Burrr...it's cold!

Yes, I can't believe it, but it's cold. Two days in a row we woke to temps in the low 60's. We actually put blankets on the bed! I'm walking around at night in jeans and a fleece jacket, feeling like a local. It's a lovely change and so funny to think 8 weeks ago we were melting.

The ice cream man cometh.

In La Manzanilla there is a never ending stream of ice cream trucks and wagons. They take turns parking outside the school at 1:00, walking around town and driving down the beach. For 5 pesos a scoop, including sprinkles, we treat the neighbor kids to ice cream pretty often.

Here's Lyle and his compadres enjoying and ice cream treat.

School’s out…3 days early

We arrived to pick-up Lyle after school today and were informed that there will be a posada tomorrow from 8-10 and then school will be out until the 7^th of January.

I have the official school calendar and the last day of school is supposed to be Dec 21^st.

Not sure why we have this extended vacation but I am sure that Lyle’s class is supposed to have testing on the 2^nd block of work in Jalisco educational system issued school books and that they are only 2/3 of the way through the 2^nd block. I'm also sure that in the last 4 weeks we have not had one full week of school, either ending early of days completely off because the teachers have meetings they need to attend. I guess meetings after the 1:00 hour (when school gets out) is out of the question.

I’m completely baffled by the school system here in La Manzanilla. We will be working with Lyle over the holiday break to finish the block. I’m thinking this time next year we will be homeschooling.

Let’s make cookies!

It’s raining in La Manzanilla; the locals say it’s been at least 10 years since we’ve had rain in December. A couple of nights ago is poured so hard the streets were flooded up to the sidewalk.

Yesterday, Sunday, we decided since it was such an overcast and winter like day we should make cookies! I was all about sugar cookies, but Rick and Lyle turned up their noses and voted for chocolate chip. Ok, so we need 1 more stick of butter and some chocolate chips. Rick heads into town. He returns about 15 mins later with the news that there are no chocolate chips to be found in town. They still say, “no thanks” when I chime in about sugar cookies.

Not completely deterred the boys decide it would be fun to bake a cake, a cake from a box. Ok, so Rick and head down to our nearest corner store while Lyle is playing with the neighbor kids. No cake mixes. It’s now about 4:30 on Sunday afternoon and Rick is determined. He goes back into town. He returns 15 min later empty handed and bearing news that everything in the 3 block town is closed!

Guess baking wasn’t in the cards.

Revolution!

So, it's been a month (how did that happen) since my last post. We've been so busy, work, school, homework, sickness, bad renters..it all takes time.

One highlight I have to share, a week ago Friday was a national holiday- Revolution Day!

All the kids dressed in period clothing and paraded though town. Lyle loved his costume so much that he has been wearing it for the last week, I finally had to wash it and it shrunk 2 sizes! He's heart broken, as he thinks it's the appropriate attire for any dinner invitation or restaurant outing. I guess we'll have to buy him another one.

On the Saturday after the parade the mom's hosted a fundraiser in the jardin. The mama's love it when I work these events, I'm an endless source of amusement for them- they speak no English and I speak ok Spanish so I just do what they say. My duty was selling juice and taking orders from gringos!

Yes, but we don’t have a key

On Friday all the children (147) left the primary school in La Manzanilla with a note stating that today, Monday, parents needed to come to the school at 5:00 pm to clean.

Lyle had received this same note 3 weeks ago, I showed up at 5:00 and waited with 2 other mothers until 5:45 before we decided to leave. No one ever showed up to open the gate so we were locked out.

Rick and I get there at 5:00 to find one man with a machete and one other woman at the school. The man with the machete goes to the edge of the school and starts hacking down the grass. The other woman has a list of all the parents, she checks off our name from the list and tells us we need to clean the garden area. So Rick and I look around and ask if there are any tools and she tells us, "No, but you can put the grass, that you pull by hand, in the trash dumpster by the gate."

We brought gloves.

We started pulling grass and after about 5 minutes I say to the woman, “this would be a lot easier with a lawn mower.” To which she replies, “yes, the school has one, a push mower, but it’s locked in the bodega and I don’t have a key.” I'm thinking, "geez they can produce 147 slips of paper with the note to come to clean but no one can think to come and unlock the door of the bodega..."

We pull grass, by hand, for another hour and leave. No other parents show up, but at least our name is check-off as doing our cleaning duty.

Surf's UP!

This past weekend we headed to Vallarta to meet some visiting friends. We decided to take them to Sayulita for the day and try our hand at surfing. Well, they wanted to try surfing.

After we got settled in our beach chairs we spied a man out in the water with two kids, small kids, we estimated about 5 and 7 years old. We assumed he was an instructor. They kids were doing great, he gave a board a little push when the wave came in and up the kids jumped. We ventured out to have a chat with the man and come to find out he was the dad, was learning to surf himself, and had just rented the boards for the kids.

After a brief discussion with Lyle we decided to rent a board. Fifty peso’s an hour gets you a board, because I was renting for Lyle the guy gave us a few tips about holding the board and standing on it. Them he looked at me and said, “I’d try to sell you a lesson but kids learn so fast he probably won’t need one….now you on the other hand.” I laughed and declined the lesson for myself.

Kid’s learn fast is an understatement. He would have gotten up on the first wave, if Rick and I hadn’t pushed him so hard. This is a picture of him on the second wave, and the rest is history!