Hola Amigos,
Have you got your Christmas decorating done yet? Are all of your gifts wrapped and sent? Annual Christmas letter written and addressed and stamped? ..... Me neither!!! I must admit that we're rather lazy about decorating. I haven't sent "regular" Christmas cards out since we moved to Baja, so if you're looking for one from us in your mailbox, you can quit looking now! For my "gifting" this year, I had a variety of flannel material just sitting around in boxes, so I decided to make a quilt for a needy Mexican family. Our church has started a food program called "Pan de Vida", or bread of life, where we provide the funds for a reliable and responsible Mexican family to buy a weeks' worth of staples for needy families in the area. The families are provided with rice, beans, flour, oil, and milk, and they are all very grateful. At this time of year, we add clothing, sheets, towels and blankets. Here's a shot of the blanket I finished yesterday.
You
can see from this photo, taken this Monday morning, that the weather is
still very nice, although we've had a few cloudy days. And it does get
cool at night, so I'm sure this little blanket will be appreciated by
some little person! I still have more fabric, so I might be able to put
together another one before Christmas....maybe!
Ben was able to get a hold of our carport contractor the other day. They've got a few things to finish up, and have been pretty scarce! He sent over a worker to install our gargoyle drains, and maybe now we can get some paint on the thing! We weren't able to find any matching what we have on the original house, so we ended up with these....
They're cute and fun.
And
we've come across so "real" iguanas lately. Ben scared one when he
lifted the lid on the propane tank to check the gas levels. He was
probably at least 1 foot long. We often see them lounging on top of the
tall cacti just beyond our fence in the photo above.
We visited some friends this weekend to check out their latest solar project. They built a swimming pool several years ago, and have installed solar water heaters on their roof. They also have a solar water heater for their household use. This time, they're installing panels that will provide electricity to their house, and will eventually feed back to the grid and lower their bill even more! We like that idea, and hope to do a project like that in the not too distant future.
Our
friend Paul claims that these panels are guaranteed to stay on the roof
with winds up to 170mph. (We do get hurricanes here)! I imagine we
would put something like this up on the guest bedroom roof, so when you
come visit us, you wouldn't even notice them.
Ben had an interesting experience in La Paz last week. Just when you think its safe to drive our 2006 truck, the serpentine belt breaks! At least he was in La Paz when it happened, and not out in the mountains on the way to or from La Paz! He had our interpreter friend Dalia with him, and she was due to a dentist appointment at 5pm, but the belt broke just before that. She missed her appointment while calling a tow truck and riding along to the Ford dealer. She was able to reschedule it for the next day, because she was already planning on spending the night with her niece there and catching the bus back to Los Barriles later that week. 5pm was too late for Ford to find a belt that day, so they said call back around 11am the next day. Ben found a nice restaurant and hotel room (he had no suitcase, no toothbrush or comb, no contact solution!) and spent the night, and says the La Paz taxi services are great, and relatively inexpensive. (Ben really misses you not living here, Barb!!!) Fortunately, we do have cell phones now so he was able to call me and let me know what was going on. The next day he called Ford and they said "we can't find a part in town. We've even called Tijuana...." At that point, he and Dalia went to the biggest parts house in La Paz, and yes, he had the part. Ford doesn't buy from them because they don't extend credit! GRRRRRRR! Ben paid for the part, and they promised to deliver. They did, eventually, and Ben was able to get home...long after dark, but safe. In the meantime, poor Dalia had two dentist appointments that day; one in the morning for the dentist to examine her, and one in the afternoon to pull her tooth! Ouch! And believe it or not, Ben wants to go back to La Paz this Wednesday! At least he knows where the parts house is located!!!
So, we always look for the silver lining, and on Monday night, it was just over the hills!
More photos are posted in our December 2012 album.
Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey
Have you got your Christmas decorating done yet? Are all of your gifts wrapped and sent? Annual Christmas letter written and addressed and stamped? ..... Me neither!!! I must admit that we're rather lazy about decorating. I haven't sent "regular" Christmas cards out since we moved to Baja, so if you're looking for one from us in your mailbox, you can quit looking now! For my "gifting" this year, I had a variety of flannel material just sitting around in boxes, so I decided to make a quilt for a needy Mexican family. Our church has started a food program called "Pan de Vida", or bread of life, where we provide the funds for a reliable and responsible Mexican family to buy a weeks' worth of staples for needy families in the area. The families are provided with rice, beans, flour, oil, and milk, and they are all very grateful. At this time of year, we add clothing, sheets, towels and blankets. Here's a shot of the blanket I finished yesterday.
You
can see from this photo, taken this Monday morning, that the weather is
still very nice, although we've had a few cloudy days. And it does get
cool at night, so I'm sure this little blanket will be appreciated by
some little person! I still have more fabric, so I might be able to put
together another one before Christmas....maybe!Ben was able to get a hold of our carport contractor the other day. They've got a few things to finish up, and have been pretty scarce! He sent over a worker to install our gargoyle drains, and maybe now we can get some paint on the thing! We weren't able to find any matching what we have on the original house, so we ended up with these....
They're cute and fun.And
we've come across so "real" iguanas lately. Ben scared one when he
lifted the lid on the propane tank to check the gas levels. He was
probably at least 1 foot long. We often see them lounging on top of the
tall cacti just beyond our fence in the photo above.We visited some friends this weekend to check out their latest solar project. They built a swimming pool several years ago, and have installed solar water heaters on their roof. They also have a solar water heater for their household use. This time, they're installing panels that will provide electricity to their house, and will eventually feed back to the grid and lower their bill even more! We like that idea, and hope to do a project like that in the not too distant future.
Our
friend Paul claims that these panels are guaranteed to stay on the roof
with winds up to 170mph. (We do get hurricanes here)! I imagine we
would put something like this up on the guest bedroom roof, so when you
come visit us, you wouldn't even notice them.Ben had an interesting experience in La Paz last week. Just when you think its safe to drive our 2006 truck, the serpentine belt breaks! At least he was in La Paz when it happened, and not out in the mountains on the way to or from La Paz! He had our interpreter friend Dalia with him, and she was due to a dentist appointment at 5pm, but the belt broke just before that. She missed her appointment while calling a tow truck and riding along to the Ford dealer. She was able to reschedule it for the next day, because she was already planning on spending the night with her niece there and catching the bus back to Los Barriles later that week. 5pm was too late for Ford to find a belt that day, so they said call back around 11am the next day. Ben found a nice restaurant and hotel room (he had no suitcase, no toothbrush or comb, no contact solution!) and spent the night, and says the La Paz taxi services are great, and relatively inexpensive. (Ben really misses you not living here, Barb!!!) Fortunately, we do have cell phones now so he was able to call me and let me know what was going on. The next day he called Ford and they said "we can't find a part in town. We've even called Tijuana...." At that point, he and Dalia went to the biggest parts house in La Paz, and yes, he had the part. Ford doesn't buy from them because they don't extend credit! GRRRRRRR! Ben paid for the part, and they promised to deliver. They did, eventually, and Ben was able to get home...long after dark, but safe. In the meantime, poor Dalia had two dentist appointments that day; one in the morning for the dentist to examine her, and one in the afternoon to pull her tooth! Ouch! And believe it or not, Ben wants to go back to La Paz this Wednesday! At least he knows where the parts house is located!!!
So, we always look for the silver lining, and on Monday night, it was just over the hills!
More photos are posted in our December 2012 album. Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey
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