Richardson Report

Thanksgiving week in Mexico is really nonexistent.  The Mexicans were aware it was a holiday for the Americans but there was absolutely nothing going on in Mexico....as expected!   One of the highlights of this week was our day-long outing on the water.  Our boat was full with the ten of us, our captain Alejandro and our guide Angel.  They were amazing.  Angel was the one who got in the water with us and supervised us for all our adventures.  Our first stop was to go out to La Isla de Espiritu Santo (Island of the Holy Ghost), which is a protected island off the shore of Baja Sur.  At the tip of the island lives a colony of sea lions numbering approximately 600.    We had wet suits and snorkel gear and Angel gave us the scoop on swimming with sea lions.  He said that typically the older ones will just ignore you, and the younger ones will find you fascinating and swim around you.  They are like puppies and might choose to ...

Ivy has been highly entertaining and cuddly - we all love cousin Ivy.... Welcome to Playa Balandra.  Honestly we can't get enough of these beaches.  To get to Balandra we leave by 7:30 or 8am because the parking lot fills up FAST and the shade palapas go quick too.  We got there at 8:15 on a Thursday morning.  At 9:00 a tour bus pulled up and unloaded a slew of tourists, and then another one came 15 minutes later.  However - I think they must have left after awhile and we didn't notice because the beach didn't ever seem uncomfortably busy and full.  Eventually locals replaced the tourists.  We rented kayaks and did a little light snorkeling.  It was a really nice day. The girls made the hike to the view point too - we could see them from our spot on the beach. Faith tried snorkeling and turns out, she likes it!  Which is good because she's going to have another opportunity in a week! One night on the Malecón we found this lady making these de...

We have completed our second full week in Mexico. This week the kids started Spanish class in our home with Marcela.  They seem pretty excited when she comes so I guess it's a good experience.  I actually haven't had much of a chance to ask them!  I am usually gone to my own Spanish language class, and Josh works.  Mornings are full of work of various sorts for everyone.   So far I can't say that I feel more fluent, and I probably won't, but I am getting so many of my questions answered for the *why's* of certain things.  I really like how my teacher explains things.  She pays close attention to what she can hear I need to practice and usually presents a lesson on that the next time we meet.  She speaks four languages and has a degree in teaching language so I feel like I'm in good hands. One of our favorite activities is to hit the Malecón in the evenings.  And we finally made it for the entire sunset.  It was gorgeous as all ocean suns...

The long awaited beach day came on Saturday.   Josh helped Shannon pick up her rental car which took forever.  It was ridiculous.  So we left much later than we anticipated to drive to the beach.  There is one very famous beach that we would like to see but they only allow a certain number of cars there at a time, so if you are not there early enough you can either leave and go somewhere else or you can sit and wait and see if someone leaves. We decided not to sit and wait so we went back towards town to a beach we had noticed on our way up. The beach we found was perfect! There was a restaurant but we didn’t venture in there. We camped out in the shade under some small trees off to the side. The restaurant seemed busy but it never felt like they were that many people at the beach. I think we were the only people who weren’t locals. I didn’t take a ton of pictures! These are basically all the good ones that Shannon and I took. We were busy having fun and I kind of re...