Less than 24 hours after leaving warm La Paz, we landed in Anchorage to beautiful fresh snow. I did not have to wait long to see the kids. The day after we returned we celebrated my birthday with three sons, two daughters-in-law and five grand children. It was wonderful to see them all. The grandchildren have all changed in just a few months, even the older ones. Bella who is six had grown an inch and lost three teeth and Amelia, 22 months, is now very competently verbal. She particularly likes to sit at the piano with me and sing. She ‘plays’, keeping time, and she has now relegated me to the upper registers, having claimed the rest of the key board as her own. We saw as much of them as possible and had a wonderful mellow Thanksgiving. We are very blessed.
I had brought home dresses from the La Paz public market for Bella and Amelia. Amelia’s was a size 2 and she swam in it, but was not about to be left out when her cousin turned into a princess, albeit a dentally challenged one. Earl took photos, which are wonderful, but sadly he did not bring them back here to post on the blog.
After a wonderful three weeks at home, the thermometer reading below zero, we headed south to La Conner for a brief visit. As we had in Anchorage, we made the most of our time. The day we landed, we picked up our old friend Don Dubois at the airport and caught up with him over dinner. He had flown up from Denver to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Seattle EPA office.
For the prior few months, every time we thought of something that we wanted in Mexico which was not available there, we had used the internet and Amazon.com to full advantage. As a result, when we reached the house in La Conner, we found the living room looking like Xmas. The boxes were piled so high there was almost no place to sit down. It did make us wonder whether we should cancel our flight south and rent a U-Haul. Fortunately, once they were unpacked, we found we could make do by adding a couple of suitcases.
In addition to seeing friends in La Conner, we had a wonderful weekend visit from our son Jon, his wife Becky and oldest son Justin. They brought Justin’s friend Cortney to meet us, and we found her just as delightful as we had been told we would. The week there flew by and on the 8th of December it was time to return to Mexico.
It was quite a strange collection of stuff that we ended up bringing back with us, including: Thai chili paste- both red and green, bed room fan, outdoor speaker, fishing reel, many fishing lures, electrical wire, hamburger buns, zincs, pillow protectors, frozen pot stickers, wine chiller, paper towel holder, frozen meat balls, hot chili oil, fish oil tablets, bed sheets, bifocal sunglasses, microfiber cleaning clothes, an led reading light and seven led bulbs, hose hook, tons of books, hula hoop, knitting wool for socks, and a cruising guide. Trying to remember what we brought, reminds me of playing “I packed my grandmother’s trunk”.
The last time we flew into La Paz we had been held up in customs because Earl’s boat parts exceeded the allowable limit and Daisy did not have proof of recent deworming. This time, Daisy sailed through. We were doing pretty well, until Earl pushed the button and it came up red. If you get green, there is no actual inspection other then the x-ray of the luggage. If you get red, it is another story. Between the language challenge and the sheer amount of luggage, it was an experience. Earl was finally led off to discuss whether he was entitled to bring stuff in without paying tax – which he was able to do. The customs people gave up and actually ended up not even looking into some of the suitcases, including the one with the cooler full of frozen pot stickers and meat balls.
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