Having a minivan here in Mazatlán was difficult for a couple of reasons – first, most of the streets in Centro are narrow and you often have to fold the mirrors in and be really careful in order to drive anywhere. And forget about parking it! Second, it was too wide to fit into our garage!

So, sending the van home with our son and getting a smaller car became an excellent plan.

Paul did a lot of research online and we identified a few small cars that suited us with regard to style, safety, fuel economy, trunk space, and the all-important width!

The contestants were the VW Crossfox, the VW Sportvan, the Toyota Yaris and the Honda Fit.

It is still pretty tight, and you can see Paul folded the mirrors in to enter the garage. And the opening to the laundry room is adjacent to the passenger door so you have to be careful walking through with a laundry basket. But the good news is: Our Fit Fits!

Adam and Martha being funny

Paul is happy.

Pig head.

Phil and Jen in Maz!

Owen and Erica with Señor Frog.

Erica boogie-boarding.

Everyone having fun.

The van heads back North to Washington!

So that’s a quickie post of some of the fun we had over the last week. We spent most of two days at the beach sitting in a palapa restaurant eating and drinking beer in between swimming and boogie boarding sessions. We walked the dogs on the malecon. We went to the mercado. We went to the plazas. We ate and drank. We talked and talked. We played endless games of dominoes and loteria. I had such a wonderful time…they’ll just have to come back soon since there are tons of things that we weren’t able to squeeze into the time we had.

Tomorrow, daughter Jess arrives for a week so I have a feeling we’ll be heading back to the beach. I think we can handle it.

(That means houseguests)

We are excited to have visitors coming! Son Adam and his wife Martha are coming tomorrow and staying through Tuesday. They are flying over from Mexico City, and were our first visitors back in November. The house was a mess then, with dust and dirt everywhere…so I think they will be amazed by the transformation. We’ll have a couple of days with them before…

Son Phil and his wife and our two grandchildren come on Sunday morning! They are going to be staying until Friday. The kids are being taken out of school but they are great students so in exchange we will make sure they learn a lot about Mexico and Spanish to take back with them. Son Phil is going to be driving our trusty minivan North while the rest of his family flies so that they can join the throngs of young families with minivans! How did they resist the lure so long?

It will be great to have all of them here for a nice visit. We plan on spending a fair bit of time at the beach, and I bought a second boogie board in their honor. We also plan on taking them to the plazas here on Sunday night, a visit to the shrimp ladies to buy some shrimp for the barbeque, and of course the mercado. The kids will love dog walking on the malecon and we’ll love showing them our favorite places.

When we were up North and son Adam moved to Mexico City somehow we were able to put together a family visit at our place at least once a year. I am so happy we’re going to be able to keep this tradition up!

Son Phil will leave on Saturday – his father (my ex) is driving up from Colima to make the drive with him. He’ll then fly back to Mazatlán from Phoenix and drive back home. I really appreciate him driving to the US with Phil since it is a long drive to make by yourself.

We are excited for Phil to have the van but also it gives us the opportunity to buy a smaller car that will actually fit in our garage! That’s another blog post, though.

Then, Sunday, daughter Jessica arrives from New York City for a week! I can’t even believe how excited I am! It’s too bad she can’t be here at the same time as the boys, but it will still be so wonderful to have her, and it will be nice to have a nice relaxed visit. Although her visit coincides with Semana Santa, where 130,000 people descend on Mazatlán for a week of craziness. From what we hear, though, most of the craziness is up in the “Golden Zone” and the only thing we should notice here in Centro is that the beaches will be more crowded.

Tomorrow I head to the grocery store for a huge shopping trip. I’ll get out the dominoes and scrabble. The beds are made. Can you tell I am a happy mom right now?