Enjoying barbecue

Any time Fernando comes into town, it is a must that we eat out at least ONCE at Rudy's. It's his favorite barbecue place. They do have great barbecue and it's always nice to sit outside at the picnic tables and savor the good food while enjoying the balmy evening.

Fernando keeps busy with getting everything in order for his trip to Japan. He leaves mid-September, and will be working with a professor at the University of Tokyo for 3 months.

About 3 weeks after Fernando leaves, Rebeca and Jason will be coming into town with Duke and Diablillo. They'll be here on their one-year wedding anniversary! Jason has a conference to attend in Houston, and after that, they plan on celebrating their anniversary at a nearby hill country lake.

Fernando's here!

Yesterday we picked Fernando up from the airport and as we were walking with him to our car, we commented to him that "this is the fun one", meaning that it is way nicer to be picking him up than to be dropping him off. He was very tired since he had basically been traveling for 24 hours.

Today, we had breakfast at El Palmito and then Guillermo and Fernando went to the Credit Union to take care of that matter of unauthorized charges on Fernando's credit debit card. We had a good rain shower later in the afternoon, and afterwards walked out to the creek to see if we could see any snakes. We saw at least four of them out there. The water was flowing pretty good, so maybe tomorrow morning we'll be able to see more things.

Cool day

All day long today, it looked like it was going to rain. The clouds would get so dark, and there'd be thunder and lightning, but somehow or another it always ended up just vanishing. Then, it would start up again, get dark, the whole bit, but we never got any rain at all which is just as well, since the ground is completely saturated. We don't need any more rain at this time. So, of course, with weather like that, it kept the day nice and cool. But since it hasn't rained in several days, the creek isn't running. We go out there everyday, sometimes twice a day to see what the creek's doing. With no water, the snakes and birds are hiding out until conditions change.

Guillermo brought in several more watermelons from the garden today. Aren't they just beautiful? All of them that he has cut open have been so juicy and very tasty!! Those watermelon plants were happy this year!!!

The bird and the snake

Fernando will be home from Africa in 5 days!!!

This picture that Guillermo took is really neat. That little Plover kept pushing his luck, trying to get close to where the snake is (on the right - sticking his head out on the edge of the concrete). The snake WAS in a good place for food, because little fish keep jumping out of the water in that corner (towards the top of the picture).

The picture of the crawfish crawling against the flow of the water is ok, but a bigger lens would have been able to zoom in better.

It is still raining every day, but so far, the rains have been good. We have gotten 2 and a half inches of rain so far, in these last 4 days. And the forecast is for rain for the next 7 days!!

Good rains

We've been getting such good rains lately. If we didn't actually live here and were just visiting this city right now, we'd say that this must be a perfect place to live! We'd say everything is so green in August and the weather is for the most part, nice and cool. But this is not how August has been in the past. For some reason, it seems like August has changed around here. For the past few years, it has been green, rainy and cool in August. Now, THAT is weird for here. I'm looking at the forecast right this minute, and the high today is supposed to be 84 degrees. What!??

The creek was running a little yesterday, and again, that brought the snakes out. We only saw one Water Moccasin, but we also saw a new snake. This new snake kind of looked like a Garter snake - it was a lot smaller and it had yellow stripes down its body. At one point, Guillermo even observed the little Garter crawl right over the Water Moccasin!! Then we saw what looked like an entirely DIFFERENT kind of snake on the opposite side of the water. It had a rufous stripe along the top of its body. It was very pretty!

Nooooooo!

We worked out in the yard all morning today, in preparation for staying inside the next few days because they predict a lot of rain is headed our way. When I got out of the shower, Guillermo was standing there with this absolutely perfect watermelon in his hands. I couldn't believe that he had gotten that watermelon out of our garden. I teased him that he ran to the store and bought one there while I was in the shower. I just had to get a picture of it, but we decided to have lunch first. He places the watermelon on the kitchen counter and we start getting stuff together for lunch. As I'm reaching for the refrigerator door, out of the corner of my eye, I see the watermelon rolling towards the edge of the counter. Too late. We couldn't stop it. The nice, beautiful, freshly-picked watermelon lands on the floor and splits open.  I can still see Guillermo kneeling on the floor at the broken watermelon going, "Nooooooo!!""  At first we were just devastated but eventually we ended up just laughing about it as we cleaned up.

So, anyway, here's a picture of that watermelon, along with a cantaloupe from the garden.

Guillermo says his watermelon may not be as big as the ones Roy, his brother, grows, but Roy doesn't have to grow them in clay soil either!!! We, of course, had watermelon after lunch, and I must say, that is the BEST watermelon I have ever eaten!!!

Snakes again!

Today Guillermo and I tried another new Indian restaurant, and again, we weren't favorably impressed. What we ordered to eat was good enough, but not enough to make another trip out there.
When we got back home, Guillermo needed to do some walking to get up to his 7,000 steps so I rode my bike while he walked. (I was already well into my 7,000 steps because I went to the mall today, and that will rack up the steps in no time!) When we got back from our walk/ride, we decided to walk out to the creek, even though it was starting to get dark. We were walking out there just to walk, we didn't expect to see anything because we figured there wasn't going to be much water flowing anymore. (Yesterday we got an inch of rain, and even though the creek ran nicely at that time, we didn't see a thing of interest.) But today, as we were standing by the fence, we saw 2 snakes slithering in the small strip of water that was still flowing. We were so surprised!!! Then, just a few minutes later, we saw ANOTHER snake trying to inch out of the water. We stood there at the fence watching them for quite a while. We watched one of them swim against the flow up a small embankment and weren't sure, but we even think we saw a fourth snake, but by then it was getting too dark to be certain. We wished we had brought binoculars and a big flashlight with us.

Get together with family

We had a great get-together today with Chris, Kathy, Carlos, Samantha, Ben, Linda, Mom, Ashley, Michael, Skye and Janice. We spent a little time outside, even though it was so hot (it was supposed to hit 101 today). After some delicious sandwiches, brownies and fruit salad, we looked at the pictures from Andrew's wedding and then at a few of the South America pictures. Afterwards, we enjoyed good coffee and great cake.
Here are some pictures from the day.

 Skye

Janice took this picture

Janice and Guillermo checking out the garden

With tech support from Africa

Isn't this an excellent picture that Guillermo took of our passion vine flower???
When we were in "chat" with Fernando on Tuesday, he helped us, from Africa, with what we needed to know so that Guillermo could start using his camera. He guided us on how to upload any pictures we took, and then once uploaded, how to resize those pictures and then convert them to jpegs. So, taking what he told us, Guillermo went out, took a bunch of pictures and then we were able to work with those pictures on the computer! The camera Guillermo is using is a digital SLR, and it just seemed a lot more complicated than our little regular digital camera, which we have no problem using. I suppose once we start using the SLR more, we'll find it's not that difficult after all!
And here's another picture Guillermo took of some pretty purple and white flowers that are growing on a vine on the fence of our field. And he even got a good shot of a bee on one of the flowers!

On Wednesday, I went out to lunch with former Elrod colleagues and when I got back home, I heard little cries coming from the bathroom. I was surprised to see Guillermo in there holding a little wren over the bathroom sink, washing it. He told me that unfortunately, the wren got into our garage and got stuck on those sticky panels that are used to trap rats. He said the wren's toes were glued together, one leg was glued to his chest, there was glue on his wings and he only had one feather left on his tail. Guillermo washed him about four times in the sink and then put him in a box in the garage covered with a towel. After a while, Guillermo went to check on him, but somehow or another the wren jumped out of the box and managed to get away. So we think he turned out ok after all.

Friday evening we went to a Jazz Festival at Crossroads Mall, which was quite enjoyable. We took our lawn chairs and sat and listened to the music while eating fried pickles and drinking iced tea. That was just an appetizer! We stayed for a little while, enjoying the balmy evening, the jazz, watching a Night Hawk bird flying around in the sky and dive-bombing frequently toward the ground, we watched two planes flying high in the air over us and watched how they seemed to be heading straight toward each other, when one obviously started veering off to one side. We wondered if there had been a "situation" up there that only the pilots knew about. Then we left the festival and decided to try a new restaurant we've been wanting to go to. It was a little Mediterranean cafe and it turned into one of those situations where we both exclaimed upon leaving, well, we're never going back THERE again!!!! The pitfalls of trying a new place!!

Thinking of Jason

Yesterday, August 4th, Jason flew up to Chicago on his way to a conference in Milwaukee. There were terrible storms up in Chicago, that hit after Jason got there, which were so intense that evacuations were ordered in the airport, people were screaming stuff about seeing funnel clouds, and it seemed as if the windows were going to blow in. Needless to say, his flight on to Milwaukee was canceled and in all the confusion, his traveling companion lost a poster needed for his own presentation. We thought a lot about Jason that evening, wondering what they were going through, because the airline did not put them up in a hotel.

The next day, when Rebeca called us, we found out that Jason and his friend caught a bus to Milwaukee and that his friend did find his poster after all. As if there wasn't enough stress to begin with, worrying about the presentation they both had to give!!!!

Guillermo and I got up earlier than usual this morning (it's Tuesday!), to see if maybe Fernando was on the computer and he was!! So, we were able to spend a little more time in "chat" with him. Fernando said he was feeling a little under the weather and I'm sure it's because of the rigors of the trip they just took. He also said he was glad for all the little snacks we send, because in a lot of places they visited, there wasn't anything decent to eat.

The laptop is back home. When we picked it up yesterday, we headed straight to Best Buy to buy something to back up the stuff on the laptop. That has been done, and the trick now is to remember to do that each and every time we modify a document or add pictures. But it's a lesson learned, and fortunately, this time, it wasn't too late for the learning.

Picking Pears

Guillermo was getting tired of seeing our pears getting knocked to the ground by the birds so he decided to go out there and pick them, whether those pears were ready or not!!!

We've also got a little baby rabbit in our yard now, although it spends most of its time hidden among the watermelon plants. I wish I could get a picture, but the little guy is pretty skittish.

So, here's a picture of Guillermo trying to beat the birds at their game.

Still no laptop

It's one of those should've, could've, would've things. SHOULD have backed up all my stuff on the laptop. COULD've backed up all my stuff, just never got around to doing what needed to be done to accomplish that. WOULD've backed up all my stuff if I had just gone out and bought that external hard drive when those gift cards first arrived.

BUT, at least the laptop is repairable and I know I'll get it back ONE of these days. It's crazy, but I was thinking the laptop would go into the shop one day, and we'd get it back the next. Oh well. The laptop has many things that aren't on Guillermo's computer, so all of those things are really falling behind right now.

We are looking forward to having Fernando back here for a little while. He and Eva just got back to the field site there in Ghana and Fernando contacted us, but we weren't at the computer when he did, so we missed him. He said he and Eva were tired, that they had gotten up at 3:30am to catch a bus back to Nkoranza. So, they didn't stay at the internet cafe long. Now we'll have to wait until Tuesday to hear from him again.

Not much new around here. Guillermo and Sergio (a former colleague of his) met here on Thursday, for the first time since before leaving for South America. They are working on a book together, and usually get together once a week to work on it. I worked out at the gym while they worked on the book. Usually when they are done, we go have lunch somewhere, so I met them at the restaurant and we had a very nice lunch.

Guillermo has been doing some really back-breaking work around our yard the past several days. He has been digging trenches to plant some of our Star Lily, Crinum Lily, and Lily-of-the-Nile plants. Those three plants have been multiplying like crazy and we have decided that we have so many that we can afford to plant some in the ground and if they freeze, they freeze. We've got lots of back-ups if that happens. So, the part of our backyard where Rebeca once commented that "there's nothing on this side, this side is totally being ignored", finally has something to it.
Looks nice, doesn't it?

Our night-blooming cereus bloomed!! And Guillermo remembered to get us to go outside to look at it!!! We took this picture at around 11:30pm.

All our hibiscuses are so beautiful right now. These are some of the prettiest ones we have. Which one is prettier? It's hard to say.

Check out how big Guillermo's tomato plants are!!! They are really doing well!

Guillermo took this picture of me in front of our Esperanzas, after I got my haircut today!