What's new with us!

Ok, I know it has been a REALLY long time since I posted anything. I've been a little bit overwhelmed with stuff.

So here's a quick update. We are all healthy and fine - no we didn't die from the so-called deadly Swine flu - we had it - IT WAS ONLY A FLU!! We're pretty sure we got sick from it, but no hospitalization or medication necessary for myself and the kids, Bill took antibiotics. The hype is ridiculous. It was no different than any other flu.... Ok, so enough about that rant.


Bill returned to Canada to sell more houses and work at the end of May, and myself and the boys have been living in Paso ever since. We are definitely not the typical family. Is it difficult to live in Mexico without my husband? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Bill and I have often been apart for weeks, and months throughout our courtship and marriage, so for us it is somewhat normal. This particular time will be the longest, and the furthest apart. It sucks taking care of all the business matters, family matters, and household matters myself - but lots of single mothers do that, so what do I have to complain about? Thankfully, I've been blessed with talents and abilities that make it possible....

As of July, we have been here for one year. My Spanish still isn't as good as I would like it to be. I want to take a course in Veracruz later this fall to fill in some of the gaps and concentrate my efforts. There is a great Spanish Immersion school that customizes their approach to each client, first sending you out into the community to test your skills ( or lack thereof), then based on what they find, they develop a plan to teach you what you are specifically missing. Even if you don't know anything. Don't get me wrong, I can function very well, I understand most of what is going on around me and I learn more all the time. Phone calls are far more difficult than personal conversations - it is surprising how much I interpret through facial expressions, hand gestures, etc. The boys however are not learning as quickly as I am, they just don't have to use it as much.

So what's our life like? We spend a great deal of time at the beach, I work on various things, like maintaining the property, cleaning, etc. while the boys play. We buy our veggies and fruits from a local market in the neighboring town of San Isidro on Mondays and Fridays. We go into Cardel ( or nearest small city) to get groceries or run errands for the company about once a week. I home school the boys for a few hours a day, and the rest of the time I check emails or do housework. Sundays we go to church. That's it. Exciting huh! Actually, every day holds some kind of new adventure. Chasing crabs or Toads at the beach, digging for burried treasure, or swimming in the ocean are the kids' favorites. For me, I have more to do than I would like, but I always have been busy. I have to stop and remind myself of where I live and stop to look at the beautiful ocean every once in a while. Thankfully, the kids help me to do that when they demand to go swimming.

What do I miss? Chinese take-out, pickles, ichiban noodles and rootbeer. Quite a combination, I know, but these are the things that are really hard to find here. The boys say they miss snow and building snowmen - I think they forgot that the number of days where that was possible were few either due to the cold or the type of snow. Most importantly we all miss our friends. There is a lot to keep us busy enough that we don't dwell on it, but the boys still think that we could go back to our old house and all their friends will still be there. For sure they won't be able to go to our old house - we sold it -and I don't know if all their friends will still be there or not. I miss getting together with my friends for a playdate and letting our kids play while we visit. I have great friends in Canada, who I miss a great deal. Each of them edified and uplifted me. I do have some friends here, but hmmm how do I explain..... Ok, having a conversation in Spanish takes a lot of concentration on my part, and most of the time, I still don't have the vocabulary to truly express myself the way I can in English. So even though I may understand most of what my friend is saying, it takes a lot of work to understand her, then formulate an answer to it, which is nowhere near what I would really like to say - if that makes any sense. I think I understand the mind of a two or three year old. Visiting with a friend certainly isn't a relaxing activity like it was.

Anyway - that's our life here in a nutshell....

Christmas in Mexico

We didn't have any snow, but it still felt like Christmas inside. I bought a gingerbread house from Costco and the boys had a blast decorating/eating it. I made them wait until I took a picture before they could devour it.

Since we left our fake tree in Canada, we bought a real one here - a Douglas fir tree - it was very soft and looked great -until after Christmas. Tius, our dog, discovered the tree made a great back scratcher, and consequently rubbed all the needles off the bottom quarter of the tree. The kittens also played a part in the destruction as they thought the tree made a great place to hide in and that the balls made great toys. Every morning I would wake up to hundreds of pine needles on the floor along with half a dozen Christmas balls rolling around. I finally got rid of the tree a couple days before New Years because I was tired of sweeping up pine needles.

The boys opened up their presents in a hurry and we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach with friends and Bill's aunt and uncle who have recently moved to the area.

It was 35 degrees celcius that afternoon, but with the ocean breeze, it felt just right. I cooked a turkey and Bill's aunt brought the veggies, potatoes and dessert.

Yes I am still alive!

Ok I know it's been a while since my last blog. Ok - a REALLY long time. Whew - who knew Mexico would be busy!

I do have a lot to write about - though today I just wanted to do some basic highlights. Let's see....

School has started at our Casa. Hmmm even more work than I thought. Not so much because of the actual preparation, etc. Just because C requires constant supervision or his mind escapes and nothing gets done or learned. Very frustrating. Then G gets frustrated because C dominates so much time - gets bored then disruptive. Ugh. I am glad I never decided to become a school teacher for a profession! My Dad suggested I get more creative and incorporate more fun stuff into learning to help encourage C to want to learn. So that is what we are trying. We are working on making a claymation movie. He has to write a script first (Language arts) edit it, count out the number of sequences (that's all the math I've figured into it yet) do the rough sketches as a film strip then we will shoot the movie with my camera. It should at least get him writing and reading his own writing - and definitely handle the art aspect.

For math we have been playing store. He's practicing giving change so that he can sell lemonade on the roadside to earn money for a toy he wants. It's a start.

G's eye is still scarred, but his vision doesn't seem to be affected. He's a bit more defiant - but everybody loves him. He's called 'Guapo' just about everywhere we go -even with the scar on his eye. The workers at the beach all love him too. He was 'helping' them shovel sand the other day to prepare for a walkway. The worker gave him rides back and forth in the wheelbarrow to get sand. It doesn't seem to matter that G speaks little Spanish, they like having him around.

Residential Oasis is moving along well. Casas 1 & 2 are basically finished -except for a few details that I have been out at the beach almost every day helping with. The boys have been spending a lot of time on the beach since we are all out there. Casas 3 & 4 are going along a little slower than we originally hoped, but still well within the construction schedule.

C finally lost his 4th tooth which for some reason was complete drama! He howled and cried even though the tooth hung on by a thread for a week! We finally got tired of it (it was sticking straight out of his mouth and looked like a hillbilly) and yanked it out. He cried far more about the THOUGHT of the tooth being ripped out than it hurting at all.

I stopped to take some pics after the tooth came out, and couldn't get the boys to give me a decent pose. These pictures are the best I could get.

Panther, our black cat died while I was in Canada in August. We don't know for sure why - though he was older, overweight and had we think arthritis in one leg. Anyway -it was sad that I wasn't there since I was the only family member that Panther would really trust.

That's all the updates for now on our little family - I have lots of other adventures to write about in later blogs.......

Church/Iglesia

I'm sure a few of my church friends in Canada are wondering about Church here in Mexico.

Let's see.... where to start. Well, the people are absolutely wonderful. We have been welcomed here with open arms - no clicks ( that I can tell) or negative feelings at all - not that I expected any, but literally everyone at church makes a point EVERY Sunday to say, "Buenos Dias Hermana" with a gigantic smile on their face. You truly feel welcome here. They are so enthusiastic, they often forget that I don't understand, and the children who go to a bilingual school (that we may send Colby to) are anxious to show off their English skills - until we ask them a question, then they panic a little - they weren't ready for that!! Then they give up and speak spanish at full speed. My response, "Uhhhhh.... lo siento, no entiendo." (Sorry, I don't understand)

There are a few men in the ward who speak English fairly well, so they often check in with us and update us on announcements, etc. that we almost asuredly missed. Most importantly, our Obispo (Bishop) speaks some English, enough that we can communicate. He used to live in the US, but is out of practice, so he's forgotten some vocabulary. Bill actually does really well with his Spanish, I'm still catching snipets here and there. None of the active women speak any English, but they want to learn, they told me, in spanish of course, we should do a class and teach each other. I'm all for it, I just need a few more basics before I tackle something like that.....

Contrary to what happens at some other barrios (wards), or so I hear, this barrio starts exactly right on time. Refreshing! Everything is done by the book. Fantastico! I actually understand Sunday School pretty well because I follow along in my English scriptures, so I know what they are talking about. I didn't bring my Joseph Smith book, so R.S is more difficult. They've asked me to pray (oracion) twice. The first time I finished the prayer and no one moved, so I had to say 'amen' the way they do so they would recognize it. The second time I knew how to end the prayer so they would know it was over. It made me giggle a little. Tells me just how little English they recognize, and how much I have to learn.

The other cool thing, I think, is that for 8 months, this little barrio didn't have any missionaries serving in their area. None. The week after we came back, the Mission Pres. announced in Sac. meeting that he felt impressed to once again place Elders here. Hmmm interesting. Fortunately for us, one of the Elders is from California, and helps us with translating. He's even gone to Primary with my boys to help them understand what's going on, especially the first 2 weeks.

Everyone brings their own hymn books here. There are no hymn books in the building. So every Sunday, one of the members gives us theirs to use - and the really nice part- it's always someone different. We HAVE to take to time to go back to Veracruz to the distribution center to get a few things......

The building only has AC in the main chapel/multipurpose area. The chapel doesn't have fixed benches, but stacking chairs. The pulpit is a very narrow area that will only hold, maybe 10 people along the wall, but it is raised. The congregation area has 4 folding curtain thingys (like at home) that close at a corner to make 2 classrooms in that same space. So after Sac. meeting, the men start moving chairs to one classrom for Sunday school. The rest of the building has I think about 6 classrooms then some offices, none of which have AC. R.S. meets at the oposite end, and there is a VERY small kitchen.(and yes the men get the AC for that hour!) There is no gym/multipurpose room, but outside behind the chapel is an outdoor concrete pad with basketball hoops and volleyball posts. The whole property is gated, so you can't even park in the parking lot if the church isn't open. The parking lot is also tiny. Maybe 10 cars can park in there, but it is never full. Most people walk or bus to church. I think I've only seen 6 or 7 cars in the parking lot on Sunday. Now having described all this to you, it is clean, well kept and maintained. They are proud of their building and church, much like a child showing off his stick people drawing as if it was Picasso. The good kind of pride. For many of them it is the nicest place for them to be and perhaps their only chance to have any AC all week. They are rich in spirit, they don't look miserable when life is tough, they are truly happy to be at church and to be blessed by the spirit there. I love these people already.

Sorry I don't have any pictures, next activity I will take a few pictures.....

No - I'm not Wright all the time :)

Ok, so I'm not trying to say that the way we live our life is the 'right' way -it just seemed like a cute play on words - especially since we are embarking on a grand adventure!

For our friends who are reading this blog because we invited you to, you already know we are moving to Mexico as a family. Now the rest of you know too. What many of you don't know is that move is now 2 weeks away - Yikes!

Ok, so here's a brief history to get you up to speed. Almost 2 years ago, my husband Bill came to me with this hair-brained (I thought) idea to buy land in Mexico (like swampland in Florida) and build a resort with a friend and soon-to-be partner, Carlos Ponce. My husband is a natural-born entrepreneur, but had yet to find something to build his life on. He wanted to fly to Mexico to check out the land- I made him take me. As it turned out - I felt inspired to not only go along, but encourage the endeavor. Bill did his homework, made sure everything was legal, binding, etc. We were on the road to building his dream. http://www.oasisincmx.com/

Fast forward through struggles, sacrifice and frustration to today. Bill has been living full-time in Mexico since April 3, 2008 and is desperately missing his family. We will be joining him in 2 weeks - ending his lonliness, and beginning a new life with new challenges for the rest of us.

Bill has forged ahead to find us a home to rent while ours is being built. He got furniture ( that's another topic for later) and set up AIR CONDITIONING. A bit of a luxury here - an absolute must for us fair-skinned folk there! This has helped build the excitement for me. Previous to having a home to move into - I was dragging my feet a little. I mean, it's difficult enough to leave all your friends and family to move to a place where you don't have any friends (other than our partner and his wife) and can't even speak the language- let alone move to an unknown address. So now we have a home twice as big as our current one -I can already imagine the ability to breathe and stretch my arms!

This isn't the first time Bill has pulled me away from family and friends to move to a place where I had no one and couldn't speak the language. When we were first married- we moved to Quebec. Yes -technically the same country- but if you have ever been there- it really isn't. I did have some rudimentry French before I arrived thanks to years of French classes in school, but when someone rattles off something in their native tongue, it sounds nothing like your French teacher.

Before you go feeling scared and sorry for me - hold up. I am blessed with a talent for making instant friends easily. Well, I don't really know if it's a talent so much as being oblivious to whether someone else wants to be my friend. So I know I will have new friends very quickly. In addition, thanks to technology today - I will be able to keep in touch with my girls (and guys) back in Canada. Our home sales happen primarily in Canada and US - so we'll be back often. Finally -Mexico - I mean really -any of our friends looking for a vacation (especially in the frigid cold winter) will likely think of perhaps visiting their old friends who will always have a place to stay.

I have also been blessed with the ability to learn a second -and now third language. I did learn to speak and understand French very well (though I did not get to be fully bilingual) and I expect to do the same in Mexico. It will be a challenge- but challenges have never bothered me. I like them- they make me a better person. I just don't like a lot of them at the same time.

Anyway - so now we have 2 weeks to pack up our lives - sell or store anything that won't fit in our suitcases and fly to a foreign country. Thankfully we have always been excited about moving to Mexico in front of them -so that's exactly how they feel. They either don't see the negative side, or don't want to show it since we are so excited. There will be a big adjustment once we arrive and in the coming months.

So this blog I started for all of the wonderful friends who want to keep in touch. There is only one me - and I don't want to spend my days in front of the computer. Here you will all get the updates if you want them.

Time to bet back to packing - Life is a great adventure!