Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Pic-of-the--Week for November 26, 2013

Hola Amigos!

Well, here it is 11:20, and I finally have a few minutes to sit down and write our weekly report!  I remembered that it was Tuesday about 2 hours ago, but still had a few chores to do before I started this.  It's just a bit busier around here than usual with 2 toddlers (almost 2 and almost 4)!  Throw in a couple silly little dogs in the mix and it makes life even more interesting!  The boys like to get up at 6AM and have a bowl or two of Cheerios with milk, and another breakfast with the adults at about 9.  By then, it is almost time for Aaron's morning nap (Rebecca joined him today!) and some quiet time for David.  We changed the schedule a bit last Wednesday when we all went for a ride in the Model A Woody ... first time for David and Aaron in a car without car seats (let alone seat belts!)  I think they had a grand time practicing their parade waves!   Ryan drove the Model A Pickup, and the Revolution Day princesses rode in back.  He had the tough job!  (These photos were taken by someone else who had a really nice camera.  He chose a sepia / black and white theme for this photo).


Yesterday we went to the zoo in Santiago, which is just the right size for toddlers (small and not too many animals to see).    Plus it has a really nice playground structure that the boys enjoyed greatly.  





Aaron loves to push the stroller!   
The lioness roared really loudly while we were there!  She is very pretty in the sunshine...  same color hair as Aaron!

We've also walked on the beach and waded in the water and played in the sand and blew bubbles, all things that are hard to do in the Chicago area this time of year.  Other things the boys have done, especially Aaron, is find all things greasy ... he loves mechanical things, and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty! 




Future mechanic?  Could be!! 



 Let's see.... I got up on this thing all by myself.  Can I get down?  (Photo taken through a window).
What happens when I push this button, Uncle Ryan?  
This is a "Y", Zoey.  

As you can see, we have been a bit busy around here!  I have had a few quiet moments to add more photos to our November 2013 Picasa album.  I've even put captions on a lot of them.  

We hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving celebration this week.  We're having all our family (that's 7 of us) plus 4 guests.  Ben is going to smoke a turkey, and Rebecca and I will add pies and potatoes and all the other goodies that go with a proper Thanksgiving meal.  

Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey, AND Rebecca and Tim, David and Aaron!  




Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Pic-of-the-Week for November 19, 2013

Hola Amigos,
The daughter, son-in-law and grandsons arrived yesterday, so this week's post will be short!  Things are very busy around here!  The dogs are tired out already!!!  Aaron helped was the dinner dishes (he loves water!)

David played with some letter cards that were originally his Mom's when she was a little girl!  He loves letters!  

Ben went to another car show in La Paz this weekend.  He had a bit of trouble with the engine running too rich, so Ryan ran up on Sunday with another set of spark plugs for him to use.  He did with another prize, this one "Honor to whom honor is due".  He says he doesn't know who won top prize!  He has trouble following the Spanish! 
These girls are the twin daughters of Hector Manuel Amarillas, the car show organizer.  They are both excellent water polo players at university in La Paz.  

In the meantime, I stayed home and dog sat and worked on the quilt.  It's coming along slowly, although I'm still in the "design and decide" phase.  I can't believe I'm still cutting out a few more of the flower petals here and there, but that happens in this phase!  I do seem to have enough scraps that I can come up with the colors I like.  Here it is laid out on my bed as I decide what design looks best. Maybe I'll even get some input from Rebecca, since I'm making it for her new baby girl!  :-)

Oh...it rained one day last week.  It was completely unexpected... and it poured for several hours. Now the weeds will pop up for sure!  And after the rain storm, Ryan discovered this guy (gal?) in our courtyard.  A nice little baby tarantula, probably 2" long.  He transported him in this old jug to a field far away!  (Don't need the grandsons playing with it!!)
 

We've got a parade coming up this week in Los Barriles for Revolution Day November 20, if Ben can get the cars running good!  

There are a few more photos in our 2013 November Picasa album.   Suzie Johnson, I'd like you to look at the photo of the plant you gave us years ago that is starting to bloom, and let us know the name of it, please!

Hasta la proxima semana,
Harriet and Ben and ALL the rest!  

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Pic-of-the-Week for November 12, 2013

Hola Amigos,

Happy Veteran's Day to all you Veterans out there! (A day late!)

It is another beautiful sunny day here in Baja California Sur (BCS) and the morning temp is a comfortable 68.2F.  The low this morning was 61.5, so we're probably going to have to get out another blanket one of these days, or turn off the fan over the bed!  So far it is still real comfortable to just have a sheet over us at night.  We have had some windy days, but it should be calming down by the end of the week.  We're already seeing kite boarders whenever there is wind.  They are back early!  The water is still nice and warm for swimming or wading, though.  



Last Wednesday I was out for several hours in the morning, and when I got back home, Ben said he had something to show me.  He took me around the house, and there was our Neem tree, cut down.  What he wanted to show me is how well he calculated the cut... the falling tree just missed our loaded Papaya tree and the Bananas trees!  I was impressed! Oh, and he also missed our neighbor Peter's palapa roof!  That would have been nasty to poke a branch through there!!  We had talked about taking that tree out...it made nice shade, but the seeds were dropping everywhere and it was starting to block the upstairs view!   Those branches are now all in the pickup, waiting to be hauled away. (He took the previous load last Tuesday, so there was space again!)  He did this all with a nice sharp hand saw and clippers.


One thing we discovered when we got home this fall is that our new palapa in the courtyard has Powder Post Beetle.  Phooey!  Fair amounts of sawdust were on the counter and some of the posts.  We managed to find a spray guy, and he did the job last week.  He guarantees his work, so we're hoping for the best.  Here's a shot through our kitchen window of one of the fellows spraying the Boric acid.  


Next week is the November 20 parade here in Los Barriles.  The street crews are getting the parade route cleaned up....the street sweepers were out!  If you give enough guys brooms and shovels, the job gets done!  The rains wash dirt and sand into the streets, and water flows downhill, so there were big piles at the bottom!  They sweep the dirt into piles, and shovel it by hand into a dump truck.  Mexicans are hard workers! 



This next weekend, Ben will be taking one of his Model A's to the Autumn car show in La Paz.  I'll probably stay home because I have a piano to play on Sunday morning at church!  Since most of the choir members just arrived in town, I should probably be there for them!  It has been fun seeing the photos that our friend Hector Manuel Amarillas has been posting on Facebook.  Here's one he posted from the a parade we were in a few years ago, maybe the first time we took the '28 Martin Parry / Ford Model A.  There is Ben driving, Harriet in the front seat behind the sign, and Ryan waving.  I think we had two or three other passengers as well!  (Our car painter's wife and son, maybe?)


Then on Monday morning, after Ben loads the Model A on the trailer and hauls it back from La Paz, Rebecca and family are arriving in San Jose in the early afternoon!  It will be a busy day!  

I don't think we've told most of you that we are going to be blessed with another grandchild next January!  A girl this time, so those two boys will have a little sister to spoil!  So, I started a new quilt project with "girl" in mind.  It will have lots of pinks and pretty bright colors.  This kind of pattern with curves is something I haven't tried before, so it may take me a while!!  Fortunately, I've had some good advice from a quilting friend on Facebook, so it may not be as difficult as it could be!  I haven't sewn a seam yet....but soon!!  I'm still cutting out all those flower petals or wheel spokes, or whatever they are.  I've found a pattern called Amish Wheel that I'm using to make this. 




Of course, the new arrival means that I'll be traveling again to help Rebecca and Tim.  I probably won't be there for the birth in late January, since Tim's parents live nearby to help with the boys then. However, Rebecca has a torn meniscus in one knee, and will have that surgery in February, so I'll be there to help during that time.  Hmmmmm.... Chicago in February... I don't have a wardrobe for that climate, so I guess I'll be visiting the thrift stores when I get there!  

Looking forward to a couple busy weeks with busy boys... POTW may be late next week!  A few more photos are posted in our November 2013 Picasa album.

Until the next time,
Tus amigos de BCS,
Ben, Harriet, Ryan, Sam & Zoey

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Pic-of-the-Week for November 5, 2013

Hola Amigos,

Happy November!  It has been another quiet week here at Casa Purkey.  The weather has been pretty nice, although we did have cloud cover all day Sunday, with some rain showers, as Tropical Storm Sonia passed over us.  There was not much wind associated with this storm, and the rain was warm, so it wasn't too bad!  I thought about taking photos of the storm clouds, but those of you in the north have seen enough of that kind of stuff!  

I have been going through old family slides and photos, and having fun finding some of my favorite old pictures!  I didn't realize how many of them were slides...we must have made prints out of them because I still have some of these prints on display!  Here's one of them; Ryan in the front yard of our Eugene home washing our 73 pickup (which we still have....it is becoming a "collectible antique vehicle"!) 



Ben just had some excitement this morning!  He was taking out the garbage can from the garage and noticed a strong spider web attached to it, and a newly dead scorpion stuck in the web.  He looked around some more (with a can of bug killer) and found a nice fat Black Widow spider, which he sprayed with the bug killer and "fried".  And last night as I was going to bed, I noticed Zoey sniffing a bug on my rug as she went by to her dog bed.  Fortunately, she pretty much passed it by this time, because it was a little scorpion!  I stomped on it (with my shoes on), then used bug spray on it, and deposited it in the garbage.  You always have to be on the look-out here.  After I killed it, I thought about all the times I get up in the middle of the night with no light on and walk around barefoot here.  Maybe I'll be turning the light on more often! 

We've also been doing a lot of pruning.  We have that same old blue pickup filled with palm leaves, banana leaves, weeds, Hibiscus prunings, etc.  One of these days we'll have to take it to the dump, but so far, we just keep piling things on!  Things have grown amazingly well here this past summer.  It can be a real jungle if you don't keep on it.  



I pruned the hibiscus there on the right, and Ben pruned the bush straight ahead, so we can get in our front door!!  

Other pretty things are blooming around the house.  This one is called a "Bird of Paradise" plant.  It's not the same as the big leafed plant the the big exotic flowers (we have some of those, too), but this is a little bunch of flowers on a leggy bush.  It adds a nice splash of color to our place, and the bees and butterflies love it.  Those exotic looking blooms pop out of those little balls!  Pretty amazing, isn't it?




 Sam always manages to find the shady spot to sit!  His back is doing very well, and seems to get better every day.  His favorite thing to do in the afternoons is to remind me that he is starving to death, and that his dish is empty...and look!  Zoey's dish is empty, too.  He'll rattle the dishes around until I feed him (or pick up the dishes!)  The little stinker!  (He did lose some weight when he was taking steroids for his back injury, but I think he's putting some of it back on!)




For those who might be interested, here is a link to an article about the swearing in ceremony of the new governor of Baja California (the Mexican state to the north of our state, BC Sur), Kiko Vega.  Kiko is from Tijuana, but has had a vacation house down here in our neighborhood for many years.  His place is just a quarter mile or less from our house.  He was elected governor in the elections early this summer.  He also won a fishing tournament put on by the hotel Palmas de Cortez this fall (he's friends of the family who owns it) and won a bunch of money AND a brand new pickup!  Hmmmmmmm..... Anyhow, here's the link: Gov Kiko Vega

We are getting ready for our first guests in a few weeks.  Our daughter Rebecca and family are coming!  Hooray!!  Now, we're working on killing all the spiders and scorpions before they get here with those two little boys!  They'll just have to avoid the cactus plants around here.  They'll be here for a couple weeks and for Thanksgiving so we're excited about that.  (She's a really good cook!  :-) )

For a few more photos, check out our November Picasa Album.

Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos in Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey