay of Flags) and going to the Sunday market was an especial pleasure. We managed to buy a cinnamon roll for my father before they were all bought up, some macadamia nut oil, which I bought because my dad's skin is very dry and scaly and well... old.

The kids got some nice treats; Leo, who loves his savory treats got two meat pasties, both kids got chocolate croissants (which did look particularly yummy) and then they split a strawberry chocolate piece of cake. We all got some lime/tangerine juice, freshly made, and I had a spinach tamale "wrap" (which the masa is thinner and there is more filling). We were able to see my dad and drop off his cinnamon roll, which I think he was very happy with, and we continued on our (very full) way.

Then, it did something that it rarely does in January; it rained. Big fat drops of warm rain that were far and few between, but it went on for about 15 min. It wasn't particularly hot or humid prior to it, but it was interesting and nice, in its own way.

Oh and the internet is just hideous right now. But then again, blogging seems to be the thing to do during this cloudy afternoon.

Added a few moments later- Oh, I guess I needed to say that our mail and engine parts caught up to us here (by our Friend Craig from "Gato Go") and our engine will be torn apart and fixed sometime soon. And that might mean some sailing will be done before John goes to Amman on Feb. 8th.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Dance, Dance, Dance

I woke up and had such a great day after a great sleep yesterday (the 27th of Jan). We all went over to La Lancha, so that I could watch the kids surf (T) & boogie board (L) and take some pix (to follow-whenever I get a chance to download those pix) of all of them in the water. La Lancha does not look like it has changed all that much in 14 yrs. The water was super warm, I would say it was in the mid-70's. T played in the little shore break waves, getting up almost every time for a short ride. Leo demonstrated his ability to do 360's on his boogie board. John caught more than a couple waves with his long board, but it was really (no, I mean it, REALLY) small. Afterward, the kids & John introduced me to La Ameca (and the proprietor, Fabian) and we had great tortas (Mexican version of a sandwich, really really yummy and filling). I walked to my dad's to help him with getting on Citibank's website (and didn't succeed, but got massively frustrated for him). As I was leaving, he offered to take us out to dinner.

We ended up at Osso's (which is next to the fish market in La Cruz). We had great food, great service but I have to admit that my eyes popped a little when I saw the bill (960 pesos). AS he was paying the bill (which he seemed to have no problem with), a show started. Video played, explaining in both Spanish and English the roots of the Tango. And then 2 fantastic dancers came out and did the tango. Technically, they were brilliant. Wow. I was stunned. Then the video cut in as the dancers left (to go get into another costume) and told us about the cha cha. Again, the dancers just danced a fantastic cha cha. The did the Chabata (which is a dance I had never heard of from the Domenican Republic), The Salsa and the Boogie Woogie. So, having had great food, service and a fantastic show, I guess the price was worth it.

John and Ben from "Jace" went out to crew for Profligate this morning, for the last race of the series for January, while the kids and I worked the cruisers' swap meet. We managed to sell our cockpit shower, along with about half the valentines day cards that the kids club made, and a bunch of smoothies. We are now waiting to see if we can be included in the after-race party at the Vallarta Yacht Club in Paradise village, and if we can bring the kids in their swim suits to be able to go swimming tonight.

Ah, life is sweet in La Cruz and it makes all of us want to dance... well you know the rest of that, now don't you?
;^)

Saturday, January 21, 2012

et tu, facebook?

Well, it would seem that my problems with facebook are not over... In December, just before Christmas, I got locked out for two weeks, due to facebook's security measures that wanted me to input a code that they texted to my cell phone number that is on my account with them. Um, the cell phone that is now on vacation hold and not accessible from Mexico, that one? Gah! After about 5 emails sent over the two weeks that I was locked out, I kept getting an automated response with "send us a scan of your government ID with the parts that you don't want released on the internet blacked out". Oh really? How is that supposed to make me feel more secure? If facebook got hacked into, there is my driver's license picture to be hacked or my passport picture out on the web. After the 5th one, someone from facebbok support took pity on me and told me that my account was now unfrozen. And THEN I found out that you cannot remove a cell phone number without putting in a new one. Wha? I don't have a functioning cell phone number. At. all. Does that mean I can't have a functioning facebook account? Well, I guess that I got that right. I used it a total of 4 times before it got frozen again, this time for the past week or so.

One good thing came out of this... I no longer have any kind of addiction to facebook or wanting to get on it. I have now signed onto google+ but am not having a lot of success in using it. Of course, I only have 12 friends on it, and may need to find a way to import my contacts from my yahoo account. Yes, I am sighing. Yes, I wish that facebook would give up its stupidity and just let me on, again. I just love being able to post pix from what we are doing and having people comment on it, looking at my wall to see who is doing what when I want to, and just generally seeing what is up on the web. Looks like I was very lucky for a long time, and now am not so lucky and need ot figure out a different way to contact my friends.

Yes, I am hating on FB just a little bit right now. But if it unfroze my account in the next day or so, I think I would get over it very fast. (sigh)

Thursday, January 12, 2012

T's birthday in Dec. 2011



We went to the most awesome zoo in Dec. for T's birthday. We got to actually feed and touch the animals. I fell in love
with the male juvenile giraffe and the kids got to play with Tiger cubs~ here are pix (well I'm trying to add pix, but might have to later on)