The Challenges

Hey hi everyone,

There aren't many big challenges to living here in Mexico compared to other places because there is so much available to a person - and service is great - and the congregation is great. BUT one little one for me came as a reminder yesterday. Pearl started barking like a crazy dog and when I walked into the room to investigate there was a HUGE bug on the ground. Kind of like a cross between a cocroach and a grasshopper. Truth be told, if it was a spider, I wouldn't be typing this right now...I would probably be either fainted permanently on the floor due to fear, or in a santarium...or is it sanitorium:-/ ....not sure which is the right spelling...just like the time last month when a brother and his wife came to visit with a few others and he asked me what flowers I had growing on my back fence - I told him I thought it was Clamydia...but then he said he thought that was a sexually transmitted disease...so I realized it must be Clamatis. Anyway, he basically gleaned the bulk of my gardening knowledge. :-/ Anyhow, I have tried to find out what type of bug it was by looking on the internet but it has proved a little hard because I am finding identifying body shape and markers is difficult once something has been squished. ...Hopefully I will not have the opportunity to look at one again - at least in real life.

d :-)

Getting Hotter.

Hey hi everyone, :-)

Here are some pics of life this week. I was invited to a cookie making party the other night. Wonderful idea with lots of yummy things to eat. Several of the sisters took cookie making stuff to one sisters house and we all made cookies. In this picture you see Sherilyn Fesik (Calgary-ite) making REAL cookies...she actually brought tupperware and sheets from Canada to do such things. Amazing to me...as I showed up with my box of Duncan Hines Choco cookie mix. It is obvious which of us is a "family woman", and I have to say her cookies were awesome! The other pic is me and Karina out in service. You wouldn't believe it. That thing Karina is holding in her hand is a flower. Even close up it looks like one of those plastic pom poms a person buys in a store. INCREDIBLE how beautiful Jehovah God makes some things. The other pic is of the park right now. It is basically a big dog park for Harvey and Pearl. They run and chase balls and smell strange things they find on the ground. SPEAKING OF STRANGE THINGS, that Pearl often makes me roll my eyes. As you know she is half Chihuahua and half Jack Russel. Well the little mutley loves anything stinkey or smelly - she could spend an hour smelling a leaf that another dog peed on the day before. Just as I was typing this I decided to go look for her and found her on the other side of the trailer licking the sewer line as if it was a popsicle. There is nothing on it, but if something is the least tiniest bit smelly she will love it. In her mind I am sure she would think Jehovah God was blessing her if a duck flew overhead and dropped a turd for her in her path. :-/ Someone warned me years ago of this terrier trait and I see it over and over. The last pic is of my front sitting area. I have shade cloth up to keep the heat off us, and a nice mat, and then you can see in the far back there is a patch of turf I put down for Harvey and Pearl to lay on. They LOVE it. Because the weather is so nice here this is pretty much where we spend our time. After work in the morning I sit in that blue chair and do my personal study....and then read Ann Rule novels....and then head out for service :-) It is a pretty simple life but I love it. Hard to believe but in about six weeks we will be the road to Canada for the summer. Pretty excited about it...seeing everyone...and doing stuff - - saw the cutest life jackets for Harvey and Pearl for doing lake stuff. Just to get dad riled I think I should have printed on the back of each one "Wally Kroes is our grandpa". Okay, okay, gotta run...everyone have a wonderful week.

Love to all,

d :-)

Had a Great Time in Phoenix

Hi everyone,
I have included a pic of the hotel that we stayed in while up there because for any of you that have pets and travel...or work while on the road like me...this hotel chain is fabulous. It was $65 a night BUT there was no extra charges for Harvey and Pearl, a really nice free breakfast in the mornings, and hardwired internet for those of us that need it for work. And this one in Chandler was central to all the big stores and had TONS of walking for Harvey and Pearl. It really couldn't have been better.

The drive up was longer than anticipated, mostly because we got in the line at the border with a guard that HAD to hassle everyone...and then let them go of course. US border guards just seem to be more difficult to deal with than others - many have something to prove it seems. But on the way back it was great. Fast border, great guards, and nice scenic drive. Found everything I needed while up there too - even a treadmill! Bought it off a good friend actually. Only thing is that I forgot to get the key for it so tht has to be mailed to me. HOWEVER...I love the internet...I went online and posed the question, "what do I do if I lost my treadmill key?" Got tons of suggestions of things that worked for other people - NONE of them worked for me. But I was determined so I went into the kitchen as a last resort and picked up the cake spatula and put it in the slot and wonders of wonders the thing turned on. So now if any of you hear of me being in the hospital with a cake spatula stuck in my forehead you will be able to imagine what happened. :-/ Anyway, I think it will work until the key arrives.

This week back to Bible studies and service. All good things. :-) When I get home this afternoon I am going to try and make PESTO. I have this jar of eggplant pesto from Trader Joes. I forgot to get more when I was up there, so I thought I would try making it from the ingredients printed on the jar. The only other item I forgot to get up there was kimchee. Debbie says there is a store in town that distributes it, so will get next time. I always enjoyed watching TV and nibbling at a jar of it...healthy too...so need to get it here. :-)

Okay, have a wonderful week everyone!

Love to all,
d :-)

HAVE YOU KILLED YOUR CHILD?

Hey hi everyone, :-)

I am having a really nice weekend. Bible study this morning after walking Harvey and Pearl on the mountain. I have to say that is one awesome place to exercise. One minute a person is walking on beautiful trails and further down a person can be walking on a private road that runs behind homes that a person could imagine in Beverly Hills – just gorgeous architecture up there. However, I decided I will have to get up and go earlier with the fur kids. We did not start walking until 7am and by 8am it was close to 80 degrees, about a quarter mile from the truck Pearl and Harvey both parked themselves under a tree and were prepared to spend the day lounging in the shade there. Thank goodness it was not that far and I could coax them to keep going to the truck. I carry cold water bottles for them, but they were still hot.

Well our meeting last night was good as usual, but I have to tell you about the local needs talk. The brother who did the announcements is a very cool brother from Germany. When he announced that we were going to have a local needs talked called HAVE YOU KILLED YOUR CHILD my internal alarm went off as I had never heard this subject before and I was wondering what terrible thing had happened in the congregation – had someone done something bad in their past…or was it an accident that happened recently…or how had this happened? Forget Brother Norbergs talk that followed the announcements. My mind was racing through all the possibilities of what and who this talk could be about, so basically everything he said just was blah blah blah through my ears. By the time the brother got up on the stage to deliver the local needs talk I was ready with pen and paper to write everything down, and then he announced his theme was HAVE YOU KILLED YOUR GIANT? Okay, not quite as intriguing of a subject, but purely a relief…at least now I knew for sure there wasn’t a killer sitting among us. :-/ I am always telling my students, harping constantly actually, that listening and pronunciation are the two most important English skills to learn. Last night proved it in spades to me how right those words are. :-) …and by the way, the REAL talk was excellent. It was about overcoming obstacles, that are big to us, to have a fuller measure in following Christ and helping others study the Bible.

Okay, have a great weekend. Harve and Pearl and me are lounging like sloths on the couch.

Love to everyone,
D

Little Smarty Pants Harvey

Hey hi everyone, :-)

This has been a fantastic week. I have met some really great people while out in the service work, and work has been great, and I love the hot weather. However, I am looking forward to spending the summer in Canada. It will just be nice to see everyone and do some things I used to do up there, and then I will be rearing to get back here after. :-)

Harvey has proved himself to be quite the smarty pants this week. He figured out how to pop the rear door of RV open by throwing his body against it. The lock is a bit sticky so this is easy to do if someone knows about it - I will be getting it fixed though.... Anyways, last Sunday I went out to the meeting and then meandered around town for a bit, and then worked my way home around 2:30p. First thing I noticed was this little shadow sitting on the big pillow in their pen - saw Harvey sprawled out like he was on a beach...but no Pearl. My eyes went big and I jumped out of the truck and ran to the door, practically ripping it off to see if the skinny white dog had made an escape also, but thankfully found her inside doing her usual welcome home dance. ...Grrr...and yay all at the same time. So, I tried to secure the latch better the next time I went out....only to come home and find Harvey again beaching himself in the backyard pen, but this time it was in the mid 90s and he seemed more than eager to get back into the RV to find the water. Lesson learned for him I hope. Anyway since then I have been locking it from the outside to make sure they both are securely trapped inside. :-/

All is great though, and we are heading off to Phoenix for a few days mid week, so will tell ya all about it.

Love to all,

d :-)

PS. you can see one thing in the photos I will be looking for in Phoenix - a salad spinner.

Checkpoint Made Me a Little Nervous

Hey hi everyone! :-) Hope all is well. Life in Hermosillo is going really good. Highlights of the week are that we had 71 at our Memorial. Last year there were 20 so that is a pretty significant increase. Bible studies are going good, so that makes me pretty happy too. The other awesome thing is that I found an EXCELLENT recreation area. I really like the beach for exercise, but the mountains for walking and hiking are much more my thing...especially with Harvey and Pearl. Well, about two weeks ago I was sitting at a table on the sidewalk at a local Caffenio having a morning coffee when a couple dressed in mountain biking clothes with their bikes came over to talk to me. They were telling me that the mountains here are laced with trails that they ride on daily. However, I forgot to ask them where the trailhead is. So earlier this week Harvey and Pearl and I went out "Sunday driving" and I decided to look for the trailhead area. It turned out it was just across from the other university. There were tons of trucks with bikes parked there and people out flying kites, and people on ATVs, so I parked the truck and took off up one of the trails. Absolutely WONDERFUL trails! We have been back three times this week now, and I have to say that this morning my calf muscles and ankles are a little sore. And once we really got walking I realized how much I missed hiking. Very peaceful and good exercise. Anyway, this morning, Saturday, since I don't have a Bible study until 10am I thought we should get up at 6:30a and get over there for a morning walk. As we were coming down the hill though I rounded a bend and saw two federal police trucks blocking the trail, with the officers out on the ground with their guns out. All I could think was "oh great...do I go the other direction...I don't know another way off this mountain...or do we sit in the bushes until they go.." Anyway they were whistling for me to come forward so I felt I had no choice, especially since there seemed to be only one route between me and my truck and they were in the middle of it. I called out that I spoke minimal Spanish so their expectations wouldn't be too high. They checked us over and then noticed that I was carrying a baton on my hip. They wanted to know why, so I explained in my terrible Spanish that if any MUCHO GRANDE WILD PERROS attacked us on the trails I could bonk them on the head. They didn't know the word WILD or BONK but understood when I gave them my best demonstration with my arms and mouth of something big with flailing claws, and gnashing teeth. I don't have much pride so I think my demonstration of it supposingly attacking us was pretty good, and then my demonstration of me disabling it was well understood because they smiled as if they understood. They wanted to look at it closely so I handed it over and then when they realized it was also a stun gun they absolutely thought it was the coolest thing and had to try it, so there were lots of smiles and laughs as they watched the blue streaks come off the end. I was relieved though when they handed it back. In the end they told me they were searching for the owner of a certain truck on the mountain, but when I told them mine was parked at the OXO they waved good-bye. ...Turned out good but I think the next time if something like that happens again I will hide the baton before approaching. Tonight we are having a congregation get together so that should be tons of fun again - lots of guitar playing and singing again I hope. Will tell ya all about it. :-)

Love to everyone,
d :-)