Our first Christmas in Mexico

You wouldn't see this in Vancouver in December!

Well, we are getting ready for Christmas here.
Friends and family in Vancouver have just gotten through a couple of week of snow and now settled into typical gray and rain.

Here is Patzcuaro the weather if beautiful, the rainy season behind us, and now all of our peach trees are in bloom!

Our neighbors here, Irma and Marcos, have gone all out with the Christmas decorations!If you are going to do it, do it big!

Irma & Marcos

Two of our new and dear friends here in Mexico.

I think they were laughing at my Spanish in this picture!

Update on construction and critters.

Just got back from checking on the house.
Went up the stairs and got this view!
Yes we now have stairs and the start of the second floor.
Very exciting!

We have had quite a few questions on how the kitten is doing.
Well, the kitten is doing incredible, and driving the bunny rabbit only a little crazy.

What do you mean it isn't rabbit season?

I will try to put something a little more substantial for the next post so stay tuned!

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Welcome to Mayberry!

Shannon is home! yippee!

Here is the picture her ankle, look out airport security!

But while this has been going on all of our neighbors have been nothing but amazing!
It's like time traveling back to Mayberry!

Kitty babysitting, food, offers to help with anything we need.
Popped into Morelia to do some shopping but now we have two sets of meals in the fridge that have been delivers by neighbors.
Life in Corazon de Durazno is even better than expected, and the people we live amongst make it so!

Or maybe I am just seeing things through peach coloured glasses.

Broken ankle! Surgery required!

Well, Shannon came out of surgery about 1 AM this morning.
7 screws and a plate are now holding her ankle together.
We were quite surprised when we went for X rays yesterday and they dropped the bombshell that surgery was needed and the sooner the better. We thought it was just a bad sprain.

We went to Star Medica in Morelia, and have been quite impressed with how we were treated and the quality of care.

The doctor says the first 24 hours are the most painful, that makes sense.
But as long as things settle down like they usually do Shannon will be home on Saturday!
Yippee! I will then wait on her hand and foot!

Plus now I can call her screwy and get away with it!

Gravity is a Harsh Mistress!

Yesterday was a great day, volunteered with the colonial home tour that raised money for 3 charities here in Patzcuaro, then in the evening we went to an event at Casa Encontata that raised money for the spay and neuter clinic we will be volunteering at.
Then....
While Shannon was bringing Diego down for a feeding at 3 in the morning today, she slipped on a step and badly damaged her ankle.
Quick drive in the middle of the knight to the hospital and an hour later Shannon has a cast on and directions to come back in the daytime for X-rays!

Smitten by the Kitten!

The kitten is doing well, I think we are out of the woods now.
Small problem with the adoption issue, after being through all this I think we love the little cutie too much to give her away.

We were calling her Rocky because she is such a fighter but it seems a odd name for something so tiny. We keep changing our ideas on the names, but the latest is Diego.

We should be able to tell the sex soon, so we will have to settle on a name then.

...Creeps in on little cat feet.

Unlike the Carl Sandberg poem, the fog isn't the only thing to creep in on little cat feet.
Usually it is a cat that creeps in on little cat feet.

Getting in last night after a 12+ hour drive from our week to Texas, we found a visitor to our doorstep.
Walking up I see a little dead kitten laying at our door.
Not wanting to upset Shannon I tell her to wait by the car while I depose of the evidence.

As I scoop the our little black visitor up in a dustpan, it lets out a squeak.
Disposal has turned to rescue. She can't be more than 5-10 days old, but I am no expert.

Shannon quickly takes over and feeds it from an eyedropper every few hours.
Thanks for the eyedropper and cat bed Joan!!

Our little visitor is a fighter, that's for sure!
Maybe we should call her Rocky?


We hope for a full recovery, and hope that someone in the Patzcuaro area has a good home for it. Please let us know if you do.

Construction Update October 19

Here are two pictures, one from a week ago and one from this morning.

Things are happening fast!

How did you spend your Friday?

I hope you had a great Friday

I know I did.

Here is the sunset I watched from the patio here in El Corazon.

You really need to click on the picture to get a larger view.
The larger size really does them justice.

Construction Update

Okay,

I am going to try to post pictures of the construction progress every week or two.

To start here is a picture of the lot before they started and then a picture as of September 23, 2006.

I am also going to try to take a picture every couple of days and when the construction is finished morph the pictures into a "time lapse"film and you can see the house go up.
Not quite sure how I am going to do it, but I wont have to worry about it for a while.

Camouflaged Operatives Working Surveillance

Another important part of our security is a crack team of undercover security personal Patrolling a field that covers the 100 meters between Corazon and the main road.

They are heavily camouflaged so as not to be intrusive.

These C.O.W.S.
(Camouflaged Operatives Working Surveillance)
also spend a significant amount of time "mining" this field with P.I.E.S
(Personel Intrustion Evaluation Sensors)
to make it more difficult to penetrate Corazon De Durazno.

This is as close a picture I could get without getting my camera confiscated.

I also had a picture of one of the COW PIES that they lay in the field but I was told that posting it may assist others in coming up with a way to circumvent them in the future.

Gated Community!

Our friends and family love us.
Some of them even worry about us being out in the country in Mexico.
(Hi Jill, I love you too!)

One of the reasons we like our new home is the security features we have here.
The primary one being we are in a gated community.

Here is a picture of the gate, which uses the very latest in
"Pine and Twine" technology!

Colin's Place

Here are a couple of pictures of our neighbor Colin's home.
I am posting them to give you an idea of what our place will look like as our floor plan is closer to his than any other of the buildings. We got a lot of ideas from the things he has done to his place.
Including a roof on the terrace so we can enjoy it all year round and putting a fireplace in the master bedroom.

Shannon's New Boyfriend!

Well, seems Shannon may have an ulterior motive for selecting the lot we have.
Looks like our new next door neighbor is her new boyfriend.

Seems she like them young!
But I have to admit he is awfully cute.
Rumor has it he has spent some time behind bars, as you can see from the picture.

His name is Tao.

So much for the plan......

Okay, so the plan was as follows:

Rent for 6 months while exploring the surrounding areas and other colonial cities
Work on our language skill and get to know the real estate market and prices really well
before you look at buying anything in Mexico.

But....
Shannon is in love with Corazon De Durazno and decides it's the place for us.
She is kind enough to save me the trouble of racking my brain about it and explains to me
that this is what I want to do also.

She is so good to me, saving my brain all that work deciding, I think that is why I love her.
That and she is HOT!

Room with a View!

The house has two stories
Downstairs is the living room with a fireplace and massive windows to show off the view
Kitchen and dining room, also with large windows.
2 bedrooms and 2 baths

In addition..
Upstairs has the master bed and bath and also a massive 12 foot X 12 foot terrace.

Here are a couple of pictures of the view from the terrace.
One, when the morning fog is still burning off, towards the lake.
The other is toward the west and the trees.
We are in the middle of dense panorama of green!

Our new digs!

Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what our new home looks like.

Our New Home!

We had arrived in Patzuaro and found a place to stay.
Renting a fully furnished house in a development called Corazon De Durzano.
That translates as the "Heart of the Peach"

Which makes sense because it use to be a peach orchard.


It is a beautiful house with a beautiful view.
But the lot is unlandscaped, or as landlord calls it
"Letting the natural beauty have its way"
So our home is surrounded by a bit of a jungle.
We have been told that once the wildflowers bloom it's amazing!