New Year's Eve 2009, we spent quadding at Imperial Sand Dunes. What an absolute hoot! Well, I started out being freaked out. I (Les) have never driven one of these things. For the first half hour, I was so tense and felt I was going to flip whenever I went on the slightest incline - what a girl!!! The first hill I went down, I screamed the entire way down. Once I got a chance to flat land it a bit and get used to the constant feeling of slipping and sliding on the sand, I realized I had to go fast to be in control. You would be proud of me by the end. I was still a bit slower than my hot-shot hubby, but I got a couple chances to catch some air and really had fun. Best New Year's Eve I've ever had - even though my work starts now........

And for Jim's point of view: Happy 2009 family and friends. We hope you all have a good 2009.

As you can see we spent New Years Eve day on the Imperial Sand Dunes. It temperature was about 75us no wind, a perfect day for being on the dunes on a quad. Haven't been on one of those since I lived up north. We had a great day and Yvonne was behind me on the quad all day and all I heard was yahoo everytime we hit a big dip or I opened the beast up. These things can really go. We will probably do this again in Pismo Beach or the Oregon Sand Dunes on the way home.

Mary-Lou invited Yvonne to help serving dinner again. Yvonne has become a bit famous around here. She's helped for two dinners now, thanks to Grandma Mary-Lou scooping her. We are proud to get numerous compliments on her behaviour. She loves to be the centre of attention as well.

Jack's Waterfront Property......

Mary Lou with Jennifer & Yvonne

Grandma's Kitchen - no roof, no running water, no electricity

Grandma's House

Well, today was an experience for us all. We had walked through Algadones, MX before and seen how poor the people are. Today, Mary Lou and Jack took us in and we went with them distributing food, blankets and clothes. It was a cool day for us - freezing for the people who are accustomed to over 100F temperatures. The typical home is make of pallets, cardboard, and any other recycled material they can find. We got to visit "Grandma" as she is called since she takes care of all her grandchildren and many of them live in the house pictured above. She proudly took us on a tour of the inside which is composed of beds on the dirt floor - sky showing through the roof - no heat, no electricity. Shockingly, the kids are happy and playful. They showed us the play cars they got for Christmas and one young guy did cartwheels for us. The highest he got was 8 in a row. It was a bittersweet day. Yvonne's most memorable was getting to meet Jennifer. A couple years ago, she was living up on the hill where the poorest live like Grandma. She now lives with her aunt in a partially brick home and is very clean and well cared for. She is a beautiful little girl, full of smiles and hugs. She hugged us all and especially Yvonne when Yvonne gave her a jacket and shoes she had grown out of.

When you ever think you have nothing.................

Merry Christmas 2008! Santa managed to find Yvonne yet again. She got her wish for a Cabbage Patch Doll. She really wanted a glow in the dark one, but they must have been all spoken for as she got a special blonde 25th anniversary one instead. She is pleased with her. Her name is Letitia and she was born on May 11th. Yvonne has duly adopted her and carts her around everywhere.

We had a day of hanging about. Yvonne watched her DVD's she got for Christmas. We cooked the best turkey ever. We decided to try Mom's recipe for lazy man's cabbage rolls as a stuffing and it turned out so incredible, that's our new signature dressing. When it's basted with turkey juices, it is YUMMY!!! We managed to leave enough bird to make a big pot of soup and pack away a couple bags of turkey for later dining.

We ended off our day with a couple games of Mexican Train, which is a neat twist on dominos.

Our first flat tire!!! Well, after about 60,000 km of driving around North America, we finally experienced changing a flat tire on the rig on the side of a busy, American freeway. It took Yvonne about 5 min to stop yelping every time a semi swooshed past and got our entire rig swaying. She calmed down and we calmed down and got to work. We toyed with calling BCAA, but then looked around and realized we were about 50 miles away from any major civilization, so figured we could get it done faster than waiting. Jim thankfully has been carting his work pumpkin coveralls around with him all this time and they came in handy. He got all clothed up for the dirty job. We managed to get the adjacent tire pumped up with our air compressor (again, luckily Jim bought a huge long extension cord so it could reach the RV tires from the truck cigarette lighter), while changing the flat. We were so, so lucky that the tire just blew a hole and Jim was over to the side before he understood what happened. We didn't do any damage to the rig or the adjacent tire. There is only 1 spare, so you gotta hope you only have 1 flat at a time. We have heard of many a story of lots of damage to the undercarriage, so we are very happy we had a "pleasant" flat tire.
So, Christmas for the grownups is "4 new tires, 3 rum and cokes, 2 chocolate bars and Onnnnnnnne burgundy awning......" hee hee - why do these expensive things always happen during December????

Merry Christmas, everyone! We are doing our best to create the holiday spirit while we are away. Yvonne is very excited for Santa to visit her. She wishes for a glow in the dark Cabbage Patch Doll or a Charpez Barbie in her pink car. We'll see how Santa fares. They seem to be quite popular toys. We managed to build our first gingerbread house together. We used to do it every year when my sisters and I were kids. Unfortunately, I do not have the same discipline as my mother, and we ate most of the candy before it got on the house :-). Still looks cute, though. Yvonne is looking forward to starting to eat it on Christmas Day.
We wish all of our family and friends a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year!

Exciting Day Yesterday!! High winds ripped our awning off right at the moment we were returning from a walk. The day started off mild. It was a bit windy when we went walking, but there were a couple very strong gusts as we were walking. Jim detoured to the clubhouse thinking he'd bring in the awning when he got home. Just as Yvonne, Princess and I came around the front of the rig, the front arm broke off, then, the awning ripped off the holder like a zipper and the entire thing came crashing down right in front of us. Gave the two little ones quite a fright!! We are now in the process of getting repair estimates and dealing with insurance - fun!! Good time to get an awning for Christmas :-) Never a dull moment.

A Frosty "Hi Mom" to you all from St. David, Arizona. This was our truck's windshield this morning. BRRRRRR. The sun is out now and warming up - we just took the temp and it's 14C. We are nocking St. David off our winter destination list. It's about 4,000 ft above sea level, so a bit cooler than places not far away. We desperately miss Kino Bay. The bad thing about going somewhere so nice, is it ruins you for places that seemed nice before. Oh well, we will make due. Our next spot is Yuma, which is 10F warmer than here, so that will be nice.
Our trip up from Kino Bay went very smoothly. The road seemed much better now that we knew what to expect. We noticed a lot of military and police presence on our way. They were mostly on the southbound side of the road. We were only stopped once by the military and once by border patrol on the US side. They laughingly asked us if we had 150 people hiding in our rig. They just waved us along. We found out yesterday that there is a travel warning against Nogales, which was where we crossed the border. We had no trouble at all, but that must explain the presence of so many military and policia along the way. The newspaper said there has been an increase in violent gang / drug related problems. We didn't see any. We assume it is similar to at home - don't be out in the middle of the night. Since we are typically tucked in by 8PM, we don't tend to see the seedier side of life.
Well, we hope to have some exciting things to write about soon. We are currently catching up on e-mails and work. Yvonne is finishing up the last few items for her last module before Christmas break. She's really enjoying her Lego advent calendar.

Baby P really loved the beach! As you can see by these to action-packed shots, Princess loved to run on the beach. Saturday was her last run at the beach. She tore it up for over an hour each time we'd go down. She would run after the birds, run back and forth between us - she just loved it. She even learned to go into the water. She would dodge the surf a bit, then come into deep enough water to get a few paddles in, then sit freezing on the beach and start over again. It was a real hoot to experience her first beach experience!!