Mexico Part 15: Elijah's Friend Birthday Party

The birthday boy.  I don't know why we put the suit on.  He never once got in the pool.

The big sister.  She had a blast with all the siblings of the little kids I invited to the party.

The cakes.  I made two because I thought I wouldn't have enough (surprise, surprise).  I totally had enough.  I think I ate pound cake for a week after this party.

My brother Ricky and I had about a million of these pictures of us growing up sharing a birthday.  We were both March babies.  These two can be so sweet sometimes.  Emphasis on the sometimes.

He LOVES icecream.

Licking up the icecream.  Doesn't everyone do this?

On Friday, May 6th, my brother Alex's official birthday, we celebrated Elijah's birthday with some great people that we have met here in Guadalajara.  Seriously, I feel so blessed to have Eva in school so that I can meet people there, go to church so that I can meet more people, and then have the Guadalajara Wives Club so that I can meet even more, more people.  This time we mostly invited people in Elijah's nursery class.  If I didn't then the party would have been a crazy size and frankly with no real income, that would have been tough.  So, almost all the people from the party with the exception of some of Matthew's teammates from school were from nursery.  I don't know how much Elijah really noticed.  He is kind of a loner sometimes.  He spent most of the party eating watermelon and trying to escape from the party than actually get into the pool for his little swim party.  We had it at the club house here where we live and that was kind of a crazy story.  First, we decided that it would be a swim party and what a better theme than to have an American BBQ to go with the swimming.  I went to Costco and bought hamburgers and hot dogs and everything was set to go.  Awhile back when we were swimming at the club house we saw that the BBQ there was a charcoal kind so we knew we had to get to the party somewhat early and start the charcoal before the guests arrived.  After loading most of all the food in the wagon, Matthew went down to the club house only to find that there was NO BBQ.  I seriously  could not believe it.  I called the guard house asking him about the BBQ and he said that everyone brings their own.  What!?  Here we were, it was 4:30 by this point, guests were going to be coming at 5:00 and we had no BBQ.  Thank goodness they built a Walmart nearby that just opened about a month ago because I sent Matthew to purchase a BBQ for us.  We had been wanting one but not like this, so spur of the moment. Matthew came back with the BBQ at about 5:00 and we quickly proceeded to put this thing together.  Meanwhile, the kids are running around all over the club house and Elijah kept getting stuck at the top of the hill whining for us to get him down while Matthew and I were frantically putting this BBQ together.  Talk about stressful.  Luckily, our first guest didn't show up until about 5:30 so she didn't see us putting the thing together, but that put us super behind on the charcoals.  It totally stunk.  I hate being late on the food, and it wasn't my fault really but I did learn a lot.  Never assume a facility has anything in this country.  And that is so true!  Thanks to some ingenious thinking, like using a blow dryer to get the charcoals going, we fed people at a decent time and I think the party was a success.

The theme for the party was cars.  It is so hard with a two year old who doesn't speak much to tell you what they would want for their birthday, so I just assumed he would like this the best.  We did little car invitations with my cricut.  Put together little baggies for the kids that had some of Elijah's favorites.  It had a little car, balloon, fruit snacks (those are a hot commodity around here since you can't find the small packs.  I saw that costco brought those giant packs of fruit snacks but they aren't the same as the little packs in my opinion.), homemade play dough and car stickers.  The little kids especially liked everything in the baggies, and really that was who they were geared to.  His birthday cake, was my first attempt at putting a cake together.  I used this website to copy Elijah's car cake.  It was a fun experience.  I am usually a cupcake person, but it was fun doing this.  And when it came time to give out cake, most of the kids wanted the wheels because they were donuts.  Darn kids, didn't they know all the effort it took me to put the cake together?  They were supposed to want a slice of the car, not the donuts :)  I guess it was good that at least they wanted some of the cake.  It meant it looked appealing.  My first party here in Mexico is done, and while I missed all my friends from home A TON during Eli's birthday, I realized we are lucky to meet great people wherever we are in life.

Some of the guests at Elijah's birthday...

We (okay some) think that is Elijah's girlfriend.  He gets super excited to see Kylee in pictures.  And in real life, he has been known to put the moves on her.

Some of my favorite Puerto Ricans!  Gabriel is Eva's age.  And Elijah spends a lot of time with Yasiris when we get together for wives club.

If I could only be as patient and calm as Jenn when I have four kids (okay, if I have four kids) I will feel like super mom.  

Alan from Elijah's nursery.  He couldn't get enough of the pool.  He was so cute!

Eva loves these girls from church.  Since our primary is small there are a lot of muli-aged groups.  These girls are super sweet to Eva who is much younger than them.

Little Dylan from nursery too.  She kept wanting me to take her picture.

Alan's little brother.  Eli doesn't see him much but I thought those ears were adorable.

Mexico Part 14: Spring Break in Puerto Vallarta with photo overload

The second week of spring break we spent it in paradise.  It wasn't that Puerto Vallarta was the most beautiful place, but it was the resort that we were at was awesome.  It was the Sunset Plaza Beach Resort.  The view to the beach, the rooms, the facilities, were all incredible.  In fact, at one point, Carla, Matthew's mom, and I commented that we felt kind of silly sitting in these super nice beach chairs with umbrellas on a roped off private beach, while other people walked by us and saw us sitting there.  It was crazy.  Then sometimes Eva would want me to sit in these big beds that were also on the beach.  All I needed was some good looking guy to feed me grapes or something.  Needless to say we had an awesome seven days in Vallarta.  We spent a long part of the day swimming in there pools and relaxing on beach on a regular basis.  That was really all that Eva wanted to do and I can't blame her.  She even managed to make some little friends there, and she had fun the the pulling calling Grandpa John crocodile.  I don't know how that even started but it was their little game, and she LOVED it.  The water/beach in Vallarta is pretty gross, if I am going to be honest.  Matthew made me swim in the thing because he wanted me to touch this boouy that was out there and I guess there was a part in the middle of the ocean where you could actually touch.  I didn't actually get to touch that part with my feet because he couldn't find it and Elijah was whining for me so I decided to swim back in but it was a good experience.  The water isn't warm either but it is warmer than the Oregon cost.  It is just as salty and I know that because I am not a good swimmer and I got a good gulp of ocean water down my throat.  The only reason why this happened was because I wouldn't stop complaining that Matthew dragged me out into the ocean and a bunch of water came in.  I kept quiet after that.

Matthew and the kids

Family shot at the beach.

Proof I got in the ocean.  I seriously freak out when I am in there.  I keep thinking of sharks and how they aren't too friendly with humans.

This is a funny little story.  Eva got a little taste of the virgin strawberry daiquiris one day.  Well, the next day she wanted to order one and she insisted that they add a little strawberry to the top.  Wish granted!

My little Eva 

Nana and Elijah, but more importantly, do you notice the beds and chairs in the background that  I was referring to?

Matthew was so proud of himself when he bought this hat.  He wanted one like Elijah's because he thought his was so cool.  

I can never get this kid to smile for the camera anymore.

This is the inside of our room.  It doesn't so it justice but the view from that balcony was amazing.

Matthew and I working on our tans.  We got good at applying the 15spf  and the higher spf when we felt like we were going to burn.

Eva got really good at working the elevator.  She knew to hit L for when we were going swimming and 4 for when we were going back up to the room.  Oh and this girl got a major tan while we were there.  She was pretty pasty white before our trip.

Her swimming confidence grew in leaps and bounds while we were there.   She learned to trust her floaty and hold her breath underwater.  We were really proud of her.

One thing we did go and do while we were in Puerto Vallarta was visit their zoo.  It was the craziest zoo I have ever been too.  It really was more like a feeding zoo.  You buy these bags of food when you get there and you go throughout the whole zoo feeding the animals.  And the animals are super friendly, because they want you to feed them.  Some of them, like the little monkeys, will stick their tiny fingers through the cracks in the glass so you can give them food.  I know we had just gone to the zoo a couple days before this zoo, but it was a completely different experience.  If we would have paid more money, we would have been able to pet their tiger that they had there and I think their jaguar too.  The kids totally loved the place.  But, I think Matthew might have loved the place even more.  He was all over giving those animals food and touching them, and of course taking video of the kids and their reactions.  We had some fun times.

Eva didn't like the giraffe too much when it was so close to her.  Elijah also  preferred to admire it from afar.

I think they were showing each other their teeth.

These are the cracks I am talking about.  I thought the raccoons were a little scary.

He liked this little guy.

Isn't it nuts how close you can get to the animals?  

Do you see their mouths?  They really were nice, they just wanted the food.

Elijah turns TWO

On May 2nd my baby turned two.  I can't believe it's finally here.  I have spent so much of my time telling people that he isn't two yet that I almost can't believe it that now I have to tell them he is two.  Since he is such a big boy, they all think he is older than he really is.  Which is good and bad.  Actually, mostly bad because they expect him to act older than he is.  Poor kid.  I think he had a great birthday.  This morning I made him pancakes with extra syrup since I know he likes that.  We went to the tiangis and I bought him freshly squeezed orange juice and a tlacoyo (it is like a stuffed tortilla, but not really), which he loves.  I made his favorite dinner, fettuccine alfredo and watermelon.  This kid knows how to down a watermelon.  I buy these little ones and he almost ate half of one, no joke.  I know his day mostly revolved around food but I thought those things would make him happy.  I took him to the store to get some missing ingredients for his cake and I bought him a sprinkled covered donut, which he thought was pretty neat, and a helium filled balloon.  He had fun with that thing all day long.  He kept hitting the balloon with his pool noodle as well as the wrapping paper.  I am not sure if he thought it was like his little piñata.  They do piñatas a lot here.  Then when Eva came home from school, she sang the piñata song as he hit the balloon and he thought that was pretty funny.  For his birthday his nana helped bring me his birthday present.  We gave him one of those car ramp things from Fisher Price.  He thought that was awesome.  It was so funny to see him open his presents.  He kept saying woah.  That had to of meant he loved everything.  He wouldn't really blow out his candles.  He was pretty scared of them, but what he did do was pretend to blow them out after Eva blew them out for him.  He ate his little cake that I made for our little family party, but I think his favorite part was really the vanilla ice cream.

This is for you Elijah...

Today you are two and I am so thankful for your sweet little spirit.  You make me laugh.  I love to kiss you even though you don't always like to kiss me back.  Actually I think you do but I think you get a kick out of playing hard to get.  I LOVE when you come up to me and give me a big hug.  I can't get enough of those.  You can be gentle when you want to be.  Sometimes when you try to show affection you actually hurt people but we all know you have good intentions.  People seem to really like you because of your easy going personality.However, you are also one strong kid.  You can push Eva all around the room in the toy stroller or drag her around a kid plastic chair taking rough corners.  That's why you are strong.

You still don't communicate too much but I am starting to realize that a lot of the gibberish you say are in fact sentences, but I have to be listening really hard to understand you.  These are the times when you tend to get the most frustrated.  You are getting better at repeating a lot of words but there are still some that you can't say.  For some reason you have a really hard time saying the word leche.  You will say ugo instead, which you are saying jugo.  Yeah, can't figure that one out.

You love playing outside.  A couple months back you developed this fear of the black birds that hang out in the backyard, and I don't blame you.  Those things are kind of scary to me too.  I think they might of scared you one day, maybe they got too close.  But it seems like the fear has gone away and you like to play out there every morning.  Most of the time you play in the sand/water table that we have out back which means that you come in sloppy wet with dirt all over.  Or you get a hold of the hose and "water" the lawn.  I don't mind as much anymore about the clean up because I know that being outside makes you happy.

While you love your momma, you have a hard time getting along with you sister.  Well, it's really more like hot and cold.  You either love her and are running around all over the house laughing or you are pulling her hair and making her cry.  Sometimes I feel more like the referee in a boxing match than your mom.

Your sleep habits are also off and on. We still haven't figured out why you wake up in the middle of the night.  But when you do you will wake up and sometimes stay up for over two hours.  You aren't crying but are as happy as can be these times and are usually cracking up in your bed.  These nights I never know if I want to laugh or cry because you keep me up.  Eventually you will go back to bed, but of course you aren't in the best of moods the next morning.  You seem to be trying to phase out your naps because if I let you sleep too long during your nap, that usually is one of the reasons why you will wake up in the middle of the night.

By this age with Eva, I would have been real close to taking away the bottle and potty training and while I don't see you close to potty training yet, your baba will be gone real soon.  These things are always harder for mom than for you guys.

You eat fairly well.  We like to refer to you as our fruit bat because you love fruit, but meat, not so much.  I don't know if it is that you don't like the texture or taste, but I have a hard time trying to get you to eat meat.  I guess there could be worst things.  Elijah, I love you so much.  Thank you for being my sweet Elisheto.  Love, mama.

Mexico Part 13: Tlaquepaque

Matthew's parents joined us for the second week of our spring break.  It was great to have them here.  You don't realize how much you miss family until they come for a visit and then they leave.  But, the good news is plane tickets are finally booked to Oregon and we won't have to miss anyone for too much longer.  The most fun that we had will come in a post soon but one of the days that they were here we went to Tlaquepaque.  At first I had a hard time saying this word when we first got here but now I am such a pro, I don't have anymore issues :)  Here's a little wikipedia nugget on the place...Tlaquepaque (Spanish pronunciation: [tlakeˈpake]), historically San Pedro or Georgetown, is a city and the surrounding municipality in the Mexican state of Jalisco. During the 20th century it was absorbed by the outward spread of the state capital and is now a neighborhood of the Guadalajara conurbation, lying only a few kilometers from the city center.  
Apparently it is also known for its pottery, blown glass and mariachis but I think we missed most of that because we didn't see too much of that.  I guess we did see a museum with some artwork and pottery now that I am remembering but I didn't take any pictures of that.  When we were there they were having this crazy sale of  empanadas.  Which for anyone who hasn't had an empanada, they are so delicious   They are this Mexican bread that is filled with whatever you can find them with.  Most often you see them filled with a pudding custard or apple, but here they had them filled with cajeta (I like to think of it like the Mexican caramel but it is a sweet goat milk spread), guava, pineapple, strawberry, all sorts of goodness.  And, my sweet friend showed me to love the ones that are filled with food, like mushrooms, tuna and peppers.  My personal favorite are the ones filled with cheese and peppers, or rajas, as they say here.  I LOVE them.  They are probably super fattening, but I don't care.  And if you find them warm because they were just made, they are even that much better.  The town is super cute.  At first we didn't think there was much to see, but then we found the touristy street and it was really clean and filled with neat statues and street vendors.  One of the things that I thought were super cool, but didn't get were these little statues that were covered in tiny colorful beads.  We will have to go back soon, so I can buy one for our home.  One guy told me that is takes him about 5 days to cover the little elephant with beads.  That's a lot of time and it makes me think I wish I was that good at making something that would sell well and looks beautiful.  And of course, the day wouldn't be complete without finding some fountain to cool the kids off and keep them happy until we walked back into the car.  It was HOT outside!  

   

Mexico Part 12: Guadalajara Zoo, Bikes and New Car

This weeks marks the beginning of Semana Santa (Holy Week) and spring break for Matthew and Eva.  I remember spring break back home when I taught and it was only one week, quite the tease.  But here it is two weeks.  There are some positives to this but also some downsides.  Okay well really just one downside.  And that is, if we had a shorter spring break than Matthew would have one extra week during  summer.  But, nonetheless, we are very excited to have him home for the next two weeks.  Today, we went to the Guadalajara Zoo.  It was great.  We got there early in the morning, right after it opened and spent a good chunk of the day there.  I couldn't believe how empty the zoo was in the morning.  It was awesome.  We were able to see the animals quickly without having to elbow anyone to see the animals.  And the animals were super lively.  They were jumping all over the place, wrestling each other, "jumping" each other...it was crazy.  It seems like the animals in the Oregon Zoo are way more lathargic compared to these ones.  Maybe they feed them tacos with salsa or something.  Elijah LOVED it.  Matthew and I couldn't believe how much he walked.  This was really the first time I think that he was old enough to really enjoy a zoo.  He was climbing all over the place trying to get as close as he could to the animals.  Eva, on the other hand, spent the whole time avoiding her family because her little friend was there and she wanted to hang out with her the entire time.  In fact, the only time we were able to get her to be with us was when she got a blister from her plastic sandals that she had to wear instead of her Nike ones that would have been nicer to her feet.  Even though she wasn't with us a whole lot, she also had a blast at this zoo.  Poor girl thought that there was no zoo here in Guad because we hadn't taken her yet but today we proved her wrong.  We paid for the general admission and the safari that they have here.  They have a great collection of animals.  Bengal tigers, lions, black bears, a polar bear, elephants, monkeys, reptiles, birds, everything you would want a zoo to have.  The safari was neat because these giraffes come right up to the jeep that you are on to eat carrots from your hands.  I didn't actually get to touch it but Matthew said they have a scratchy tongue.  It was pretty cool!  After much walking, and sun we went home, but I know that I will be taking the kids back there again.

In other news, on a more regular basis, life is much more calm.  We spend a lot of days outside.  Eva and Eli love riding their bikes on the tile that we park on.  They do circles on the thing and it makes their day.  Often Elijah will pick up the hose and soak himself as well, or fall on the tile because it is deadly slippery when wet, but I suppose those things are what makes things a little bit more exciting around this place.

And, last but not least, we finally bought Matthew his own car.  It was cute when we were bringing it home because Eva said, "oh mama, now papa can drive himself to school."  Oh how right she is.  That is what is most exciting about the entire thing.  We joke that getting a second car saved our marriage, but really I don't think it is a joke.  First semester I drove Matthew everywhere and picked him up, but by second, I was only dropping him off and not picking him up anymore.  Poor guy would walk home, bum rides, or even take the bus.  But now, he can be an adult and take himself wherever he needs to go.  It is great news for us.  Things are good.  We can't believe how fast time is going by and that soon summer will be here and we will be back in Oregon for a little break.  Yeah!

Mexico Part 11: Fancy Mexican dining, a stray bunny, and the open house

At Santo Coyote with Eva's crown

Well, this last week, I got one year closer to entering into the thirties.  A friend of mine said that thirties are supposed to be good, so while I should enjoy this last year of being in the twenties, at least it won't be the end of the world when I hit thirty.  Isn't that crazy?  When did I get to be so old?  No offense to anyone who is older than me.  I am sure we all feel this at more than one time of our life right?  I remember when we had Eva I thought, that I would be thirty when she was in kindergarten and I can't believe that is almost right around the corner.  Time flies.  I suppose that is why we are here in the first place.  We never wanted eight years to pass and go back and think, man, Matthew could have been a doctor by now.  I know it's nuts to think about life like that but sometimes you just have to in order to take the plunge and do something that might be a little out of the ordinary for you.  So, enough about that, I had a great birthday.  Eva was super cute and wrapped up some of her things to give to me.  Among her "gifts" were a copy of her Book of Mormon, her crown, that she says she doesn't use anymore, and her Hello Kitty watch.  She even wrapped the stuff in homemade wrapping paper that she colored.  Super adorable.  Kids are what make birthdays fun.  I don't know if people remember but back in January I bought myself my early birthday present, a sewing machine, but Matthew surprised me this year by getting me more than that.  He totally shouldn't have but it was nice of him to do that.  He took me shopping at Liverpool, the equivalent to Macy's except way more overpriced, and let me buy some clothes.  I thought that was pretty cool.  The Liverpool that we went to is close to our home in this crazy, nice mall that is right around the corner.  It is called Andares.  People go to the mall here in their super nice clothes hauling around extremely overpriced strollers.  It really is a site to see.  But I digress.  Then, he took the kids and I out to dinner at Santo Coyote.  It is a super nice restaurant here in Gaud.  The atmosphere alone is beautiful.  The service was AWESOME, which is hard to come by here sometimes, and the food was delish.  In fact, I think last week I only cooked dinner two times for the entire week.  The next night we had a babysitter to celebrate a friend's birthday and we went to another nice restaurant, Cocina 88.  It seems like since we got here we get a babysitter more, which for me is crazy since I never trust my children to anybody, but the truth is, since Matthew is busy all the time we do need to spend more time with each other.  And it has been great because we get to really see what Guadalajara has to offer.  Fast forward to Friday and some of my favorite people here and I went to Applebees, no link needed, and had a super fun night, just the girls with no kids.  It took me 50 minutes (which normally only takes 10) to pick up one of my good friends because UAG was having a sporting event backing up the traffic.  That is one of the crazy things around here.  There aren't too many alternative routes for me to get to places, which stinks.  In fact, this morning it took us about 30 minutes, instead of 10, to get to church because they were having a marathon in town and they we running on the busiest street here.  Is that normal?  To do marathons on heavily used streets and block traffic?  Now we know to look for green lines on the street letting us know that a running event is on its way.  But where was I?  Not cooking, right.  Then on Saturday we went with some friends to a taco place for tacos, of course, but what was better was that next door they have this little ice cream place.  Now, for some educating.  Apparently, back home I would always call our American ice cream "nieve."  Well, I guess that would dry Matthew nuts because nieve is a water based ice cream.  Milk based is called helado.  Maybe a little confusing but the nieve here is so good.  It tastes very natural and you can get it in all sorts of flavors.  Their helado, not so much.  In fact, I pay big bucks, at least 10 bucks,  for the kirtland ice cream at Costco, because it tastes so much better than Mexican ice cream that you can buy at the store.  But, their nieve is worth buying.

Cute, little, black bunny

I kept meaning to post about this but about two weeks ago we found a stray bunny.  Kind of strange I know but it was the cutest, little black bunny.  If I wasn't in a right state of mind, we would have kept the little bunny.  At one point Eva even asked me if we could keep it, but I reminded her that we had River and we didn't want River to eat the bunny.  Well, to that she replied, that we could sell River and then keep the bunny, right mom?  Now again, if I wasn't in the right state of mind, I might have gone along with it but of course I couldn't sell our dog.  So, for a couple days, the bunny hung around our yard.  It let us pick it up and pet it.  It was something we all looked forward too, even Matthew, I am not going to lie, every time we opened the door that the little bunny might be there nibbling at our grass.  After a couple days of this, River saw the bunny one day and chased it away, and then that night Matthew said he saw the bunny being chased by a cat.  We never saw the bunny again.  I am hoping that its owner found it because the other thought would be too sad to think about.  Lucky for us, the kids never asked about the bunny after they didn't see it, but man, that was one darling little bunny.  Or maybe, as Elijah is getting older, and looking more and more like a little boy, I am yearning for something cute and cuddly, to hold.  Guess my little Eli will have to do for now.

Speaking of Eli, today after 22 months, the kid finally stayed in nursery, our church's little Sunday school, all my himself.  I was so proud of him.  He cried of course, but I was called to work as the primary music leader and I thought this was a perfect opportunity for me to let him stay by himself in nursery and it worked.  It was about time really.  It was just that when we first got to Mexico we put him in nursery early.  He was only 15 months so I stayed with him.  He couldn't even walk at that point.  But then, it was easier to stay with him once he was 18 months and walking when I should have left.  More time passed and then it was my calling in January to be the nursery helper.  That was kind of hard because that was when I had just decided that I wanted to leave him their alone, but now I couldn't.  And finally, fast forward to March, and I can say that he went by himself.  I know sometimes I baby my kids, but only because it is so hard at times to let go of the fact, that they are growing up.  Does that happen to anyone ever?

Elijah decided to sit on the money statues outside of Santo Coyote

Last week as well, Eva's school had an open house.  She was so excited for me to go.  My favorite part was when we went home and she told me over and over how happy she was that I was able to go to her school.  I was one of the few mom's who didn't have my paparazzi camera and I was kicking myself for it because it would have made for some great pics and video.  I teared up when I saw her at school being so good.  She really made me proud.  They fast forwarded through all their morning routines and I could see Eva keep up.  We spent part of the morning in her Spanish class, then the other in her English class.  The English part was strange for me.  I am not going to lie, but I am pretty hard on the English teacher because I myself am an educator.  The only thing that I could criticize was her accent.  I know, I am horrible.  I think this because it is too bad, in my mind, that she is teaching all these little kids English and they are exposed to English with an accent.  In reality these kids could have the opportunity to English without an accent.  But since they are learning from their teacher who has one, they have a harder time.  Does that make sense?  I mean, it's pretty bad when I have to correct Eva on her pronunciation of the word August, to come and find out at this open house, all the kids are saying August wrong.  And what is more annoying for me is that Eva gets mad at ME when I try to help her say things right.  Oh well.  Something else that was funny was kids dancing a routine to a Shakira song and Michael Jackson's thriller. That was a part of their English class routine.  Isn't that funny?  These kids are so little but here they are exposed to pop culture at a very young age.  But more importantly, I loved seeing my baby in school.  She is a respectable student that works so hard at school being as good as she can be.  No wonder she comes home and breaks apart.  You would think there would be some balance for Eva, but that's just the way she is.

Sorry about the long post.  At this rate, I will have enough material to turn this blog into a book.  And the links, I went a little crazy with, but since I forget to carry the big ol' camera, I thought you might want to see what some of these places that I am talking about are like.  Anyone ready to come and see me yet?