Ali and Ouest had to go to Minnesota for a couple of days. The night of their return it was up to us boys to get the house cleaned up. Lowe took his job very seriously, wiping down every surface in the Airstream, including the hermit crab’s house. I always find it interesting how different it is to have one kid. Sometimes I think, “Man, having just one is so easy.” But then we’ll be off at the beach and he’ll be in the rocks playing quietly and talking to himself and I realize just how much more fun he has with his sister around. There are definitely pluses and minuses on the one versus two spectrum, but in the end, I can’t imagine these two not having each other.

See, even when you live small there is always work to be done.

But, there’s generally a lot more time for play.

These two have gotten to be really good boogie boarders, getting complimented by passers-by every day. When they catch a wave, if the other one misses it, they pull up and try again. Like it’s no fun if they aren’t both side-by-side in the wave, laughing and talking the whole way in.

“Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag.”

Last year our favorite Mazatlan dream mansion was sold, leaving just one other ridiculously large, beautiful, crumbling building on our someday list. Now we’ve discovered somebody has been cleaning this one up too. If you’re in the market for city-block-sized mansions in Old Town Mazatlan, you’d better get cracking.

It was funny, we had the pool all to ourselves for about five minutes before two dozen others showed up. It was like everyone had just been waiting for somebody to get in.

Do not follow too closely on the highway.

One of the things I like so much about Mazatlan is that it combines being a tourist destination so well with being a working Mexican city. Old Town is a fifty-cent ten-minute bus ride along the ocean from the tourist hotel zone.

It’s always fun to walk around the neighborhoods and point out our old haunts to the kids. This tiny back neighborhood playground is still there, if a little worse for wear.

We’re constantly being told, “Your kids have so much energy.” I think this picture exemplifies just how much more they have than me.

Oh, and I got stung by a stingray for the fourth time in as many years. Fortunately just one of the small ones that ply the shallows here, but still bled like crazy and ached for hours. Those guys are brutal. Still, getting stabbed occasionally seems like a fair enough trade off for getting to spend so much time in the ocean.