5C's Que Pasa

While we enjoy our grand reunion , I hope you enjoy my roses.  The mauve ones have the most exquisite fragrance….

Would the lady who lives here at Holiday Park and wintered in Lo de Marcos last winter please contact me?  You stopped my husband about a week ago while he was walking the weiners and you mentioned that you had found and read my blog all the time. First of all thanks for reading but I would love to talk to you about Mexico.  Can you email me your site # or just drop by our site #315?  My email address is at the top right of my blog, 2 lines down from the yellow flowers.

Wishing you all a great day!

…big time!!  The girls are driving me nuts.  They want Colin and they want him now.  Friday night, the first night he was away, Carmeh kept  me up half the night going back and forth from the bed to the window, to the front door and over and over again and barking!!  She heard a noise and thought he was home, and another noise 30 minutes later.  Finally I just left the blind open so she could see out.  I can attest to the fact that there was still light in the sky at 11:30PM and the sky was beginning to light up again about 3:40AM.  So those trying to stay up all night for the June 24th celebration didn’t have too long a wait for the night to pass.  The girls needs are being met, they are being fed, watered and walked yet that is not enough for them.  Yesterday afternoon Caeli came up to me and started gentling barking at me, then whimpering, she was trying to tell me something.  Carmeh just stares at me with her huge brown eyes and follows me closely.  I almost stepped on her getting out of the shower yesterday.

Colin is the one who goes away, to see his Mom or to do a photo shoot.  I am always home except for the time I went from Acapulco to Mexico City with some other RVers for a bit.  Colin said that Caeli missed me so much that she kept running away looking for me, either in the RV Park or on the beach.  Someone was always bringing her back to him at our RV.   After two days she just sat on my pillow on the bed and waited.  I will never forget her greeting on my return.  The only other time I left the girls was to rush to my Mom’s bedside a few years ago.  My Mom survived the incident and the girls survived my being away & the day after I came home we hit the road south.  However because of Mom we didn’t venture as far into Mexico as we normally do and settled on the Isla just south of Mazatlan at the Tres Amigos RV Park.  Here we were only 14 miles from the Mazatlan Airport in case I needed to fly home urgently.  Over the next two years we fell in love with Mazatlan and will continue to winter there.

Caeli, doing what she does best....

Waiting for Dad, what Carmeh does best, next to hunting that is!

I miss my sweetie too.  These 2.5 days have been so long…the weather has been overcast with small showers off & on and it is cold.  I sit under a blanket reading on the sofa.  Everything is warmer, brighter and happier when Colin is home.   However I don’t think that even he could have stopped the snow from falling at Sliver Star yesterday!!  10:30PM tonight just can’t get here fast enough!!

From the magic of the computer world I received these photos this morning…..

Photo taken yesterday, Colin & his almost 97 year old Mom. I have to say I was stunned at how great she looks. If it wasn't for the veins on her hands, I think she could pass for someone in their 70's!

Bill, Colin's oldest brother & his wife Gloria. Thanks for sending the photos Bill. Yes I wish I was was there also. For sure next time!!

This time Colin has flown to Winnipeg to visit his mom, who is 96 years & 8 months old.  We fondly call her Mommio because she is so young at heart.  He left Friday morning and will return late Sunday evening.  It just seemed to be the right time for a visit.

This photo was taken in July 2009 here at our beach site.

Colin goes to see her once per year and she use to come here once per year. These photos which were taken in July of 2009 which was her last visit here. She would stay in the RV on her own and go back to Winnipeg and tell all her friends that she been camping in Kelowna. Much more fun than just visiting us in a house in Vancouver! She no longer comes as there are no more direct flights and she is not comfortable changing planes on her own and refuses help or a wheelchair.

Mommio and I have so much fun together, we ply each other with wine and then sing and dance. Our most fun time was when we both won simultaneously on dollar machines in the local casino. We came home and told Colin we had lost all the money he gave us and pretended to be really sad, once he believed us we started throwing $50.00 bills at him. I think that between us we won about $1500.00 after retuning his seed money! Of course we split the winnings and then we spent my share on new clothes for her.

Mommio still does her own shopping and cooking.  Colin’s plane was late and when he got to her place he found that dinner had been ready for a while.  Not only that but she had set the table two days ago and covered it with a white sheet to keep everything dust free.  She has two other sons, one in Winnipeg & one in Calgary but Colin is her baby.

We all miss Colin but don’t begrudge a second of his time with his Mom.  The girls are coping.  Still trying to finish some deadheading and discovered a clean patch of soil…this was where I had planted wild flower seeds….something tells me that Colin was trying to help me by weeding 🙁 !!  Well he was trying.  We do things for each other all the time, like he always puts gas in my car because I don’t do self serve stations, which are in the majority here.  Thursday evening while packing he realized he was short on cash and so was I, so we had to go to a bank machine.  No he couldn’t do it at the airport or in Winnipeg because he doesn’t do bank machines!!  Have fun in Winnipeg you two!

I snapped this shot just as Cheikka decided to fly back to her perch. Aren't they both beautiful?

Happy Saint Jean Baptiste Day!  I know that Robert & Michele will be flying their flag, the Quebec one that is.  Today is a National Holiday in Quebec.  The celebration of June 24th was brought to ‘New France’ (now Quebec ) by the first French colonists with the first celebrations taking place around 1638.  It is still the tradition to light great fires on the 24th of June.  Je vous souhaite une celebration heureuse mes amis Francais.

In Latvia, June 24th known as Midsummer is called Jani  (Janis being Latvian for John { Jean in French }.  It is also a National Holiday that is celebrated on a large scale by almost everyone in Latvia as well a those of Latvian origin abroad.  My dear friend Ena in Edmonton usually hosts a huge celebration for all the Latvians in the area.  Not only do Latvians keep their bonfire burning all night, they jump over it, something to do warding off evil spirits. I heard another story from another good friend who’s guy is Latvian.  His mother, Elsa, says that at midnight all Latvian girls & guys are encouraged to go out into the woods away from the fire to search for a rare flower that only blooms at that time and any other ‘activities’ that happen in the dark woods are okay on this special night.  Maybe I should go find myself a handsome lad to go into the woods with!  Elsa is 88 and still giggles talking about going into the woods at midnight on this special day.

In Sweden the day is celebrated by raising and dancing around a maypole listening to traditional music.  Inger will we see a crown of wildflowers on your head today?

What about you Ken?  Did you ever celebrate the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge?

To my Polish friends Hanna & Bobby, may you enjoy your Noc Swietojanska (Saint John’s Night).  Traditionally in Poland the midsummer day celebration begins at 8:00PM and goes till sunrise. The main theme here is the throwing of flower wreaths into the Baltic Sea, lakes or rivers.

I’m sure that I have other European friends who are celebrating today but I don’t know that you do celebrate June 24th, so to all mentioned here and to those of you out in blogger land, ENJOY!!

Oh I almost forgot, our Vancouver friend Hugh, our very special German friend, where the day of sun solstice is called Sommer-Sonnenwende!

I learnt a good deal while researching this post.  All these celebrations are pre-Christian in origin and basically a pagan holiday however in Christianity it is associated with the birth of John the Baptist which is observed on the same day, June 24th.  There is much more I could say but enough for now, if you don’t normally celebrate June 24th perhaps you should.  Surely somewhere in your past there is a European.  If not, well June 24th is reason enough to create an annual holiday in your life.  Happy June 24th everyone.

…well we had our two days of summer.  Back to rain, showers and thundershowers.  It was nice while it lasted.  It never did get up to 30C on the first day of summer but yesterday we hit the 30C.  It was wonderful.  The sun, the heat, our bones just soaked it all in.  Colin started speaking in Spanish.  It was quite funny actually as we both had an appointment and when we walked in greeting everyone in Spanish they just stared at us.  He just kept it up and then started teaching them some simple words.  When we left we just wanted to head further south, like to Mexico.  Deep down inside that is where we want to be forever.  Instead of heading home we meandered about to a few clients, picked up one cheque (the postal strike is hampering our bank account) and scouted out a few future job sites.

One of the shots will be of a completed backyard of a 3 million dollar home for sale.  We love this development as it promotes natural landscaping with an indoor/outdoor theme.  There are no formal decks or railings, all of the back yard is designed to fit in with nature.  Mature trees and shrubs are planted but the biggest plus are the ponds.  Waterfalls, streams and pools are the key part to the landscaping.  I love the yard but can do without the massive house.

If you look top the back of the photo you can see a bit of a palapa under the leafy green tree. There is a waterfall that comes down the huge rocks there, tricking into a pond, which then trickles into the infinity pool which then trickles down into a another pond and then a another pond and then on down the hill to the next home.

Same yard but from a different angle, the lake is in the background.

The company who created this environmental design learned the concept in Europe.  Basically the water is purified without the use of chemicals, salt or other additives, just a combination of filters, natural rocks, stone and water plants.  Wish I had the money to create such an ecological system in my backyard.  I’ll just have to make due with the lake here and the Pacific Ocean!  Still, this is a great concept.  When the sun shines again Colin will be there getting the perfect shots.

That was the extent of our summer, back to grey skies!  Is departure day in October really that far away…..4 months?? Sigh!!