The New Year

The end of 2006 has been spent with some of the family and a few friends from the U.S. and Mexico. Emily and Luke have left for their grand bus tour of Mexico, Manuel arrived from San Luis Potosi for a 3 week stay, cousin Sharon from Philadelphia spent 8 days with us, and old neighborhood St. Louis Park friends were in town through the New Year. Here we are laughing it up at Tonita I on the beach.




Manuel cooked up a breakfast feast for us one morning: guacamole, fresh squeezed orange juice, refried beans, Mexican eggs, fresh tortillas, nopal cactus (the plant is threatened by a moth near Cancun, which if uncontrolled could devastate this cactus in Mexico), and fresh papaya and mangoes. Outrageously delicious and healthy!

This is a great restaurant called Pineda located on the bay in Guayabitos overlooking the water with a lovely view of the mountains behind the town. The seafood is excellent. The man is about to cut open a bull fish.

New Year's Eve was spent at a buffet and dance at El Tiburon on the beach with JaQui and the Perez Brothers performing their great songs. A memorable night was spent with our Minnesota friends, Manuel and Sharon. At midnight we watched from our front door, a good fireworks display being set up at the beach.


One afternoon strolling the avenue in La Penita we saw the most adorable puppy in the world and had to have a photo of this little thing that looked like a toy animal.

This puppy was so cute it made me wish I had a kitten now, but we will have to wait. We just don't feel settled enough to take on the responsibility of a pet, but some day in the future a kitten will be living here with us. It will come in handy when there are more bugs, etc. to be caught.

With the holidays over and company leaving, it will be time to get back into studying Spanish more intensively by getting back to classes, and using my Berlitz computer program.

The weather continues to be "perfect", temps around 80 and low humidity, comfortable sleeping at night with only a sheet and light blanket at times. One night it rained quite hard and was rainy off and on most of the day but the garbage man said it probably won't rain anymore. Just sunny or partly cloudy days until June...unbelievable, when you think about the typical Minnesota weather we lived with for so long. But I do like the Minnesota seasons, especially a pretty snowfall with big giant snowflakes and the colors of a Minnesota autumn.
I hope the New Year is one of good health and happiness for all of you.