Category: Uaymitun 2023

Welcome to this blog post that captures the final highlights from our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun!

We have been back home now for a couple of weeks, so I’m writing our final blog post of the season from the living room of our new apartment!

My apologies, as this will be quite a long one!

It’s been a relatively quiet year in Uaymitun again this year, but we were able to spend time with friends and family in an atmosphere that was almost normal!

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We enjoyed having Dave & Deb visit for 2 weeks… it was a time of relaxation and recuperation for them as well as us! As talked about last post, we visited Hacienda Yaxcopoil and really enjoyed it. We went into Mérida and enjoyed the sights and sound of Centro as well as the “Michael Bublé” concert.

We also had an outing to Telchac Puerto for Garlic Shrimp at La Picuda!

After lunch we went for walkabout on the Pier!

We also had some great food at favourite places!

We had a opportunity to reprise a special picture from the 80’s…

… and an opportunity to share one of Elaine’s specialties, “Chocolate Monkees”!

We had a wonderful dinner out at Humo Bistro and then went for a walkabout on the Progreso Malecón!

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Their two weeks really passed too quickly!

Here’s a potpourri of other happenings!

One day coming home from Chicxulub, I spotted a very large group of birds in the Ria including many Flamingos and Great White Pelicans!

A couple of local dogs decided that our place was a great hangout! Here’s one!

When it’s not Wine Time nor Chocolate Monkees…

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We were happy to share Bob & Pat’s 48th Anniversary and then enjoyed a night in Mérida including a walkabout at the Oaxacan Food Fair!

Now for a change in pace!

Some minor news on the Uaymitun 2023 “Hand & Foot” playdowns… not really a championship by any stretch!

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Meanwhile, some actually important happenings were going on outside Raymond and Pamela’s condo!

A few pics from our final few days at the beach!

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It was hard to believe that our winter in Uaymitun was drawing to a close!

As always, it was a tearful goodbye to Miguel, Maria, Jesus and Mauricio!

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It was transition time… leaving our beach home, we headed into Mérida to drop off our car at the Fiesta Americana hotel and arrive at the Luz en Yucatán, our favourite boutique hotel.

We met up with Bob & Pat for dinner at La Tratto in Sta Lucia square!

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We spent a quiet day at the Luz after a great breakfast at Bistrola 57 just down the street.

After enjoying the pool to cool off from the heat of the day, we celebrated our farewell to Uaymitun dinner at another fav, Amaro, with Bob & Pat! As usual we enjoyed Pollo Xcatic followed by Cafe Maya made by Victor! This time, with an erstwhile assistant, he was able to perform a 4 chaffing dish pour!

One last walk in Centro before heading back to the Luz!

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After another breathtaking taxi ride out to the Mérida, we met up with Dave & Jeanette and Bob & Pat as they were on the same flight to Toronto as us!

The departure area was totally different from last year… looking quite modern and new! We had some lunch at Guy Fiere’s Burger Joint!

After a good flight home and quick passage through Immigration & Customs, we met up with Kerry & Bryan for our overnight stay in Wellesley.

I wanted to wrap things up differently for this season’s blogs… and I’ve always found that it’s good to end a story with a cliff hanger… so here goes!

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There were a number of things we were wondering about and not knowing if we’d know the answer to the question before we left at the end of the season! All but one of these mysteries are located in proximity to all the new developments near the Police Checkpoint on the Costera!

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And now for the biggest cliff hanger…

Well, that’s it for the final blog of Uaymitun 2023! Please let me know if you’ve enjoyed the blogs from this season!

Cheers!

Love to all,

Doug & Elaine

Welcome to this blog post that captures some more highlights from our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun!

First off… some culture for my penultimate post of the season!

Over the years, we have enjoyed many performances of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Yucatán (OSY) in the Teatro Peón Contreras, in Mérida Centro. Unfortunately, the theatre suffered a devastating fire on November 3, 2022!

Below are a couple of pictures from our visit in 2017.

Although the State Government has promised to restore the theatre to its glory, that could take quite a long time!

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On a more positive note, shortly after our arrival in January, I saw an announcement for an evening concert by the Mérida Big Band at Teatro Armando Manzanero featuring the music of Michael Bublé! So we quickly got tickets to go!

We came in early to visit with Bob & Pat in Mérida and enjoyed a dip in the pool before dinner at La Chaya Maya!

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After dinner, we walked down to the square to enjoy the Sunday evening vibe!

Before I continue on, I must take a few minutes to wax eloquent about Mérida! There are probably other downtowns or “Centros” in cities around the world that are as wonderful as Mérida! But I haven’t found one yet!

The Gran Plaza is always alive with activities, music, dancing, tasty treats and wonderful, gracious and friendly people.

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Just a block away from the square is the Teatro Armando Manzanero.

It was a fabulous evening!

And now for some history…

We try to make the trip to one of our favourite places every year… Hacienda Yaxcopoil! So please bear with me as I share some pics!

The architecture of this hacienda is very unique!

The flora is also very diverse here! The name Yaxcopoil means “the place of the green alamo trees” in Mayan!

We were able to reacquaint ourselves with Senor Alejandro Quintal Solis, whom has been restoring, by hand, the intricate designs on all of the main house rooms. He has been featured in several previous blog posts from earlier years!

And now for some pics of the interior of the main house…

… and some from the courtyard!

It’s always nice to have a walk through the factory area too!

One of the rooms is now being turned into a bit of a museum with artifacts from the Hacienda and from the nearby Mayan ruins!

I had a short chat with Señor Armando beneath the Laurel Tree. He was able to pass on memories from many decades at Hacienda Yaxcopoil!

We all had another wonderful visit to Hacienda Yaxcopoil!

Well, I think I’ll close out this blog for now! The next one will highlight family, friends and local favs!

Cheers!

Love to all,

Doug & Elaine

Welcome to this blog post that captures some more highlights from our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun!

As promised there will be an important update on the Uaymitun “Hand-and-Foot” Championship, but before that, to increase the tension and intrigue, a few other items for your pleasure!

A lot has happened since my last blog post, but here’s some highlights!

Val & George’s good friends, Kent & Arlene came for another visit with them. We went out for dinner one night at Crabster in Progreso!

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We went back to Pizza Paraiso with Raymond and Pam to actually have pizza rather than to just check the place out!

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Our long time friends, Dave and Deb from Sarnia, came for another two week visit!

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We’ve been fortunate to be able to spend a bit of time with Roger’s daughter Julie and partner Curtis, who now have a home in Chelem! They came for a visit to Uaymitun and then we dropped by their home one day on the way home from the Natural Thangs Farmers Market.

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We also took Dave & Deb back to Pizza Paraiso… yumm!

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Rachel came down for another visit with her Oma and Opa… we all went out for dinner at PF Chang’s!

A bit of potpourri…

And now for the “Hand & Foot” Update!

First of all, there was an important presentation… overseen by an impartial judge… of the award for the 2022 Uaymitun Hand & Foot champions!

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After the presentation and once the crowds of fans had left, the 2023 competition began in earnest!

After the first session, Raymond and Elaine claimed victory. However, as is plain to see the supposed victors have artfully covered the actual scoresheet with their hands and hence put the final score in doubt!

A week later, the rematch was on! The impartial judge was again in place and has reported of scoring discrepancies, so again, the final outcome is in doubt!

There will be another match before the end of the 2023 season… so the final outcome hasn’t been decided!

Well, I think I’ll close out this blog for now! The next one will highlight some local culture and history!

Cheers!

Love to all,

Doug & Elaine

Welcome to this blog post that captures some more highlights from our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun!

Again, I must apologize in the tardiness of my blog posts, but I’ll try to catch up on a few things!

As promised at the end of the previous blog post, this post will feature a very special guest… but more about that later!

I’ll start off this post with some more “day in the life” pics!

As Longfellow once said… “Into each life some rain must fall“

But then morning comes!

We had a great trip into Mérida for an overnight with Bob & Pat! After a yummy dinner, we went for a walk on the Paseo de Montejo and I had my first marquesita of the season!

The architecture of the buildings along the Paseo is marvellous!

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Lot’s of favourite foodie places too!

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Resting after our walk, we enjoyed the pool light show!

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The next morning, Bob and I went for a great walk on the Paseo!

One morning, on a laundry run into Chicxulub, the sun was gorgeous, the weather not too hot and the pier was fairly quiet… so I went for a little walkabout!

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Ornithophobia is a fear of birds… so it’s a good thing that’s not one of my phobias!

So, now onto our very special guest!

First, the “back story”! From the time she was a little girl, our granddaughter Kirsten and her Papa played a special game. I would place her favourite toy kitten in precarious situations and then say to her, “HelpMe! HelpMe!”. Then she would have to look through the house to find and save her!

Now, harken back 10 years to 2013… it was our very first ‘winter’ in Uaymitun! Kirsten, then a teenager, was sad that she couldn’t come with us! So I took “HelpMe! HelpMe!” with us to be her stand-in for the winter! You can reprise her adventures from her own blog posts at… HelpMe! HelpMe!-Blog Post #1 “Her first experiences with foreign travel!”

Now, 10 years on, HelpMe! HelpMe! is a teenager and as such acts like one! For most of January, she was happy to just sit and watch her TikToks. Finally, we were able to convince her to venture out!

So here’s some pics from our trip down and HelpMe! HelpMe!’s first adventures of 2023!

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With a little convincing, I hope to have the occasional pic of HelpMe! HelpMe! in future posts!

Well, I think I’ll close out this blog for now! The next one will highlight important updates from the Uaymitun “Hand-and-Foot” Championship!

Cheers!

Love to all,

Doug & Elaine

Welcome to this blog post that captures some more highlights from our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun!

I’ll start out this blog by explaining its title. I’ve never been known to be a lover of “going to the mall”! In fact, I refer to it as “aimlessly wandering” which sounds even better in Spanish… “vagando sin rumbo“!

I’m bringing this up as we’ve talked about visiting one of the newer malls for a couple of years, but have yet to do so… until last week! It’s known as “La Isla Mérida Mall in Cabo Norte”, which is quite a mouthful, so it’s commonly referred to as La Isla mall.

Enough said… on with our visit to La Isla mall!

This mall is just part of major developments in this part of Mérida! In addition to several gated communities and other commercial areas, there’s also a brand spanking new hotel!

The mall itself is quite large and is anchored by two department stores, Liverpool and Coppel!

I found it interesting that even here away from the coast, commercial interests are buying into the “Dinosaur” message of the Chicxulub Impact Crater! For further info on this, check our my earlier blog at Uaymitun 2016-Blog Post 4!

Here’s a few pics from our amble through the mall and outside beside the lake!

It was getting very hot, so we popped into one of the restaurants overlooking the lake, Sicomoro. It was a Monday, so most weren’t open, however we enjoyed the cooler air and the yummy Margherita Pizza!

Now, ignoring the pizza above, back to our regularly scheduled programming… food!

After 3 years of hoping, we met up with Bob & Pat for a delicious dinner at PF Chang’s in the Altabrisa Mall!

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We’ve found a great little bakery just off the square in Progreso!

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Maria, Miguel’s wife, made Panuchos for us the other day! Yumm!

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We went to the Crocodiles Farmers & Artesian Market in Progreso one Wednesday morning. Lots of folks… picked up some more Bangers and Italian Sausages from the Sausage Lady.

On another note, one of the pleasures of spending the winter here is the opportunity to spend time with my sister Val and her husband George!

The other day we had the opportunity to visit on our patio and then head into our favourite pub, Hermana República, for a late lunch – early supper, or Lupper!

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Another spur of the moment time, they were waiting for a delivery in town and we were dropping off laundry and we met at Vistamar by the Chicxulub Pier!

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In homage to multiple pics of Bill & Selena… our encounter with a T-Rex on the Chicxulub Pier!

So… as I’ve been quite tardy in my blog posting, I’ll catch up a bit with a potpourri of interest!

As mentioned in an earlier blog, we sold our house last fall. Our closing date was Dec 15th and our occupancy date for our new apartment was Feb 4th. So off our belongings went to storage until our occupancy date arrived!

As we were still in Uaymitun, Kerry, Kristy and Trish moved us in and unpacked most of our belongings! We are eternally grateful for their efforts in setting up a home for us upon our return at the end of March! We’re both looking forward to ‘nesting’ in our new place… a new chapter of our lives begins!

That evening, we went out to Humo Bistro in Progreso for a celebratory dinner!

There was a beautiful full moon that night!

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The very next day, Bob and Pat came out from Mérida with Pat’s brother Terry and wife Muriel! It was a great visit but the weather wasn’t accommodating as it was cool and windy!

They came bearing gifts… a bag of Capulines and a bag of Guanábana gummies! You have to taste them to believe it!

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The next night, we joined Pam and Raymond at Tso’ Ki in Chicxulub to bid a fond farewell to Kennedy (aka Kenny) who was heading back to home to Canada the next day!

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One last sunset to round things out for now!

Well, I think I’ll close out this blog for now! The next one will highlight a very special guest!

Cheers!

Love to all,

Doug & Elaine

Welcome to this blog post that captures some more highlights from our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun!

I must say, we’ve had a very temperate January so far… much warmer and fewer El Nortés than previous years!

We’ve been here about 3 weeks, so it was time for haircuts! Off we went to Gaby’s in Chicxulub. Again, she said she couldn’t take some off the sides and put it on top!

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George’s daughter, Monica and granddaughter, Carolin, have been down for a visit for a couple of weeks. The other day they were joined by George’s son Mike.

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As I mentioned in our previous post, Pat & Bob are back in Mérida this winter and we went in to visit them in their new house on Calle 39 x 62A y 64. It was great to catch up and spend a wonderful afternoon with them.

Casa Lilli

We visited another of our favs this week, Elio al Mare!

While Elio, himself, has moved on to other ventures, the name and most of the menu lives on! I’ve looked through all my posts over the years and never did take a pic of the old building before it was razed, so the best I can find was via Google Maps Street View from 2009.

For fun, I’ve included Street View pics from then and now to show the changes to the street! Back then, the pavement ended a few streets from Elio’s and the sand and stone street was prone to dangerous pointy bits everywhere. Rumour had it was that the owners of the houses refused to allow it to be paved to ensure the traffic was slow!

We reserved a table on the patio overlooking the Gulf and we weren’t disappointed! We ordered our favourite dishes, Chicken Parmesan and Fettuccini “Modo Mio”! We loved the old plaster board menu, in Italian, and knew exactly what to order. Now, they’ve been replaced and we were given one in English and it took quite awhile to find what they now call our dishes!

When we placed our dinner orders, we had asked about whether they still had their Chocolate Lava Cake! By the time we’d finished our mains, we thought we’d just have Cappuccino Mayas (with Xtabentún) instead, but our waiter proudly brought the Lava Cake shortly after delivering our Cappuccinos! Oh, well! We took one for the team! Yumm!

Last year in my blog, I mentioned the amount of new development and construction taking place down here.

Just in our local stretch of the Costera, there are many such projects underway. Courtesy of Google “Street View” which allows one to view the same stretch of road from previous years, I’ve included before and after pics!

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At Km 16.2, there was an older house called Mena that has been torn down and a massive new house is still under construction.

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Just four houses to our East, what was once an empty field, is now a 8 bedroom house with an elevator and underground parking!

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And, of course, there was the development at the next door house, with the addition of a new house for her son and a casita for the valedor!

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Which brings us to our house, now called Mack’s. Due to the construction of the two buildings on the property next door, the owners of our house created a private entrance to the beach house and had a decorative wall put in place between the two properties. The final touch is the new sign!

Hmmm… remember my comment about the weather at the beginning of this post? Well, I guess it’s payback time… 3 days of clouds and 45Km/h winds with gusts to 60Km/h!

After 3 days of strong winds, it was a certainty that the beach would suffer! I had some work to do!

Well, I think I’ll close out this blog for now! The next one will highlight some stuff we haven’t done yet and places we haven’t seen yet!

Cheers!

Love to all,

Doug & Elaine

Welcome to this blog post that captures some more highlights from our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun!

As I mentioned in my last blog, we are slowly revisiting our ‘fav’ places this winter! So, here’s three more…

Altabrisa Mall

For several reasons, we planned a trip into town to the Altabrisa Mall. Our Telcel Mexico SIM cards were quite old, so I dropped into the Telcel “Centro de Atención a Clientes” in the Mall. An interesting mode of business:

1. You queue up to talk to an agent to tell them why you’re there. You’re given a ticket and you sit down until your number comes up on the big board.
2. You go to the appropriate counter and tell them what you want. In my case, I wanted 2 new SIM cards with the same telephone numbers. The agent ticky tacks on their computer for a while and then gives you another ticket that you take to pay.
3. You queue up for the next teller, pay for your item and they give you a receipt.
4. You go back you your previous agent and give them the receipt. Then they go in the back room and return with your items.

A bit time consuming, but it all worked!

Meanwhile, Elaine had gone browsing in the Suburbia department store, so after my Telcel purchase was complete, we returned and she was able to pick up a couple of pretty tops!

Then, the payoff! Off we went upstairs to PF Chang’s for lunch! Spring Rolls, Mongolia Beef and Crispy Honey Chicken! Yumm!

After a fabulous lunch, we went back downstairs and picked up some grocery items! A great outing!

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Liverpool Mall

A few days later, on another shopping trip to Chedraui and Costco, we dropped in for a walk through Liverpool Mall. There’s a few stores changed over the past few years of the Pandemic, but most are still there! Including T-Bar which as great “Pay de Limon” aka Lemon Tarts. But we will save getting them until another trip.

And the skating rink is still there!

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Hermana Republica

The 3rd fav was a return to our favourite pub, Hermana Republica on the highway between Merida and Progreso. We did drop in once last year and they were under construction in their outdoor patio area. Well, it’s all complete this year with a covered outdoor dining area and a new extension to their micro-brewery. The food was as good as always!

CROQUETAS DE COCHINITA PIBIL(5 PIEZAS)
Stuffed potato with pulled pork side of traditional purple onion

CERDO BRASEADO EN CERVEZA PORTER
Marinated pork in our house Vanilla Porter with mushrooms and carrots

CHILE XCATIK RELLENO DE TERNERA
Chile xcatik stuffed with veal

I had also mentioned in our last blog about “special visitors from afar”!

I first met Steve & Dodie Miller, from Victoria, BC, on the road near us in Uaymitun 5 years ago. They were in the midst of another biking trek, this time in the Yucatan. Since their retirement, they’ve biked many places in North America and Europe.

The timing worked out perfectly, as they were able to stop by for a short visit and chat before they headed on to Progreso!

You can follow their latest trip at https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/try/

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A few other visitors from afar! Visiting this week with Val & George are daughter Monica and granddaughter Carolin from Abbotsford, BC

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Kennedy (aka Kenny), who is down from Pickering, ON visiting our good friends and her grandparents Raymond and Pam and came to our casa to visit, but we neglected to take any pics! So they graciously provided a great pic to include in my blog!

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And this blog wouldn’t be complete without a shout out to good friends Pat & Bob from Courtney, BC who have come back to Merida after an absence of 3-4 years! Great to have them back!

In no particular order, here’s some other stuff from our past week…

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One quiet evening, when the winds had died down…

It’s certainly time to include some more sunset pics!

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Somewhat belatedly, I’ve started to do the occasional morning road walk to get some much needed exercise! Unfortunately, the south side of the road, which is the wetlands side, hasn’t been trimmed back for awhile, so the curb is pretty narrow at times. Also, the amount of traffic over the years has greatly increased which makes walking on the road a bit worrisome. In any case here some pics of local beach houses from recent walks!

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A couple more from my last walk…

Well, I think I’ll close out this blog for now! The next one will highlight broadening our horizons to Progreso Malecon (this time for sure)!

Cheers!

Love to all,

Doug & Elaine

Welcome to this blog post that captures highlights from the first week of our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun!

There’s nothing like waking up in paradise, grabbing a morning coffee and enjoying the view!

As usual, Miguel had filled the pool on the day we arrived so it was great to be able to take advantage of it in January!

After a pretty quiet day, we headed to the beach for our first sunset!

Today was also the day of arrival for Val & George, who were settling in down the beach in their beach home, Paraiso! They strolled down the beach to enjoy the sunset with us!

The following morning, I started my daily chore of raking the beach! We’re very fortunate here in Uaymitun, that there’s minimal seaweed, so it didn’t take very long. The weather was so great, I couldn’t resist testing out the Gulf waters… very warm!

For those of you who may have been worrying, “MeowMeow NoName” (aka Mixo), is quite fine and still has an very loud meow!

We’ve be fortunate to celebrate our Anniversary dinner with Val & George most winters! This winter, for our 51st Anniversary, we returned to Casa de Piedra at Hacienda Xcanatun.

There’s no disputing that the surroundings and ambiance at Xcanatun are second to none!

As the ownership had changed during the Pandemic, we were aware that changes were inevitable. While the menu had changed, each of our meals were very good!

For appetizers:

Tostadas de Plátano con Carnitas de Pato | Banana Toasts with Duck
Crujiente de plátano macho con carnitas de pato | Crispy plantain with duck confit

Rollos Primavera Frescos | Fresh Spring Rolls
Rollo primavera de verdura frescas con salsa de chile dulce y tamarindo | Fresh vegetable spring roll with sweet chili sauce & tamarind sauce

For our mains:

Pollo con Curry Amarillo | Chicken with Yellow Curry
Pierna y muslo de pollo en salsa de curry amarillo con papa, camote y cebolla morada, acompañado de arroz jazmín | Chicken leg and thigh in yellow curry sauce with potato, sweet potato and red onion, accompanied by jasmin rice

Risotto Tikinxic | Tikinxic Risotto
Con camarones a parrilla y perfume de naranja agria | Grilled shrimps with sour orange

Camarones Al Grill | Grilled Shrimps
Con risotto de lima, ensalada fresca y parmesano | Lime risotto, fresh salad and parmesan

Salmon Chileno | Chilean Salmon
Con puré de papa y mantequilla de hierbas, acompañado con ensalada fresca | With mashed potatoes and herb butter, served with fresh salad

While we found that each dish was very well prepared, the service has greatly suffered. Also the wine list was quite limited with typically only one choice per type of wine offered.

However, it was great to be able to celebrate our anniversary here again!

While it’s certain that the Pandemic isn’t over, the overall mood here is that life goes on, but in a new way. Restrictions on masking have largely been lifted, but still many folks continue to use them. We are broadening our plans on what we feel we can do with an appropriate level of protection.

On the Monday morning, we made the jaunt to the Natural Thangs Market between Chelem and Chuburna. Our goal, successful I might add, was to grab some Bangers, Mild Italian Sausages and Breakfast Links from The Sausage Lady!

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One of the favourite pastimes we did resume last week was attending the Wednesday afternoon Jam Session at FACES. We shared a table with Matt and Terri and found that the overall numbers were less so we felt less crowded. It was great fun to enjoy the music and renewing acquaintances.

Afterward, we visited their winter home just down the street from FACES. It was great to catch up with them!

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Elaine and I have an ongoing challenge to be the first to sight a horse in a place you wouldn’t expect! I win!!

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Last year, there were more flamingos in our area than we ever remember. This year, there are even more!

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We also started to visit places that we hadn’t frequented often last year. With a need to pick up some items not yet found, we went to Walmart in the City Center Plaza.

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Before we arrived, we had arranged to meet Pam & Raymond at our favourite, Loncheria Carolina in the square in Chicxulub! However, we had to postpone due to fatigue upon our arrival. So, it was great to be able, on the spur of the moment, to arrange to meet them last week after their hair cuts at Gaby’s.

We met them at Gaby’s… gave her hugs… and then walked over through the square!

We sat down and commented that they were open earlier that we thought! Oh, the lady who came to take our order must be new! Oh, we can just order as many salbutes as we want rather than an order of 2! Oh, no bottles of water but we can get jamaica! Oh, wait… we’re not at Loncheria Carolina, we’re at Loncheria Tso’ Ki next door! Oh, well… our orders were already in… and when they came, they were delicious!

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It wouldn’t be complete without a January El Norte… so we had one… pretty mild as Norte’s go, but interesting nonetheless!

Well, I think I’ll close out this blog for now! The next one will highlight broadening our horizons to the Progreso Malecon and other locales and include some special visitors from afar!

Cheers!

Love to all,

Doug & Elaine

Welcome to this blog post that captures highlights from our 2023 Winter in Uaymitun, with an update from 2022!

Please allow me a deviation from my normal 1st blog post of the winter!

To describe the previous year, 2022, after returning from our Winter in Uaymitun, could be best summarized as the old saying goes, “May you live in interesting times”!

This is an English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. While seemingly a blessing, the expression is normally used ironically; life is better in “uninteresting times” of peace and tranquility than in “interesting” ones, which are usually times of trouble.

While it wasn’t really a time of “trouble”, it certainly was a time of change! It was full of UPs and DOWNs… full of JOY and STRESS!

The first few months after our return were filled with anticipation of two weddings! Our granddaughter Kirsten and husband Zack Thompson in June and our youngest daughter Kristy and husband Andy Powell in July! It was an especially busy time assisting Kris and Andy in their preparations!

Both weddings were marvelous and were in very unique locales!

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Then in early August, a sudden torrential downpour one night caused flooded basements in several hundred houses in a very localized area in Sarnia. This included our house which had several inches of rain water flood the lower level. It came and went while we were sleeping but the damage was done. Almost 2 months passed during the time of waiting for remediation and insurance coverage to allow us the repair the damages.

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In the middle of all that, we were fortunate enough to go through the process of selecting an apartment in the newly developed project, “The Bayfront”, in downtown Sarnia overlooking the St Clair River and Sarnia Bay. We had been watching the development for several years and it had been delayed due to COVID.

So, now we had to put our family home for almost 34 years house up for sale! But our plans were delayed for almost 2 months by the renovations of the basement. In any case, our home sold conditionally in a matter of days once it was listed. It was a waiting game as their was a string of conditional sales, but the dominoes finally fell and it closed in early December!

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On the lighter side of things… in what seems like a lifetime ago, we had booked two weeks in our favourite condo in Litchfield, SC for late August 2020! The COVID pandemic out the kibosh to that in 2020 and 2021, so it was with great relief we were able to go this past August. Kerry, Bryan and the boys joined us for a week of that time!

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In November, we flew out to Kelowna and Vernon to surprise my sister Val on her 80th birthday! It was a great surprise and a great time with family and friends!

Unfortunately, we returned home from BC with an unwanted guest that we had been able to avoid for over 2-1/2 years! It took 8-9 days to recover enough to finally test -ve! Thankfully we were fully boosted!

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While we had prided ourselves on the house purging we had already done, it was another whole level of work to plan on moving from a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 4-level back-split home to a 2 bedroom apartment!

As our apartment won’t be ready for occupancy until Feb 3rd, all our belongings have now gone into storage! So our family will actually be managing our move from storage to apartment while we’re still here in Uaymitun!

While the house was in the last days before closing and a few days afterwards, we rented a cottage in Brights Grove, near Kristy, Andy and the girls, just to have somewhere to rest.

Then we spent the rest of the our time, before heading south, in Wellesley with Kerry, Bryan and the boys! Given the massive storm that hit Ontario over Christmas, it was a belated but wonderful Christmas the week afterwards.

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Sorry to drone on, but that just covers some of the highlights and lowlights of a very “interesting time” for us this past year! For that reason, we’re counting on finding the next 3 months very “uninteresting” and a time to recuperate!

Now back to our Winter in Uaymitun!

Kerry & Bryan drove us to our airport hotel in Toronto on the afternoon before our WestJet flight to Mérida! Elaine had been chatting with Kari before hand, so we were able to have dinner with Kari & Paul Richer in Moxies that evening. It was great to catch up with them!

It was a mad house in Pearson Terminal 3, but we were able to check in and get through Security pretty quickly. It was nice to be able to relax in the Lounge until our flight was called. While waiting at the Gate we ran into Ross & Joan from down the beach and our neighbours Dave & Jeanette!

Our flight left basically on time and was uneventful. As it approached the Yucatan, we flew jut to the east of Progreso and I was able to get a pic of the Progreso Pier!

We arrived on time in Merida with a somewhat “interesting” landing as the left wing caught a wind gust at the last moment! Sudden intake of breath throughout the plane and then cheers when our pilot righted the ship and brought us down safely!

We were very fortunate to pass through Immigration, pick up our bags, get a Green light at Customs and proceeded out to meet Diego and get our car quickly! All in all, we were through in less than 20 minutes! Amazing!

A quick stop at Soriana to pick up a few essentials and out the Costera to Uaymitun and our winter home!

Last year, I posted a number of pictures of the construction next door and for our new gateway! Well, all that work is now done and here’s a few pics of the new entrance, both during the day and at night when it’s all lit up!

Our new house sign!

The new entrance and driveway…

… and at night!

Well, I think I’ll close out this very long blog for now! The next one will highlight the arrival of Val & George as well a very, very special day!

Cheers!

Love to all,

-Doug and Elaine