Day 185

I have made it 6 months in Mexico now, and I am getting used to it.

Not six months straight of course, but 6 months in the country. 

When we got mr we got him a water dish that was like the water jugs at offices,  it then it got moldy and gross, so we got rid of it, now we are trying to find one again here in Mexico. So we drove all the way to the pet store in Monterrey, come to find out, they don't carry them there either. But I found a big bag of the new food we are giving mr. Another thing I can not find is cat treats! I thought I had seen them before, but now I can not find them ANYWHERE! So another item imported.

Then in e evening we went to one of my friend's birthday parties, she is a German girl married to a Mexican. It was the first time I've been in a social setting where not everyone spoke English, so I was able to practice my spanish, and Nikki's mother inlaw helped me when I couldn't translate something, it was really good for me! There was of course food, and drinks,

But it wouldn't be a Mexican Birthday party without a piñata!

Day 184

I met a few new friends today, one girl her husband works for Whirlpool, but sadly they are headed back to Michigan this summer. So she is only here for 2 more months!

After hanging out with my friends, I worked on my quilt.

4.5 of my 5 rows done!

I planned to have the blocks assembled before the end of May! So if I finish this top in the next week I'll be way ahead of schedule! And I'll be able to resume my regularly scheduled life! Well until August, when I will be able to start quilting!

Mr. Meow enjoyed the out doors 

And we made stuffed shells, except I couldn't find shells so I stuffed a different kind of pasta and Josh made the sauce according to the recipe, there were waaaaaaayyyyy too many red pepper flakes in the sauce, and it overtook the flavor of anything else,

Not cool.

Day 183

So after not getting to bed until 2am I slept like a baby until Josh went to work at 7.

Mr. Meow also had a rough night.

I finished all the blocks!

And tried the layout

I like it.

Then Josh came home

This is what happens when you only sleep for 3 hours, he took a quick nap before we headed to spanish class, after spanish he dropped me off at home and headed back to work. When he got home at close to 11 he claimed his power nap had invigorated him and he was not tired, but after and 10 minutes of sitting on the couch he was sawing logs lol

Day 182

Our biggest lime fell off the lime tree today. I cut it open and it smelled like lime! But, there was really not much other than peel.

I spent some good quality time with Mr. Meow today.

And he spent most of his day being adorable as usual.

Josh came home from work, we ate a quick dinner then he headed out to pick up some guys from work that were in visiting and took them out to dinner since they had just arrived, then when he got home at 11pm he tried to stay awake because he had to go back to work at 1:30, I decided to stay up to make sure he work up and went to work. I watched pretty much the entire season 3 of Downton Abbey today, I will watch the season 4 I got for Christmas this week too :) I hope I get season 5 for my birthday, hint hint :)

Day 181

I worked on laundry and I cleaned the master bath,

But then I remembered I also needed to pay bills.

When I tried to access my flash drive, it was corrupted. I tried for hours to figure it out, and last week someone stole our credit card information and used it from when we were home at Easter, so I was having a bit of a nervous breakdown.

But thankfully, I had made a copy of everying and left it with my parents, so I only lost a few months worth of data! Phew! 

Here is the guest bed in the office, Mr is testing it out, yes there are actually 2 mattresses, but what were we going to do with the other one until things are set in stone??? And it gives Mr. a good work out every time he wants to jump up there. He makes a little noise like it was hard to jump that high lol.

We also got these popcorn flavor at the grocery store, did you know there were so many options???

Day 180

We spent most of the day organizing our house.

Since the other couple has left, and we have all of their furniture, and now Josh doesn't think anyone else is coming.

We reorganized the living room, we now have 2 couches, and 2 love seats, 2 coffee tables and 3 side tables...

Enough seating I think...

We also added a TV to the guest suite, a dresser and a recliner.

And we furnished the "office" with a bedroom set as well. Our bedroom gained the two chairs that used to be in the living room.

And my sewing room is reorganized to better hold the TV, and the new end table it recieved.

I really like the new shelving arrangement!!!

And the TV swivels, so I can turn it to where I am in the room!

Day 179

We woke up with a slow morning, then decided to head out and try the new BW3s in town.

Ordering was easy, they kept all the item names in English, but the descriptions were in Spanish, I only had to order my celery in spanish, easy peasy! 

I think the quality of the chicken wasn't as good, I had a couple pieces that had fat or something in them, but it was a nice taste of home.

Then later in the day. We cooked dinner (apparently all we did was eat ;) )

We made honey Rosemary salmon.

I had never cooked with rosemary before. Honestly it didn't turn out very delicious, it was really quite bland. 

Day 178

I have no pictures today,

Why you might ask? Well, we did cook dinner, but I don't remember what we made, I spent most of my day at the computer, after talking to my parents first thing in the morning, they had been doing a little ancestry the day before out in the cemeterys. So I got sucked in and spent my entire day searching death records for my German Lutheran family in Detroit. I found a ton of them, but not he one we were looking for!!! Ugh!

Day 177

The day started out with a goodbye to a friend/ex-pat. She is headed back to Michigan for the summer.

Then I did a bit of sewing

Completing all of the squares, for block a and even sewing one square!

Then off to Spanish class, where I saw this growing in the palm tree, what is it???

Day 176

It hailed again! The third time in 5 weeks!

This time only marble sized.

But lots of it! Then it was really windy! So windy the power went out almost everywhere and the street lights too of course! So the driving was crazy!

(As if it isn't usually!) no one knows what a 4-way stop is apparently!

I also redeemed myself today and sewed all of these the right way! Yey!

So last week I found ants in my dishwasher, this week they were on my counter! But not doing what ants normally do, they were not hauling food around, they were just scurrying here and there, with no agenda or organization it seems, so thankfully Josh sprayed outside and inside by the dishwasher and I've only seen 2 ants since! Because the houses are so unsealed here ants come in no problem!

Day 175

So for some reason today, I couldn't stop thinking how ridiculous it was that we had 5 doors outside! Every other house I've lived in has only had 3! 5 does seem excessive doesn't it?

Also I tried out a pintrest craft, 

Although the craft called for doilies, I couldn't find any, so I used some lace that I found at the new fabric store!!! So I was supposed to use wallpaper glue, all I found was boarder glue, close enough, then put the lace over a balloon and let it dry!

Once dry pop the balloon, and you will have a lace candle holder...

Fail, I couldn't even get the lace off the balloon!!!

Day 174

Laundry of course, and I felt super lazy, and did not much since my stomach was not feeling great either.

But we did make dinner.

Sour cream and green chili sauce over enchiladas, eh, not that great and not that healthy!

Day 173

After waking up a little later then Josh we headed to the gym, and then spent a large amount of time out in the pool, I can't get over how much I love the pool now that it's hot.

Then Josh wanted to put the skimmer to hang on the wall. So we did.

Then we made dinner, we made an enchilada casserole, Josh liked it, I thought it was subpar to the enchilada pie we had made. So I put it in my not that delicious pintrest, but it was good.

Day 172

We woke up in the morning, made some breakfast, and then we headed downtown, to look for some doilies for a craft project I want to do :), Josh's admin assistant suggested a place, unfortunately no doilies to be found, but right next door was a fabric store!!! It even had cotton!!! Not a ton and not quilt shop quality, but it would work in a pinch. They had all kinds of fabric, so I bog urn lace for my project instead, I hope it works!

Some pictures of downtown

It was really hot out, so when we got home from running errands, we spent most of the evening in the pool and even grilled out, I've been so happy lately that we have a pool with how hot it's been!!!

Day 171

A frustrating day,

I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, but I was able to get the grocery shopping done and a few chores, 

Then I worked on sewing...

But I sewed every single one of these HSTs wrong, so I had to take them all out! Ugh!

Then Josh and I made chicken cordon bleu casserole, it wasn't that great, but Josh liked it...

Day 170

I was stuffy all day again, and I didn't sleep well last night,

So I got a few things done around the house, including, finishing all of the b blocks!

Day 169

A day of chores,

I was doing dishes, and went to load the dishwasher when I opened it there was an ant fiesta happening, GROSS! They must have came In the drain! Since there are not ants crawling around the kitchen. So I ran the dishwasher, what lose was I supposed to do? I really hope this does t happen again, I'm so over this dishwasher, I feel like it doesn't wash good either... I end up washing so many dishes after they go through anyway.

Then I did some ironing and finally got working on my quilt!

It has been since last Thursday really.

I finished all of the 4- patches for block b.

Day 168

All day I was looking forward to the ballet all day!

I've never been to the ballet.

The Moscow ballet came here to perform Swan Lake.

The theater was beautiful outside!

And the entrance was really nice too, a sculpture, paintings and carved wood paneling.

Josh was super excited, 

The theater was small, and we were in the 10th row, and our tickets were only $30 a piece!

The dancing was good, some day I'd like to see the ABC in NY. Most of the principles were really young, I enjoyed it! I will hopefully get to go again :)

Day 167

So we had planned to go hiking yesterday, but it was so windy, Josh was concerned we would be blown off the mountain. So we headed out today, it was sunny and few clouds and a beautiful day when we left our house, and just as we rounded the last mountain to head into Monterrey, Fog/clouds/steam.
But we continued on.
We saw a ton of these beautiful blue birds.

They were actually some kind of grey bird according to the sign we read

Then, everywhere you go, there is a shrine to a saint or Mary that people pray to and leave presents for, well we happened to be out hiking on Mothers day and ran across a shrine in the park for Mary.

Also on the way up I saw some bear tracks, I wish I would have taken a picture, Josh tried to tell me they were dog tracks, but you can not take pets in, and I am 100% sure they looked like bear tracks, I've never seen them in the wild before!!! So about 3 miles I felt my sugar drop, I told Josh I was losing energy fast, and of course I forgot to pack my shot blocks, or granola bars... so all I had was my lunch, 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So a little bit further up the mountain I could go no more. So I sat down and ate one of the sandwiches. After that I felt good again, and we finished hiking to the top. Where we saw some nice views.

And we finished eating lunch

saw some wild life

and flowering cacti

Then we headed back down, with about a 1/4 of a mile left, my body gave up and I felt like I was going to throw up, Josh said he did too, so we continued slowly up the grueling climb from last week and tried to make it back to the car, Josh made it all the way and met me at a lower parking lot. I felt like crap, and slept the entire way home, out like a rock, after my nap I felt much better, although not 100%, I'm now worried about our backpacking trip, because we didn't even have packs with us! Only small day packs!!! Yikes! But, we won't have 100% humidity and high 80's temps when we are hiking, so I know that will make a huge difference, since we only made it 6 miles today! however I'm still worried!

Day 166

From the storm yesterday it was very windy most of the day,

We had originally planned to go hiking, but, Josh was afraid we would get blown off the mountain.

So instead we did some stuff around the house. We cleaned the pool, and fixed one of the sprinklers,

And since it was 100 degrees,

Here is proof! 

We went swimming in the pool, we even turned the heater on, and I touched the pool floor for the first time, it was really nice!

Then we made chicken taquitos for dinner, fast and easy, we would make these again (I made burrito size though :) )

Day 165

It stormed again today,

Mr. Has a new hiding place.

He hides in the pedestal under the washer or dryer...

Day 163/164

What can I say? I've been less than exciting this week!

All I have done are my regular chores and Spanish class!

Day 162

My cat does tricks...

Does yours?

Day 161

As you know I do laundry every Monday.

And I own a ton of laundry baskets...

But this is because I separate my laundry very methodically (thanks for this mom)

In addition to sheets and etc. these are the loads I do

Blacks

Cold water blues

Warm water blues

Cold water reds

Warm water reds

Undies

White t-shirts

Cold water whites

Towels

I think that's it...

Do you separate yours into this many loads?

Oh and Mr. Says hi.

Day 160

We moved the stuff from the other house into a better storage location, and then we cleaned the pool, and the car.

We also made chicken taco salad.

It was delicious...

Day 159

We headed out early to a park Josh had found to go for a short day hike. We need to gear up for our 4 day 46 mile hike! I'm excited and nervous!

At the top of the mountain they have a park.

This is their slide, cement with a slippery coating that they were sliding down on boxes, it looked fun :)

Getting up to this was a mile of up, over 1000feet of elevation gain in one mile.

It was really foggy so we couldn't get a picture form the top, but here is one part way down.

The hike was really good, except the part where I lost my sunglasses and panicked a run back like 1/4 mile up a hill to find them! Thankfully they were still there!