Platanitos!!!!

Saturday and Sunday we spent in Platanitos with our friends Richard and Lindsey. What a great time we had. I think we must have swam for a grand total of about 10 hours. We had ceviche, enjoyed the sunsets, met a nice Canadian couple(friends of R&L's) and watched the kids on the beach go out in the banana boat. Enjoy the photos. (Notice especially my lovely wife with the hyacinth in her hair that I picked for her.)

A rose by any other name?

Picked these from one of our rosebushes in front of our driveway today. Not much else to report. We are off to Platinitos for the weekend on Saturday!!! Swimming and eating too much(also drinking too much! LOL!) Last trip for the year until Richard and Lindsay come back for the fall. Friends, water(pool), food, beer. Life is good!!

Mexican port workers getting greedy.

Today there were 4 huge cruise ships at the ports. I have been told it was build to handle 2. Walmart was FILLED with cruisers. One of the cruise ships must have been from Japan because there were tons of Japonese in there also. Makes one wonder what will happen if this occurs on a regular basis. Will their greediness ruin the port? I guess we will have to wait and see.

BDay party/fiesta!!!

Our long time friend Angeles turned 3 today. Her parents had a big blow out party. With clowns, pinatas, cake, pizza, hot dogs& hamburgers. Angeles is the closest thing Oscar has to a girlfriend so I always tease him that she is his novia/girlfriend. All of God's children are beautiful at that age huh??? Oh to be three again with not a care in this world.

We finally have our OWN electricity!!!

Well after many many months of waiting and going down to the local C&F(electricity) offices to bug them about where/when we will get it, we FINALLY have our own electricity. We were borrowing it from our neighbor before. Luckily people here in Mexico know how hard it is to obtain things like electicity, phone, water so they are usually more than helpful if you need to use thiers. Most of these are owned by the Mexican government, I guess that is why they are so slooooow and so inefficient and run by crooks!!! Anyway here is a photo of our electrical hook up. Notice the nice big black electrical tape used to connect the wiring together. Very professional!!LOL!!

Fin de Semana!!! The weekend!!!

After a hard week of work we deserve a night out, so I took Leti and Oscar to a restaurant on the beach. I had the prawns and Leti enjoyed the shrimp enchiladas. No liquor tonight(at least at the restaurant) they want around $3 per beer and $7.50 for well drinks. Don't they know this is Mexico? Ladrones!!(Thieves!) Oh and the photo of Leti alone is to show how nicely she is showing now.(Although that might not have been the best pose to do so.)
We went to a place called Aduato's Beach Club(ABC) on the north end of Bucerias which I would not go to again. The food was OK but overpriced for what you get.(Typical of a beach restaurant.) Awesome views though and as you can see our table was almost right overtop of the water.

Shell of my former self. . or should that be the other way around? :)

For those of you that knew me back in the late 80s and early 90s you know about my body building career. Yes I said bodybuilding career. That was 2 lifetimes ago. LOL!!! Anyway upon doing internet research on my name I found this on the internet listing my biggest contest I won. Go to:
http://www.musclememory.com/show.php?o=Teen+Mr+America+-+AAU
and scroll down to the year 1989 and there I am. Cool huh? It only lists one of my 3 wins but oh well. Bet you never knew your cyberhost was so diverse. Professional trainer, nutritionist and Gym manager. By the way that photo is not me, it is a professional bodybuilder I used to like a lot in the late 80's named Shawn Ray. Let's get pumping kiddies!!

This one is just for Dad!

Today one of my banana tree leaves fell off of the tree unexpectedly. Since my Dad is an expert banana tree grower (you should have seen the one he grew in his house in about 1 years time!) I thought I would take this photo and show it to him so he could see how big the leaves on the banana trees get here. Sorry the photo does not show the ground well. It is all the way to the ground. And this is one of the smaller trees!! I've seen some leaves three times this size here. Wish I could mail this one to you Dad so you could wrap up some fish in it and have steamed fish. Yummmmm!!!

Easter . . .

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter. We did not want to fight the crowd at an Easter service so I downloaded a sermon on my computer and listened at home instead. Then we packed up the car, took an hour ride to Monteon(Where Leti's sister lives) and went to a beach hut they had there. We have been to this beach before and there was only one or two other couples on it. This time there were hundreds of families there. The semana santa weekend usually packs the beaches I am told. Our accomidations were great though. We had a palapa hut, complete with swing for the kids and BBQ pit. And lots of beer and tequila. (Oh and the photo of the little girl is Leti's niece- they call her "Flaca" which means skinny)

Holiday. . .

With Semana Santa here we decided to close up shop on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and our normal day Sunday and have a nice holiday. Yesterday we went to the beach again all day. I enjoyed beers and shrimp tacos and shrimp burritos, Leti had Pepsi and shrimp empenadas. The beach is PACKED now with Semana Santa in full swing. It is almost like going to the beaches in the states on the weekends. Except you can BBQ, drink out of glass bottles and set up tents and sleep over if you want to. There were a ton of sailboats out as well as para-sailors, surfers, and jet-skiers. We had a good time. Don't laugh at the photos of me (especially my midsection!!)
Speaking of Holiday's I see good old Me. Bean has a new movie out. It is called Mr. Bean's Holiday. If you like Mr. Bean or English humor this is sure to be a belly holder. I hope it is better than his last full length movie though.

Good Start to Semana Santa

Today Oscar and I walked to the beach again to spend the day. We had fun. Spent about 6 hours there(with no sunblock-heaven help our skin!!!) Then we ate ceviche de sierra and sodas at a beach side vendor.(ceviche for those of you who don't know is a raw fish dish that is marinated in lime and other juices. Those juices sort of cook the fish. It is REALLY tasty) They were selling oysters too that they had JUST caught(like 5 minutes ago)but I am not an oyster fan. The locals here love fresh oysters so they were lined up for them. While eating we watched a couple on water skis and(a new one for me) a man in a flying parachute kite type thing with a HUGE fan on the back. He actually flew down the beach with it about 60-70 feet up. Then we made the 10 block trip home on foot. Maybe next time we'll take a taxi. The Mexican sun is blistering in the afternoon.
Oh and here are some photos of a couple of things for the house we bought yesterday. Have a great one!!

2nd Blog of the day. . . .

A steaming plate of homemade lasagna(made by yours truly-the Italian sausage find here was GREAT!)
A warm piece of garlic bread.
A FULL bottle of Cabernegh Savegnon(soon to be NOT full)
Life is Good!!!

Lazy Sunday. . .

Not much going on today. Went to the English speaking church service that is in the Hotel at Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta(about 10 minutes away) this morning for Palm Sunday. Then on the way home went to the Mexican flea market and bought some fresh vegetables(very cheap) and a DVD for Oscar(a crap shoot if they will work but they are only $2 each and usually you can return it the next week to the same vendor.) It did not work, I will return it! This afternoon I have a treat for myself. I bought some Italian sausage(see my blog a few days back) and some red wine and am going to make home made lasagna. I really miss that. My Grandfather, Father and Mother all make OUT OF THIS WORLD home made lasagna. I'll let you know how mine turns out. Salud! Cheers! Happy Palm Sunday!!
I have included a photo I took of the hotel Paradise Village where the church service was this morning.(Well not in THIS building but close) Also one of Leti and I (that is pretty old actually) in her fathers house. It was hot and we had on swim suits.