Happy LB New Year: Feliz Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year! We are currently going through the tedium of shuttering up before we head out on the annual bucket list trip. It really does feel like it’s end of a year in August and a new beginning. Every August I find myself making resolutions for October and regretting those not resolved while cheering on our newest accomplishments.

That’s a pitaya bloom. We unburied this cactus from a cloud of brush. Hopefully we can make pitaya margaritas someday.

..and I continue work on cactus photography technique

We have had a few firsts, like our first bunch of bananas (which sadly did not ripen), but our first pineapple was amazingly sweet.

Looks like I have a new collage feature. Have not quite figured how to use but I am practicing for Scotland. Next collage might be 5 glasses of scotch. could some folks let me know if they are able to see the collages? It’s unclear to me if it can be seen on all devices.

While we are enjoying finding the new stuff, the truth is we have settled into a pleasant rhythm of the year. A couple months of pickleball, sup, snorkel and dinners with friends followed by a couple weeks of summer camp (curso de verano) followed by a scramble of trip planning and house closure.

So 120 kids spend close to 3 weeks doing art, swimming, soccer, basketball, literature, learning English, doing boat trips, arroyo field trips and learning about the dog/cat spaying program. It is hot and none of this is done in the air conditioning. The kids are driven to locations all over town. Seriously amazing how this is pulled off every year. It ends with a showcasing of their swimming skills followed by a reef swim where each kid is given a snorkel and mask…followed by pizza by the pool. It’s all free thanks to many donations and the organization by East Cape and the DIF. It is an incredibly exhausting couple weeksand a little scary to kick those kids one by one out to our reef, but so darn joyful to watch their excitement.

This is our third year to help with summer camp…let’s see if we have the energy for another year!

Another tradition I want to continue is my perfect beach birthdays. This is our second year at Los Colibrís Casitas and this year we got to share it with our daughter….a wonderful birthday week. The Pacific side is much cooler—-perfect at the end of June.

…sat on the beach watching crashing surf sometimes with crashing surfers

….while sipping flowery drinks

…or drinking French roast on the deck….with my 2 favorite people

(Just checking….everybody can see the mouth and the nose right?)

And while I think I would prefer a truckload of peaches….

Of course everything changes and some traditions end. Lazy Daze closed their doors a couple weeks ago (WAIT just A MINUTE, THEY HAVE NO DOORS!). It’s been a place to always take the company so we can show how very cool it is to live by the beach. It was hard to beat the frat style margaritas (as M called them which means lots of cheap tasty tequila), the best onion rings and French fries in town. And the fully deep fried chile rellenos, no longer easy to find in our health conscious world, has just become that much harder to find. It was a meeting place, a friendly hangout, a place where you could let the toddlers run around in the sand throwing ring toss while you sipped a cold one with your pickleball buddies or your fishing buddies….you get the idea… and best of all it was on a spectacular beach.

The last day of Lazy Daze party was fun, funny and bittersweet. At last we got to place our bets on chickenshit bingo. Despite owning 4 of of those squares we did not win…but we did have fun trying to make the rooster poop on the right spot!

Paul says, “But where will we go now”

And of course plenty of dancing with Pink’s mother-in-law

I continued to work on improving my sourdough baking skills. This is going to be another lifelong pursuit along with studying Spanish. I am better at baking though.

A bread with a view! We now can buy bread flour in Mexico but this was my first loaf in banneton from Amazon. Actually a colander works pretty well too!

As the last of the 6 monthers (as we refer to them) leave, the fishing tournament season starts in full swing with lots of fishing folks filling the town. We haven’t gotten brave or skilled enough to plunk a few thousand down (or a few hundred depending on the tournament) to join a team, but we had fun at 3 tournaments this year. At El Cardonal, a small town, we watched the boats bringing in their catch while we sipped cold drinks (made to order for book money) under our umbrellas with the same group who recommended this to us last year. It raises money for the local school (very little school funding here).

A new tournament has started just down the beach from us. I think this will continue to be a favorite….

…..as long as they serving free barbacoa fish and sashimi!

It doesn’t get much fresher than this.

In the category of new things unlikely to luck into again, we were (sort of ) invited to the Bisby Banquet. This is one of the biggest tournaments in the Baja attracting teams from all over. It is BIG prize money, 600,000 usd (ha we thought that was pesos) for best marlin, but you wouldn’t feel too bad to get second place at 300,000 dollars. Third prize is a bit of come down at 9,000 usd. (The Cabo tournament is even bigger prizes). Imagine how you would feel if you caught a 700 lb marlin and did your best to race in with it but sadly on arrival the scales were closed and the first place winner instead was a 400 lb marlin. We watched the story told onstage that night. I have to say they were incredibly good sports and graciously accepted a bottle of tequila as a consolation prize for a record breaking but not prize winning marlin. We sat with the director and organizers of the tournament. It was a great evening of great food and drink, but the best part was watching the excitement, emotion, fatigue and a bit of inebriation…ending with a fantastic fireworks show over our heads. We certainly didn’t belong with this class of fishermen but they were welcoming and we learned so much. THEY talked about giving one guy the job throwing a line out to tempt the sharks to his line of tasty shark morsels to keep the sharks from attacking the prize fish they were bringing in…really that’s a job?

I believe one of our resolutions last year was to not put off doing projects until last minute. We tried by staying busy with installing solar panels, delegating upholstery, getting new appliances throughout the year but yet as we leave a new garden is going in, a new washer dryer arrives for the condo in a couple days etc etc. it seems a bit easier to find people to work this time of year or maybe we just have more time to find them but sadly I think this may be a hard habit to change.

So here is to investing more time in art (specifically oil painting and sketch), improving my mah jong skills, playing more cribbage at restaurants, speaking more Spanish and learning to listen. Brant has invested much time in the community with Rotary over the past year as president (yup his year ended in June—-see what I mean about the new year starting now?). Now more time for chess, fishing, pickleball for him….

So Cheers y salud y Happy New Year to everyone! Here’s to another year of fun, learning new stuff and most of all spending time with family and friends. Stay tuned for faraway lands ….but first, will the washer/dryer fit on the deck this Friday…will they actually deliver it? , will they be able to cut enough reeds at the next full moon for our fence 9wjat is it with this full moon stuff?)….and most importantly will the ocean be flat enough for one more sup ride of the year?

…and I apologize, there is a new operating system for WordPress and I can not go back and fix mistakes….yet….another a new thing to learn!