We went to Patzcuaro for the Night of the Dead festivities again this year. This was our third visit to Patzcuaro during this most wondrous of Mexican festivals. I won't go into explaining what the holiday is all about. If you want to know more here is a link to a terrific article that goes into the holiday and it's origins and significance in Mexican culture.

We and Howard and Helena and Connie and Ted and Jim and Mags travelled together to Patzcuaro in two cars. We all stayed in two rooms at the Hotel los Escudos where we had stayed last February during our visit with Connie and Ted. It was tight but fun.

Photos from the trip are in the photo gallery here.

We're in Toronto finishing up a one month visit with family for the holidays and to join in the celebration of Annie Banannie's wedding. We had a most wonderful time.

It's been a terribly busy time and we are tired and ready to go back home to Ajijic.

There was a young couple from Toronto
Who came to meet Joel and Sue who said "Buy Pronto!"

The casa on Independencia seemed wonderful,
Even before Tomas helped make it colorful.

Now they're going for a while
To return with stuff in a pile.

As they drive south towards their dreams
Trailer stuffed to the seams.

With a little more time on the road,
Theyll come home to their abode.

To enjoy ever after,
The sound of our laughter.

As we find what we seek,
In our beloved Ajijic.

Sweetie had her birthday on February 21st.

What she wanted most of all was to go to the beach for her birthday.

So we chatted up our good friends Connie and Ted and Kay and Kirby to join us for a four day holiday at the beach.

We drove to Manzanillo first - it's only a three and a half hour drive from Ajijic.

We stayed at La Posada which is a lovely motel style hotel located right on the beach in the Las Brisas neighbourhood of Manzanillo.

The next day we drove north to Barra de Navidad where we stopped for lunch and pina coladas - or should I say pina coladas and then lunch of terrifc fish and chips at Restaurant Ramos which it turns out is well known and written up in many guidebooks.

We then drove to La Manzanilla, arriving at about 4 pm to check into the house that we had rented for two nights right on the beach.

Although the weather wasn't terrific, - it was overcast and cool most of the time, - a splendid time was had by all.

We didn't take many photos but the few we took can be viewed here.

We travelled to Elgin Ontario this past weekend to join Mike and Sandra for Mike's 60th birthday party. They live on a gorgeous property on the Rideau Canal just north of Kingston Ontario where they hosted us in regal style. Their house is right on one of the locks and has a beautiful shoreline on Sand Lake.

The party was held at the Nostalgia Station, home of Ryan Malcolm, the Canadian Idol, just outside Kingston. Unfortunately I didn't take many photos at the party but the ones I took are here (click on this photo for more). The entertainment was provided by John and Reagan Malcolm, (father and brother respectively of Ryan Malcolm). John and Phoebe Malcolm are long time friends of Mike and Sandra. I was able to take a couple of photos at the "morning-after" breakfast as well.

Elaine and Neville managed to produce the most beautiful baby ever. You can click on the photo for some more photos but you'll need a password from Nev first.

I've launched a new website - www.jackandsusan.com.

There's nothing there for now except a listing for a rental house in Ajijic (Chapala) Jalisco Mexico.

We bought a 1971 Traveliner travel trailer which we intend to drive down to Mexico with a bunch of our stuff.

We've always loved camping. cj's Sisty introduced us to it many years ago. Our camping experiences culminated with a two month camping trip to Newfoundland in 1997.

Time passes so quickly - hard to believe we've been here in Ajijic almost two months!! We're already quite depressed about going back to Canada next Thursday.

The weather here gets more perfect every day. The flowers in the garden are sprouting blossoms like crazy. I'm depressed. I don't want to write any more right now.

So today is Sweetie's birthday and although we're here in Ajijic, our personal paradise, Sweetie is sick today.

She woke up about 1 AM last night and started throwing up. This has continued throughout the day and I am just now going to call our friends, Joel and Sue, to cancel our dinner plans this evening. We had planned a quiet, romantic dinner at Armando's.

Yes, the time approaches quickly.

We are leaving for Mexico again next week (Friday the 31st) and have already packed. I guess we're anxious.

I'm so excited I had to write this note even though I have nothing to say.

Our friends Diane and Shoshana came to visit from New York and we took them, together with Sisty and Breeder2, out for Sunday brunch at the Free Times Cafe on College Street where we enjoyed a Klezmer/Jazz show. A splendid time was had by all. I put the photos that Diane and I took together into a short video with music. Her photos were all blurry because of a dead battery in her camera but the photos looked good in an artsy sort of way so I included them.

31 July 2003

They came from Everywhere. Yes, we were there at the largest Rolling Stones concert ever. Nobody was born and nobody was killed. A haze of colitas filled the air and soothed the crowd as 490,000 rockers of all ages joined together for the first major lovefest of the millenium.

And what a concert it was!! All the bands were awed by the size of the crowd and so put out their best. Our only complaint about the music was that Burton Cummings only did 5 songs!! They could have dropped Justin Timberlake, if you asked us.

All the hoopla about crowd control and entry and egress problems disintegrated as the goodwill in the crowd took control. Don't forget, after all, we are Canabbians!!

They came from everywhere.... (a short video)
You can 'Save' it to view later OR 'Open' it to view it now.

  Sweetie's 55th Birthday came and we decided that we wouldn't just sit around
  but would do something about it.

So we went to Collingwood just to get out of Toronto for a couple of days. Sweetie has been under too much stress lately with her mother's condition and so I decided that although we couldn't leave for an extended period we could at least get away for a short time. We didn't do much at all besides drive around the countryside and have a couple of nice meals. I took some photos and love this one. (lookin' pretty good for 55, eh?)

  You can click on the photo for some more photos from our weekend.

I've gotten involved in researching our family genealogy (mine and Sweetie's). It's given me a great deal of pleasure to dig back into our roots and find the people who came before us. Finding old photographs is particularly thrilling as it puts a face to the name and makes them much more real.

Due to privacy considerations you will need a password to view this site. If you don't already have one please contact me and I'll be pleased to get you one immediately.