My how life has changed!

Here we are back in Des Moines in October of 2014! It was fun reading through the blog posts and re living the Mexico City experience. It's hard to believe we've been back in the US now for over two years. We had a wonderful summer going to Okoboji and spending time with Adam and Sarah Cooper and their daughter Monica. We also got to meet up with Jordan and Kristen in Wisconsin and travel with them up to Oshkosh to see Dave and Mandy's Izquierdo and fam along with Adam Smith. Throw in Tina Easton's wedding in September, and we had a great throwback summer with Mexico City peeps.

Shortly after the Wisconsin trip we made our way to St. Louis and got to meet Nina's cousins Levi and Junichi. What will behaves and good looking boys to have in the family. We had a great time with all of our Illinois relatives.

 My oh my how times have changed! Now we've got out hands full with a beautiful baby girl, Nina Hallene. Mi suregra preferida has recently moved back to Des Moines and is engaged and to be married this December. We just celebrated the baptism of Nina by having our friends and family to outrchurch, Westminster. John and shelby boyd are the god parents. They just sold their home in Des Moines, which is only 2 miles away, so they'll be moving elsewhere and we're a little bit bummed but excited for them.

Thought I would test the waters and see who if anybody is still linked to this blog!

All things forgotten

Of course after posting 4 straight blogs, I forgot some cool stuff about some happenings down here in Mexico:

We've employed our own cleaning lady Claudia, and she's a saint of a lady. She comes every Wednesday to pick up on any details we miss, which I must admit are increasing each week. We have to take advantage of the only time we'll be able to afford our own cleaning service!

My dear old dad Rene Ciro is heading to Mexico City for almost a full week for the end of May/first full week in June. Can't wait to break in the city properly with 'el padrino'.

I also met another great full time maid through one of the kids I tutor. Her name is Blanca, and I've hired her twice to come over and help me learn a few authentic Mexican recipes. I've got plans to get her over at least one or two more times so I can apply what I've learned in the States this summer.

And last, but not least, we've already booked our flights back home, and we'll be starting the Josh/Olivia 'Summer of Madness' tour in San Antonio on the 4th of July and ending up flying back to Mexico out of Omaha on Aug.11. We'll be splitting time in San Antonio, Omaha, Greenfield, Des Moines, the Northwoods of Minnesota and St. Louis, so get your planners out and pencil us in!

Olivia is sure to get a blog on here sooner or later too, since most of the stuff has been from my point of view

April to Present Day

April was a bit of a transition month for me, as I traded in my 25-30 hr work week tutoring for a 60+ hrs/wk combination of tutoring part time and working the new job full time. Here's a taste of the crazy schedule: M-F we're out the door by 7:10, home by 6:30, and TR I'm home at 8:00.

It's been a handful but I'm enjoying the work and the tighter schedule helps kick me into efficiency mode. The school year ends the middle of June, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Definitely looking forward to our 5+ weeks off for the summer. Golf anyone?

Work took me to Washington D.C. from the 18th to the 24th, which meant good U.S. food (Taco Bell especially), cool sights in our nation's capitol, as well as a Nationals baseball game against the Rockies. Colorado stomped the home team 10-4, but the highlight was the hot dog and cheese fries.

Sadly, tragedy hit on the 20th, as Olivia's dear grammie passed away. She was 88 and a very special lady that I'm glad I had the chance to get to know from our too few trips to San Antonio. It was her time, but Olivia had a whirlind tour getting to San Antonio to be with family during it all.

She got back on a Wednesday, and the following Monday she left for her OWN Washington D.C. trip with 80, yes...80 8th grade students for the week. Her days started with a wake up call for the students at 6:45 and ended with bed checks at 10:30...so needless to say she's still recovering from all the action lately!

What else can I say? I've still got a guitar that hasn't seen much use, and I've yet to master my salsa dancing moves, but they're still on my to do list. Maybe even get in some sky diving, some friends of ours had a great experience with it.

Been getting basketball games with some other teachers at the American School Foundation (ASF) gym on Wednesdays, and hoping to keep that going until the end of June. Not to be confused with the rough and tumble streetball games. There are civilized contests with fouls called and no fighting. Actually, a few teachers and I scrimmaged the HS boys varsity team here and took them down by 20+ points. Olivia was shocked we beat them, but the level of competition isn't quite what it is in a typical U.S. team. Still, a victory for the soon to be 30 year old. Baller. Shot caller.

Alright Laura, now you've got to get off my back about updating this blog. I hope everyone enjoys the latest info, looking forward to any comments!

March - slowing down the pace

March was a time to slow it down a bit, and the month the midwest was still getting snow. I heard about the crazy winter and I'm not sorry we missed it...man oh man! Now we're getting closer to being caught up.

I secured a full time job that started the week of April 5. It was actually a process that started back in December, and took a while to develop. Many thanks to Kathleen Piper, a good family friend of Jay and Cath in Omaha, Neb, for putting in a good word and making me aware of it in the first place. The work has been in business development and miscellaneous items for an American company here in la ciudad. So far it's been going well, and I was able to swing it so that Olivia and I were able to take the time we needed to be back in the states this summer. Yes, it's completely legal and I'm paying my taxes...

As I'm doing all of this writing, I realize how fortunate we've been to have as many visitors as we've had. Mid March came and we were able to host one of Olivia's bridesmaid's dad's, Steve Dinnen, for a few days. He was here on a business trip and we enjoyed spending some time with him while he was trying to figure out the details of importing a Hibiscus flower liquer to the States. It's called Xaica, and we had the tough job of getting 4-5 of Olivia's girlfriends together to taste different combinations. Someone's got to suffer through it, right? Olivia even had time to take the guy to Xochimilco with a few friends, and this was also the week of the Fantasy Baseball Draft. I'm hoping to ride Albert Pujols to the Championship this year....Go Cardinals!

After Steve took off, we had our 'Semana Santa', which is basically a spring break (it means 'Holy Week') at the end of March, and wouldn't you know it, we had more visitors! We met Olivia's good friend from the DM Register in Acapulco with her boyfriend, Jordan. We split time between Acapulco, and, you guessed it, Pie de la Cuesta. 5 times there I think, and it's still gorgeous! We tried to get some deep sea fishing in but weren't able to, so instead we did some lounging, drinking and general merriment making. It was good times had by all...

Febrero - 6 months down!

Jay & Cath's trip carried over into February, and they were here for some of the week and the weekend of the Superbowl! I must admit my disappointment in watching Peyton Manning lose a close one, but Drew Brees and company proved that they deserved it. It was a great environment watching it w/ 50+ people and a custom pastor pit (pork tacos) with all of the fixings. If you haven't seen it already, the Betty White snickers commercial was one of my favorites...

Valle de Bravo was the next weekend, a beautiful lake town about 2.5 hours outside of the city. It was yours truly accompanied by three beautiful women. (I'm partial to the one on the right). We cruised around a few hours and enjoyed some micheladas (beer with lime and some spice). Olivia and I got back Saturday night since she had to prepare for a week of camp.

It was in the hills of Puebla with half of the 8th grade class the following week. She told me about it being one of the places with the fewest days of sunshine, and that it was like being in a cloud the entire time. She stayed plenty wet, but got to go caving, a coffee plantation and hiking, to name a few enjoyable items. Her being gone left me to tear up the City with all my homies. Or not really. But I think we may have gotten in a night of poker that week, it's still fuzzy.

Olivia's return from camp marked the same day our good friend Tyler P. Forret was able to make the trek down from Des Moines. We enjoyed his company for almost a week. Took a trip to the pyramids, caught a soccer game at Estadio Azteca (2nd biggest soccer stadium in Latin America) and took in the Lucha Libre wrestlers. The personal highlight was an interesting night playing pool, singing to i-pods and making new friends. You should ask him all about it.

After all the excitement w/ Tyler, the lady and I needed a weekend alone, so why not hop a bus to sunny Acapulco? We enjoyed our time in Pie de la Cuesta again, I think it was our 4th time there so far....it's awesome....we love it. Everyone should come and check it out with us.

So that wraps up a fun filled February, I'm sure you can understand better why we've been so bad about updating the blog...lots going on. More to come!

Viva Mexico!

Well well well, it's only been about a 5 month hiatus since we last posted, it's going to be hard to remember what we've been doing! I'll start at the top and see how much I can squeeze in for the 2009 and January of 2010.....

Over Christmas and the New Year's we were lucky to have Olivia's highschool chum Nikki and my sister Christina here with us. It wasn't very wintry with the mid 70's weather, but it felt more like home having our visitors here. I made the mistake of exchanging our gas tanks on Christmas eve, without watching them change it, and got ripped off! The guy took the cash and we were left with no gas on Christmas day...which meant cold meals and cold showers :0( Boooooooooooooooo!

Everyone toughed through it though, and we got the problem fixed a day or two later. It didn't matter a whole lot since we made the trip to Acapulco and got some quality beach and pool time in. After that, we rang the New Year back in the City Skyping with all kinds of people and having a jolly old time. Olivia and I were sad to see them both go!

January was a colder month and Olive and I worked through much of it with not too much new happening. The end of the month we took a trip to meet Jay and Cath at their annual Puerto Vallarta excursion. We stayed with them a few days and had a great time beachside, enjoying the seafood and weather. Then they returned the favor and came to visit us Mexico City. They stayed in a very nice B&B a short 15 minute walk from our house, and we enjoyed taking in some sights, eating some good meals and sharing some wine with them during their 5 day stay. I know Olivia was extra homesick after seeing them leave...

Now we're in May, and the time is flying! I've got more updates coming for Feb-present, but thought I would shake the dust off with this one. We've been terrible at the updates, and I apologize. I hope everyone is doing well and we look forward to being back in the states for 5+ weeks this summer.

Tour Guide

It's been a long time coming, but we finally have the place cleaned up enough for an visual tour!! Feliz Navidad to everyone, I hope you enjoy our pad. Remember it's an open invite, just let us know if you're ever interested in coming down.

Tour

As a special treat, I'm attaching a Top 10 'Things to Get Used To in Mexico' List:

#10 - Expecting any banking operation to take a minimum of one hour and all results to be disappointing.

#9 - 8:00 a.m. weekend wake up call to some guy screaming "GASSSSSSSS" outside the window

#8 - No toilet seats/toilet paper (or having to pay for them) in some public bathrooms!! Nice and cozy when you need to drop a deuce...

#7 - Cramming into a beat up 1970's 'Pesero' VW bus with no doors, with 10 other Mexicans and 2+ million vehicle traffic

#6- Montezuma's revenge.

#5 - Cold showers when not listening to #9 above and refilling the tank

#4 - No pepper at restaurants, even upon request

#3 - People telling you the wrong directions to a location even if they're not sure just to be 'nice' and not look like they don't know.

#2 - Having to hunt mosquitoes in the middle of winter

#1 - Delicious tacos any hour of the day!!!!!!

Mucho Amor!