A night on the town

Saturday evening we all headed to the local favourite expat haunt.

What was the Yakunah is now the new Faces - lovely restaurant, great people, but the new place has very little air circulation, so it's very hot!

 

The gang from Neek Kaan - a fun group! Funny, 6 of us here are from Cranbrook! And Chris and Duncan live about 30 minutes away from our summer home in Manitoba!  The world is sooo small!

 

Us lovely ladies

 

The band at Faces is super, and fun to dance to. Michelle, the owner's daughter, is a great singer!

 Great music to dance to, and we all enjoyed a little workout

 

And to cool off we went next door to what used to be the Yakunah, but is now The Quinta Progreso, now owned by a young Mexican couple.  This is their daughter, and they offer sax music on Saturday nights.  A lovely setting, and very relaxing music.

More updates and new ideas

A few more pictures.  We came back after the boys left on the weekend, and spent time sweeping and cleaning up.

 

 

The septic is finished and my dirt back in place.  Now to find time to reright my garden!

Our kitchen is almost done!  Yes, we will definitely have to paint as soon as the guys are finished, or have them do it, but the foundation is there and looking good!

 

 

And the floors are in - way dustier than I would like, but the time is coming!

 

 

 

And a few little ideas arise as we're almost ready for them.

This was on a house on our way home from the race.

A neat use of the talavera tiles on the front columns, incorporating the butterfly curve Juan has used in several places in our home.

And this is about the same colour as our house will be! It's called Hacienda Roja, or Hacienda Red!

 

And Vic has created a sculpture for the bottom of the pool when it's time!

Hopefully almost there! :)

 

Sunday November 24th 2013 Off to the 7AM race

Short Story....we are off to the 14K running race with a 5 K walk in Chelem.  Picked up our young friend Berto who needed a ride.  Well no good deed goes unpunished ....so a flat tire occurs on the bridge over to Chelem.  So we drive slowly off the bridge and then pull over and park.  Deb waves at a car coming behind us and we have a ride to the race!  They were going too so 5 in the back seat, and Mario and vic in the front and we are off.  A picture of the family is below.  We walked the race with them and he is what seemed to be a 1st mate on a pleasure yaught owned by a very wealthy Mexican who travels tremendously through the year. Often 2 or 3 months at a time.

 

Deb decided she would slum and walk the 5 km with me as the 14km seemed a little daunting when the most she has run is 10 iK n the heat and humidity.  Really there is a hill on the course (the bridge) and we all know she doesn't do hills! LOL

 

Below is our friend Bertto (in white) finishing the 14K.  The 14 year old kid is very very fast.

 

And very tired!  But not too tired that he didn't want to stay with his friends instead of getting a ride home with us.

 

After the walk, we found a llantaro (tire guy) working at the race. So for 200 pesos at 9 am he drove us out to the car, put the spare on, took the tire and repaired it, and placed the tire back on the car.  Spare back in the trunk.  Nice shirts heh!

 

Who's the white guy doing nothing?  Darn good thing we had him to put the spare on for us as he had a bar to add on to the wheel lug wrench giving the bar alot of mechanical advantage as the bolts were locked on with rust. The little bar we all have in our trunks would not have worked. 

 

Back home by 10:30 to shower...another adventure in Mexico!

More Progress and a little bit of fun!

The work has begun on the new front arch/gate system!

 

 

And our new electrician, Raoul, is at work and getting things in place!  Phewf!

 

The tile floor is well under way

 

And the guys are doing the grout lines!

The air conditioners have been purchased and Raoul is ready to install!

 

Raising the front fence to match the neighbour's

 

Dodi and Vic

Our cement guy, Juan Carlos, ready for more mud!

 

And the completed shower wall - well may be a little addition later

 

And stage 1 of the 3 layers on the back of the house - looking much cleaner already!

 

And at the end of the week, Vic and I take a little time in our private oasis!

Life is good. :)

 

We have started to order our furniture for the house!

So I guess we have to start thinking about furniture for the new house.  We happened across this great furniture store on Saturday last weekend, and found many pieces we liked.  Muebleria Dixie is just a small store, with a few outlets in Merida as well, where they manufacture furniture, made of wood (American pine I think Francisco, our sales rep said)

 

 

Above is a desk I ordered for our spare room,

and below is what will become the pantry in our new kitchen!

 

With built in spice racks!

 

I'm going to have to get really tidy to make the new kitchen work - ha!

We also went to the State Fair that night, and happened upon another furniture company who happened to have a full furniture package on sale - sorry I didn't bring my camera that night - next time for sure!

The package consists of a bedroom set, living room set and dining room set, all for under $2000 Cdn!  We took a chance, and will keep our fingers crossed until December 15th that all goes well!

another crazy day/week in the life and times... :)

Fun little things in Progreso

So, on Tuesday this week (Nov. 19th), we were driving back to our new house, and in the park just 1/2 block away was this class practicing for the Day of the Revolution Parade the next day!

 

 

The kids were doing an amazing job of the rope dance I have seen at other times, and I think these are about grade 5 kids

 

And the next day, as we went to sign up for the coming weekend's running race, we caught the tail end of the parade - yes, just too busy these days to even know what's going on until it's done - ha!

 

but here in our town square there seems to be always something going on!

 

Here you can see how they're building the tree, that becomes a large focal point for many outdoor gatherings for Christmas concerts and celebrations. Much warmer this way!

 

But look, they're all in long pants!  It's probably 28 degrees out!

Lots of folks out enjoying the parade and the kids!

This is our City Hall of Progreso

 

And a lovely little girl all dressed up for the parade!

 

And several others, quite happy to pose for the camera

 

And the Marquesita truck - yum!  A slim pancake made right in front of you with either melted cheese, nutella, or a mixture of the two!

 

And all kinds of free activities set up for the kids to enjoy

 

Like the bouncy tent and several different kinds of cars

 

And pretty much everyone seems to be having an awfully good time!