Last weekend in the U.S. and Canada daylight saving ended for this year. The week before it ended in Mexico and Europe. This makes little sense to me. No extra time was created in the spring and then reclaimed in the fall. I guess that is all I have for that subject, but I needed a title.
The weather in Mazatlan is now improving to the climate that we moved here to enjoy. The oppresive humidity is lifting. I think we will explore San Miguel Allende or Lake Chapala or other possible locations for the three or four most humid months in the summer. We might take two weeks prior and two weeks after to visit the north, so we will escape from mid June to mid October. We would like to take a trip to San Miguel in the spring to see if we like it and can find a suitable place to rent. San Miguel is a home to many artists and an active expat community.
Life is getting busy now that more of the snowbirds are returning. One group starts arriving in November, another group doesn't arrive until after Christmas. The Whitaker's will have our annual Thanksgiving dinner with loads of guests. We provide the turkey and our guests are asked to bring their specialties. This year we will have a great niece from North Carolina as a guest. She is a senior in high school and wants to see what Mexico is like. Over Christmas, Janice's brother Phil and sister-in-law Charla will be here. As my brother Steve and sister-in-law Linda also lives in Mazatlan we get family time.
We enjoyed Halloween and were part of a parade Halloween evening. Janice was dressed as a chilli pepper and I has dressed as a can of Tecate Beer in pinata costumes. We paraded between MaCaws (a near by little hangout) and Plazuela Machado. I think the kids got a kick out of a group of mature (partialy) gringos dressed in fun costumes. The next day was the Day of the Dead parade. We had a table on the plazuela to watch the parade. One of the highlights was kegs of beer pulled by donkeys. Those that had glasses were given glasses of free beer. A couple of people from our table got a lot of glasses and Janice had he wine glass and it was filled with beer. There have been many other activities such as trips to Stone Island beach and the Olas Altas beach.
Janice and two friends had our home on the art walk on November 4th displaying their art. I (Janice) have over the last few years, and especially this summer in Spain and Ireland collected sea glass that has been tumbled over many years and landed on the sand. Some pieces have made beautiful pieces of jewelry I've created. Then also I have a friend that is an oil painter and paints anything Mazatlan and then the other artist is a lady that has made mosaics in the form of lamps, vases, tables and mirrors. This was our first year to be on the art walk which is once a month. We had 75 - 100 people through the two front rooms of our house. I felt very fortunate to sell so many pieces of the jewelry that I did.
Joel is continuing to volunteer this year at the library and for the tourist information group. He again is playing bridge this year 2 times a week and has speech therapy 1 time a week doing homework everyday for a couple hours at a time. I on the other hand haven't gotten into any volunteer projects yet. I'm not playing cards yet this year either. I've been focusing on getting our house comfortable, spending a lot of time creating jewelry, forming a small watercolor class being taught by YouTube videos, and also a small ladies travel group planning short little 1 or 2 night trips here and there. There is never a reason to be bored here. We have so much available to us. All we need to do is put on our imagination caps.
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Until next time,
Joel and Janice
