A Visit to Cancun

Sr B's sister and her friend have come to visit for a couple of weeks. This is their first time to Mexico. On Tuesday we took the ADO to Cancun and met them at the airport. They wanted to do a few touristy things so we booked 3 nights at the Real Inn.

The Real is a fairly new hotel. Sr B thought it was a year or two old. It's not an all inclusive and it's on the lagoon side but, still, it was quite nice and at $80 a night, very affordable. No beach access but it had a very nice pool as well as a gym for those who want to keep up their fitness routine while on holidays. Since none of us are gym rats, we didn't take the time to check it out so I can't offer up an opinion on it. For breakfast, you have your choice of buffet or ordering from the menu. I believe the buffet is 230 pesos. Ordering off the menu makes breakfast much more affordable. Breakfast service was incredibly slow...over an hour from the time we sat down to when we left, so if you're in a hurry to start your day, you might want to consider the buffet. Supper had much better service and since we didn't eat lunch there, I can't comment on it. Overall, the food was adequate...not spectacular but certainly edible. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of anything.

We decided to spend the first day at Isla Mujeres. Tootled around on the golf cart and showed the girls the sights. We stopped at the turtle research place, which they just loved. You could purchase a small bag of food and, as you can see in the pic below, the seagulls like the food as much as the turtles do.

There was an aquarium building with various stages of turtles, from babies to adolescents. No pics of them but I did get a few of some of the cool creatures in various tanks.

Lobster looking critter.

Seahorse wrapped around...I forget, but I don't believe it's another critter. I think it's a plant of some sort.

Check out the really ugly fish on the sand.

This is the southern tip of Isla. There is a walking path with cool architectural structures in it. There is also a little al fresco restaurant that we always stop at for a drink and sometimes a light meal.

After we got back, we did the Captain Hook pirate ship adventure. As always, the entertainment was great and the meal superb. The girls had a blast.

The next day, yesterday, the girls had booked a swim with the dolphins activity. It was a rainy day so Sr B and I hung out at the hotel. The girls joined us after they got back and we all just relaxed.

Today we made the trek back to Progreso via the ADO. They use some sort of air freshener that smells really awful. It makes me nauseous and all I can think about for the whole 4 hours is, "Don't throw up. Don't throw up." It makes for a very long trip. I might have to consider taking Gravol in the future.

So there you have it. With pictures to boot. Now I just have to figure out how to upload more than one picture at a time into my Picasa Web Album.

Quick Catch Up

Holy moley, it's been hot! Sr B and I have been hibernating inside. But since it's not snowy, would it be called reverse hibernating? Hmmm...

I'm not a water person so it has to be pretty hot before I'll go in the pool. I've been in the pool every day.

Of our 3 air conditioners, only one is working. Fortunately, it's the one in our room so we're able to cool the room down before we go to bed. We have a floor fan in the living room that's working well enough. It certainly keeps the mosquitoes off the upper body. The legs? Not so much. I've easily got a dozen bites on my legs. I've been spraying down with OFF but it's doesn't seem to be working very well. I might have to pull out the toxic big guns again and buy some Autan. *cough choke*

Today we had to venture out to get a few groceries and after we got uptown I realized I'd forgotten my camera! Doh! I think I finally have my photo posting issues figured out so hopefully I can post pics this trip.

The neighbours across the back alley are having a party. They're a couple houses down but it sounds like they're right outside our window. I'm enjoying their taste in music but it's going to make it hard to sleep tonight.  Hopefully it doesn't go too late.

We were the first of the snowbird group to arrive this year, for a change. It was kind of weird being here with no one else around. Another couple arrived Thursday and the rest are coming within the next week or so.

Sr B's sister and her friend are coming next week and staying with us for a couple of weeks. They've never been to Mexico. I'm excited to show them our little corner of paradise.

And that's it. We haven't been up to anything of note but I figured I'd better touch base for my readers at home.

Adios, My Friend

We arrived to our condo safe and sound despite the awful turbulence near Houston, thanks to the winds from Hurricane Patricia. The up and down roller coaster ride was bad enough but the worst was when the wind caught the underneath of the wing and lifted the plane sideways. I thought the plane was going to flip over. I've never been so scared in all my life.

Today was Liz's funeral. It's still hard to believe she's gone. I keep expecting her to show up at the front door with her cheery "Hola!" and a dish of food. She was an amazing cook and often stopped by with some delicious creation.

Liz was like the big sister I never had. I will miss her humour, her wisdom, her knowledge and her devil-may-care attitude. Liz treated everyone with love and respect. She was very giving, never expecting anything in return. I learned much from her about life in Mexico and life in general.

RIP dear, sweet Liz. I will miss you forever.

Sad Homecoming

Yesterday we learned that Liz, our neighbour and dear friend in Mexico, passed away suddenly. We're heartbroken and it's taken away much of the joy of returning to Progreso.

But our sadness can't be anything like what her husband must be feeling. He has lost the love of his life. It was obvious, in many ways, that he adored her. For reasons I won't go into here, I'm truly concerned for him.

Please keep Marty in your thoughts (and prayers, if you're so inclined).

Seven More Sleeps...

...And we'll be back in Progreso! Oct 25th. One more week! For the full winter! omgosh, I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!! Looking forward to reconnecting with everyone. Hopefully we have a decent internet connection this time.

Snoopy pinched from Google

Nope. I Haven't Fallen off the Planet

So we did make it down this past March but our internet was still a bit spotty. We brought down new devices this trip and some extensive pruning of trees that was blocking the routers (or something related to the signal) made for a better connection but, you know, I was so fed up and disheartened from November's fiasco that I just didn't have the fortitude to try to post anything. Too often, I'd have a post typed up and then it wouldn't post.

So I guess I'll do a bit of a catch up. I'll try not to make it a novel.

I was reading through the last few posts to see what I'd written and I realized that I never updated on the baby status from March last year. We made it home about a week before Baby was born. We received another g'daughter who is now almost 14 months old. This is g'child #5. The girls are the bookends, one on each end, with the 3 boys in the middle. It's sure been nice to be able to buy pink, frilly things again. The eldest g'daughter is almost 15. Pink and frilly just doesn't cut it with her anymore...lol.

The first 2 weeks in December saw my mom, sister and brother-in-law come for a visit. Mom came down with my sister and hubby who stayed for a week. Two weeks later, she flew back with us. It was her first time out of Canada, never mind going to somewhere tropical! Mom has always been a real roadrunner, zooming along wherever she went. But she's been having some leg problems and so she wasn't able to walk very far. I knew she wasn't as spry as she once was but I was surprised to see how far she'd declined. (I live almost 6 hours from my home town so I don't see Mom often). She was very frustrated but we did the best we could. Some of the plans we'd made had to be nixed which was unfortunate.

We all went to Uxmal but she could hardly make it up the walkway that opens up into the grounds. We'd had the foresight to bring a fold up chair with us so she and I hung out in the shade while the others toured the site. Even though she couldn't walk around, she enjoyed seeing the little bit that she could. She was amazed at the size of the Pyramid of the Magician.

We spent a lot of time down at the beach, which she really enjoyed. She grew up in the Maritimes so it reminded her of that.

Her birthday is in December so I arranged a little pot luck party for her. She was so thrilled to be able to celebrate her birthday without snow.

Sr B retired the end of Feb. We're now officially retired old f*rts. Woo Hoo!!!! The team that he worked with hired a limo to pick me up at our house and drive me out to the worksite. After a small farewell party, the limo took us home. They had even supplied some adult beverages for the ride home as well as a fabulous food basket. What a great group!

We headed back to Progreso the beginning of March, planning on staying for 5 weeks. Sr B's mom had been failing since the fall and we hemmed and hawed about whether or not to come down. We decided we couldn't put our lives on hold so we made the trip, knowing there was chance we might have to come home early. We did. His mom passed away 2 weeks before our scheduled return.

United Airlines charged us $200 per person, per leg, to change our flight time! Cancun to Houston and then Houston to our home airport. Eight hundred dollars it cost us!! It's bleeping obscene! We're not sure if we can get any of that back due to bereavement. We're still waiting for a copy of the death certificate.

Sr B had arthroscopic surgery on his knees 3 weeks ago to remove some arthritic debris. His surgeon, the same one who did his shoulder a year and a half ago, said he would need new knees eventually. Good grief! He's still in some pain but he's back golfing so he's a happy man...lol.

Oh, hey! We finally got ourselves a Mexican cell phone! We hadn't really needed one before but, after a few inconveniences in November/December, we decided to spring for one. I haven't completely figured it out but the writing on it is in English so it'll just take some time.
Ok. I promised not to write a novel so this is...

THE END

We're Here!!

Mercy! We thought we had a bad internet connection in March. It's almost non-existent now. We've been here since the 30th of Oct and this is the first time I've been able to get online. I brought my iPhone with me, mainly because we live hours away from our home airport and I feel safer with it in case of an accident. (How did we manage before cell phones?) It has been the only way we've been able to stay in touch with our kids. On the plus side, I`ve been forced to learn how to do things with it that I didn`t know how before. Dinosaur that I am, I pretty much just use it for texting and sending pictures. A few apps would make it much more useful down here. Oh well. It`s sufficient for now.

Great news! For us anyways. Not so much for our neighbour across the back. He had a couple of trees that had grown so large they blocked our view of the Gulf. Apparently, he had a break-in this summer and decided to install an alarm system along the top of his fence. It looks like an electric fence and has 5 strands of wire. In order to do this, he had to cut down both of those trees. I tried to post before and after pics, but they won't download.

The mosquitoes have been more present than usual. I've given up trying to kill them before going to bed and in the middle of the night when the sneaky little bleepers decide to have midnight lunch. Now I simply hose myself down with OFF and call it a night. I often use it during the day, as well, and I've used a ridiculous amount since we've been here but the other option is to lose sleep and/or get chewed alive and risk dengue. I don't like using so much of it, but the few bites I've received have swollen and been really itchy. Not to the epic proportions that they did when we first started coming down, but more than they did on our last trip. Sometimes a chemical intervention is necessary.

If any of my readers know of any Remembrance Day services in either Progreso or Chixulub, could you please drop me an email? thebts2000 AT yahoo DOT ca. If you reply here, I may not see it but I can access email with my phone, so that's the best place. The gentleman who normally arranges it isn't here at this time. Thanks bunches.

And that's about it. Hopefully I can post sooner than in another week. Maybe even add some photos.