It finally happened...

Our first (and hopefully last) scorpion sting. Riley came down last night at about 9:30pm to inform us he had just been stung by a scorpion that had gotten in his bed. He said it felt like a thorn went into his leg and he looked down and saw it scamper away. (There is probably a better word to describe the way a scorpion quickly crawls, but scamper is all I can think of). He said it didn't hurt any worse than a bee sting and after about an hour it didn't hurt at all. We kept him up for a while to watch him and make sure he didn't have any reaction to it. He seemed fine. He had a hard time going back to bed, though. I don't blame him. Dave and I were a little freaked out ourselves. We're getting the house sprayed ASAP.

Street sign Rehab

Before we left our old house, we did a little service project for our neighborhood. A median nearby had been set on fire to control the weeds, but they didn't bother to protect the street sign. It was uprooted and burned, therefore useless. Dave decided we should leave our mark on our little Riberas community.

We sanded.

Painted.

And re-stenciled the street names.

Then the Dave and kids went took it down the street for reinsertion. A nearby construction worker noticed their project, helped them out and promised to fill the base with concrete the next day, which he did. Another testament to the kindness of the Mexican people.

If you're ever in this part of Ajijic, you can find "The Reeds" on the back of this beautiful, "new" street sign.

Jane's 9th Birthday!

I love how excited my kids get on their birthdays...and Jane was no exception. She was happy the whole day, nice to everyone and even cleared her place after every meal. I don't overly spoil my kids on their birthdays. They only get a few presents, always a pinata and their choice of foods and cake, but I do try to make it their special day. But Jane's choices even got taken away some, since we have no oven. She wanted German Pancakes for breakfast, but had to pick crepes instead. No homemade key lime pie, not-so-good cheesecake and popsicles instead.
She couldn't even find the penguin pinata she wanted, so picked a Pooh Bear one. But instead of whining or being sad she hugged it and everyone in sight.

That is until she knocked the head off her pinata!

Dave and I couldn't find anything really good to get her here, so she got a gift certificate. I thought that was boring, so I made a scavenger hunt to lead her to her email where she would find her present.

I think it's funny that she's all sweaty in this picture from doing her scavenger hunt.

Happy Birthday Jane, we love you! You're a great 9 year old!

What we did this week...

This week was much more enjoyable compared to the last few. Thanks to Dave. I did some much needed relaxing and got some chores and errands out of the way too. I read, suntanned, shopped, went to a doctor's appointment, got a pedicure and a crazy-short haircut. I will not be posting any pictures of myself, but this is what I was going for.

Turns out, not the best cut for me. Good thing hair grows.

The kids and I did some other fun things in the house including...

Playing games.

Picking flowers and finding bugs in the yard.

Making cakes and other sweets. This cake was made by Dave on the BBQ since our oven still doesn't work.

We also swam a lot, played video games and watched movies (so what else is new?).

We also made an activity jar, full of things we don't normally think of doing, for those bored moments.

I could slowly feel my sanity return and I was much more patient with the kids even when they wanted to watch more SpongeBob.

But I won't volunteer to keep them home another week, that is a promise.

Happy Mother's Day

After having an unbelievably bad Friday and Saturday (of my own making, by the way), Dave and the kids gave me a great, relaxing Mother's Day.

It didn't start quite as well as it ended. I woke up at 2:30 a.m., not to breakfast in bed, but a mariachi band literally next door blasting some song in Spanish. I don't know if this was a serenade to a mother or just a band practicing. But again at 6:30 a.m.-- still not breakfast, but more loud music. Again at 8am....this time to breakfast and homemade Mother's Day cards. This is the first year that I slept in till it was brought to me. Usually 5 people making breakfast wakes me up. That's when my good day started. And I thought Dave had forgotten.

We had no church, due to the flu, so I lazed in bed reading till 10:30.

For a while the kids and I made a mess doing paper mache flowers like these. (Ours aren't finished yet). Dave cleaned it up.

For lunch I ate leftover ceviche, my favorite.

More reading and lazing.

I made dinner, but only because I wanted to. Dave and the kids did dishes.

Presents from Dave. Including Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream all for myself, that costs about $10 for a pint here.

The best thing of all was Dave made me a schedule for the coming week that included 3 or 4 hours of me-time every day. It changed the week I was dreading into a week to look forward to. My bad Friday and Saturday had mostly consisted of me losing it because I've been taking care of kids nonstop for almost a month, and I couldn't handle the thought of another week.

I am so lucky to have such a thoughtful husband and sweet kids that forgive me for my many bad days. I feel like I can do it now.

What a week!...

Exciting and utterly boring at the same time. As most of you know there is a severe swine flu outbreak in Mexico. Luckily there is not a single confirmed case in the whole state of Jalisco (our state). But the federal government has closed school until May 6th, so far, and most public events, activities are closed. Movie theaters, gyms, sporting events, some restaurants, etc. This leaves next to nothing for bored kids to do, except watch t.v. and play video games and boy, have we worn those out. Bought a new board game, new movies and even moved to a new house, but none of that has alleviated the boredom. We've let the kids take the occasional walk to a nearby 7-11 and get some ice cream, but other than that they have not left the house (or houses) for almost a week.

We moved on Wednesday to a house about 20 minutes away from our previous one. It's in a small town called San Juan Cosala. The house is not outstanding, but does have some endearing features. We'll miss the park in our front yard and how close we were to school and church, but we like some of these differences:

Whole-house purified water. No brushing our teeth from a cup.
Big room for Riley and Charlie.
Normal sized refrigerator.
New town to get to know.
Within walking distance of the plaza and small abarrote (grocery).
Nice office for Dave, far away from kid noise.

Some pics of the new house.




Hope we have something more exciting to report next week.