Weehoo- Phone service and Internet!!

After about 10 Days of silence, we are back connected to the world Wide Web and the land of telephone service.

We've moved into our new Casa. It comes complete with a covered "porch" area for Carne Asada's (BBQ Tacos). It has some cacti and palm trees lining the property and even a mandarine tree in the yard. We have 3 bedrooms, kitchen, living room and dining room and it 2.5 times bigger than our last place. It has a large fenced lot, complete with it's own broken down car, fridge and stove!
It does however some with some drawbacks...
In the week we've been here we've seen no large colonies of ants,


And No Huge Hairy Spiders!!




















But other than that, it's great!

The boys have lots of room to play in our yard and the empty lot next door and enjoy hunting for lizards and playing with our new dog " Moose".


Before we moved, Shar took a week of Spanish lessons in Ensenada. She came back with a newfound confidence and the tools necessary to begin learning the language in earnest. Now she spends about an hour or more each day on the computer learning off of a spanish CD we have. She takes lessons once a week with a lady from our church and has started to attend a Spanish Bible Study. She is looking forward to understanding and Speaking more Spanish!!

(Shar's Homestay Family in Language school in Ensenada)

The boys are all in school now. Elijah and Caleb are both in the grade 1 class because the teacher speaks English. They will stay there for a while until they understand Spanish well enough to learn in their own classes. They go from 8:00-12:15 each day and we'll do some homeschooling- espescialy in English in the afternoons. Jacob has been in Kindergarten for about 3 weeks now, but still doesn't seem to have much of a grasp of Spanish- at least to speak it. But he doesn't seem to mind! He is blissful despite his inability to understand or make himself understood! He does have a cute song he really likes- and seems to pronounce things well, although he tells me he has absolutely no idea what it means...

As for me, I'm learning vocabulary from our CD's and going out and about during the day trying to use it as much as possible. I'll be going to Saskatchewan and Manitoba from October 31st until November 15th. During that time I'll be in Martensville / Saskatoon area from Nov 1-7. I'll be doing a short report at Martensville Baptist Church (Nov 5th) and would love to be invited out to people's homes (espescially for meals!!) that week to share a bit more about what's been happening with us here.

Here are a few more pics of stuff around here. I was talking to Irv Penner tonight and his wife, Mari, said that she wanted to see a few more pics of what it looks liek aorund hear, some street pics etc. so I toook a few before dark, and a have a few others I'll share here and will have some more soon!

Thanks for caring!!

Mike and Shar McDonald.

PS- I get snickers everytime I say my last name to someone here and they understand it... "McDonald?" they say "ahhhh Hamburgesa!! - hee hee hee".



This is "La Bufadora" . Just outside of Ensenada, it's basically a water cave with a hole in the top. As water comes in and fills the cave, it eventually spouts out the top in a "poof". It is supposed to be more impressive at high tide, which we weren't therre for... but it was a beautiful drive and I'm glad we were already in ensenada and didn't take a special trip for it. It was cool, but not drive for 1 1/2 hours and pay high tolls both ways cool.



Now this stuff was kinda cool. This was a shop in the plethora of tacky tourist shops lining the street up to La Bufadora. This one was cool cuz of the shark jaws and puffer fish and stuff like that...

by the way, if you are a bit sqeamish, you might want to quickly scroll past the next pic...


























These are real, dried Mako Shark heads. They put glass eyes in them, but the rest is real..

kinda gruesome up close, but still pretty cool.















This is just a typical street scene in our area. very coulourful signs painted right on the buildings- very typical of the area where we live.












This is a typical poorer neighbourhood in Our area. The church we are going to now is in this neighbourhood, about 10 minutes form our house and down the hill from YUGO's Outreach property. the community is called "Lomas de San Antonio"- or Hills of Saint Anthony.

















This is the neighbouring lot next to our house. It's kinda filled with garbage and this old truck, which I'm sure would sell for cheap if you're interested.










This is us at our old apartment, just after moving in. I'll have some pics of our new place soon, along with our dog "Moose" and some other pics interesting sites , the school and whatever else I can find!!










Blessings!

Mike and Shar and kids!