Pic-of-the-Month for December 21, 2021

 Hola amigos!

Merry Christmas to all of you.  

We hope that your Christmas is joyful and that you can celebrate with us the reason for the season...Jesus Christ' birth.  

We do plan on a Christmas dinner here at our house with friends and neighbors.  There will be 10 of us.  Yesterday, Ben and I were planning on going into Cabo San Lucas and Costco to get the Christmas Ham, but alas, there were none.  So Ben will be smoking another turkey.  

Before we left, I had read that Covid-19 booster shots were available for those of us 60 and over in Miraflores (where we got our original 2), La Ribera and Santiago.  We left early and got in line.  Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as nicely organized as the first times we went.  People seemed to line up willy-nilly; but we eventually got in line, and managed to get our Astra Zeneca booster.  So far, no bad side effects, other than Ben being a bit sore and achy this morning.  We are very happy to be able to get the boosters in a timely manner, what with the new strain out and about.  

We went to visit Mel & Katie again at Los Frailes.  Ben and Mel went fishing several times, and were successful again.  They caught an African Pompano this time, and it is a gorgeous fish.  Even after being caught 3 or 4 hours previous to the picture taking, it was very colorful.  Almost as colorful as my shirt!  

Ben and I rode with our neighbors Brian and Hope in a "Rock and Roll Fun Ride" for a benefit for Feeding the Hungry.  We had to guess names of artists based on pictures, or lines of music to name the band, etc.  I was pretty hopeless...I listened to the music, but I sure didn't have all that stuff memorized like many of them did!  Good thing for us that Hope knew her 60's and 70's Rock and Roll, even though she's a lot younger than us.  Check out the December 2021 album for pics of that ride.  

The BIG project this month is replacing the floor in our little camp trailer.  It had quite a few very soft spots, so after our Los Frailes trip, Ben started ripping up the linoleum.  Underneath that was 3/16" plywood (very moldy & rotten in places), then 1 1/2" foam, and a very thin plywood under that.  He found the lightweight aluminum cross beams were few and far between!  He came up with a 2x4 cross beam structure to lay in there instead, with 1/8" plywood underneath that, and styrofoam and plywood in the gaps, all covered with a 5/8" sheet of plywood.  All pieces are glued and screwed together.  In the picture above you can see the styrofoam in some holes, others with the plywood filler.  He added the final plywood on top of all this.  They also added some aluminum brackets to hold up the floor by attaching them to the walls with a stiffener behind.  He did just this area by the entry door so far, and will attack the other end by the dinette next.  We'll be ready to go camping again in the not too distant future!  And we won't be falling through the floor!  

Other than that, the garden is growing, Zoey and I are still taking our walks, and I got to play the piano at the Community Saturday Market for our little musical group that sang Christmas songs.  It was a rather windy day, so I had a bit of trouble keeping the music from blowing, but it went pretty well.  I'm on the right, with my hat on backwards to protect my neck from the sun!  

OK!  We wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a Happy, healthy New Year of 2022.  

Hasta la proxima mes,

Harriet, Ben & Zoey

PS.  Again, pictures are located in December 2021 album.