Michael & Liz are Bloggable

It's been a week since our garden building adventure began and a lot of progress has been made. Last Sunday we had just started digging and today we have a wall...a tall wall too! Michael has been going to Lowe's after work the past few days to pick up 30 or so stones at a time because that is all that will fit in his car without being completely overloaded. So today, we took both of our cars and filled them up with stones to finish it off. The first 2 pictures show the progress of the week, and the last 2 pictures show what it looks like now. Next step is to line the fence with wood and finish the end stones and toppers. Then, we fill it up with dirt!

Last week before my parents left our house, my Mom gave me 3 of her Rascal Flatts CDs. Recently (the last 6 months) I have been on a Country music kick and I firmly believe it's some of the best music out there. I'm no longer ashamed of it. It's pure, clean, and well written music. My favorite artists are Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, and I'm very sad to admit, Taylor Swift. I guess not being ashamed of that goes along the lines of this post. Go out on a ledge and live life for all that it's worth. So I was VERY excited to see my Mom had some Rascal Flatts CDs and I took advantage of it.

There have been several blog posts in the past where I talk about changing myself for the better and doing things that challenge myself so that I use my body and mind to its fullest extent. Well when listening to one of the Rascal Flatts CDs, one song really hit me along that theme and one line in that song really moved me and made me say "I really hope that's me".

Here is a link to the song on youtube. Ignore the video. I couldn't find a normal one and the video is stupid, just listen to the music.

The line that I love in it is "Here lies a man who lived life for all that it's worth" but the whole song tells a really good story.

Here are the full lyrics:

I spent the morning at an old friend's grave
Flowers and 'Amazing Grace', he was a good man
He spent his whole life spinning his wheels
Never knowing how the real thing feels
He never took a chance or took the time to dance
And I stood there thinking, as I said goodbye
Today is the first day of the rest of my life

I'm gonna stop looking back and start moving on
Learn how to face my fears
Love with all of my heart, make my mark
I wanna leave something here
Go out on a ledge, without any net
That's what I'm gonna be about
Yeah, I wanna be running
When the sand runs out

Cause people do it everyday
Promise themselves they're gonna change
I've been there, but I'm changing from the inside out
That was then and this is now
I'm a new man, yeah, I'm a brand new man
And when they carve my stone, they'll write these words
"Here lies a man who lived life for all that it's worth"

I'm gonna stop looking back and start moving on
And learn how to face my fears
Love with all of my heart, make my mark
I wanna leave something here
Go out on a ledge, without any net
That's what I'm gonna be about
Yeah, I wanna be running
When the sand runs out

And as the cold wind blows across the graveyard
I think I hear the voice of my old friend, whisper in my ear

I'm gonna stop looking back and start moving on
And learn how to face my fears
Love with all of my heart and make my mark
I wanna leave something here
Go out on a ledge, without any net
That's what I'm gonna be about
Yeah, I wanna be running
When the sand runs out
I wanna be running
When the sand runs out
Yes I do, mmm

I realize I'm blogging a TON lately, I hope at least a few people are enjoying it. I just asked Liz if she is reading my blogs about Mexico and she said no. If she's not reading this, I can't imagine I have a huge audience. Here is the last email I sent to my parents before we left Mexico:

well today is the last day of our trip. it'll be cool to get back to our normal schedule but I am definitely going to miss all the experiences here. I personally have LOVED using my Spanish here. I feel like I have retained so much from High School Spanish. The other day at the girls school festival, I bought Callie a balloon. Most of the balloons said that it was Valentines day with the writing "dia de amor y amistad" which says "day of love and friendship". But Callie's didn't have writing on it. As we walked away, I said to Callie, "is it OK that it doesn't have writing on it?" and she said "yeah" kind of in a sad tone. I persisted and she said, "I want the writing but I don't know how to ask?" and I said "it's OK" and I walked up to the lady with the balloon and said "no escriba?", which is roughly translated to mean "no writing?" and she immediately gave us a balloon with the writing. There were several times where I have surprised myself that I actually remembered my Spanish.

Last night we went down to the beach just to walk around and ended up seeing the turtles again. There is an organization that works on saving the turtle population and every 3rd day at sunset they let the hatched baby turtles out in the water. We were lucky enough to see them twice on our trip. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing those baby turtles released into the water. I just love animals so much and to see them being taken care of in that way is really awesome. It pains me to see all the stray dogs around here and to hear the stories of how they are treated. It's almost just as common to see a dog hopping with 3 legs as it is to see a dog walking on all 4's. I told Hillary today "it seems like it would be advantageous for dogs to be passive around here as opposed to aggressive". Passive dogs get in less fights and get hurt less often and are more likely to receive food from the locals. It's just not in me to not do anything to help any of them, but we're only here for a week.

today was a little more lazy, we went down to the beach and walked up and down. we ended up walking 2 miles total in the sand. It was certainly a work out on my ankle, but i can feel it getting stronger, which is good. i dont think running will be a problem when we get home. the walk was really enjoyable as the waves were the largest I have ever seen. We've been to the north shore in Oahu and these waves were much bigger than those. It legitimately sounded like thunder was hitting the shore and we just stood there in amazement of the size and power of the water. I really have never seen waves like that before. You couldn't have paid me to go out there. I really will never forget how massive they were. Libby, Scott & Hillary's dog, went out in the water where the waves hit the shore, and to feel the power of the water rushing up and down the shore, even Libby going out that far worried me.

We then went to Sayulita to Burrito Revolucion to have "gringo burritos", which are just American style burritos, which is to say that they are HUGE and have lots of stuff in them. Mexican style burritos are small and are a normal portion with just a little bit of stuff in them. I got a "burrito de camarones" which is a burrito with shrimp. It was delicious. I think I can make a similar burrito at home so I may try sometime in the next few weeks. It was definitely delicious.

In the afternoon we did some reading and hanging out and just enjoying our last afternoon here. I constantly got distracted by the number of loud trucks passing by selling things. We then played with the girls building castles with blocks and building train tracks out of the blocks. We also played "go fish", and seeing them play so sweet with each other really made having children that much more appealing. I hope our kids are that sweet some day. We had tostadas for dinner (flat hard shells topped with stuff on it) and that was of course delicious. I went out today and finally caught the donut man and got 10 donuts for dessert and breakfast tomorrow. The last time I caught him, it was 4 pesos a donut (which is about 30 cents a donut), and this time it was 5 pesos. This caused a problem though because I already asked for 10 donuts of all different kinds and was standing there holding 40 pesos. My Spanish isn't good enough to try and say "sorry i only want 8 donuts then", so i ran in the house and begged for 10 more pesos from Hillary. I guess I blended right in with the girls, who wanted ice cream from the truck twice today. But unlike the girls, my request for 10 more pesos was granted. :)

We're starting to pack now and will probably watch a couple episodes of The Office on the computer before we go to bed. It's so sad to be leaving because it really has been a vacation from everything. I have stayed in touch with you over email but this place really is totally an escape from everything we know. Also leaving here means having to go back to work, which is less fun.

By the way, our pictures are all posted now, check them out here.

Here's the email to my Mom from a week ago:

We're going hiking in Sayulita and I don't think there are any plans after that. We might just hang out and chill which I would then take advantage of the "palapa" upstairs and do some readin.

The roads here are crazy. They are kinda like the roads around Indian Hill in Cincinnati. Where the trees are all hanging over making a tunnel of forest. It's also funny because they sometimes have random speed bumps in the middle of a 40mph road just to slow people down. To make left hand turns, you pull off the side of the road on the right, wait for traffic to pass, and then cross the road. There are a bunch of unwritten rules that people have to follow, I'd have a tough time driving around here. There's also a place in Puerto Vallarta where they make the speed limit 15 mph on a road where everyone is going 50 or 60. We think the police specifically racially profile the gringos and pull them over and give them tickets (or just make the gringos give the cops money) for speeding when it's almost impossible to slow down to the actual speed limit. That's the only place where cops have been around down here. Scott & Hillary say they need to take the front U.S license plate off their car so it's more difficult to be spotted as a gringo. So far though, they have only gotten pulled over once.

I was up early this morning because I was trying to catch the donut truck outside. In this town, there are tons of trucks that come by delivering things from water cans to natural gas canisters to donuts. You can almost get anything delivered on a truck. Someone yesterday drove by selling mattresses. We have only stopped the donut guy once but the donuts are delicious, really similar to Dunkin Donuts actually. Mexicans don't eat donuts for breakfast though, they eat them as desserts after dinner so to hear it in the morning made my mouth water. The other funny thing is that the trucks have no regard for time of day. The donut guy was blaring his music at 6:30AM and drove by our house. I got up and was hoping he'd come back by, but he didn't.

Time to shower up and get ready for some hiking. This trip has gone so fast :(.

A few weeks ago I (Liz, yes I'm blogging) was reading an article that interviewed Michael Pollan and had an inspiring moment to start a vegetable garden. Yes, me...the one that can't keep most plants alive. I don't know why I got this crazy idea in my head, but it just seemed to make sense. We have an area in our backyard that is just screaming to be turned into a garden, so we decided to just go for it. 2010 is the year that I will start growing my own vegetables. Planting season in NC starts in April, so we have a little time to get the backyard ready for seeds. Today was a gorgeous 60 degree day and it would have been a shame to stay inside...so we got out the shovels and got to work!

This is the before picture. Since moving in 3 years ago, it's been the corner where piles of leftover dirt were tossed and has been known as Mt. Daisy, since she is always running around up there. Looking at this picture now, it's sad that this area of the yard has been neglected for so long.
The first step was to clear out the leaves, and Michael started to dig along the fence. The plan is to build a wooden frame around the fence walls, and then put a stone wall around the front. These next pictures show the digging around the wall and how Mt. Daisy kept getting taller and taller!
Then we were able to outline where the stone wall would go with stakes and twine and Michael started digging around the outline.


Once we knew where the stones would be placed, the dirt was moved around enough so it wasn't a huge pile.
The next step is to level out the ground enough to put the stones down, and the wood along the fence. Then we'll need to till the soil so it isn't completely hard clay and put the top soil down.

In our house, Michael is the lawn guy...it's his territory. Since thinking of this crazy idea a few weeks ago, I've made it very clear that I will do the planting, watering, weeding, etc...I just need help with the actual building of the garden bed, which is really hard work! So thank you to my helper!
I've never gardened before, so I plan to blog along the way asking for any advice you can give me. For the next few weeks I'll keep you updated on the progress of the garden bed...from now on being called Daisy's Garden...don't worry, we have a plan to incorporate Gryffin into it too!

Last Sunday we went over to Hillary's Dad's condo in Punta de Mita. It's a small town on a peninsula and her Dad has the sweetest condo. After spending a little time there, Liz says "we have a new retirement plan". Their condo is on the second floor with a sliding glass door that spans the entire back of the condo, where if you open it, the entire wall is gone for a view of the ocean. They had all custom furniture like a 15 foot long couch, and a 5 feet by 5 feet coffee table. That's an ENORMOUS coffee table, fit for a king! We hung out there and watched a little Olympics on Canadian TV and played in the pool and warmed up some tostadas. It was super relaxing.

We then went to the movie theater again to see if we could see Avatar in 3D in the Puerto Vallarta mall. This time we had the time right. I really didn't like the 3D version better than just a normal movie and for so many reasons. The glasses dim the movie so it's no longer bright and crisp the way it should be. The sides and corner of the movie are blurry because of the 3D, and when there is fast action, the 3D makes the images blurry. Also it's really tough to take almost 3 hours of 3D images. I had a slight headache at the end. It just felt like a distraction, cuz Avatar is such an awesome movie. I would probably chalk it up to it being the theater but I felt the same way after seeing Superman in 3D a few years ago. We then headed back to the condo where the girls stayed while we caught the movie and Gilly made the greatest spaghetti and caesar salad. After days of new and different Mexican food, it was nice to have something familiar.

We stayed there watching the men's mogul event and figure skating until about 10, and then headed home.