Settling in....!

So off to Cancun to do the big box store shopping.....and Walmart has Christmas trees, for goodness sakes.....all the way from Oregon.












$58 for a big one, $38 for a small - a lot of money for a Mexican family to put out for a Christmas tree. The store is full of decorations....good grief, it feels way to early.
















So we want to introduce you to Poco Uno, Poco for short (means "little one" in Spanish) and this is the cutest little thing. Our laptop, which we nursed through the summer, praying it would last this winter down here, died the very day we got the internet. Figures. So we bought this little puppy at Walmart - A Compac HP pc, and as we struggle to deal with the Mexican keyboard and lots of Spanish on our screen, we at least are online and in touch with our world again.








Today, almost 2 weeks from when we arrived, we finally got to the beach!!! White sand, warm sun, lovely turquoise sea, good books, cold water - life is good and NOW we feel like we are finally home!!!!

Cats and more cats!

Last year, some of you will remember our little "Chaplin" who turned out to be female and who had a litter of kittens from the pure black male on our street. She is back, looking good, and is happy that her daily food has resumed as well.










One of her babies is a ringer for Daddy, pure black, cute as a bug's ear, and getting less skittish by the day.











The second baby is a female and looks a lot like Mom, but she is really thin, looks sick, and gets pushed aside by both her brother, her Mom and her Dad for food - guess they call this the survival of the fittest, and if we could ever get close enough, we would bring her in and make sure she gets fed. As the days go by, she shows up less and less and now it has been a week since we have seen her...oh dear.






After waiting impatiently for several days, our cable guy, Arturo, saved the day by getting our internet connected and up and running. Bravo Arturo!

Home again!!!

Our little PM square looked wonderful - we are ahead of the rush of tourists who will come later, so it is quiet and peaceful.











In the centre gazebo, here is the Day of the Dead Memorial, filled with food, flowers, water, booze, candles - all things to welcome those who had passed over and who would be visiting tonight, and be welcomed.










Finally we get to David Lau's, where our dear Valorie and her "boys" share the best food and the GREATEST margaritas in town.













We had way too many margaritas (OK, I had too many margaritas!!), a wonderful dinner and great reunions with friends!

Yah, sleepless in LA, too....

The big silver Alaska Air bird took us from Seattle to LA, arriving at 11:30 pm on Halloween night.















Our flight left at 9 am the next morning, so we found an out of the way bench and hunkered down with our stuff to sleep, get stiff necks and fortify ourselves with water during the night....which was VERY long.....!!!!!






















There goes LA, looking pretty benign on this lovely sunny morning.













5 hours later, there is Puerto Morelos down there, waiting for us!! We grabbed a cab, got home long enough to make the bed, and then jumped in the Tracker to go to town.

The Public Market

Live entertainment, lots of flowers everywhere, and we had coffee at a great little place on the main drag. Back to the train station to get our luggage, which was really beautiful. Off to the airport and then our 9 pm flight to LA. We love Seattle - used to come here a lot when we lived in Vancouver, so it has been a treat to spend a day here having fun.

Sleepless in Seattle

So one of our favourite spots in sunny Seattle - yah, it was raining in Van and sunny there, go figure! - is Ivar's. So we had to go and have some of their wonderful chowder and then the BEST fish and chips (well, except for Deep Bay...). Then we hit the Pike Place Market and saw all the usual sites - including this famous fish market.