Michells Birthday Party

Thursday evening I skipped art class and Roy and I went to one of the landlords grand daughters 9 th birthday party, (turned out class was cancelled anyway because of the holiday).  The party was held at the Salon de Eventos Titanico where they have pools and water slides.  With the heat here the kids were just loving being in the water.

Snacks, corn on the cob, fresh fruit and drinks were enjoyed by all, followed by a meal of Pastel Sorpresa, salad and beans.  Cake of course followed, along with goody bags for all.  We gave our goody bags to some of the kids and received big smiles in return.

 (Pastel Sorpresa is basically a huge sandwich with various filling, covered with yellow cheese and decorated with some chilis and eaten with a fork.  I kind of remember something similar to this being served at showers, etc. in Canada; but don't remember what it was called.)

A fun evening as usual.


Three pools and 2 water slides.

                                                                               

The birthday girl with her cake and gifts.

Grandma holding the newest grand child who was making a very funny face.

Shopping North Of The Border

Naturally, while I was in Canada I did have to do a bit of shopping.  I didn't have much of a list of things to buy as I hadn't had time to think about it and didn't really have a lot of room for many purchases anyway, as I was already bringing some things home of sentimental value.
I always have a sort of general list of things such as: Twizzlers licorice (red, of course), Werthers original candies and some art supplies.  Where I was staying in small town Saskatchewan and Alberta there wasn't much in the way of art stores; but I did manage to get to one in Edmonton the day before I left and found a few things that I wanted.  The sweet tooth items of course were easy to find.  I never realized that I didn't even eat one chocolate bar or bag of Ketchup chips while in Canada, until I was home and talking about the trip with Roy.  I guess some things have really gone off of my radar.
One day while wandering around a store with my daughter in law I did, (casually), stroll by the camera counter and saw a camera that interested me.  I don't like to spend a lot of money on cameras as I am always afraid of either: losing them, breaking them, having the humidity kill them or just plain wanting a new one, so it was initially, the price on this one that drew me in.  I wrote down the name and model number and when we got back to the house I did some checking online.  It seemed to have fairly good reviews for what I wanted it for.
The camera I have now I bought in Albuquerque, New Mexico when we were there doing a house sit in  September of 2006 and it was around $200.00.  It is a Nikon Coolpix and only has 6.2 megapixels and a 5X optical zoom.  This camera was bought just before the anti shake feature came out on the cheaper models and it also takes really poor low light shots.  My hands tend to shake and also a lot of the events we go to are in the evening, so I was getting very frustrated by the poor quality of pictures that I could take and had almost totally quit taking my camera with me to events.  I know, not a good practice for a blogger.
I did go back to the store the next day and buy the camera.  It is a FujiFilm FinePix S2900 and has 14 megapixels and a 18 X Optical zoom.  It also has the anti shake feature and takes pretty good low light pictures.  I looked at the pictures on my sisters and also on my sons, 52 " screen TV's and they were very clear at that size, nice.
  I haven't had much time to play with it yet and discover all the features; but so far I am happy with it.  It is bigger than my other one which is not the greatest thing, it is not something that you just shove into your pocket or purse; but the bag I bought has enough pockets for me to put stuff in that it will eliminate the need for taking a purse.  I need to figure out the settings as some of the pictures I took were on the wrong setting until I realized it and changed that.  Lots to learn; but so far so good.

Some examples:

Taken in my sisters back yard in total darkness, with flash.

Without the zoom.

With 18 X Optical zoom.

No zoom.

Again 18 X Optical zoom.

Where Do I Start?

It has been over a month since I actually blogged, not because I have been lazy; but because life intervened.
I flew to Canada on the 1 st of August and arrived at the hospital  my mom had been sent to, on the morning of August  2 nd., after travelling for 22 hours.  I can now say I have spent the night in the Calgary airport, something that was not on my bucket list, by the way.
Moms husband, my siblings and their spouses had been sitting with mom for a couple of days by this point and we all continued to sit with her until she passed away on August 4.
Then ensued the usual funeral planning and so on.  A very sad time for all the family.  Mom will be greatly missed by all her family and friends.

While I was in Canada I was told that one of our favourite dogs, (some friends of our belonged to him), Geordie passed away.  Another sad thing, and we will miss him a lot as I know our friends are.  RIP Geordie, you were the best of the best.  I still have ice cubes in the freezer for you, can't seem to bring myself to throw them away yet.

There were some bright spots during the month I was away.  I got to visit with some of my aunts and uncle and cousins that I haven't seen very much of in the last many years.
I got to spend a lot of time with my new grand daughter, she is a joy at 7 months.  I stayed with them for a week or so in their new,(to me), home.  We went camping for a weekend and I got to go out on their fishing boat.
 I also got to visit the acreage that my sister and husband have just purchased and finally met some of the girlfriends of my nephews.
I got to spend a bit of time with some of my step-grandchildren, which was lovely, as the last flying trip I made there I didn't get to see them.  They are growing up so fast it is amazing, they are fantastic kids.

I have many pictures to share of the new grand daughter another day.

Since I have been home I have signed up for and started another art class, it should be interesting.  More on that later also.

Then there is the usual laundry, grocery shopping, etc..

Roy got his top plate while I was gone and it didn't fit well, so I went with him to the dentist on Monday to discuss that, hopefully that was resolved Wednesday morning.

It also is time for us to re-new our FM3's, I hemmed and hawed about changing to an FM2 again this year; but in the end went the easy way and just continued on with the FM3.  I just didn't feel like dealing with new requirements right now.

I went to the immigration office on Monday to see what they were requiring this year, as with the new laws I wasn't sure what was happening.  It seems that they are still doing the same as they did last year and required the same documents, which are as follows, (remember this is for a renewal, not a first time):

1.  photos: 3 front shots, 3 side shots, infantil size, white background, colour photo, no glasses, etc..

2.  recent bank statements, we had bank statements from both Canada and Mexico so I was told I didn't need to get translations of our Canadian statements, (according to the lady I spoke with anyway, your mileage may vary on this one).

3.  copy of our passport photo and information page.

4.  The paper you get printed out after you fill in the form online.

5.  A letter asking for your FM3 to be renewed (more or less).

We returned Tuesday morning to the office and gave the guy all our papers and he printed us out the papers with the numbers and passwords to check the progress online and told us the cards would be ready in about a week.
Pretty simple again this year, as it was last year; but then we don't have our cards yet lol.  I will let you know when we get them or if there are any glitches to be ironed out.  So far when I put our numbers in their site I am getting a pop up saying they can't be found.  We shall see.

When we returned home from immigration Tuesday morning we were sitting and cooling off when suddenly the air conditioner in the living room quit.  Roy had had a problem with it when I was away and the landlord got someone to come in and apparently he glued the one part back on; but a little crooked.  It is now very noisy and Roy was sure when it stopped that it had burnt the motor out.  I went and checked on the bedroom one and it was also off along with the bedroom light.  I went downstairs and talked to the landlord who explained that a brother in law had done some work awhile back and switched out a 70 Amp breaker for 2 - 30 Amp breakers, (not good), so basically the breaker had flipped.  He reset it and everything was working fine again.
I then tried to get a hold of a fellow to come and look at this noisy one and order the part and fix it, I couldn't get his number to work for some reason and ended up having someone else call him for me.  They couldn't get him on the phone and left a message.  He never showed up or called before I went to art class and when I returned home he had not appeared either.   I will tried again on Wednesday and still couldn't get him, so called someone else.  The other fellow showed up around 6 PM or so and took away the fan to go and order/buy a replacement today.  Still haven't heard anything from him this morning.  We are without an air conditioner in the living room so we are a bit warm, we have the bedroom one going with a fan directed out to the living room and it is OK.

I had spoken to my Spanish teacher and she told me that our lesson has been changed to Wed. mornings as Bliss is taking a guitar lesson on Tuesdays.  This works out better for me as well, as my art classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so will be easier to go to Spanish class on Wednesday mornings.  A good change for both of us.

I finally finished a pastel painting of a cat that I had started before I headed to Canada and am still working on the oil painting of the Bird of Paradise that I started during the 4 week summer session class.  I have had very little time or energy to do much with those as I had to get my drawing ready for the painting I am going to be doing in class this session.

Tuesday evening while I was at art class we had a short, heavy rainstorm, so the hills should stay green for a while now.  I was amazed to see how green they were when I arrived back home a week ago, there had been a few showers while I was gone and everything looked so fresh and green in comparison to how it was when I left.  Wednesday because of the humidity from the rain the "feels like" temperature at 11 AM when I went to Spanish class was 46 Celcius.  A bit warm even for me.

The landlords grandchildren seem like they all grew a foot in the month I was away, hard to believe they can change so fast in a month.

I have been home for a week now and feel like I have been running ever since I stepped out of the airplane.  It is good to see family; but it is even better to be home.

More later.

Rest In Peace Mom