JFK

Yes folks, I am a dork. I am blogging from JFK airport. This will be my last blog for a long time. We are home!! Well, at least we are in the States. Thanks so much for being such loyal followers and supporters of our adventure in Mexico. Hopefully in the future there will be more to come...

By the way, Josh and I got engaged 9 years ago today! It's kind of like our anniversary. We should go to the airport bar and get a drink to celebrate but considering they are like $15 I don't think we will bother!

Some photos of today. Eddie and Vero dropped us off at the Cancun airport.


Fin smooshed in his tiny carrier. Good thing he is extremely laid back!


This last one I just took. Josh is sitting behind me while I type away.


See ya soon!

Good-bye Tulum

Wow, what an amazing experience this was for us. We know that we are really fortunate to be able to experience Jehovah's organization in this way over and over again. We try not to take it for granted.



This group has gone through some drastic changes in the last few months. The changes has been positive! Before we arrived we were aware that the group was suffering because we had been told through our email correspondence with some of the people here. We were informed that the group was not unified and that it may even be on the brink of being disbanded.

We had decided before arriving that we were going to be as easy-going, friendly, and hospitable as possible. Josh was looking forward to relieving the only elder (pioneer, works full-time) of as many of his responsibilities as possible in order to give him a break. We obviously wanted to be supportive in the ministry. Those honestly were our goals. That was even the order that they were in. We were not dreaming big.

It's amazing to see that what we had made a priority was exactly what the group needed at the time. And they got it from a number of people that just happened to pass through and come to the group's rescue.

Now we have been told that the Tulum English group is completely different to what it was just 6 months ago. It is flourishing. There are many Mexicans who have joined because the want to serve in the foreign field. People are happy and smiling. There are parties all the time. Possibly a new elder and definitely a ministerial servant are moving to the group. It has been the coolest thing to see these drastic changes happening while we were here. And it has been immensely flattering to be told over and over again that we were some of the people who influenced the group positively. And Mexicans are awesome b/c I can't even count how many times in the last couple days we have been told how much we are loved.

We are leaving with a good feeling. Jehovah knew exactly what Josh and I needed and what this group needed. And all I can say is WOW.

This page is dedicated to Finley...

...the dog I hate to love.

I don't care if you all make fun of me (and I know many of you will) but I am dedicating this blog to my beloved Fin. I have held back from posting dog pictures time after time again after being derided by Meg, but I hold back no longer!

Finley, my love, this one is for you!!



People here can't get over the fact that Finley rings a bell when he has to go to the bathroom.


One of his modes of transportation




Snoozing in the sun


Waiting for Josh


Another mode


In a bug


In a hole


Family photo





(So those of you who know our dog story now know that I have been fully won over. I fought the dog, I made fun of the dog, I made fun of Josh loving the dog, and now...I am a lover of the dog)

(He was a pain in the butt to have down here though...)

Good-byes

Last night after the meeting the group had a going away party for us and our friends Norm and Lynn who have been here for 6 weeks. They leave on Tuesday and we leave Wednesday.

We convinced Norm and Lynn to come to the beach with us the other day to have a Pina Colada. They are a hilarious couple. We always tease Norm because Lynn is his 3rd wife, which we think is funny because it's kind of rare in the truth, right? But he has a good explanation and an interesting story (basically coming into the truth later in life) and he cracks a lot of wife jokes while we are out in service (along the lines of finally getting it right the 3rd time). We went out in the ministry with them this week and it's the first time that I realized that Norm is a lot like Josh and Lynn is similar to me. And they make it work so that must mean that Josh and I will make it to 15 years like they have! Woohoo!



So it was sad good-byes for the 4 of us. It's not quite good-bye since we have one more meeting on Monday so everyone was saying that this party was a little anti-climatic. On Monday everyone is coming over to our house to learn how to make pesto. Hopefully it won't end up on the ceiling again!











We ate tons of food and then practiced the songs for the Memorial. I am worried how this group is going to do once they start using the new songbook April 1st because their singing leaves a lot to be desired. I know that sounds harsh but they were all making fun of themselves last night so I guess they are aware that only about two of them can carry a tune. Those two had better sing LOUD come April!

We ended up doing a decent job after singing the songs 3 times each. Not great but passable. Josh and I don't have much experience singing the new songs since we got to Mexico at the beginning of January but they seem HARD to us. Of course it doesn't help that I also can't carry a tune and have never learned to read music.







Josh and I are feeling a little depressed because we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here and we have gotten close to a number of people and now we have to leave them. Many of them we won't see again anytime soon. But we are excited to get home and see all of our old friends!

You have created a monster

Today we skipped service and had a lazy morning. It is HOT here all of a sudden. The Yucatan has had a unseasonably cold winter and honestly we have not had many hot days. Josh and I don't mind since to us the perfect temperature is 75 and sunny during the day and 55 at night. So we have been spoiled since that is what many of the days are like (or cooler). We forget how hot it gets here on the coast. Unbearably hot. When we lived in Cozumel and Belize we were there for some of their extremely hot weather so we got a taste of that and know we don't like it.

So anyways, today was 88 degrees with close to 100% humidity. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little hotter so we have a beach day planned after morning service. Around noon today we took our bikes out because we had a few errands to run. Josh needed air in his tire, I needed to return some books to a friend, and I also needed to borrow some stain remover from another friend. (That is a story in itself. I made pesto the other day and was putting it into a container with a tight-fitting lid and, as I was trying to get the lid on the container, it slipped out of my hand and fell to the floor. Pesto went EVERYWHERE. It was ridiculous. It had splattered all the way over to the other end of the house and got all over the living room furniture. I am trying to figure out a way to remove the oil stains before we leave. A few hours after we had cleaned everything up we looked up at the ceiling and saw that there was also pesto all over the ceiling. We are disasters. Well, I am.)

Wow, where was I?? So I stopped to get the stain remover and mentioned to our friends that we were going to go and get some lunch and they wanted to come along. We went to this tiny restaurant I had heard good things about but we hadn't gotten around to trying.



Eddie and Veronica are Texans (born and raised) but have dual citizenship in Mexico and the US as their parents are Mexican. They have the goal of attending Gilead and so in order to test themselves they recently sold their house, packed up their truck, and moved to Mexico. They are in the process of working with the Mexican branch in deciding which area could use them the most. Honestly everywhere could use a couple like this. He is an elder and they are both pioneers and his company begged him to continue working for them once he moved to Mexico part-time from home. This is a need-greaters dream come true! (Many times it is very difficult to figure out a way to support yourselves in another country). Jehovah certainly comes through. They are a very cool couple and we have enjoyed getting to know them these past 2 weeks. I think they are leaning towards staying in Tulum so the group is tentatively getting excited.

Some funny things about Mexico. We had tried to go to this restaurant a couple weeks ago but they had just closed down because they were moving to a new location around the corner. They were only going to close for 3 days. They showed us where their new restaurant was going to be and it was just a big, white, square room. No kitchen or anything. We did not see how they were going to turn the space into a restaurant in 3 days. But they did it! Only in Mexico...no need to obtain permits or pass inspections. Just pay your rent and open whatever you want. Also today we got the bill for our lunch and we saw that all our meals were 10 pesos more than the menu said so of course we asked why. It turns out that they have raised their prices. We were like...you raise your prices when you have new menus, not before. We decided maybe they raised their prices right when we walked in.

Also this photo is very Mexican. A couple days ago we walked down to the end our street to see this. There is a huge hole in the center of the street and in order to alert people someone stuck a big tree branch in it. Notice it's caught in the electrical lines.



Speaking of electrical lines...Josh and I were riding through an area of Tulum this afternoon where all the electrical lines are just laying along and across the roads. I am assuming that they are going to be putting in poles at some point and then the lines will be in the air like they supposed to be. Every time I rode over one with my bike I made a little buzzing noise like I was getting an electric shock. We were cracking ourselves up. Ah, fun times in Tulum.

See...you wanted more posts and I am trying to please you all. You have created a monster.

Okay, so I took a break

I took a break from blogging. What can I say? I am not perfect. I sometimes get bored with a project.

There a number of reasons why this blog has come to a standstill. First, a certain someone named REX kept leaving rude comments that insinuated everything I wrote was boring. Also our friend Cory refused to upload the photos of their visit here which I was looking forward to adding to my blog, especially the photos of me in the hospital. Third, I got tired of bringing my camera with me everywhere. I really don't enjoy taking photos but I try to do it anyways because I enjoy HAVING photos of our adventures. And last, we have been doing the same old thing for the last few weeks which is boring.

I am not saying those are good reasons, but they are the reasons.

Josh's sister came for a visit and I resolved to take many pictures while she was here and to post every night so the Kaylors in Massachusetts could see what she was up too. I took like five pictures. That was when the anti-photo-taking began. But here are a few of her days here.

Her very first margaritas...2 for 1 and they all come out at once which is kind of funny. Don't worry, we sipped them nice and slow.


Jessica's first night in Tulum. We took her to get our favorite food spot right away.


Some cute pictures of the siblings


At the Tulum ruins


Jessica relaxing in a palm


Funny story (some of you know it). While we are down here I have done a little posting on a Tulum discussion board. I read the board obsessively for a month before we arrived in Tulum since we had never been here before. It is mostly geared for vacationers. They would ask their questions about the area and then others would reply so I was able to pick up a lot of useful information before we got here. Actually the English group was kind of surprised at how much I already knew about the area when we first arrived! A lot of you wouldn't surprised as you are familiar with my obsessive researching and planning ways.

So I would post occasionally about a cheap restaurant we had tried in town and one day I got an email from a guy saying that he would like to paypal me $300 so that we could eat at some restaurants that we otherwise wouldn't be able to go to because of our budget. Sounds kind of fishy, right? Well, he sent me the money upfront so it was no problem. In return he just wanted me to post little "reviews" of where we went on his new Tulum forum website in order to generate some traffic, but it was okay with him if I posted identical information on the site that I usually posted on.

Needless to say we have eaten well while we were here. We would have eaten well no matter what, but it was fun to HAVE to spend this money on food. It was only a one time thing and the money has long since run out but I thought I would post a few photos of food we have eaten while here.



























HUNGRY????