Fatima's 4th birthday

We are still waiting for the first rain. Last night there was some lightning and thunder, but only a few drops of rain. It will come. Last week when we were in Guadalajara, we stopped at a fan store and bought 2 ceiling fans (ventiladores). We have been using floor fans, but they bother Barb’s eyes. We hope that the ceiling fans will not be a problem. We are putting one in the living room and one in the master bedroom. There is already a ceiling fan in the dining room, but, except for breakfast and occasionally when it is too cool, we eat lunch and dinner in the courtyard in the gazebo. Thus, we almost never use it. There is a candelier in the kitchen. We are going to have them switched. The fan will be much more useful in the kitchen when Barb is cooking. José Luis came over and said that he would, with his youngest son, install the fans himself. And today they were here to string the wires. He figured that he could run the wires on the roof and won’t have to do them up the inside wall. I had never thought of doing it that way. I had been dreading drilling channels up the concrete walls with all the mess.They should be installed fairly quickly this way.

Last week, I finally bought and downloaded the Mexican map from TomTom on our GPS. However, I couldn’t get the gadget to find our location. I fiddled with it for at least 4 or 5 days. Finally, I contacted the company and they had me do a ‘hard’ reboot. Almost immediately, it worked! I’ll have to try it out on our next trip to Guad. I haven’t used it since we arrived 2 years ago (May 6, 2008 to be exact) and I have to learn everything again. Not all of Mexico is covered, although all the big cities are and the main highways.


Last Saturday, May 8th, was Fatima’s 4th birthday. We got pizza for the girls’ dinner; they loved it. We had a bit of celebration with the 3 girls here. The first 2 photos with some of her gifts, including a Mexican doll. Barb didn't want to give another Princess or Barbie doll, although, like little girls elsewhere with all the promotion on TV, they like them. Riding in the car, the girls surprised us by singing ‘Happy birthday’ in English. We went back to LIA a bit early and picked up a decorated cake and ice cream to take for everyone in the babies’ house. Fatima’s younger sister, Yuliana, had her birthday 4 days later (age 2) so we inscribed the cake for both as you can see ("Feliz cumpleaños Yuliana y Fatima". The 2 sisters seem to like the cake and ice cream!