zoodles

I CAN'T believe it's been almost a year since we got back!

Mauricio has a new best friend:

Her name's Abby. I haven't told my sister yet, who has two cats that she is trying (?) to find homes for. Cringe! Oh well, we wanted our own cat if that makes sense. Or is that just really consumerist? Mauricio bought a globe the other day (?!?) and I saw it in the spare room today. I told him, you're really becoming North American now; you buy things to store them! Ha ha.

Abby's cute. She has a penchant for biting when you pet her. My friend Pattie calls these love bites. Savage love in Abby's case. She's really friendly though, if that sounds possible. She likes to be around us and has already made a habit of sleeping at the foot of the bed, which is the clincher for me... too cute.

Here's a picture from a recent day trip to Edmonton to visit Treena, my kind of cousin, on the occasion of her mother's visit to the west! 

Edith and I are on the back of the mower come theme-park-tractor-train! Treea's Mike is giving us a tour of what Mauricio calls their Hacienda in Spanish :o) There were some HUGE mosquitos loitering in the shade, but Mauricio and I seemed to be the only ones that were bothered by them, being the city-folk that we are.

still here...

I don't think this is the first time that I have titled one of my posts MIA.

I’m back... I think.

I have been debating retiring this blog, perhaps most readers have already assumed that much. But then I happened to see in the site statistics that there have been quite a few visitors to my blog of late. Now, I have no idea who they could be, or who in general would visit a blog that hasn’t been updated for 4 months. Yikes, has it been that long? But, in the meantime, while I decide to blog or not to blog, here are a few thoughts and photos.

For most, by now, it shouldn’t be a surprise that in the time since my last post, we finalized Mauricio’s immigration papers, bought our tickets to Canada, packed up house and home, made the dreadful 24 hour voyage from there to here, and are currently in the throes of settling into a new/different/old way of life.

I won’t detail the eeriness of skipping the train tracks of my life again, again returning to the ongoing Calgary plot (I’m behind by a few chapters and catching up, though I know the story, perhaps too well.) Nor the unsuspected sense of nostalgia that settles into me when I remember Bolivia through pictures, and through words, in conversation with Mauricio. I'm feeling confused about my blog, which I created to record my impressions of living in Bolivia, which I no longer am. Humpfh.

Those were a few thoughts, now a few photos.

On this great, sunny, warm day (and there have been many this summer) we went to a water park downtown with my sister and her daughter Mira.

Este buen día, calientito y soleado (y ha habido varios este verano) fuimos a un parque de agua al centro de la ciudad con mi hermana y su hija Mira.

We also made a trip to the mountains (different day) so Mauricio could see the Real Canada. Here’s Mau by the lake… 

También hicimos un viaje a las montañas (otro día) para que Mauricio véa el verdadero canadá. Aqui está Mauricio por el lago...

The mountains themselves…

Y las montañas mismas...

Some Canadian wildlife, a big horn sheep…

Y un poco del salvaje canadiense, una obeja de cuernos grandes...

And some little baby wild strawberries that my sister picked…

Y algunas frutillitas salvajes que recogí mi hermana...