Chiapas, Mexico

Well, I guess I need to write that South America is now off the table and we are only doing Central America....if that!

Bad attitudes were ruling the day yesterday.  John told me that this trip has not been that much fun for him so far- what with Mexican music blaring night and day because of the holidays, mexican traffic (enuff to make anyone's hair stand on end), the crazy street patterns (not to mention the narrowness of the streets), paying almost every night for camping (in Baja we pay by the month and most definitely cheaper), taking money out of our accounts almost every other day, and no surf to write home about.

Will we go to Guatemala, check out the beaches there, and then visit my SIL Gwyn and then beat it back to Baja??  Or will we keep going?  That is the serious question that we are pondering at the moment.  If we can't find a beach that we like and some serious surf, why should we go on?

Of course, it doesn't help that today I am fighting a head cold, painfully worked out thighs from the Palenque Pyramids, and cramps...  ugh.

We went to Palenque and we were really in the jungle.  We stayed at the Maya Bell, a trailer park that was inside the entrance of the Palenque National Park, and we were across the street from the museum.  The Palenque pyramids are really cool to look at, but also very steep on every step and in the middle of the jungle.  While we were at our trailer park, Teresa managed to see a howler monkey family group and we all watched them for a while.  Later when I was doing handwash (which never dried there due to the humidity and lack of breeze and sunshine), we listened to the howler monkey male chase another animal away with his roars and barking.  That was totally cool to listen to.

We are now in San Cristobal de la Casas, which was the town taken over by the Zapatistas in 1994 when they were fighting for their land rights.  Of course, now it is just a colonial town that tourists go to with way too skinny streets for our camper to navigate.

More on Jan. 5th or so when we are in Guatemala City visiting Gwyn.....

Happy New Year and Belated Merry Christmas or Happy Channukah!

Michoacan, La Ticla

Well now you find me in La Ticla, Michoacan, Mexico. We crossed on the ferry on the 4th of Dec. and stayed in a motel on the outskirts of Los Mochis. On the 5thy, we pulled into Villa Celeste by the surf spot Celestinos., North of Mazatlan. We meant to stay more than one night but their high season is high prices (something that we didn´t see in June when we were there off season). US $30 a night is too rich for us. Noe and Estela are doing great, but we were on our way (can you guess there was no surf!)...Dec. 6th, we pulled into Tepic and spent the night at Marbella for 385 pesos a night. Ate at El Rey Salvage (the Savage King) and had their only item on the menu, meat in its juice. Well they also added beans and bacon. 2 sizes and all of us ate for 125 pesos. Anyways, doesn´t sound good, even though it was....

Dec, 7th found us trying to escape Tepic and cursing the darn road planners and their heritage, for 2 hours. Honestly, what with all the detours and street that go from one way to the opposite way, forcing you to take other streets with no signs to update you...we finally just got on the road North again to Mazatlan and then when we were well shut of Tepic, hung a u turn. You know you are in trouble when even the traffic cops cannot explain how to get out of town...

Dec., 8th we spent the night on a beautiful beach near an abandoned hotel, El tecuan. Dec. 9th we arrived in La Ticla. We are having a great time as the surf has been consistent, the camp is 80 pesos a night with wild donkeys walking on the river that is just outside our door. Internet is available at town, some groceries available also. We´ll need to drive into La Placita to get to an ATM, which is about a 15 min. drive. One of the neighbors is doing our laundry, but I am hand washing when I can.

The mix of foreignors here is amazing. Surfers from England, Scotland, Australia, BC Canada, all over the US come here. Some come for a week, leave for a month and then come back ehre for another week. Some come here for 4 mos. at a time every year. The majority of the kids from Mexico, are from Guadalajara. They don´t seem too friendly, but I keep trying to get them too talk to us, in English( they seem to prefer Eng) or Spanish.

That huge thing on my nose erupted, and passed. >Ugh. Good riddance. I have never been so self conscious in all my life. Who knew I could be so vain??

Its pretty hot and humid here. I would say that it has been in the mid to upper 80 s every day so far. Lucky for us we bought the combo Bull frog, sunblock and insect repellent. When we remember to put it on, it seems to work pretty well. Operative word there is remember. We only have a cold shower, but what with the heat, it feels pretty good to shower in mid day. That and the Dr. Braunners (peppermint) seems to cut the heat and the itch from the bug bites that get through...

That is all for now. I will probably blog again sometime around Christmas and from Oaxaca City. For now, Happy Virgin of Guadalupe Day!!!

Hey All,
I am not typing on our computer, so I am on a computer with a mexican keyboard, so the puncuation is all changed around and there is no clue where what will be, so bear with me!!

We got into Conejo at midnight on Wed. I pulled a major brain fart and managed to forget where I put the passports and documents...ugh. John finally found them in a bin that was a pretty smart place to have put them, but for the life of me, I could not remember where!

Anyways, we are in some pretty nice weather down here...Teresa has managed to get sunburned twice all ready. Both the kids are pretty beat up as they were doing two sessions a day on their boogie boards and were getting all kinds of board rash, which is where you get so scraped up that you start sprouting scabs all over the place. Leo managed to even get a rash(scraped place ) on the back of his neck from his rash guard (doh! The rash *guard* is supposed to keep it from happening). Suffice it to say that I kept them out of the water yesterday.

Today we are in La Paz getting supplies (water, beer, milk, groceries) and doing internet. I thought that I could just get stuff done quickly while the kids played on an x box but what with town changing so much (a wal mart is now totally dominating the entrance to La Paz, another reason to consider them evil!!!) and our internet place moving away (ack, I just loved the place!) we are really just trying to find our bearings!

Our community at Conejo grew by one last year, someone, Vicki, decided to have herr baby there! Everyone seem s to be doing well and people are just coming and going.

We will be back on the internet next week sometime, around the 26th to take in some more supplies and to take the ferry over to mainland! our trip is really started! Yay yay yay!!!!

hopé everyone back home is all right, we heard that there werre some fires going on....everyone stay safe!!

How much is that new transmission gonna cost?

Up until Wed. of this week, I honestly thought that we were going to leave by Tues. or Wed. at the latest of next week. Guess all my wishful thinking came true. We put the truck (Dodge Ram 3500 diesel, of course) in the shop to put in a lift pump that we should have put in last year when the old one went bad...700 miles South of the Border! Ack! We were stuck at our friend's house in Scorpion Bay for something like a week before we finally gave up and took a bus up to San Diego and John got online with some Gearheads that knew all about this particular problem. He replaced the old lift pump with another one but we needed to do some after-market engineered thing that we have been putting off for the past year. Anyways, putting that thing in and general maintenance found that we needed a new transmission....$4000 and it won't be done until next Wed.


sigh.

Can we have the luddites step outside?

I figured it out! Now anyone can come on the blog! Yay! Now if I could only think of some funny, and witty things to write about....Hmmmm...

We got our shots last week on Wed. in Santa Ana through the Orange County Health Dept. Seems that San Diego County Health Dept. does not do travel shots. Going through a private dr. for the travel shots would have topped out at a little over $2G for the Typhoid and Tetanus shots alone. Through OC Health Dept. we paid $635 for John and I to get Tetanus/Diptheria (free), Hep A/B combined shot Twinrix, Typhoid and then Yellow Fever. Yup, 4 shots and most of them did hurt! ack! Somehow Teresa had missed a Hep A shot but that was free, so she got that and Typhoid and Yellow Fever. Leo lucked out with just the 2 shots, Typhoid and Yellow Fever. And he was the one that had started to cry just when I made the appt. for the shots, yet he was the one the least affected by them. Teresa cried about her arm being sore on the way back for a good 10 min. but somehow she managed to still go to Swim Practise that night. I had a headache coming home that night, but I attribute that to just driving up there for 2 1/2 hrs. up and 1 1/2 hrs. back. The next day I was tired enough to sleep in that morning AND take a nap that afternoon AND go to sleep early that night. I have felt fine ever since. John was stricken with those "you could have flu-like symptoms for the next 2-3 days" for the next 4 days. He is finally feeling better. Well, I guess you never can tell!

John has replaced the fridge with a self-balancing one on a swivel and we now have more room for storage as this fridge had a smaller cooling unit and the same storage inside. He is having to put the solar panels on the roof permanently, another roof rack for the blowup boat, and surfboards and chairs and such. I have suggested a tarp awning off the back over the doorway and maybe one off to the side. We have mosquito netting over the door in place of a screen door. We need to get new suspension on the back, that will be tomorrow. We also have to get a new table made, the current one is woefully small, wide enough for one plate for each of us, and no room for drinks or anything else. Making the table wider would be better the kids, also, since they will be sleeping in that area.

I don't mind (complaining, oops was that my outside voice?) saying that packing for summer or for winter wouldn't be hard but packing for both is quite a challenge. The first 6 mos. we will be in areas where the temps will never drop below 70. But in South America, we will not only be there during their Winter, we will be up in the mountains visiting Cuzco and Macchu Pichu, and did you know that there are Penguins in Peru? Who says that we won't need those nice warm fleeces and jackets? Yet realistically, where do I fit it all in? I would like to take our warm fleece lined boots and jackets, but then we will not have room for other things. Ugh. I am trying.

Let's hope that my attitude towards these things changes as I start to pack things....good attitudes bring good results! Yeah, right, phooey! LOL

Can I keep complaining until the last minute?

Ugh. So yesterday we had scheduled an appt. to have really expensive travel shots and we cancelled. John had food poisoning, and I was trying to figure out why all the books said that the shots could be had cheaper than $120 a shot (!). It would appear that San Diego County health Dpt. does NOT do travel shots (what?!). So I called Los Angeles County Health and ended up on one of their websites through Orange County and have found the shots for....$40 for the Hep A & B combined, $30 for Typhoid and no charge for Tetanus/Diptheria. Wow, big price difference. We get to go on Oct. 8th. John will take the inflatable and outboard this weekend to Baja for a try out and will be back next week sometime. We still need to get the new fridge installed in the camper, new leafs and springs for the suspension and a new table that is wider. I am still in the midst of making lists for the clothes that we will take, curriculum and bathroom/kitchen that we will be taking with us in the camper.


I just want us to have everything done prior to going. Then I will be not sleeping for a completely different reason. Ack.

quick notes

This coming up week is make-all-the-lists-that-I-can week. I need to get over to the storage and determine if anything in there needs to go with us to Central America, needs to be thrown away or given away or repositioned so that we can actually use it. I am going to catalogue everything in there and that will be that. Next, I need to go through all the storage in the trailer and determine what can be thrown away or given away, what will need to stay and what will go with us. In addition to that, I need to figure out what will actually FIT in the new pop top camper. I need to contact my hearing aid place and see if they can order me a case of batteries, and I need to contact the travel clinic and see if we can put ourselves on a schedule to start our shots. I need to see if there are any gaps in the wardrobes (does Teresa actually have a pair of jeans that fit her? Does Leo have jeans that are not too short? Does everyone have some sort of rain jacket?) and if there are gaps, fill them. Yup, this will be list week.
what books to bring!?!?!

Procastinator, here!

ugh, can it possibly be that I don't really want to do anything with the trip? I gave myself the weekend off and still I cannot find it in me to sit down and get things done.

I need to realize that I re-organized the bookshelves, and the toy chest, but...what I need to do is go through the junk on my side of the bed (off to the side of it) and get it put away, vaccuum and then get my medical paperwork together for my dr. appt. on the 10th and my hearing aid paperwork in order. That extra $2,500 will be really handy.

get to work, Toni!

making lists, checking them twice

Well, I see one of my friends is telling me to "breathe". Yup, here it is, number 1 on the list of things to do....LOL. So we are making lists and trying to remember that we are limited in space and do we want to keep this with us or does it go into storage, or what the heck is that thing for anyway, maybe we should just give it away! Yup, right here on the list under, #13) lose my mind!

At least my sense of humour is still intact and just a bit off the wall still...

what the heck can I do?

I wake up thinking about my novel all the time. Things I can add for description and things about the seperate characters.

And then last night, bam! I got a new idea for a new novel. Ugh. Can't I turn this creative churning off? I can't keep thinking up new ideas for novels when I am still writing the first one.

Anyways, for what its worth here goes, it is a sci fi novel about a rape.

Am I flexible or what?!

John and I discussed whether we were going to leave SD for Baja on the 20th of this month...naw!

I guess with all that needs to be done on the truck and all that needs to be done to our storage unit and re-organizing of the trailer, it just makes sense to go ahead and stay another month. That way we will have it all done prior to going, we will be going with a clear head about what is behind us and what we will come back to. This also gives me the opportunity to file for our Private School Afadavit between the 1st and 12th of Oct. And the kids can still attend their friends stuff until then.

I am also going to plan on having a couple of different ways for the kids to say goodbye to their friends, one at the swim team, one at the pool here in the trailer park and one at the parkday that we attend in Tierra Santa.

I am hoping that I can see my cousins one last time and of course, get together with my girlfriends one last time.

It also gives Kit Kat, our new dog, that much more time to get used to us prior to being thrown into a situation where we are moving fairly constantly.

19 days before we leave...or something like that

Ack! We are leaving in 19 days and I have these odd thoughts about, "oh, I need new running shoes" OR "looks like I will need to buy some new flip flops" OR "can I get this or that before we leave". The other things that run through my mind is how many things we can re-visit before we leave. Museum of Man? Check. Ruben H. Fleet? Check. Zoo? Wild Animal Park? Old Towne? Natural History Museum? CostCo?(OK that is just that I am beginning to stress myself out. doncha know?).

I know that all of it will get done. Its just something that I want be orderly about it, and once again it seems at the end to happen higgedly piggedly. Will I see Lori Y. and Laura C. before leaving? Will we see Rick and Janelle in San Pedro? Will I get to see Audrey and rub her belly for luck?(she is pregnant right now)

Stay tuned. It may or may not happen and if it doesn't, I will survive!

Just got our new "home"

The blog is having some problems. We got our new "home" last weekend. It is a pop-top camper that is now on the back of the truck, which also has a new utility truck bed. Looks pretty sweet and I am already looking at various cabinets, saying oh the dishes will fit here, the kids curriculum here, and the utencils here. Always fun looking at these things and trying to figure out where everything will go. More, I am looking at everything to see where we could put pix of different stuff, like our family and such.

This is really beginning to come together, Yeah!!!

I AM THE ALPHA DAM!!

Well, our dog Kit Kat is not exactly as easy going as I thought. About 10 days ago, she picked up our TV remote with her teeth and damaged it enough that is had to be taped back together. Last Tues. she decided to do the same thing with my cell phone. Of course, this time the cell phone was pretty much toast. Then she did the same thing to my CoolPix camera (which I loved!) and destroyed it. On Sat. night she got through our hard sliding door and peed on my side of the bed. OK...WTF is happening?!?!

After some conversation with other people and some thought of my own, I think that she is attached to John in such a way as she is trying to replace me. She was marking my side of the bed and trying to say that it was hers. She was destroying things that she saw as mine.

To remedy this we have bought her a sweaky toy piggy plush toy and a squeaky toy ball. She is no longer so bored, as she will bring the pig to be thrown and she will fetch it for us and we do this for a while. And I am now giving her treats while I hold them in my mouth. That way she sees that I am the pack leading female and I am feeding her from my mouth as would happen in a normal pack. Those treats don't seem that bad! LOL

I am hoping that this behaviour fixes itself soon, as I can't have this happening in even tighter quarters once we leave. I can say that I was stressed on it on Fri. and Sat. but now a few days later I think it is kind of funny.

Stuff that should keep us healthy.

Looks like we are leaving Sept. 20th or so....went to Henry's and got colloidal silver, which is a natural antibiotic. Got witch hazel for cuts and scrapes. Got GSE (grape seed extract) for disinfecting and making water potable. Looking for some good aloe to put on sunburns, some good sunblock, some good shelf stable probiotics. Need to look into getting our shots that we need.
I have to contact the dr. and see if I can get in for a mammogram now before my naturopath appt. and make sure that I will be getting the shots I need. I also need to get my hearing aid batteries ordered. They go through the insurance. No cost to us.
I am in the middle of deciding what needs to go with us for curriculum. I am looking for a spanish book that teaches verb conjugations and spelling for the kids. I found a curriculum by Brainquest and will take 3rd and 4th with me. I'll decide in Jan. if I need to get 2 new grades or not.
The truck is in the shop for the new utility bed and will be there for up to 2 wks. John is still working, although I am not sure that is for the best or not. Seems like I would rather have him be alive than working with some of those jerks that he is working with (the GF in particular, sigh).
I need to talk to our neighbor who did Central America with her husband for a few months. Hope to do that today after I teach.
I am sending Love to me and support to me. I need it right now.

Wow, what am I doing?

Just a couple of quick thoughts....I am reading a book on the death business for the novel "Death in the Life of Inez" and also a book called "Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds ; Mexican Immigration and the Furture of Race in America" which is for Inez' character development. Ironically, John said some smartass remark about that, like " Oh you wouldn't know anything about being hispanic, would you?" Oh ha ha ha.

The dog is coming along. She seems to be attaching to me quite well. I need to take her for a nice long walk at Lake Murray.

The kids began cursive practise. Still doing multiplication, division and fractions. I am looking into buying some math games. I am also hoping to get our curriculum pretty quick here, no telling when Mr. Grippo decides that he has had enough of so called "civilization", or San Diego...

1 Hr. a day is my goal for writing. I am also going to start having the kids journal.

took the kids to boogie board this afternoon, I think we will be doing more of that in the next couple weeks.

Oh and here I am with Leo in Mazatlan....good times!

Will we leave earlier than expected?

It would seem that Mr. Grippo will not be on this job much longer. We are now considering going to Abre Ojos at the end of August and then staying there for Sept. and Oct. and then leaving from there. I am going to have to get HS curriculum put together faster than I thought, and will have to be more on the ball for getting stuff done. I will need to be working on the novel, trying to find out how to sell a non-fiction book idea, blog regularly, and teach the kids how to journal. Oh yeah, and be working on my journal more regularly, too. It would seem that I need to do more stuff than I was originally planning on doing, but that is not true. I always planned on doing all of this, its just that now I have less time to get it done.
I am thinking that I will just take one science book, one math book, an English grammar book, and a beginning Spanish book. If I can get those together, we could just take some paper and pens and crayons and that should be the whole deal.
I am thinking that it would make more sense to be in the Yucatan in Dec. though, but it must be discussed more thoroughly than it has been. Lots of thoughts and they need to be organized.

Here she is with Leo

Well, I am excited to have learned how to put the images with the text. Yay! a new skill!

We have a new family member!

Wow, its been a few weeks....we adopted a dog last Sunday the 14th of July. She is a 3 yr. old female "Great Japanese" dog, a tri-color red and her name is Kit Kat. I am slowly trying to switch over to Kiki as Kit Kat seems like a wrong name for a dog like her. She was bred and born on a ranch north of Tehachapi and given up by her owner because she is sterile (although we will still need to spay her as she still goes into heat- who wants that mess or male dogs sniffing aroun?). She looks amazingly similar to Sequoia, our previous dog, but her personality is so different. She is sweet and very friendly, not at all aloof like Sequoia was. I am loving her so much. I really did miss having a dog. She will definitely be an asset to have with us while traveling in Central and South Americas.
She wouldn't eat much at all during the first week. Now she seems to have rediscovered her appetite. Hopefully we will have her with us as long as Sequoia was with us! Viva la canine!

To flashdrive or not to flashdrive, that is the Q

Well, now is the moment of truth. Do I start (or rather continue handwriting) this novel or do I buy a flashdrive and start typing away like a madwoman?
I am typing at a moderate pace right now. Some of the keys are sticking and not necessarily showing up when I want them to(have you ever tried typing an email with the letter "L", not easy, believe me!). I definitely need to buy some can of air to blast some of the dust out of the keyboard. And then I need to keep my paper with me for when I want to make notes when I am unable to get to the computer.
I am raring to go! I think it will be the computer and I will start to do it when I can.....good luck to me!

Help me clean my *&^%#$ house!

Quick! The kids are out of the house! I need a household fairy to run over here and clean my house! ack. I am doing laundry and am running back and forth from there. I think when I am waiting for the drying to be completed I will be writing. Then if I fold quick enough I will manage to come home and stare disgustedly at my poor, woebegotten carpet. Oh yeah, then I will vaccuum said poor and woebegotten dirty carpet.

help me, I've fallen down and I can't write!

The title is humourous to this post but honestly, I am taking my notebook with me everywhere and am still not actually writing beyond asking myself questions on paper about the plot and characters. Then I was not posting for a few days on here. hrrrrumph.
I talked to my friend, Gimi, today and got super excited about my story. While I was telling her, I was not thinking (for once!) is this stupid for a novel? I was thinking, yeah, I want to read that novel!
I guess for a while I was more interested in how a travel memoir might come out better than any novel I could write. I was talking to the librarians and one of them came up with "a travel memoir through family'e eyes". Perfect-O! I love, love, love it!
Need to teach the kiddoes.....

started the novel

Hey, yesterday I got the binder out and started asking myself questions about the plot and the characters of the story so that I can build an outline. So far, so good. I have written, as in HANDwritten a full page so far and am trying to decide where to start it. These characters have been with me for such a long time that I could literally start at their births, but that seems overlong and needless, I could start at the moment of crisis, which I most likely will, or I could start nearer to the end and flashback. These are just idle thoughts I have flitting through this interesting head of mine....interesting to me, at least.
I have named the characters...Inez, of the title, being the understanding latina widow, Anna, the owner of the Physician-assisted suicide clinic (honestly, have to find a better clinic type name), and Richard, the reason the 2 women strike up their odd friendship.
Physically, Anna is a certain blonde actress of my age that I admire, Inez is me and Richard is the same as B from my past.
Hopefully writing this out on a public post lights my fire and continues to make me write.

hoping to figure out how to homeschool while on trip

I know, I know that the trip is months off and all that jazz but I realized that bringing the right books and the right stuff on the trip for homeschooling....well it seems overwhelming, SUDDENLY!!! Ack. I am thinking, we'll just do something simple, then I think, OH, I can contact that company that offered to have the kids do some video blurbs on the internet and they will send us books, then I think, no, we will just bring the curriculum I am most comfortable with....
OK, I need to calm down and just look at what my kids are needing for this next year and just get that. ugh. Maybe I could hide under a pillow?

little by little...

John just came home from the beach with full wetsuits for the kids that will fit them while we are in Southern waters. Little by little, things that we get and books that we read and videos that we watch, makes the fact that we are leaving seem more real. John is showing them how to get the wetsuits on and I am imagining what it will be like when they are trying to surf in Peru or in Chile.
We watched a video on Peru and the city in the Clouds and I got frustrated with the kids reaction to it. I asked them for their thoughts and Teresa (especially) just said, "I dunno!" and shrugged and got all flustered. It made me excited to see Cuzco and Machu Picchu. Wow, we are going there! Leo said that since it was so far away from the surf that we would not go there and I had to correct him. We would have to go, considering that we are in that part of the world only this one time(as far as I know it will only be this one time).
I get the impression that when I talk about leaving in Nov. that people are thinking, "Yeah, right!" and thinking that we would not really go. My friends know that we will go. Now, for more research....sigh.

feeling groovy

Well, I am finally getting the trailer so that we can actually LIVE in it! Aaaahhhh. I got a binder out and will start my novel with an outline today. We have about 50 books out from the library, some are for the reading programs for summer that we are doing, some are for school (Story of the World, doncha know?) and some are for researching Central and South America, travel books. My problems with a lot of those travel books are that they are for "hotel" people, whereas we are campground people.
Reading the caution areas of those books, brought it home to me. We are going to the home of the malarial mosquito! Ack! We will need mosquito nets for both the grownups and the kiddoes. We will have to get innoculations against some of those crazy illnesses that preside down there. (Big breath, now don't panic, Toni). Everyone thinks I am so brave. Well, not feeling particulary brave or groovy all of the sudden.
That's it for today. Now I have freaked myself out and need to re-establish my equilibrium. Yoga, anyone?

Apr. 20- Sunday...we are enjoying our time in San Diego, but we are beginning to get the wanderlust again. We are beginning to slowly make comments that mean that we want to get out on the road again. Really, I know it would be SO much easier if we just found someplace more permanent to live, and then tried to build a life there. The kids love having friends that they get to play with and classes or teams that they can join. But even they are making comments about Conejo or about the time that we were in Kalbarri...I find it interesting that even the kids are used to leaving.
Leo is playing on a little league team (go Padres!) and Teresa is taking a ballet class. Both of them are loving being on the swim team. I think it is so odd that they thrive on this life here in SD but also look forward to our adventure coming up (this one in South America).
John and I are now going to look into having the truck put on a container ship and sent to Peru and then we will fly in to meet it. The only problem with that would be that of course we will have to move the trailer and all that with someone else's truck, or if Joan has gone to Florida, then we could live in her house for a while, with using just my honda Civic as our way of getting around. I am looking into what will be needed for putting that new vehicle in storage and other things are already crowding my mind about the trip.
I am also excited in that the problem that I have been having in putting my novel together solved itself a few weeks ago, and now I am hoping that with this fresh perspective that I will be able to get it down, once and for all.
Off to the beach we go! (John is in Mojave and working like a dog. I miss him very much! sigh)

well, haven't we been industrious...not! I still have not started the novel...I need to just get off my bum and do it! Kids are doing well in school, I have not been playing my sax, but they are doing so many things now. Teresa is really into ballet and I am trying to get her interested in other dance forms, like flamenco! Leo will be playing little league here in San Carlos area of San Diego, he will be in the caps division due to his lack of inexperience. The swim team is plunging ahead and there will be a meet coming up in Feb. that I hope to post pix of.
I just want to start the novel. I have started my hatha yoga program and so far am down from 140 lbs. to 133 now. I've been doing that for a few weeks. Hopefully this will get me on to getting the novel started. Here's hoping that it occurs sooner than later.
Optimism is the word for the week!