On Our Way

After months and months of prep and packing we are officially on our way to Sayulita! We'll live there for six months, put the kids in local schools, teach ourselves to surf and build a little casita on our property. Why not, right? With Cole in 7th grade we know that all too soon our kids will want nothing to do with us and school and sports (and girls) will be more important to them than hangin' with their parents (as groovy as we are). So we are taking advantage of the fact that they still want to be with us more than anywhere else on earth (how sad to think that will ever end) and we're taking them on, what will hopefully be, the adventure of a lifetime.

We're in Cabo right now for our annual week of fun in the sun with the cousins. And I'm glad to say that after a four day drive south of the border, we are just about fully recovered. (Amazing the healing quality a mojito - or two or three- can have on Mommy's grated nerves.) And you would simply not believe the jalopy we're driving. There's really no describing it so I'll just post a picture. It's the quintessential Bajamobile and it has come to have a very special place in our hearts. It carried us, and six months worth of junk, across the Baja desert with nary a hiccup or hesitation. Hallelujah! I had nightmares of being stranded amongst the saguaro with four crying kids and a barfing dog (she gets carsick - honestly.). One of the biggest challenges of the drive (aside from all the barfing - Evie gets carsick, too) was the public restrooms at the Pemex stations along the way. Imagine no toilet paper, no toilet seat, puddles of whoknowswhat on the floor and really no way of gracefully positioning a six year old so she's not touching ANYTHING and the urine stream stands a chance of making it into the toilet bowl. Not pretty. So after one of our first pitstops I declared a new rule: all future potty stops would be road side -- far cleaner. Needless to say we spent a fair amount of time pulled off on side roads for varying lengths of time while everyone found their preferred patch of dirt. And as I was teaching Evie the art of the road side squat, I thought to myself, "This is so much more important than anything else she'll learn in first grade". And therein lies our motto for the next six months. We hope that the life lessons our kids will learn in Mexico will outweigh the lessons they will miss in their classes in the States. Ojala (hopefully).

The kids getting ready to go trick-or-treating in Mulege. In Mexico, (at least in Mulege) the kids say, "Tricky, tricky Halloween" as they go trick-or-treating mostly at little stores and shops.

"I think I see Cabo, honey!" Dave and the B.U.S. (big ugly suburban) on one of our many road-side pit stops along the Baja.

Emerson, Arizona, and Cole in the back row of the BUS. "Are we there yet?"