Just a few things from this week...Oh my goodness...I'm going to eat her!
For YW we carved pumpkins and took them to some less active girls. There were only a few girls but it was a good activity. Got to visit with some girls we haven't seen for a long time.

Kelley replacing our rain gutter and drain pipe. It has really been causing more trouble than good. It would drip right down onto the steps and porch and then the water would freeze and make a nice little skating pond.

Just in time...woke up the next morning to this. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

Kelley and Jamey went up to "Christmas meadow" and cut a bunch of firewood. We had used every bit we had last winter so I was glad he could find some. I helped him unload and stack it.

Candice came over after work and had dinner with us...then we got busy on her trophy's costume....I'm thinking that might be her permanent job after her "ugly sweater" party last Christmas. We were trying to think of something easy and this is what we came up with.
It was a businessman carrying a briefcase so we turned it into a mummy with his tomb stone.

HA! Not too bad!

Then we went out hunting for some leggings for Candice to wear with the grape costume. Remember this girls?

Pretty adaptable considering Katie wore it when she was about 8!
Cute Candice!

I was at Harmons mailing a little package to Olivia and I ran into Karen and Scott. She told me that they had had a pretty rough week....Last Thursday, she was supposed to be having bunko at her house and was getting everything ready when Scott tells her he was having pain in his chest. Not a terrible pain, but they decided to get it checked out. Went to the hospital and they did some tests and immediately took him into surgery to put a stint in an artery that was almost completely blocked. It wasn't a main artery so it didn't do damage to his heart, but they need to do more tests on him. He said his cholesterol is very low and he is not overweight so a heart attack was the last thing they expected. But he has heart disease in his family and that is a big factor. That just goes to show you that you don't really know what's going on on the inside! Wow, I really want Kelley to get his heart checked out! Karen was having a bad time with some chemotherapy cream they have her putting on her neck and chest...it's all inflamed and itchy. She had skin cancer taken off a while ago and is still treating it. Man, my heart goes out to them. Seems like at times...when it rains it pours.

Ohhhhhhhh Mexico...sounds so sweet

This past week kind of seems like a dream...

a real nice dreamWe flew into Los Cabos Sunday afternoon and met up with Katie. Her flight had gotten there a while before ours did and also in a different terminal so she had to walk quite a ways to meet up with us....not a good place for a pretty white girl to be walking alone.

Mark had arranged for one of Martins vans to pick us all up and take us to Los Barrillis.

It feels like you are in a scene from south pacific or something...a warm breeze blowing through the palm trees...fisherman pulling into the little wooden dock with their catch of the day.

Martin Verdugo's is a little fishing resort. Definitely a man's world. In fact one day one of the guys staying there asked Kate and I if we knew a secret code or something to be able to get into this mans land. Ha! What ever!

The rooms there are really basic... the beds hard as a rock. But they are clean and have everything you need. And to be able to get up every morning and walk out onto the balcony and see these incredible sun rises...well it was pretty amazing!The water there is like a luke warm tub....except with little fishes swimming around you.We went to Tio Pablo's a few times...good food and it was close enough to walk to. I think Kelley's dad ate there every night. Loves the fish and chips!

Mexican food in Mexico is not like mexican food here. Their idea of salsa is just a sauce. When I ordered fajitas I got something that looked like chicken casserole. It tasted good, but just not what I expected. They put all kinds of vegetables in their taco salad that I would have never associated with taco salad. It was good...just different. I think we have just invented mexican food to be what we want it to be here.

The atmosphere is pretty authentic though...pretty relaxed. Dogs wandering through the place, chickens pecking around in the backyard.

Some men came into Tio Pablos, all dressed up in their colorful clothes and asked us if we wanted them to sing for us...well sure! They were really loud and quite good. I like the sound of their guitars. After they finished we all clapped for them and paid them a little. Another night, we saw them pull up in front of a different resturant we were eating at...in a little beat up toyota corolla...I'm talking five BIG men....with all of their insturments (guitars and big bass...(looked like it was hand carved), morroccos and trumpet packed in the trunk! Impressive!

One night Mark ordered this huge appetizer that had shrimp in four different kinds of sauces. I don't usually eat shrimp... don't like to look at their little shrimpy bodies. (I do like breaded deep fried shrimp and Kelley ordered some coconut shrimp that were amazing!!!. ) But these smelled so good, so I looked the other way and tried some of the bare naked shrimp and it was really good!

This was at the place (Barrilito's) that I got the fajitas. I didn't eat a lot of it cause I started feeling icky right after I started eating..and before we even left the restaurant, I was feeling pretty queasy. By the time I went to bed, my stomach was really hurting. I was awake all night sitting on the toilet and throwing up. I thought I must have gotten food poisoning.

Katie had felt pretty sick a couple of days before, but I didn't really consider that she had given me what she had had. ( Although she slept in bed with me every night after that first night...her bed was reeeeeeely hard, so Kelley offered to change places with her)

Anyway, I felt pretty crappy most of the next day too, ( my body hurt everywhere...especially my back and hips... but I thought this was from the wild ride we had had on the way home from fishing on Alberto's boat!) but I started feeling better later that day. Found out later that it must have been the flu cause Kelley got it too after we got home.Fishing was really a hoot! We met Alberto at the dock about 6:30. It was still dark and the moon and stars were still so bright and clear.

First thing we needed to get some bait fish. There are little boats that go out even earlier to catch fish for these bigger boats that go out. We drove for a while before we found some that had fish for us to buy. Then he headed way out north.

Alberto's nephew, Mario was just flying around the boat...getting out all the poles and getting them all rigged up. They reeeeeealy want you to catch fish!

Pat caught the first one...a big blue striped marlin. He really put up a fight and it took him forever to get him in. When he finally came up close to the side of the boat, Mario let him go. Pat was pretty upset cause he didn't get a picture with the fish but the fish was in a pretty bad way by the time he pulled it in. It had this weird red thing hanging out of it's mouth and I was like what is that???? Mario said it was the fishes stomach that had been pulled out. He said it would go back in and he would be ok, but we needed to let him go asap! It was pretty cool to watch the sun come up over the water each morning...kind of strange because it seemed like it was coming up where it should be going down...looking out over the Sea of Cortez you are facing the east... I'm used to the sun going down over the ocean in California. I was all turned around. This was one of the unbelievable homes we saw when we were way up north fishing.Kelley caught the next one...a great big wahoo! They are so pretty in the water...the brightest blue green color...almost florescent. Then when you get them in the boat...the color is gone. I guess the wahoo is the best tasting fish ever and kind of rare to catch, so you always keep them if you get one. They put up a flag for every fish you catch so when you come in to dock, everyone can see how well, or not so well you have done that day.

We went up to Mark's place later that day with the wahoo to clean and fillet it. This is Marks friend Kevin...about the nicest guy you would ever meet. We spent a lot of time together this last week and got to be good friends. Him and Mark are quite the pair. HILARIOUS! We we laughing all day long.

Anyway, Mark knew just how to fillet it and then we sealed it up with his food saver and put it in his freezer. I'm looking forward to cooking it up like he told me here at home.

Kevin winging the remains of the fish over the fence for the critters to eat.

This picture doesn't show very well, but Marks place is really nice. He took us up to his other property up on the hill. He has a great view looking out over the water. He's still trying to decide what to do with it right now.

...day two on Alberto's boat...this time we headed south.

Beautiful sunrise...

We drove full blast for an hour and a half and I was thinking 'where are we going?' Finally we started slowing down and there were all kinds of boats in that area. From huge yachts to little fishing boats. There was some big fishing tournament going on down by Cabo...(Bizbeee) that we had heard people talking about and I guess that was what all these people were involved in.

It seems pretty strange to me that in all that huge space of water, all these people know to go to this one small area to fish....but they definitely know what they are doing.

Someone would come on the radio speaking really fast in spanish,(the only thing I recognized was arriba! arriba!) then Alberto would get all excited and holler at Mario in spanish, then they would run around getting all the poles in and drive quick to another area, then put all the poles back out. It was pretty fun to watch them...they really wanted us to catch fish!

It was my turn next and I saw the pole get hit. I hopped up and Mario had seen it too and was on it. He handed me the pole and I sat down and started reeling. It was pretty easy at first so I thought maybe I had lost it, but they said to keep reeling. So the more I reeled, the harder it got. It felt like he kept going straight down and I had to pull back on the pole, then reel to bring him back up. Well I finally pulled up a nice little tuna. Wooo hooo!
We fished around where all the boats were for quite a while and caught another wahoo. Then after a while, Alberto headed for home....As fast as he could go.

The water was really rough and we were flying all over the place. I mean it was really bad! Walking anywhere was impossible... We would slam so hard into the water I felt like my teeth were going to fall out and each slam was followed by another. There was no relief for an hour and a half. I tried sitting down, but would really get slammed when I came back down onto the seat, so I tried standing up holding on for dear life to the ladder. That was better, at least I could bend my knees and take a little of the shock in them. By the time we got back to the dock, I was exhausted and my head was pounding!

No bueno.
Alberto would say...sontines...that happens...So that became our favorite saying...sontines.....

This was the next day when Kelley went out again with Pat and Lisle. Lisle caught two nice sailfish. Very cool looking. They never keep bill fish though. They're not good to eat, and seriously how could you kill these cool fish?

Grampa was pretty proud!

Can't see very well but they come right up out of the water and dance along on their tail.

Just another day in paradise

Kelley caught this sunrise...this was the morning I wasn't feeling so good.
Alberto's boat the last day they went out. Caught a bunch that day...Dorado, sailfish, marlin, tuna...a good day!

Katie and I decided to go out with Mark and Kevin that day on Marks boat.

We had a fun day... wish I had a picture of Mark's boat. He named it "Papa Lisle"And it has the reputation..."not the biggest or the fanciest, but it's the fastest!"

Mark and Kevin have put countless hours into that boat. It was one of Mark's boats he used out on the Great Salt lake for his brine shrimp business, but he totally stripped it and rebuilt it.

We spent the day fishing...not so omuch caching, laughing and singing along with Jimmy Buffett. When we were heading back, Mark wanted to show me how fast his boat could go. Kate had already told me they had gone really fast (like 56 MPH) when she had gone out with him and Kevin the day before.

So I was like "ok...lets see what it can do!" Oh my heck...We were going so fast! And the water was so rough, we were flying all over the place! I was laughing so hard I seriously thought I would pee my pants.

Last night there...back to Barrilitos
just rice and beans for me...stomach still not quite right

Sunrise on our last beautiful morning there. It's almost a sacred moment. Lots of people staying there and even the people who work at the resort go out and sit on the deck and and wait for the sun to come up. Everyone is chatting until the moment the sun peeks over the horizon. Then it becomes silent as we all sit in awe and watch this breathtaking display.

Waiting for our ride back to the airport
I hope Kelley's dad had a good time. I think this will be his last trip here....he made the comment.."I used to get so excited to come here and go fishing...now, I guess I'm just too old" He got one of his killer migrains on friday and had a pretty miserable day, but other than that he was up and ready to go at 6:00 a.m.!

He amazes me with how well he can still get around...and his mind is as sharp as ever. I hope Kelley inherited his genes!
What a wonderful week! ...it was so fun to spend that time with Kelley, his dad and brothers, and Katie. Sure do wish all of our family could have been there. Candice was great to take care of things here at home and play with Lizzy.

Just went around a took a few more shots of this beautiful place

Plumeria right outside our door...smells like heaven!

Flying home...sure is pretty up there in the clouds

Mexico ...surely a lovely place to visit...but I'm so grateful to have our own U.S.A. to come home to. All it takes is a visit outside the country to be reminded of what a blessing it is to live here. We have so very much. And our freedoms and opportunites are too often taken for granted. Thinking about it made me feel...safe and very blessed.
Flying into Salt Lake City is quite a sight. The mountians peaks were snow capped and the fall colors were still vibrant orange and red so it was really quite magnificent.

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