Beach Time and New House

July 18, 2011

Oh my Blog, now I have neglected you.  Time just seems to be flying by these past few weeks.  Well, we finally took a trip to the beach and it was awesome.  We went to a beach town a bit north of Manzanillo, called Melaque.   Our friends Joe and Brandi rented a house on the beach and invited us to come down and join them for the weekend.  We decided to see about a hotel close by with A/C and inexpensive.  Joe and Brandi spent some time looking at places and found us a great little hotel about 3 blocks from the beach ($500 pesos per night = $45 dollars).  The road actually dead ends into the sand and their house was there on the right.  We had such a blast, just hanging out, walking on the beach swimming in the 80+ degree water, restaurants on the beach and such beautiful scenery.  One of the really cool things we did was buy marlin from one of the local fish shops and cooked it up at the house.  We paid about $120 pesos for 2 kilos (that is 2.2 lbs per kilo) of wonderful tasting fish.  I have never had Marlin before, so I can’t say how much it might have been in the USA, but I am pretty sure it would have been more then $3 per pound.  We walked the little local towns (Barra Navidad and Melaque) and poked our heads in the shops.  I am pretty sure that we will wait to do the beach thing once the hot and humid verano (summer) is over.  It was wonderful while you’re in the ocean, pool or air-conditioned rooms, pero hace mucho calor (but it is very warm) walking around.  The kind of warm that makes your shirt stick to your skin.

Colima Volcano

Our Hotel in Melaque

Marlin for lunch

Our new pool

The beach in Melaque looking north

Dinner on the beach

Road from our hotel to la playa

Fruit stands along the roads from Manzanillo to Melaque

Melaque play looking south

The view from our dinner table.  The umbrella shadow is ours.

July 25, 2011

Yeah!!!  We are moving into our new house.  Well, we got the email that it would be okay to move into our new house a week early.  Tracy is so excited, but since it’s been about 5 weeks since we saw it, were having a tough time remembering what it looks like.  The boys are still in camp for another 2 weeks, Andrew is tutoring through this week and Tracy and I start Spanish classes.  We are so looking forward to the move and our classes.  The one really frustrating thing about living here so far is that we aren’t fluent yet and that get’s frustrating at times.  We so want to be able to carry on a conversation with anyone here, especially the Mexican’s, but we are on our way to being able to do that very well and soon.  Give us 6 months and I think things will be much easier in that realm.

July 27, 2011

We are in and so the one-year begins!  We love our new house soooooo much!  It is better then we remembered it.  It has a copala in the kitchen and Boveda ceilings.  There are 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths; one has a nice Jacuzzi tub.  The master has a walk in closet; the kitchen and bathrooms have granite counter tops, lots of color, fully furnished, well-stocked kitchen appliances and utensils.  It has everything we could want and more.  Along with all of that great stuff, there is a community pool and we have a small yard that is perfect for the dog and cat.   For Tracy this is a huge step, as most of you know how important it is for her to have her place to nest.  We have already moved furniture and getting ready to go and buy the boys some twin beds.  The boys love that we have about 700 cable channels on the television, not that they get to watch much. 

So, we have spent the past few weeks, moving, beaching it, site seeing, eating, sleeping, playing tennis, hiking the falls again, shopping, tutoring, Spanish classes, summer camp and more.  It feels like life is finally starting to settle in and routine is taking hold, which we all seem to thrive in.  Every day it feels more and more like home and the potential to stay for a longer period of time becomes a greater possibility.  We will just have to wait and see…

Rainy day drive in the Lake Chapala area.  Keep and eye out for the guy on a bike at around minute 1:00.  I have never seen so much water fall from the sky in such a short time.