That's what I keep telling myself about posting this blog. It's been a long time. How are ya? Let's play catch up. Ro and I gave in and traveled home from Obregón with Esten after I vowed to fly home. This time though I had a few more "tricks in the bag." While we were in Obregón, Rowan took a liking to Elmo and The Wiggles. We didn't have a great outdoor space so I turned to the computer for entertainment. He would watch for 20 minutes or so while I cleaned (Yes, shut up, I did my own cleaning there) or cooked. So before we left I bought two movies on Itunes and put them on my Ipod. Worked like a charm. See below.
We did the trip in two days and traveled an average of 140 kilometers per hour. That's fast. About 100. We came home to a comic welcome. First a dog runs out of the gate when we opened it. Our neighbors we share a yard with got a a golden retriever, TuPac. He knows one command, NO. Then we came in the house, which was very clean, to find we didn't have gas which meant no baths after 14 hours in the car. Ick! Next we find that our refrigerator broke at some point and so we couldn't buy any food until we bought a new one and more importantly our butter stash was in grave danger.
Let me explain our $80 investment. The butter we buy here has a peculiar taste. It's almost gamey and anything you use it in/on tastes the same. In Obregón we found this imported Danish butter and knew we were bringing it home. We did and now half of our new freezer is butter. CIMMYT people bring back anything from flour to beef to butter from Obregón not because you can't get it here but because the quality is better there. It's just what you do.
While we're talking about quality, check these plants out I bought. We found our aloe vera in Obregón and had to bring that back as well. But the pots, just hilarious.
And this was funny too. You can buy individual eggs at our corner store.
We're getting cozy in our little brick-walled hacienda here. Getting used to the electricity going out at night which means showering and reading by lantern. Also becoming immune to the sound of fireworks, they pop them daily/nightly and I'm still not sure why. And trying to make a habit of turning our water pump on to fill our tank on the roof so that in case the power does go out we would still have water. Living off-campus has it downfalls, but are you really living in Mexico when you're protected by CIMMYT? Would you get to run Rowan to the front door to show him a horse trotting down the road with two men riding bare back? Or see the shepherd moving his sheep up the mountain on your way home?
Today we got couches, you know those things you sit on when your legs are tired. Until today we (me, Esten, Ro and my Mom) have all been racing to see who gets to Ro's rocking chair first. I'll post some pictures of our new furniture as soon as Esten gets back from Russia. He is there for a conference and this lovely company would have paid for his family to go as well but we opted out of the 29+ hour travel time there and the 9 hour time difference. Doesn't sound as fun as it would have 5 years ago, toddlers like schedules and slides.
Beece, as Ro would say.
P.S. Esten graduated and is officially Dr. Mason. I need to get some pictures from others since I was bad and took zero.
