Another Highlight

As you can plainly see Victoria swam with a smiley and charming fellow. It was really amazing. We were not allowed to take pictures, had to purchase this one, but it was so fun for her and for me to watch. He was trained, so she was able to feed, pet, ride on, dance with him. It was so cool. A singularly wonderful time. Thanks Shelley for recommending this.

Meanwhile, the boys(Gentry, Grant, Wade and Micah) were out on a fantastic fishing expedition. They were successful and caught and released a nice Marlin (Gentry cries if you mention the releasing part, he really regrets that so don't mention it to him please) and a couple of Dorado, and something else large and tasty. We had fish taco's that evening back at the Casa and were very glad that we froze the rest of it in the freezer since they did not allow us to have ice on the plane. What??? Alaska airlines wouldn't let us take home fish on ice? That right there is enough reason to go to war. Ha.

It must have been quite a pull....How fun! For more pictures of their trip click FISH.

The Party

As a break from the Mexico posts that go on forever, I will post a birthday party for a change of pace. V. had a wonderful party will many of her favorite people and great gifts!

Sweet lips himself.

Now here is a sweet look!

Sweet stuff to eat....yumeroni!

Super sweet kid, great show of teeth.

Buds.

Grant's gift to V. was very well recieved....and he even picked it out himself. Good job Grant!

Body mist from Miss T.

To remind her she will always be my little girl, she recieved paintable horses from Mom. She even kind of liked these!

And from her favorite store, a cute jacket.

And the favorite gift came from Dad.....Spatula City!

Watch out she's ready to sling some hash.

This is one look at her goofy Dad.

Ready for a quick draw.

And his look back, seems sort of smug doesn't he? He has his "silly grin" that the kids often get.

This one here likes her picture taken!

Can you guess what they are doing? I love Troys expression. He is soooo interested in this girl stuff.

Painting Ponies.

The funny, the strange, and the unusual.

One of the things I liked the best about living on the beach was that every time we went out we would find something new and interesting. I am sure some of it would get "usual" after awhile but Grant always made some new creation.

A good day brought out new pretty shells, pieces of coral, starfish and sea urchins....what fun!

The jellyfish....beware of pretty blue bubbles in the water!

Tracks of all kinds: bird, turtle,dog, people, crabs etc.

Everyday was a new something....something perished here, was it big bird?

Then there were the squadrons of pelicans, flying low and menacing, back and forth patrolling the coastline. And for comic relief, they would literally fall out of the sky, nose first in a big splash when they saw something tasty. Scared me silly the first time I saw it and after that I just had to laugh. They might be graceful in the air but they sure are sloppy eaters.

The wind and waves even changed the lay of the land from day to day. And yes that is some bird that exploded apparently, there were feathers everywhere. I believe it was a seagull. The sea crabs were very useful at cleaning up the days mess every night. Fascinating.

These markers are to identify and record the laying of turtle eggs. There are two dates on each marker, one designates the date the egg was laid in the sand and the other date is the expected arrival. We watched this one every day but the cool weather was making the little fellow stay put according to the local expert. The last morning we went out there were fresh momma tracks, and new nests, it was so cool!

And then the puffer fish were there, did you know they are poisonous, but a delicacy in China? Scary.

They are kind of cute though, when they are undead.

Ewww.

Dear Daughter

This has been quite a challenge sorting through pictures since we have a new photo program and two different cameras, with pictures of the same events on both. Sort of over kill, but nice to have choices! I really like this sweet picture of Victoria.

Family Foto

Well the scenery is pretty anyway!

More wedding photos

The Groom

The Ring Bearers

Ring Bearers and Beautiful Flower Girl

Father of the Bride and Lovely Bride

The reason we were there!

Watch the video below first, then this one. I hate it when I do this!


Quote from groom, "It is done!" It was a beautiful wedding and now I have another pipsqueak Brother-in-law to torment. (And visa versa I feel sure!)

A birthday like no other

This particular birthday none of us will soon forget. It is not very often in a lifetime that a person with a January birthday gets to spend it in the sun, the sand and the surf!

We decided to take Victoria shopping and to a special restaurant for her birthday. We enjoyed this view of the ocean from the road to La Riberia.

And directly across from this view, was the "free range" horses.

Gentry was calling Roberto to get names of Restaurants. They were not to be had in La Riberia so we must travel on to Los Barrillas.

We decide to check out the town first. This is just a nice garden area we saw in town. Many of the homes did not have anything this nice.

And the requisite la vaca cruising the streets.

We took the back roads along the coast line (dirt road...very deep fine sand in areas) and came across this little roadside cemetery and sanctuary.

Impressed again by the size of the cactus we took this remote picture.

Remarkable because this is what the camera was propped upon to take the picture. Ouch!

Cool old barn/home?

Los Barrillas, or was it? It sure was tidy and neat. We took this road down to the beach and that is when the real adventure began. Have I mentioned that this was way past our lunchtime and we were getting very hungry. I wanted the quickest way into town to get a meal.....and that turned out to be a bad choice.

Because this is what happened when we tried to take the beach front road. Robere was a trooper but even at galloping speed he bogged down when we tried to turn around in deep sand. Gentry was trying to keep it moving and the crashing and banging of the under carriage was proof of the efforts being made. (Tip: Don't ever buy a rental car.) We were rescued after several attempts at pushing, digging out, pushing, digging out....so on. These two fellows came along and gave us a pull (this also took many pulls...ask Victoria what she thought of this part of her birthday sometime. It is humorous!) We all got out and Gentry really got Elf Robere going and we were so happy to follow on foot! Hope is a wonderful thing.

Proof right here that we did not let the children starve.

And Victoria got to have fried Shrimp! Yum! (Before you judge our hair don'ts here please remember what we went through to get here. Smile.)

Happy Birthday Honey, thanks for all the sand digging, pushing and running.

Discussing the days events with Dad. We did get to get some shopping in too. Very fun to spend some of the money they had been saving up on gifts and clothing and toys.

And one of my most favorite parts of this already crazy day was watching this dog in the back of the truck. Apparently dogs don't read Spanish very well either. Doesn't he see the Danger sign on the truck in front?

Hold on buddy, this is a sharp turn!

Makes me smile every single time!