Christmas Day and following days

December 17th was not only the day of the Santa Claus parade in town but the day our first grandson was born.  We came home from the parade to find a message from our son and his wife that their little boy had arrived at 3:30 pm.  They were already back home from the hospital within 3 hours of his birth!  We called them via Skype with our web cam and got a chance to visit with them and see our new grandson!  Thank goodness for Skype to keep in touch and see our family on a frequent basis!

The days after the Santa Claus parade leading up to Christmas day were filled with local festivities.  One evening the town put up a large screen in the town square for the children to watch a movie.  The children were served bags of popcorn and a glass of juice.  What a treat for them!  Several of the women in town were busy creating pinatas.  The pinatas first appeared in town strung across the street to decorate the main road for the Santa Parade.  During the following week, one evening a pinata was strung up on a side street and raised and lowered as the children each had three attempts to swat at the pinata to break it and retrieve the candies hidden inside.  It was so delightful to see and hear the excitement of the children as they participated in this event!

One evening we sat out to watch the meteor shower from 9:30 to 10 pm.  We are spoiled here as there are no street lights so we see so many more stars than we do at home in Ontario.

On Christmas day we enjoyed a traditional Christmas dinner for 6 of us.  Turkey (from Costco), potatoes, yams, broccoli, and carrots.  Dessert was rice pudding.

Pat, Mavis, Mike, John and Bev toast a Merry Christmas

The day after Christmas Vic had a chance to fly his kites (a garage sale find) down at the waterfront.  Unfortunately, the winds were not strong enough to fly the tri-plane kite, but they were good enough for our lighter dragon kite.

Vic on the beach flying the kites

Tri-plane kite

Dragon kite

One day we walked along an overgrown trail.  We spotted a large pileated woodpecker which is unusual here as we normally see the small Gila Woodpeckers which have yellow heads.  We also spotted a monarch butterfly and a beautiful orchid-like flower along the side of the path.

Pileated woodpecker

Not a Monarch butterfly -- may be an  Isabella's Heliconian

The evenings are starting to cool off with overnight lows of 18C or 19C.

The ocean temperature has come down to 80F or 27C.

The beach is currently crowded during the day with Mexican families that have come down from Guadalajara for their Christmas vacation week.

typical beach scene