01-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
We took Lowe in to get some vaccination shots today. They are free at the clinic in town where we talked with a doctor for a few minutes and then were given the shots by a couple of very nice nurses. Ali does not like this part of parenting one bit. She was crying just listening to the little boy in front of us cry. It’s such a departure from her personality that I’m really taken aback by it. It’s just one of those things I guess. Lowe was a champ anyway and barely cried until he got the stupid oral drops, which should be the easy one. Ali immediately took him from me when we finished and I haven’t seen him since.

02-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
I don’t know how it could happen but we have born the world’s worst automobile passenger. Ouest is a terror in the car. To the point where Ali and I have talked seriously about never going anywhere in a car again. ANYWHERE AGAIN. I thought kids were supposed to love the car. Just sit back and listen to the road hum while they play with their plethora of toys. We keep expecting she’ll outgrow it. We started expecting this at two months of age.

Boat work continues. I’m currently embroiled in an overhead hatch removal. These old boats and their wood. It gives them their charm but also their problems. On a new boat this would be six screws and peel up the steel frame. On this boat it starts with drilling out the teak plugs, then removing the teak trim panels, all eight of them, then trying to find the twelve three-inch screws holding in the four pieces of the frame itself. Finding these requires carefully prying the wooden ceiling back and using a flashlight to spot the holes where the screws go in.

It would obviously be easier in theory to remove the ceiling panels that are in the way, but that’s essentially impossible. The whole ceiling would have to come down and that would require removing every single thing attached to it. So instead I try and get a peek of the hole underneath the ceiling, then drill a small hole through the panel to get at the screw underneath. The holes will all be covered by the trim if I ever get it all back together again.

The problem with being a trader is that when you have a good day in the market you invariably rush out and spend money before you lose it again. In our case this meant giving the go ahead on new settee cushions and curtains. The holes in the old cushions were too much for Ali to endure and of course the current curtains wouldn’t match the new cushions, so…

I’m ready to leave and go sailing again.

Ouest currently spends about six hours a day running around in adult flip-flops. Grammy had four pairs with her. Clip, clap, clip, clap. I’ll never get the sound out of my head.

03-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
The difference between our two babies at two months of age is like night and day. And I can’t put into words how thankful we are for it. Ouest was tough, no doubt about it. Looking back now we attribute it to at least a dozen things we did wrong, combined with her colic, that made it so hard for us. To enjoy our time with her it was sometimes necessary to make a conscious effort to do so. To take that writhing and screaming baby and embrace the moment, no matter how loud and uncomfortable, and enjoy it.

With Lowe there is no effort needed. We can lie in bed next to him and he coos. Actually coos. Ouest did not coo. He smiles at two months old. What does a two-month-old have to be so happy about? If he cries it means one of two things, hungry, or tired. Solve that and no more crying. If every baby were this easy we’d all have ten of them.

Black olives. Ali finds it utterly mind boggling that her daughter would love black olives the way she does. A whole can at a time if we’d let her. She also eats salad. Lettuce, tomato, and onion. Guacamole of course. Prunes. All those foods that kids just love.

Ouest took a faceplant off a table today that left her with two bloody tooth holes in her lip and a cut on the outside as well. After a quick cry she forgot all about it and just let the bloody drool run out of her mouth. Tough as nails that girl.

It is so nice having some shade on the boat. And did I mention that the final cost of the dodger was a mere 60% of the original quote. Yeah, when was the last time that happened? Welder $1048, Canvas $1873 = $2921 USD

05-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
I am in a losing battle at the moment with the exhaust header. There are nine bolts holding this thing on. Rusty bolts that have been on there no doubt for going on thirty years now. Amazingly seven of them came right out. The last two, not so much. They are now round bolt heads. I emptied my PB Blaster on them to no avail, shredded them with vice grips, pounded on undersized wrenches, threw a pipe wrench at them, all for naught. Fortunately there is some room, not a lot, to get at them. I know there are tools available that if I were back in the States I would have already gone to Home Depot and purchased, but here in Mexico it’s not quite the same. Anyway…

As for losing the battle. I was perched rather precariously over the engine at one point this morning when my footing slipped out from under me. My thigh scraped right down over yet another old rusty bolt gouging a foot long gash in the process. It was one of those injuries where you sort of sit there frozen for a minute afraid to look down. When I did I found that it wasn’t quite as bad as I’d feared, meaning it hadn’t gone through to muscle like it felt like it did, but had just scraped out an eighth-inch deep ravine. The nastiest part of this one was the ball of hairy skin still hanging on the bolt. The ignition kill switch looked like it was wearing a wig.

Yeah, I just told that gross story. At least I’m not posting the picture.

When Ali came by a while later I had my leg basically cast in gauze because I really have no idea how to tend to an injury like a proper adult. She took one look at me and in a sort of half bored, half exasperated tone, “What is that?” Pause while I shrug my shoulders. “Do I have to take you to the hospital?”

Welder came out today and we figured out how I was going to mount the outboard to the boat while not in use. This is where a canoe shaped stern fails completely in usefulness. There is so little usable open space at the back of this boat that this one simple decision took hours of contemplation and will require a custom fabricated mount. So that will be done in a couple of days.

I’m in the process of putting the overhead hatch back together. The trim that I had to take off in order to remove the hatch was wood glued on and the wood itself was a bit brittle after all those years, so it got a bit mangled in the removal process. Not mangled exactly, but a crack here and there and one actual chunk snapped off. Tonight I wood glued and clamped everything back together so tomorrow we’ll see what I’ve got. I think it should be good enough to be sanded and varnished again. Then thirty years from now some other sucker can try and do the same job again.

The new sails are in San Diego. We hired a company to take possession of them, drive them across the border, register them to our boat with customs, and throw them on a plane to Puerto Vallarta. Should have them by the end of the week. In theory we could have had them delivered to Mexico but they would have gone straight to Guadalajara Customs Jail and it would have been a project getting them released without paying import duty. With this company we skip the hassle.

Ouest is closing in on two years-old and that combined with having a little brother around and a mama and papa that aren’t able to spend every minute together with her is finally causing a few problems. Spitting. Yes, spitting. She learned the art of spitting from brushing her teeth with us and has now discovered that when she isn’t happy it is a great way to make all of us unhappy. The really upsetting part to me is how quickly everything can go from having a good time to crying and spitting. It’s almost instantaneous. Snap. “What happened Ouest? I put Dolly in the chair instead of in her stroller?”

A new boat, or is it ship, came into the marina today. It’s bow has fourteen feet of freeboard. Killer. I’ve decided this is my next boat. Seventy feet long, steel, three stories, and that glorious bow to smash through icebergs with. I’ve got ship envy.

06-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Ouest is starting to play on her own better and better, freeing us up to work on other things a little bit. Today she had afternoon tea on the table while I glued and sanded. Then outside she covered the boat and herself in sidewalk chalk. This chalk is awesome stuff for her. It looks destructive but wipes away with nothing but a little water, which is fun for her too.

Took a break from the engine today figuring the welder is coming out tomorrow and I can ask him about the bolts. If he doesn’t have a tool I can borrow he’ll most likely have a friend who can come get them off for me. At least that’s the hope. After all I’m taking the exhaust header off so he can weld up the hole in it.

I managed to get the busted up trim work for the overhead hatch looking good again with wood glue and sandpaper. All it needs now is some varnish.

07-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
We bought Ouest a couple of new furry pillows for her bed a couple weeks ago. She immediately forgot about them and we didn’t put them out right away. Tonight after reading Paddington the Bear I carried Ouest to bed where Ali had set up her bed fit for a queen with the new pillows, a pink butterfly blanket, and Texel her sheep. She was ecstatic and couldn’t talk about it fast enough. “Papa, pa, papa, p, p, papapapa.” The greatest thing about kids has to be their ability to become absolutely giddy over things that to us as adults would hardly raise an eyebrow. It is also the thing that I want to strive to provide my kids with every day. Something, no matter how simple, to be excited about.

Not a whole lot else happening today. I sometimes marvel at how quickly the days disappear. Feels like we’re busy every moment but then once the kids are in bed I sit back and think about how we really didn’t do anything at all. Life aboard the boat is improving greatly these days with the drop in temperatures, the disappearing surge in the marina, and best of all the change for daylight savings time. It’s no longer sunny outside at bedtime. Hooray.

No boat work today. Sails should be here in the next day or two. Never thought I’d be excited by the prospect of new sails, but here I am.

08-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Had a bit of a mishap on the boat today. The welder came over to measure out a few things. Ouest was in my charge at the time which was fine as she was just sticking close to me and watching what was going on. We were standing in the cockpit so nothing to worry about right? Well my attention was on the work and all of a sudden the welder’s helper gasped and jumped to his feet. In that split second I knew what was happening. I spun around just in time to see Ouest’s feet going over her head as she flipped right off the side of the boat and into the water. I hit the water maybe a second after her and quickly had us back on the dock. It really wasn’t that dramatic, but it did strike home just how fast these things can happen and how vigilant we need to be.

Ali took this picture just a minute beforehand. You can see that there is no netting on this section because this is where the winches are located and we need to be able to spin a winch handle. Netting just won’t work here. The good thing is that the cockpit is separated from the edge of the boat by the coaming and then the area the winches sit in. Thus as long as Ouest was in the cockpit it seemed safe enough. The problem is little kids don’t have that sense yet of where their center of gravity is. After this picture was taken she turned around, found something interesting enough to reach over the cockpit coaming for, reached too far, and flipped right over with her belly on the railing. May need to rethink the netting issue there. Maybe something that can be put on while in port. The netting isn’t a lifesaver, but it does keep her from reaching over the edge of the boat.

Anyway, welder is back tomorrow with the motor mount and to help me get the exhaust header off. We’re just going to cut the heads off the shredded bolts and slide the header off. Then I can work more freely on getting the bolts themselves out.

It occurred to me today that we really shouldn’t be flying a Mexican courtesy flag but should instead be flying both an American and Mexican flag off the back of the boat. If we want to be technical about it anyway. After all we’ve got two Mexicans living aboard now. I think I’ll do it just to confuse people.

Lowe is amazing us with his growth. I’m not sure if he is actually big for his age or not, but he’s outgrowing his three month clothes already. More than his size though is his strength. He is almost rolling over already. Which is starting to make life a bit more of a pain in the butt. No more just setting him down wherever we want to. Aside from that stuff he really is an adorable little boy. He is easy going and is full of smiles. Even better, I got his first laugh out of him today.

09-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
The Baja Ha-Ha crowd has started to arrive the past couple of days. I have to admit, and I’m saying this despite having many friends participating in the rally, that it is a little hard for me to not feel a touch smug. I mean judging by the boats that I’ve seen so far it appears the necessary sailing ratio for this passage is one man for every seven feet of boat length and if there is a remainder in the division a woman is then brought along too. Every boat needs a cook after all. Ouch.

I know I said it before but that passage has got to be one of the easiest thousand mile downhill runs anywhere in the world. At least for those that leave based on weather and not getting to a party in Turtle Bay. But I’ve also said before that I am not an especially social guy, so the idea of traveling in packs, having loads of boat buddies, and pot luck dinners, is simply lost on me. For those that enjoy that I apologize right now for my smugness. And that’s the last comment I’ll make about boat rallies. At least until we cross paths with the next one. Oh that’s not true either, who am I kidding? Because I’m going to be seeing huge groups of these green HaHa flags for the next six months and I won’t be able to help myself.

Boat work update. Productive day with the welders. The motor mount is spot welded together and the finished product will be here in two days. And more importantly the exhaust manifold is off the engine. We cut the heads off the stripped bolts and slid it off with just a little coaxing from the hammer. The problem bolts were kind of weird ones. They bolted into a metal sleeve that then had a double ended bolt on the other end of it that bolted the whole thing to the engine block. The bolts connection to the sleeve was where the problem was. Both bolts were rusted securely to the sleeve. Now the welder is off taking care of the manifold while I have a new problem. I figured I’d need new bolts, but didn’t count on needing these sleeves. I know where I can order them though, so that’s on tomorrow’s agenda. And we’ll then be waiting on mail once again. Currently we’ve got sails, my passport, and a replacement credit card somewhere in transit.

10-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
We’ve been having issues the past week or so with Ouest’s nap. She basically has gone ballistic when I bring her into her room. Screaming, throwing everything out of her bed, spitting, and uncontrollably sobbing. I hang with her, do my best to keep my voice calm and then inevitably as quickly as it started it is over and she is lying down letting me lay the blankets back on top of her as she drifts off to sleep. It’s weird and we’re not really sure where it is coming from because she has never disliked nap time and in fact has often been eager to get to it. Anyway, we’re going to mix up a couple of things, but in general we try to remind ourselves that these things tend to come and go before we actually do anything to solve them. Kids change by the hour it seems and every time we feel like we have lost control, or every time we feel we are completely in control, it all gets turned around.

I took Ouest out for a late evening dinghy ride tonight just as the sun was going down. She is very good now at staying in her spot in the bow and seems to enjoy being out on the boat. When we were on our way back the setting sun hit her just right while she was goofing around wearing my hat. She had that absolutely genuine smile on her face that a kid can only have with her parents, and in that moment I thought she must have been the most amazingly beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Despite all the drama I’m really enjoying being her papa right now.

And then of course there is this guy. Ali looked at him today and asked, “Where do you get your good looks from?” Ouch.

Don’t tell anybody, but Ali has begun making guacamole. Next thing you know she’ll be browsing the spice aisle at the store and looking up recipes online.

12-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Pretty productive couple of days around here. The welder finished off the dinghy motor mount and the new brace on the dinghy davits. All that’s left is for me to assemble a piece of wood to the mount for the motor to hang on. He hasn’t shown up with my exhaust header yet but I haven’t paid him for the mount so I’m not too worried about that.

And we’ve got new sails. A whole brand spanking new set. They’re not out of the bags yet, but they look good from what I can see. It’ll be exciting to see the boat with new clothes. Still waiting on the bill from the forwarding company in San Diego but I think it was worth it to have them bring them over the border, register the sails to our boat, and ship them to us. Just took a couple of days and we didn’t have to deal with any Mexican customs agents.

New cushions and drapes are in the boat. They look pretty good. I’d have pictures but Ali has those on hold until she has everything just so.

I realized on Thursday afternoon that I was going to need a few new bolts and gaskets for the exhaust manifold so I put a call in to the Ford Lehman gurus back on the East Coast and asked them if they could rush overnight our order to California. Somehow they did and the package got there sixteen hours after I placed the order. That’s service.

We had it shipped to California because a new Bum follower had e-mailed us a couple days earlier and asked if we needed anything brought down as they were on their way to visit their house in Sayulita. Super random how this lady found our site. She lives in Santa Cruz, has a boat there, and said she saw our boat there back when the other Spindrift was tied up alongside of us. Then a few weeks ago she was looking for information on Hurricane Jova because of her house in Sayulita, so naturally she Googled “Hurricane Jova Sayulita” and up came Bumfuzzle. She clicked it, put two and two together, and here we are. We went out to the airport this afternoon to meet her and pick up our package but unfortunately her flight was way late. We’ll get it from them in a few days instead.

So as of now the only thing keeping us from sailing out of here is the motor, which shouldn’t be an issue, and getting the sails on the boat, which also shouldn’t be much of an issue. The clock is ticking. I really need to get out the cruising guide and start figuring out where we are going.

The other day our feet just about started going through this cockpit locker hatch. A quick look underneath showed rotted wood. It’s just half inch ply with the teak on top. Problem of course is the liberal use of glue holding the two together. So just another project started and going nowhere fast.

At the cargo office today was a big scale where for the first time in at least six months I was able to weigh Ouest. Thirty-two pounds. It’s been a long time since she was thirty pounds so I guess the weight gain has fallen way off. At just a half inch under three feet she hasn’t stopped growing taller though.

13-Nov-2011 twenty-three months ouest, three months lowe.
Ouest and Lowe,

My oh my how you have grown. Both of you. Lowe sprouted three inches for crying out loud. I lay awake at night wondering how in the world I will ever afford to feed a boy that is anything like me. Growing up I don’t think I ever stopped eating. For now Mama can attest to your feeding habits, and assure me that we are screwed.

Lowe, it really does feel like you have always sort of been here lying low in the background, chilling out on the couch while your sister runs us ragged. The only time you give us any grief these days is at night, which really means you are giving your mama the grief. Me? I usually just get to listen to you coo and boo and screach in delight, or more often than not watch as you just lie quietly and contently.

Ouest, you’re starting to test us. You are a smart girl and you know just what you are doing. If we tell you to keep your feet off the table you make sure you sneak them up there one more time just to see what we’ll do. We whack you upside the head with brass knuckles. If you drop something on the ground you’ll just look at it when we ask you to pick it up. Maybe you’ll point to it to let us know we should get it ourselves. For this you get hit with a bag of oranges in the stomach. But these are just things that kids and parents do I guess. It’s our job to outsmart you. That’s really what it comes down to. For now you are more smarterer than us.

What else is new? Lowe is drooling as if he has teeth coming in. A bit early for that bud. Ouest has stopped eating her guacamole but devours tacos as her number one food. Lowe can almost roll over. Ouest can swim/tread water by herself for a good ten seconds before her head dips under the water. Lowe can smile. Ouest sings Tomorrow at all sorts of odd times. Lowe can only nap for a half an hour at a crack. Ouest insists that all diapers are property of Lowe. Lowe can make the saddest face ever by sticking his lower lip out and quivering his top lip. Ouest can climb a rock wall better than a four-year-old boy. Ouest can share toys amazingly well. Ouest can show empathy better than her parents ever could. And both Lowe and Ouest can brighten an otherwise grumpy mood with just a look.

We love you two. Papa

14-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Just another day living the life.

15-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.

16-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
We’ll be a seaworthy boat again in no time. The mainsail went on today. The sail looks nice, all the stitching looks good to my untrained eye, and all the hardware was the correct size and went on without a problem. The only issue with the sail turns out to be my fault. It’s about a foot and a half short of the top of the mast. The reason is that I took the measurement off of the old sail. The old sail however was a big full batten main with a squared off top. Blah, blah, blah. The new sail is not a full batten so it could have gone up right to the top of the mast. Oh well, we lost a little sail area. To be honest I didn’t buy the sails that would give us the ultimate in sailing performance anyway. I’m certain that no matter what we flew on here would be ten fold better than the old garbage bag that was on there before.

The sail bag is on too. It’s a lazy bag which unfortunately did not come with the lazy jacks. So I’ll be making my own for that soon enough.

Full on sail pics have to wait until we’re actually out on the water again. It’s just not right to photograph a new set of sails in a marina.

And in other big news the welder showed up today with our exhaust header. I was getting a little nervous as he had it for close to a week and had already told me once that they were having some trouble with the weld. But in the end he came through. The weld is pretty ugly, but welding these cast iron headers is notoriously difficult and I’m just happy he was able to get it all sealed up again.

In addition, our Bum friends that brought the parts down for us actually came out to the boat on their vacation time and dropped them off for us. Really cool couple and we were super appreciative as they saved us a ton of hassle in getting the bolts and gaskets to finish this job. So anyway, all that’s left is to bolt it back on, fill up the coolant, change the oil, tighten a few bits and pieces, and we should be ready to roll.

17-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
The four of us got on the bus and headed downtown this morning to run some boat related errands. The first stop might not seem like it was boat related but it is. We went to the TelCel office to buy a wireless internet card for the computer. On this boat we don’t have an SSB or sat phone so we’ve no way to get weather e-mails at sea. This solves that little issue quite handily. For under forty dollars a month we’ve now got as much internet as we need anywhere in Mexico. It really has to be one of the sweetest deals there is for a cruiser. And I have to say that the TelCel office was actually the most efficiently run business I can remember being in. Mexico or otherwise. Anyway, I’m pretty stoked that I didn’t waste a ton of money on some antiquated e-mail only system for Bumfuzzle. We can get that crappy system when we’re ready to cross the Pacific again.

After that we were off to Zaragozas for some boat junk. Oil, boat wash, yadda yadda.

That was it. And yet it felt like an adventure. Two kids under two is some serious work let me tell you. Most of the rest of the day was spent around the boat. Ouest washed her car which had been looking a little grubby. Looks really nice now though.

18-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Time just keeps ticking on by. It continually amazes us how little can be accomplished in a day outside of taking care of two kids. Boat work? Squeeze in thirty minutes while their naps are overlapping. Another ten when they just aren’t paying attention. And another thirty or so when they go to bed for the night. Ali and I just shake our heads. Had it been just the two of us the boat work would have been done by October. Of 2010!

Oh well. Kids trump boat work any day. Okay, nine days out of ten anyway.

Goal for the next two days is to get the engine running again and to get the head sails up and off the deck. Big plans I know. Must be at least two hours worth of work there. Incredibly ambitious.

In the mean time we are trying to coordinate and book three family holidays for Christmas time. And until a day or two ago we really had no idea where we were even going. Oh poor me.

This was one of the two bolts whose head I had to cut off in order to remove the exhaust manifold. Actually it’s a rusty bolt into a rusty sleeve with a clean shiny bolt on the engine block side. Can’t see any reason why this wouldn’t have come right out.

19-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Got the exhaust manifold back on today. Just a few more hoses to hook up and we’ll be back to where we started. I wish I could magically make everything be done on the boat so we could leave. Ali is a little nervous about how this is all going to work out when we leave. Ouest will be bouncing out of her seat when we leave. And Lowe couldn’t care less as long as his blanket is on the floor when we leave. When we leave. When we leave.

Inching closer to the rollover. Big strong boy.

20-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Ouest and I go out for dinghy rides every couple of nights now. Can you see how happy this makes her? Can you also see just how nasty the bottom of the dinghy looks after just three weeks or so in this filthy water?

21-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Three days ago I laid out my goals for the next two days. I totally knew I couldn’t accomplish those piddling goals. Today however I did manage to get the engine back together. I just need to fill her up with coolant and some fresh oil and IT WILL FIRE RIGHT UP. I just know it will.

Also got the cockpit locker hatch back together today with non-rotting wood. It’ll be nice to not have to step around that anymore while pretending that it isn’t really something that needs immediate attention. Ali is the one who finally put an end to that line of reasoning.

But who cares about any of that stuff when Ouest is now jumping off the side of the pool when I am nowhere near being in range to catch her. She just jumps in and starts paddling and kicking. She quickly loses her forward momentum though and ends up treading water until I grab her and tell her just how freaking awesome she is. And she is freaking awesome, just ask any of the seventy year-olds lounging around the pool in black socks and flip-flops, they’ll tell you.

For some odd reason today was iguana day. Actually Mexican Revolution Day, but there were a lot of strange iguanas hanging out around the docks. The one Ouest was walking/stomping towards just jumped right in and swam like a fish right out of sight.

21-Nov-2011 bumfuzzle. just out looking for pirates.
Okay it’s that time of year again. The time when every single thing that passes across your computer or television screen is actually an attempt to get you to purchase something for the holidays. My turn.

Believe it or not Bumfuzzle the book actually pays a healthy chunk of our bills these days. One simple self-published book pays for our food every month. Our food! Think of the children for crying out loud.

Was that over the top?

Anyway, at the moment we’re ranked #4,532 out of over a million ebooks for sale on Kindle. Not too shabby. We’re happy about that and I assume anybody reading this would be happy for us. And this is why I’m going to ask you to pump us up further.

I assume the majority of you reading this, if you’ve got a Kindle, have already bought the book. But did you know you can give them as a gift too? Simple, there is a link right there on the right side of the Amazon page called, what else, Give as a Gift. They only cost three bucks apiece so throw a few in your cart if you have the inkling. As our Amazon ranking climbs our sales seem to go up exponentially so if a bunch of you were so inclined to give a few Bumfuzzle ebooks to friends this holiday season it would end up adding to our overall sales in a much bigger way.

We really do appreciate it and appreciate all of you who have hung with us all these years. Eight years this month since we first set out in Bumfuzzle. Crazy. Too many pitchers of beer one night in Chicago led to me asking you to buy our book while I sit on a boat in Mexico much older and grayer.

22-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
We think Lowe is teething. He’s sleeping like crap and drooling like a rabid dog. Ouest was way ahead of schedule with her teeth too. No sound sleep for Ali.

In other bad news from the kids, Ouest has not been napping lately. Not that she won’t, she’ll just cry for a good hour over it if we try to do it at a decent time like two o’clock. Problem is that she really hasn’t been ready until about four o’clock. But by that time we’ve ruled it out because it is way too close to bed time and we’d rather throw naps out the window than have her staying up much past seven.

Lowe more or less rolled over today. From his back to his belly. There was a small assist from the edge of the couch, but either way he’s been getting more and more close this past week.

We had a lee cloth made for the front bedroom where Lowe has been napping. Somehow though the thing came out a few inches short. The lady who runs the shop here came out and measured and then took it away to fix it. Thirty minutes later she e-mailed to tell us she noticed that the cushions she made for the couch were a little loose and she wanted to fix those as well. Within a couple of hours everything was taken care of and looking good. I have to say that we’ve had really good quality service down here from both her and the welder.

The engine is ready to fire up. Tomorrow morning is the big key turning ceremony. It’s always a bit nerve wracking for me. First to hear it fire up and idle smooth and second to see that everything that I did to it is okay and there are no leaks or crazy loud knocking noises indicating that I left a screwdriver buried somewhere deep in the bowels.

We took a lot of pics today just hanging around inside the house. So here is a pretty good representation of what our day looked like.

Ouest has this little red VW beetle whose doors open and we have taken to sticking passport photos of each other on the driver’s seat. She eats this stuff up.

Do not adjust your screens. That is in fact Ali putting a loaf of homemade bread in the oven. She’d been threatening to try making bread for months and then the other day we got an e-mail that made me laugh. It said something along the lines of, “Hey guys, we just found your website recently and think it’s great. Yadda, yadda, yadda, thought you might like to try this super easy bread recipe.” The reason I laugh is because they clearly had not delved too far into the website when they wrote that e-mail, because anybody who has would know that baking bread is not something that we would have enjoyed one bit. But times they are a changing around here. We’ve got kids now and they’ve got to eat. And unfortunately we can’t feed them the same horrible diet that we feed ourselves. For some reason we feel this need to treat their bodies better than that. So Ali has turned over a new leaf and is experimenting in the kitchen. Anyway, the bread turned out pretty good. A bit plain perhaps, but with a little butter and jam it was nothing to sneeze at. I actually commented to her, “Hmmph. Maybe we should have tried this earlier.” Now I think I’ll start posting pictures of everything she cooks and turn this into a “real” cruiser’s website.

I love this series of pictures. They make me laugh every time I look at them. Ouest was so sincere in trying to be a good big sister, holding Lowe gently and smothering him with kisses. Meanwhile Lowe looks as if he is saying, “Please Papa, come save me before it’s too late.”

Looking at these pictures right now makes me realize just how happy I am with this boat. It is our family home. Something I don’t think I would have ever been able to say about Bumfuzzle the antiseptic white plastic catamaran.

23-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Fired up the engine today. I do love how this engine starts instantly upon turning the key. No cranking, no coughing, just turn and purr. Only issue I found today was a leak in the coolant hose connected to the manifold. I realized right away that the problem was my doing. I forgot to clean the old gasket off completely. Tonight I removed the fitting, cleaned it up good this time, popped the new gasket back on, and I’m confident that in the morning the leak will be gone.

By the way the new fuel filter is what stopped the engine from struggling to start. Before I installed that it always took a few seconds to fire up. Now it sounds like a brand new engine.

Unfortunately not much else accomplished today. Well we did go play cars, and we did go for a swim, and went down the water slide, and tried to eat like five times, and hey, I shaved, and we all showered. So it wasn’t a completely blown day after all.

Exchange rate is back up over fourteen to one. Good thing because we’ve got some stocking up to do.

Back when Ouest was a baby we used to hear people talk about how they could differentiate all of their baby’s different cries and know to feed him or put him to bed or whatever. We never had a clue. Not because we didn’t know our daughter, but because she only had one cry. One cry that she seemed to use from around six in the morning until six at night. Man did she cry a lot. We feel guilty about it now. We must have just been terrible parents then because now we’ve got a baby who doesn’t cry. And when he does cry they are wimpy little cries. And better yet, we can actually distinguish what he wants from the noises they make. Second babies are infinitely easier. Sorry Ouest.

24-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
“Where’s the tookie?” asked Salvador as he walked down the dock.
“The tookie?” I had no idea what he was saying.
“Tookie. Tookie. It’s your day isn’t it?”
I did a brief brain run through, not hard to do, and it dawned on me. “Thanksgiving. You’re right. Sorry, you should have asked where the pavo was?”
“Thanksgiving.” He thought about that a few seconds and then asked, “Tequila or Champagne?”
“Depends on how much you like your family I suppose.”

Lowe is officially rolling over. Just a couple of days ago Ali was looking at a picture of Ouest taken at three and a half months which showed her on her belly with her head held high. She commented how Lowe wasn’t doing that. Then as if he heard her and took offense he started really pressing himself up high during belly time and today he just started rolling right over, one after another.

Well I didn’t manage to start the engine today to test my fix. Sad I couldn’t even manage that. I did however manage to get the sails up. We are a full blown sailing vessel again. They look good too. Can’t wait to see them full of wind a few miles offshore.

Ouest hadn’t worn this hat in months, but when she noticed it in the pictures today she immediately went hunting for it. She does that sort of thing a lot. She noticed a tricycle in a book the other day and suddenly remembered that she had one too. Problem is Papa put that thing out in the parking lot a month ago. She went up on deck and looked all over for it until I finally explained to her that we gave it to another little girl.

25-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
We bused into town today to visit the immigration office with the hope that they’d extend our tourist visas which expire in less than a month. I haven’t found anything online that says that they will do this, but we thought it was worth a try. The guy took one look at our cards and told me, “No, you must be out by December eighteenth.” I then explained that we were living here on our sailboat with our two Mexican children. That caused him to think about it a little harder and he told me he would talk to somebody and see if there was something they could do. He took a copy of my passport, had me jot down the marina information, and told me he would call me.

We don’t have a phone but do have an online voice mail system so now we’re just staring at our e-mail inbox praying a message will pop up. It won’t of course. So we’re going to go back in on Monday and see if we can get any further. If it doesn’t work there then we’ll go to the immigration office at the airport and try there. All it takes is one helpful officer.

In the meantime we’re looking at flights and trying to determine how we can get out of the country and back in as quickly and cheaply as possible. Like same day would be preferable. Man, we really should just apply for an FM3 visa one of these days.

After immigration we wandered across the street to the mall where we let Ouest play at the “playground store” for lack of a better word, took a ride on the carousel which is a must on every visit, and bought her a set of tools so she can join me on all the fun projects aboard Bumfuzzle. While Ouest and I were playing on the scooters Ali was off paying for the tools where the checkout guy asker her, “For your little boy?” Nope. Little girl. Wants to be just like her papa.

26-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Two days ago Ouest gave herself a black eye while in the midst of a tantrum in the dark in her bed. Just a couple weeks back she would go down for her nap as if she craved doing so and then suddenly, overnight, she changed and decided she was going to make nap taking her arch enemy. She seems to be fading from this a bit and settling back in now. We’ll see.

Anyway, she fell into her shelf eye first and this was the result. Then last night on the way to the shower she tripped, fell forward onto her hands and knees, and then her momentum carried her the rest of the way right onto her face, leaving her with a scuffed chin. At the moment this is one rough looking little Mexican.

What do you know, I managed to find a moment to start up the engine today. Perfection. No coolant leakage. No more rocker cover oil leakage. No more exhaust header carbon monoxide leakage. And no more fuel injector leakage. I’d say the engine is in great shape and is more than ready to back up those new sails.

No phone call from immigration.

27-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Random thought. When Ali and I were in South America in the VW we started looking ahead to Europe and the coming winter. Our plan? If we weren’t pregnant by then (which, the secret is out, we were) we were going to buy two cheap Chinese motorcycles for no more than a thousand euros each and see how far south into Africa we could get on them. Ali’s never driven a motorcycle, but it seemed like a fun plan nonetheless.

Washing this boat is so much more work than washing the catamaran. The cat I could basically stand on the roof and wash just about the entire thing with my brush extended. No nooks and crannies to deal with, just smooth runs of fiberglass. This boat, ugh. There are more little overhangs, wood that needs scrubbing with a brush, and areas so small only a toothbrush could reach it to clean it properly on this boat than any other I’ve ever been on. We cleaned half of it two days ago before Ouest needed a nap. We never did get to the cockpit.

I did a small job today that I’m almost embarrassed to admit to. I cleaned our fenders. I’m embarrassed by that because the only reason anyone would ever need to clean their fenders is because they have spent way too long sitting in a marina. We’re officially one of those people now.

Today Ali was reading yesterday’s post about the engine. She looked at me and asked, “You did all that? Really? You know how to do all that?” She was not asking this admiringly, she was asking it dubiously. Me and Rodney Dangerfield, I tell you.

Lowe is talking. His enunciation is terrible, but man is he rambling on. He really is an incredibly sweet little boy and is in such a good mood ninety-nine percent of the time that you can’t help but smile. He just smiles and coos, smiles and coos, poops, eats, sleeps for forty-five minutes, and smiles and coos some more.

By the way, the weather down here is unbelievable now. Just perfect. Eighty-five and sunny during the day with low humidity, and seventy at night. This is the kind of weather you are supposed to live on a boat for.

28-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
We all left the house at ten-thirty this morning with big plans for the day. They started with renting the car we had reserved. We walked up to the office and found the door locked. Fifteen minutes later, still locked. Forty-five. Ninety. Still not opened at noon. Our reservation was for noon. But hey, it’s only high season around here with thousands of tourists wandering the street and the mall, it’s not like any of them are going to rent a car.

Eventually I had to walk to their other office in a nearby hotel where they seemed completely nonplussed that there was nobody around to rent me the car I had reserved. Thank you National Car Rental. First you stole and sold my credit card information and then you left me hanging outside the door with the hours eight to six printed right on it.

Anyway. I hate those guys. Okay. Now. Anyway, we eventually got our car and headed out. First stop? Immigration. What’s that sign say outside their door. Hours nine to one. Four hours per day. Current time? One-thirty. Thank you once again National Car Rental.

So immigration was out for the day. Which sucks because we’ve got two weeks left in the country and really need to know if we’re going to have to fly out of here for a day or not. Cheap ticket prices will not remain so indefinitely.

Next stop, the lumber yard. A fun stop for no other reason than not a single word of English was spoken there. Put me to the test which I passed with flying colors. Amazingly though they had no hard woods that were suitable for abarco. I’m looking for a small piece of wood to mount our dinghy motor to. Simple. But not so today. She did however give me directions to the place that will have what I need. Which I will get tomorrow on the way to all our other errands.

Home Depot next. Then Walmart. Nothing like a day of big box stores to drain the life out of you. We made one pass through Walmart and then took the kids home for dinner and bed. Once asleep I went back for another round, stocking up on a few food items first and then going back into the store for a third time to purchase a couple hundred dollars worth of diapers. Time for Ouest to stop sitting on the toilet reading books and start sitting and doing some business instead. She has no qualms about going to the toilet. We take her all the time, at home, at the pool, in restaurants. If we ask her if she has to go she’ll say yes and follow us right to that toilet where she will then sit happily for just as long as we can stand it before we give up waiting for something to happen, lift her off the toilet and wrap another diaper on her butt. Kids.

Apparently it was in the seventies this morning with a bit of breeze and Ali mistook it for an Arctic freeze.

29-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
So at nine o’clock sharp we were standing out front of the immigration office again. At eleven our number was finally called. At immigration here everybody takes a number except the lawyers who just walk right up to any window they please whenever they please and get the royal treatment. And then even though they know they just stepped right in front of you after two hours they will turn around and smile at your kids. Lawyers man. Insert joke here.

All the waiting was for naught. With this sort of issue all you can really hope for is to get lucky and land that one immigration officer who takes pity on you and decides to bend the rules for no good reason other than they like you. We didn’t get that guy today. Rules are rules I suppose. Lord knows U.S. immigration would have the same answer for a Mexican walking up to their window asking to break the rules and stay in the country another six months.

It’s funny, everyone pictures Mexico as a country where everybody is on the take. And that may be true to a point. I mean there is no denying the fact that just about any traffic cop will line his own pockets given the chance. But this guy today wasn’t biting one bit, no matter how obvious I made the point that I would rather “pay a fee” instead of paying an airline to fly me to the border for a few hours back in the States. Never even hesitated. The answer to him was plain as day, just apply for an FM3. And that’s really what we should have done months ago, but we didn’t, so out we go. On Friday we’ll fly to Tijuana on the cheapest flight to the border or across the border that we could find on short notice. We’ll hoof it across the line, spend the night in the Holiday Inn, and walk back in to Mexico the next day for another six months.

Anyway, after that failure we drove down the road to get Lowe his next immunization shot due in two days. Two days, no big deal right? Wrong. No shot until the first, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Next stop on our increasingly unsuccessful day was to the outboard shop to pick up the receipt for the engine. They were supposed to have it ready a couple of days after I bought it, and I was supposed to be able to swing right in and pick it up. Of course it wasn’t ready and for some unknown reason it couldn’t be ready for a half an hour. Normally I’d camp right out on their chair until I got it, but the rental car was now due back in one hour and we still had another stop to make.

Zero for three and we’re off to the lumber yard. We found the place, which was success enough. I explained to the office girl what I needed and she yelled out to one of the yard guys who motioned me to follow him around. We searched around a bit and finally found a nice piece to lop a couple of eight-inch squares off of. He handed them to me and said I could pay in the office. In the office they took one look at my two little pieces of wood and waved me off. No charge.

That’s one for four if you are keeping score at home.

Ali thought maybe this slide was a bit on the sketchy side for Ouest alone. Eight feet high with three inch rails. Of course when we explained this to Ouest she immediately began climbing up. Instead of fighting it Ali just joined her. Not sketchy at all this way.

This is where Lowe has been getting his bath lately. It’s so easy and the best part is that the floor of that little pool inflates too, so he’s bathing on a cushion of air. Ouest thought Dolly needed a good washing too.

Ouest has started pointing out every animal and every person as either a mama or a papa. She sees a pretty yellow bird. Mama. She sees a blackbird. Papa. Every man. Papa. Every woman. Mama. Even better, every baby, be it human or animal, is now, Lowe. And every diaper she sees? Lolo. Because apparently she doesn’t realize that I just bought ten packages of the Jumbo size diapers, and they aren’t for Lowe. That’s called denial.

30-Nov-2011 our life. daily. puerto vallarta, mexico.
Ouest has had a little rash on the inside of her arm for a month now. It first showed up in Sayulita and has not managed to go away. It hasn’t gotten worse, but it hasn’t gotten better. So today we stopped in at the clinic here and had a doctor look at it.

Ali and I weren’t thinking much of a visit to the doctor, but apparently when Ouest realized that this visit was for her she was ready to bolt. We explained that all the doctor was going to do was look at her arm, he wasn’t going to do anything to it, just look. Didn’t matter. She freaked. I have to admit that Ali and I were caught a little off guard by her reaction. We’ve never made much fuss over visiting the doctor, not to mention she hasn’t been to one in nearly a year, so it’s not as if she has some horrible memory.

The doctor pulled the old trick of giving her a sucker. This will sound weird to some and totally normal to others, but Ouest has never had candy before. She’s had vanilla ice cream, but that’s the extent of her sugar intake. Ali and I took a look at that sucker and at our terribly upset little girl and decided to let her have it. She took one lick and wasn’t interested in any more, or was just too distracted by this horrible man trying to look at a small rash on her arm that she couldn’t properly concentrate on the sweetness right on her lips. Either way the doctor eventually managed his look at her arm and Ouest completely forgot about the sucker.

He wasn’t one hundred percent sure but he thought it looked like shingles. We’d have to Google that later. But he wasn’t convinced because she hasn’t had any pain, she never touches it, and it never seems to change appearance. Doesn’t really seem like shingles, but maybe. Could possibly be a couple of other things, though nothing too serious. So anyway we got a couple of meds that should knock it out in a few days if it is shingles, otherwise we’ll have to take another look. Meaning another run in with the lollipop.

I have to say that I really thought Ali and I were old enough to blend in a bit better with cruisers this time around. I’ve got some gray hair now, and occasionally I go three days without shaving. We’re old now, surely we won’t hear the same kind of crap we did on our first cruise.

Then today I was talking with a guy a couple boats down who I’ve talked to a few times the past couple of weeks. We were talking about visas and things like that when out of the blue he blurted out, “So what are you, trust fund kids?” Is there just something inherent in this guy’s generation that make them feel so superior to my generation that they think we are all just living off of our parents and that we couldn’t possibly be independently successful?

Cruisers. Man. How did I get mixed up with this bunch again?