July Extras

Esperanza loves to help daddy wash the cars.

While going through some totes in the garage, I dug out this old dress of mine. I seriously LIVED in this dress from the age of maybe 6 to about 9 or so. Still love it. Somehow, it fits Esperanza already even though she's only 4. It's long on her, but it fits perfect everywhere else. And, she loves it.

 Playing in the sand at the Washougal River

 Ezra is still a little young for this thing, but he gets on it and pushes the button to cruise along. He laughs and enjoys it a lot. But, he's still working on the whole balance thing so he's taken a few falls along the way.

 We visited our friend Jessica and her little ones Nicholas and Ella one sunny afternoon. This was the best picture I could get of all 4 kiddos.

 A day at the Camas Farmers Market

 Bath time is so peaceful when it's just Ezra in the tub

 Esperanza and Daisy - BFF's

 Geneva, Antonio and Anycia came by and spent an afternoon with us earlier this month. 

 Ezra wants to wear Esperanza's clothes. Why not? 

 The kids love the pool

 We met my friend Val during her lunch break one day at the duck ponds

 Ezra and I joined my mom one afternoon for a stroll along the Columbia River and along the dike.

 Ezra spends a good part of every day digging in the dirt pile in front of our porch. He loves dirt. He would prefer water but I try not to mix the two very often. Dirt can be wiped of, water can be dried, but mud requires a bath.

 Sparkles is in fact a rooster. He crows off an on all day. Because he's a young rooster, his crow is kind of pathetic. I compare it to the voice of a teenage boy going through puberty. It cracks and it almost sounds like he is choking when he tries to crow. It's quite funny. Because we live in the city, we can't legally keep him. Once we get a formal complaint, he'll be dinner. Until then, the hens and I enjoy having him around.

Strawberries are going strong still

 Esperanza doesn't take regular naps, but there are days that she gets really sleepy and needs one. Rather than admitting that she's tired, she gets very emotional and upset about the littlest of things. After yelling and screaming at me, she'll stomp off to the bedroom, slam the door and crawl under the bed and fall asleep. 

 The other day Esperanza fell and scraped up her face and shoulder pretty bad.

 We went to the Vancouver Farmers Market the other day and there were several other events going on downtown Vancouver at the same time. A car show and a fire department event. Here's Esperanza climbing out of the bouncy slide at the fire department event.

 This summer's neighbor kids are much mellower than last years. Meet Elijah and his little sister Marilee. They are the grandkids of the neighbors on one side of us. They visit us several times a week and are a joy to have around. 

 Just like Esperanza at this age, Ezra has an obsession with cat and dog food. At home, Ezra eats the cat food (since Lucy runs away from him) and at my moms house he feeds it to the dogs. Daisy loves it.

 Beer, book and new shoes on a warm summer evening. It's a rare kid-less moment. I am on the 3rd book of The Hunger Games series. For the first time in several years, I also bought myself a brand new pair of shoes lately - Keens (I've bought used shoes, but not new). I originally had a different color/style but they weren't as cozy as I'd hoped, so I traded them in for this pair and absolutely love them. 

 REALLY wish we had a double stroller. But this works.

Mexico Trip: Colima To Melaque And Back

We left Tepames and headed for Colima to meet up with Armando's cousin Dora who we planned to spend a few days with. As we left Tepames, the back tire of the truck caught on large rock in the road. We didn't think much of it, other than that someone (which should have been us) needed to move that rock out of the road. Just minutes after getting on the main road, we heard the dreaded sound that could not be mistaken for anything other than a flat tire. At that exact same moment, we look up and see a man walking from a tree shaded area over to a building. It took us half a second to realize that we just happened to get a flat tire directly in front of a tire shop, and the tire guy heard us coming. This was probably the ONLY tire shop within any reasonable distance. Lucky us. 30 minutes and 40 pesos later, we were back on the road.

We reached Dora's house and spent the day at the park then the evening downtown Colima. Doras house is a two story concrete house with 2 bedroom and 1 bathroom. Her house is a little bit more modern than the houses in Tepames: Tile flooring, porcelain toilets and sinks, a tiny hot water heater, a sliding glass back door, a small patch of green grass in the back yard. Cute and cozy.

Park

We strolled through downtown Colima after we ate dinner at a little restaurant. Because it was Friday evening, they had a band playing and people were dancing in the garden area. Esperanza even had a good time dancing.

 In the morning, we packed up and headed towards the beach with Dora, her husband and her son. Angelina rode with them while the kids, Armando and I drove in the truck. We followed them and for some reason, they took the free road. Logically, it doesn't made sense to me to take free roads in Mexico when you have the option to take a toll road. Even if you save money on the toll, you spend it on the gas (not to mention the extra time and stress). The roads we took had curves everywhere, uphill, downhill and all through the mountains. Lots of traffic moving very, very slowly. It's very dangerous to pass vehicles on these roads. A lot of people do anyways, including Dora's husband. If you don't pass, you get stuck behind a line of traffic with a huge semi or other heavy truck in the front going 2 mph through the mountains for hours and hours and hours. But if you do pass, you risk your life and all other! Oh, and it was really, really hot. Did I mention our trucks air conditioning didn't work? Yeah. Not a great drive. About half way there, Esperanza threw up. I don't want to revisit anymore of that drive, so I'll skip to the part where we make it to our destination.

 This is Dora's husbands parents house. They live in a little town called Cihuatlan, about 30 minutes from the Pacific Ocean. Their house was huge! I have no idea how many rooms it has but it was one of the most modern and the largest of all the houses we visited in Mexico. Still very different than most homes we are used to here in the U.S. His family was very kind and welcoming. We stayed for dinner and visited for most of the afternoon. 

Esperanza and Dora walking to the store

Sidewalks could use a little help

Corner store - they sell fresh tortillas, fruits/veggies, milk, meat, etc. Instead of keeping the fridge full, people walk to the stores to buy what they need for each meal. There are several of these little convenient type stores in all the towns. Unfortunately, Coca-Cola has a strong presence in Mexico. Along with all the fresh foods people walk home with, almost always is a 2 liter bottle of Coke.

Ezra and Dora's baby boy Hazel crawling around the house. His name, Hazel, is not pronounced the way you would say it in English. He's one month younger than Ezra.

They invited us to stay with them, but we wanted to go to the beach and play. We drove the short distance to a town called Melaque and found a cheap yet nice hotel on the beach. We stayed there for 3 nights and enjoyed almost every minute of it. Melaque is a small vacation town for Mexicans and from what we were told, Canadians. We were there during the 'off' season so it wasn't very busy - though I don't think it ever really gets super busy because it's so small. We spent a lot of time on the beach, did some shopping, ate a lot of tacos, took naps in a cool air conditioned room on comfy beds and took hot showers in our hotel room.

View from our room

When we went to the beach when we first got there, we didn't really intend on getting in the ocean just yet. No swimsuits on or towels packed. But it happened anyways and we all had a ton of fun splashing in the waves with our clothes on and playing in the sand.

 The next day, we took the bus from Melaque to an adjacent beach town called Barra de Navidad.

We met up with Dora and her little family there

 Not sure what this guy is selling or what Armando is buying. Just another view from the streets of Barra de Navidad.

 Fruit stand - these are everywhere! Just a few pesos for a cup full of cut up mango or other yummy local fresh fruit. Most people get chili on it, but I'm not a huge fan of that.

Shopping

Beaches of Barra de Navidad

 Ezra found himself a friend to play next to while Esperanza was getting her hair braided

 Mermaids!!! Esperanza is going through a phase, the mermaid phase. At least I'm assuming it's a phase. Anything and everything related to mermaids is of interest to her. And this mermaid and merman statue did not go unnoticed by her.

 I kinda love this picture - Esperanza's braids whipping around to see what Armando's pointing at. By this time, it was early evening and we noticed some pretty gnarly clouds rolling in. Within moments, a storm swooped in: rain, wind, puddles, thunder, lightning - the works. We of course left our rain gear back at the hotel.

 Aside from the insanely loud crack and rumble of thunder scaring the kids, they loved the rain.

We ended up back on the beach in Melaque, unprepared again clothing wise to get in ocean, but did anyways (I don't think this beach got to see our swim suits once). It was still stormy too, which made it that much more fun!

 Armando decided a dip in the pool while it was raining was needed as well

We did a lot of other random things while we were in the Melaque area. Like get our laundry washed at the laundry mat, spend sleepless nights watching amazing lightning storms light up the ocean and wonder how the heck everyone else but me can sleep through the loud thunder, we looked at some of the rentals places in the area, we walked around downtown Cihuatlan, visited with Dora's in-laws again and we got to tour a banana plantation. Dora's father in law owns one and he took us there to show us around and how the whole banana operation is ran. Very cool! I'll do a separate little post on that I think.

After 3 nights and 4 days at the beach, we headed back inland to Dora's place in Colima for the next adventure. We took the toll road on the way back and it was soooo much better.