viernes, el 2 de marzo de 2012

Buenos noches. The weekend is finally here!! And Ron Wilson is looking for work.

Great day…will keep it brief as there are a ton of fotos. Someone (Oma!!) made mention that there was not even one foto of Max in the blog of ayer. All rectified today…keep reading.

Bex was up waaaaay early as Max needed some feeding and then at 630am or so, decided he did not want to waste another minute of his day. So Bex got up and took care of Max and then at 750am, woke me up so she could have her Skype with her Belgium client.

Max and I hung and after Bex was done with her successful call, she went back to sleep. And how hard was it to take care of max while madre slept? Tough…as he too went to sleep (in the cuna!!) and slept 50 minutes. Ja ja ja

When he woke up it was time for some eats…and a perfect time for a FT with mis padres. Managed to do both and he finished off a fresh bottle and then hung around in his chair, chatting up his abuelos.

And after they were done chatting, I took a few fotos.

He has "healthy" sized feet...they come from his madres side!!

And then we hit the alberca, sitting on the side and soaking our pies (feet) and talking about the different seasons of the year. In depth stuff.

We were hola’d by a few peeps, but the pool was muy tranquilo.

We also went to find Oscar and ask about the gas (propane) bill and was greeted in his oficina, by Ernesto (?), who speaks some ingles and tells us he is the new property manager. Adios Oscar? A quiet coup, unlike Syria.

I guess the peeps had it in for Oscar and he is out. He originally got the job because he was related to someone that built/owned the original condos, and the new guy is related to the real estate agent who rents condos here.

Read up about it, here in Mexico, filling jobs is all about taking care of family.

After a while at the pool, Max stopped what he was doing and gave me “the look”. Time for a nap and I don’t think he even knew it himself.

Also time for madre to get up…hello media día!!

So I swaddled the lil’hombre and as a treat for madre, put the sleeping giant into our cama.

Twenty minutes or so later, he was done napping and after a little snack, the two of them hung out like John and Yoko…except our peace niks read Dr Seuss together.

The Cat in the what?

That sh*t is freaky madre!!

Padre, I think this Theodor Seuss Geisel might have smoked some funny "stuff".

I hit the gym…it was HOT!! No pesas (weights) today as I have a few sore joints. So I hit the bici and an hour and 3 litros of agua later, I headed home.

Pit stop at Jesica’s Plasticos to grab a new mop bucket (came with a free mop head) and then home for pool time.

Fotos from the gym walk.

An update on the restaurnate construction across from the condo complex.

These hombres make $100-$150 pesos per day. The guys on the right are taking 16 litro pails of sand and small rocks and then putting them into the mixer.

Did I mention it was 33 grados outside?

One guy is in charge of adding the cement y agua.

On the back side of the mixer, these hombres fill up their pails and head inside and then up to the roof.

I said "screw the gym" and decided I would help the hombres and build up my arm muscles at the same time!!

Damn that sun is taking a toll on my skin.

Actually, the day labourer came over to shake my hand...he had recently consumed a few Coronas.

WFSITBOTT?

One hombres junk is anothers treasure.

Max y Bex in a few años?

Chorty

Yeah yeah..another foto of muebles pino. This carpintero was pooped from lugging all his furniture around La Crucecita.

6 weeks old...guau guau

WFSITBOTT?

Cooking burners and the such.

Team Fonatur on a mission. I never have seen Daniel again.

Una madre y hijo crossing over the canal.

And here is the alberca series.

The warm up fotos. We slowly get Max reacquainted to the pool.

The hat is to keep the heat in and the gafas del sol...duh.


Here is Max's belly button under water.

A little chez lounge con madre.

This was a "test" foto to make sure the angles and lighting worked.

Because we did not want to miss this foto opportunity.

Yup, that was Max after his second "head under water" experience.

And to ensure he is ok, feels secure and does not wail...some reassuring words and a hug.

Does this look like he was ok with the dunking?

It was easy peasy padre!!


And moments later he was suited up again and off we went.

Loving the pool!!

Uhhh Dad...I think I see an Oh Henry bar.

Mal chiste...bad joke!! Just kidding all...he has the public pool approved thong!!

Mano derecha tastes good.

Hmmmm

Mano izquierda tastes good.

Uh mis padres, maybe I should not be sticking pool water manos in my mouth?

Good call Max. Those are the last "pool hands in the mouth" fotos!!


Padre y Max

Ohhh Padre!!

Great time in the pool!! And after the pool, more eats from Bex and then he needed a nap before the 6pm rutina.

I offered to take care of his nap and Bexico went out to grab us some verdura, bolla y…hello Coca Light!!

Now, this was the last nap of the día for Max, so I treated him to some chest time!!

Now this foto isn’t from today, but on the water proof’ish camera, there seems to be some left over evidence from una otra día…doph!!

I am not fooling ANY of you!! Best part of my día!!

Bexico returned and almost like clockwork, Max woke up in time for Jeopardy. I’ll take Chest Naps for $1000 Alex.

And then things got strange. He was in his chair, the show was on and I was leaning in and talking to him. I told Bex that he was about to cry and yup…the bottom lip started quivering, the face started going red and then the wail came.

What happened? No sé. So we turned off the TV and prepped the bath instead. He enjoyed the bath (always does) and we were almost ready for the numbered cards, and he became antsy again. Huh?

Skip the cards and off to the cama for his last meal of the día. Normally there is a 15-30 minute post meal session where Bex gets him to sleep…uh not today.

Bexico was out of the bedroom and Max was asleep 1 minute after finishing his cena. Huh? Tired guy…too much excitement at the pool!!

So Bexico and I chilled, ate our dinner together (hello meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce, all on garlic toast) and at 930pm, she is currently upstairs Skyping with her hermana. After that, off to work.

Me? Blog update and then zzzzz.

Mañana? Mojon!! No Chahue for us on the weekend.

Misc

Had a nice email from Rosa. I sent her a Happy Birthday email on Jan 31, and she replied today!! Lol That is Rosa for you.

Anyway, she is finally back to work after having arm and shoulder issues and works at a call centre.

Talking about birthdays, Feliz Cumpeaños to mi TO amigo George and to my Vancouver amigo, Mubba!!

Buen fin de semana amigos!!

Marco, Bexico y Max

jueves, el primero de marzo de 2102

Buenos días!!

Look who's birthday is coming up...

Feliz Cumpleaños to the Oreo cookie!! Turning 100 years old on 6 de marzo!!

  

1040am and the casa is muy tranquilo!! Both madre y Max are grabbing some shut eye, so I thought I would jot down a few notes.

Ayer, I grabbed some pesos from the banco as I saw the exchange rate is the best it has been seen diciembre. The Cdn dollar vs the pesos was -7.3% from diciembre to 11 de febrero, but in a few short weeks, it has gained back 2.4% and just yesterday increased another .78%.

With the end of the mese, we have our temperature numbers!! Our daytime high for febrero 2012, was an average of 32,1 grados, just slightly higher then last year’s 31,9.

Our night time lows averaged 25,4 vs 23,3 last year. We have noticed the warmer nights as we try to sleep sin air con.

When does it start to get warmer? How about marzo when last year the daytime highs picked up almost 2 grados from febrero!! Off to the playa!! Ja ja ja

There was a short pause in blogging…about 10 hours.

It is now 830pm and we have found Global News. For a while there, we had all the channels and no issues. A few days ago the PVR was frozen, so I rebooted it and now we are back to hit and miss on the canales.

Oh well. But we also are getting the canal with The Godfather 2 showing on it!!

The day. Great. After Max woke up, we decided to get the Che run out of the way while Bex slept. First stop was Fonatur to drop off the recyclables and then we stopped into Nissan to say hola to all of our amigos.

Crazy Pablo is still crazy and Carlos is still a great guy. Might grab a few bottles of suds with him on sábado. He likes to play some stick at Senor Pucks. Stay tuned.

Off to Che and the big score? A great beach chair for Max!! Fotos to come.

There was no price on the chairs so I went to the self scanner and when I came back, I had the responsibility of telling several peeps the price was cieno cuarenta y cinco pesos…$145 pesos or around $11 Cdn.

What else? How about a pantry full of croutons!! Now if I could only find some more Mil Isla dressing. Doph.

Met lots of peeps in the Che…including one senora who said we should get Max into these maternity (?) clases where he will spend time with other niños and the such.

We had thought about getting Max going in a clase, just hadn’t thought about timing. Escuela starts when he is 3 or 4, but we like the thought of getting Max some interaction with local niños. Stay tuned.

Super Max was super well behaved and just as were getting ready to finish up, Max said to me “Padre, I desire some leche”, so we finished up, headed home and woke up madre.

Here is the sign we left on the condo's door buzzer before we left for Che.

Under “madre”, is the palabra “bebe” because the water guy likes to buzz the door and it always seems to happen during Max’s nap.

A while later, I was off to el gimnasio. I had a good session there and managed to see Mirna (amiga de Rosa) and thank her for the quesillo she brought us. It is still in the fridge, but Mirna swears this is the best quesillo she has ever had!!

Quesillo is the queso Oaxaceño…made only in this state.

After the workout, I headed off to pick up the lab report with Max’s results. Got there before their mid afternoon break and even though I am no doctor (and don’t read many lab reports in español), it looks like Max is a-ok. Bexico will scan the reports and send them to our pediatra and I am sure he will concur.

Stopped in to say hola to all the gang at Gabriels….una día tarde, pero Feliz Cumpleaños to Gabriel, where ever he may be (he passed away years ago).

No luck on a new mop bucket (I have now broken 2 mops and one bucket)...doph.

Fotos from my walk.

They have been working on fixing up this tienda on Carrizal, for 2 weeks.

Look who's back!!

Taxi, urban transit bus and a Tamarindo. I can guess what happened.

Ok...enough with de muebles pino!!

Quite a few nube over the montaña and that seemed to spread over the centro as the day wore on.

Help wanted sign that was recently edited.

Cemex now wants a woman to be a concrete vendor.

I only took this foto because I saw a word I had never seen before, mudamos.

It comes from the verbo"mudarse", to change residence. Want to know why español can confuse me? Nos mudamos means both "we move", "we are moving" or "we have moved".

Another palabra that may come in handy...lenceria.

Peeps setting up for another parade.

After the mop bucket search, I came home in time to find madre putting the lil’hombre down for another nap.

Yes there was pool time when he awoke. And? And for the first time ever, we dunked his head in the pool. Now there is a heart stopping moment for the 3 of us…and the 10 people who seemed to be watching from the side lines!!

Credit to Bexico, she does all the niño reading and discovered it is easier to teach a niño about having their head under water, prior to 6 meses, vs antes.

As well, she read that the trick is to blow hard into their face, as this makes them close their eyes and mouth, and then follow that up with the quick dunk.

Well. The look on his face when he came up was priceless!! But I almost had a heart attack waiting to see that he was a-ok, and to see what his reaction would be.

He looked like it was going to be a loud and unhappy response, but with both madre y padre there, smiling at him and telling him he was a-ok, he shook it off and went on with his pool rutina. Success!!

And the peeps watching seemed to enjoy the show as they knew what was going on. It seems like Max has an extended familia, whether or not he wants it!! Ja ja ja

And how long was he in the pool for today? Splashing and talking it up…as well as the ultimate chez lounge con madre? Over 35 minutes!! He is really taking a liking to the alberca. Next project…del mar!!

Back upstairs, a little Jeopardy…”I’ll take Lab Results for $700 Alex”, and then the rutina. Like clockwork!!

Great pasta dinner for me, some meat stew’ish dinner for Bexico and you are all caught up.

Bexico work dossier? A film for the repeat client in Australia, NY seems to be having a crisis in NY, so Bex hasn’t heard much from her, she is finishing an illustration project for a client in Ontario and has accepted a film project for a client in Belgium.

Lots of work and the best news? These are all hourly projects, so Bexico clocks in on the Mac and the client gets screens shots of the projects in progress. No worries about under bidding!!

Misc…

Stocked up on some of the last jars of marmalada de naranja….orange marmalade. I know if mis padres visit, abuelo will enjoy it!!

Received our natural gas bill. Yikes…$762 pesos for 2 meses. I will check with Oscar (pronounced “O” scar), the property manager, as we used to pay $10 Cdn/mes at G10 and this works out to be be $30 Cdn/mes. Might be the gas powered secadora…the one in G10 was electric.

Maybe we will see some savings on our next electric bill. Stay tuned.

Don’t slay the messenger….click HERE.

I asked Daniel why the mercado might have been closed. His answer? Fumigation!! Lol He also said the mercado used to be known as a tianguis, similar to the one day market in Pochutla. It was only open one day a week…and many years ago expanded to a full time market.

Click HERE if you want to read more about tianguis.

Fotos from last night’s parade. The best answer I had about why there was a parade, was that it was to celebrate the fact the school has been around for many years. How many? No sé.

As for the theme of the parade?

Oh, Max will love going to school here!! 

Not sure this jungle theme is PC.

Crazy part? The niños throw (not toss…but throw) dulces at you. Serio…you almost need eye protection.

Our mañana…we are hoping to get our schedules better aligned so that we can get both of our workouts completed antes 1230pm…and then hit the playa. Maybe Mojon…maybe Chahue. Stay tuned.

Have a great viernes.

Marco, Bexico y Max