Baby Jonathan-----Here We Come!!!!

We survived winter in Mexico!!!!!! Don’t laugh. Truly we have a couple months of cold and then February comes and it starts to warm up. It is still chilly at night but where else can you go to dinner in a sweater!!!! Our friends, Larry and Judy invited us to a dinner party at Alejandrina’s to celebrate Larry’s 70th birthday. It was a fun time and a lot of our friends were there. It also happened to be the Baja 200 race today as well. Dave and I didn’t stand along the roadside waiting for the motorcycles and cars to come by but we could watch a little from our kitchen window. Some of the cars were cool!! When we went into town the race cars were parading down the street to cheers and smiling faces. It brings a lot of money in town which is a good thing. Some of the racers were having dinner at Alejandrinas when we arrived. We met a man named George who raced his car and the gal that rode with him. Nice people. After we had dinner and watched Larry open his gifts, we left and I did some grocery shopping for the week. Then it was on the bumpy road to home. I was surprised the road wasn’t all torn up after the race. It was bad to begin with but figured it would be worse. Just a few stones thrown out in the road but for the most part it wasn’t any worse. Lois and Larry are back and they had our water heater. It is a ten gallon propane heater. Wow!!! We have moved up in the world. The nice thing is they didn’t charge us for it. We offered to pay half. We got our blind too. It took Dave a couple days working on the installation of the water heater before he got it working. He had to change the way the pipes went so they could connect to the fittings to the new water heater. Anyway, we fired it up today and it seems to be working. Haven’t taken a hot shower yet but it won’t be long. Dave went to return some tools to Larry so while he was gone I put up the blind in the kitchen. One less thing for him to do. He was surprised and pleased it was done. So things are in working order again. Remember I said they are putting a road in from town past our house? Well they haven’t started yet. Of course they were waiting for the race to be done. The word now is they will start in March. We shall see. We started out the morning with clouds and had a few sprinkles but now the sun is shining and it is warm. It is very comfortable. We were finally able to take a hot shower!!!!! It was wonderful!! I guess the old water heater had been dying for some time because the water didn’t stay hot through a quick shower. So we are very happy!!! Now I am working on the baby cross stitch announcement. I won’t have it done before I leave but hopefully I will get to finish it while I am in Washington. We received very sad news this morning. Ruth died this morning, the 4th. She will be sorely missed!!!! Christopher, her son, is going to have a celebration of her life on March 2nd in La Mesa, California, for those friends up there and then have another one in Bahia where he will scatter her ashes on the bay. My good friend Penny had been with her close to her dying. She had to come home due to being ill and didn’t want to give anything to Ruth or Christopher so she wasn’t there when Ruth died. But she did reassure me that Ruth was ready and prepared to die and she went in piece. I am glad about that. It just goes to show us all that we need to take care of ourselves and get regular physicals. If Ruth had seen a doctor when she started feeling ill, they may have been able to catch the cancer before it spread. It is what it is but it is definitely a lesson to be learned. When we are young we think we are invincible and no harm will befall us. But when we get older the way we treated our bodies catches up with us. In her case she smoked a lot and she definitely liked her wine and liquor. I’m not naive enough to think that is all that caused the cancer, but it didn’t help. I was at Lois’ watching the 2nd series of Downton Abbey when the announcement came over the VHF that Ruth had died. We shed some tears and then opened a bottle of white German wine and gave a toast to Ruth!!! She will live in our hearts and mind forever. O.K. Now to continue on a brighter note. It is getting closer to the time when we will be leaving to go north. I can hardly wait. Our plan is to drive to Ensenada on the 16th and cross the border the next day and be at our friend’s house, Phil and Creela that afternoon. They are letting us stay there overnight and will drive us to the airport so we can keep our jeep at their house. They are such good people. Then on our return they will pick us up at the airport and we will stay with them overnight then leave for Ensenada the following day and be home on the 6th. While in Washington we will hopefully get to see David, our 3 year old grandson, Eian who is 13 years old, E.J. who is to be 16 years old, and Brody who will be 5 years old. Dave will probably see his daughter and her two sons, Ethan and Sammy. Ethan just turned 18 and Sammy is 15. They sure are growing up. We are in Santa Rosalia to see about getting our residency cards, but unfortunately they aren’t back yet. We did find out we don’t need a letter to go north as we aren’t flying from Mexico to the States. So that was a relief. As we were walking back to the boat and from the immigration office, Dave noticed we had a flat tire on the front passenger side of the jeep. Bummer!!! We just can’t seem to get ahead money wise these days. Whenever we think we will be able to save some bucks, something else happens!! BUT on the positive side, at least the tire got flat here instead of blowing on the road going home. So there are blessings in disguise! There is an auto shop across the street from t he marina so Dave walked over there and had them take off the tire to see what was causing the problem. That was the tire that Sammy, in Bahia patched, however, he never removed the rock that caused the first leak so now the rock is so far imbedded in the tire there is no patching it. We need a new tire. Alberto sprayed some of the flat fix stuff in it but it won’t last long. So now Dave is on the hunt for a new tire. I pray he will be able to get one. Our life is full of excitement!!!!! Ha!! Well like I said----never a dull moment. We are suppose to go back home tomorrow so I hope we can get all of this resolved. While he is searching for a tire, I will do laundry that I brought from the house. Oops! Can’t do laundry as he has the jeep with the clothes in the back. Ha!! Well good news. He got a new tire put on and it was not that expensive. A couple hundred dollars so for the jeep it is pretty inexpensive. So we are heading to the house tomorrow. I got the laundry done and all that is to be done now is measure the zippers for the cockpit enclosure so Dave can pick up new ones in Washington. Well the day arrived finally to head north. We decided to leave really early and go to Phil and Creela’s house and stay 2 days with them before flying out. We had a great visit. Then on Monday the 18th they drove us to the airport and we flew to Washington where we rented a car and Dave drove to Jon and Susannah’s in Tacoma to see the little guy then leave me there. He will be staying with Ron and Noreen in their condo for the 2 weeks. Dave didn’t get a chance to hold Jon Jr as he was asleep in his swing. The two weeks went quickly and during that time I got to have lots of grandma time with my new grandson and help mom and dad get some sleep and get errands done before they both have to go back to work. Jon starts work the day we fly home. He and Susannah are not looking forward to putting little Jon in day care, but they have no choice right now. They did a lot of searching for one while I was there and finally found one close to home, but they want to find one they can just pay on a drop in basis as Susannah works from home a lot. They have a lot of challenges with work, baby, day care and all that goes with it but they are handling it well. They are still sleep deprived and that won’t change for a while. Lots of caffeine!!!! Ha!! Jon Jr. is smiling a lot and starting to coo which is always fun to hear. He is a really good baby and a doll!!! Mom and Dad call him Bug and grandma right now calls him boo!!! Why? I don't know. It just sounded good at the time! He tends to sleep a lot during the day which is unfortunate for mom and dad and wants to feel every 3 hours at night. He is hard to burp as well which doesn’t help matters. He is a diner rather than a eater. What I mean by that is he takes his time eating. He will eat a little then stop and take a break then eat some more and take a break and so on until he is finished which usually takes about an hour maybe more. He is like his dad in that respect because Jon was a diner. Grandma got to give Jonathan Jr. a bath but he was more interested in the light under the counter. I finally got his attention though. While we were in Washington we got to go to Brody’s 5th birthday party. Dave and I met Brooke’s mom and her grandparents. The party was at a jungle gym in Mount Vernon. The kids had fun climbing through the tubes and sliding down the sides and having cake and Brody opening his gifts. He is into Power Rangers and Ninja turtles and the like so here are a couple pictures showing some of the stuff he got. E.J. was totally bored but that is a teenager for you!! After the party, Dave dropped me back to Jon and Susannah’s house where he got to hold Jonathan Jr. for a while. We had a short visit but nice. He is planning on coming back on Friday to get me so I can spend some time with Ron and Noreen and Jonathan can spend the weekend with his family before he starts work on Monday. The last night of my stay with Jon and family I volunteered for the night duty with Jon Jr. and he was a little fussy as he had gotten shots the day before. So I ended up putting him in my bed and we slept pretty well. I have NEVER done that before not even for my own kids. I guess I am getting soft in my old age. Ha!!! He did sleep longer that way and Grandma wasn’t so tired the next morning. Before Jon took me to Gig Harbor to meet Dave, I said my goodbyes to Susannah and Jonathan Jr. as I wasn’t going to see them again before going back to Mexico. She was staying home with Jon Jr. and Jonathan was the only one going because he was taking me to the Sounders game that evening. When we return in the summer Jon Jr. will be so big. But it will be fun. Dave met us at the shopping center in Gig Harbor and I told Jonathan I’d see him tomorrow, Saturday at his brothers. Dave took us to Ron and Noreen's condo. We went out for dinner. It was good to see them again. Then we came back watched some T.V. and went to bed.