We can come out from under our rocks....

It's sunny again! All is right in the world:) Cue the choir.

Wow. What a difference a bit of sun makes. After 9 straight days of rain everyone is very ready for a bit of a reprieve. I went swimming this morning (at the local Olympic size outdoor pool) and spent a good deal of time just floating there looking up at the blue, blue sky. I came home and took these photos from our balconies. The different shades of blue and green in Panama are unbelievable.

But I shouldn't get too comfortable just yet...the rainy season isn't over. Tomorrow we'll probably be back to Noah-type rains. So we'll just enjoy it while we can....

Happy Birthday to my Mum

Today is the day my Mum was born. My amazing, loving, funny, goofy, wonderful Mum. We love you Mum. Happy Birthday! XOXOXOXO

Like at the lake

We went swimming this afternoon in our pool here at the condo. After the rains for the last two weeks the water was deliciously cold. The kind of cold that you find in a northern Ontario lake at the end of August, enough to make you yelp as you jump in but not enough to make you leave it. The kids and I loved it. I think it must be in the DNA, a Canadian recessive gene as it were. I'm sure our neighbours thought we were insane.

But honestly, if we squinted our eyes up tight, tried to ignore the palm trees and toucans overhead and focused on the dark grey sky farther back on the horizon, it felt as if summer was coming to a close. It was an awesome feeling. We came in after our little lake dip, had soup and put on warm pyjamas and cranked up the air conditioning just to keep the feeling.

Throw a snowball for us.

Fish and Curious Kids

We went to the Fish Market for dinner tonight. This isn't some trendy spot with netting on the walls and servers wearing nor'easter rain hats. This is the actual fish market. Big, stinky, lots of dead fish, people haggling....you know the kind of place. Except this is a Central American fish market so there's lots of huge, bright fish and the people are yelling in Spanish and Mandarin. Or a combination of the two. Spandarin? Manish?

The four of us found a great little table in among the locals, ordered grilled catch of the day, ceviche, octopus marinara, patacones (fried plaintain discs) and coconut rice. Washed it down with sippy cups of water and beer (you can guess who had which) and generally had a happy time of it. Great food and no major kid meltdowns= an excellent evening. And then Max spotted a local cat that was wandering under the tables whereby a solid relationship was formed.

We rounded the evening off with Max and Zella performing their "Under the Sea" dance from their upcoming school concert. The table next to us benefited from the floor show as well, turns out Zella and Max as dancing mermaids doesn't need translation.

November is icky everywhere

So November has been a low-posting month. Sorry about that. I've nothing to blame it on except that November sucks. It's a scientific fact, I'm sure of it. Here in Panama we've seen nothing but rain and gloom for weeks on end. And a quick trip home to Canada, for work and family, produced nothing but blustery grey days as well. Is there any part of the world not affected? Who's having lovely sunny days right now?? Damn them.

Zella and I hauled out some Christmas stuff today and tried to get in the holiday spirit a bit. It may have worked somewhat. I promise to post again soon. We're trying to get our heads wrapped around a Christmas with palm trees. Any ideas??

(Photos above: 1. Snow on the 401 outside of Toronto. 2. Downtown Panama City on a gloomy day. 3. Wicked storm coming in as seen from the kitchen window).

An incredible night

Rob is in NYC this week on business. Last night as historic results unfolded he made his way down to Harlem- he said it was incredible. It must have been. It was incredible just watching it on my couch in Panama. I cried my eyes out.

All Inclusive Heaven

We just got back from a mini-vacation to an all inclusive resort here in Panama. It was the first time we've ever been to an all inclusive and Rob and I remembered the days when we were the "back packing" types and thumbed our noses at anyone caught dead with an all inclusive mentality. Well, I'm here to say we've happily crossed to the other side. We didn't know what we were missing. Such fools we were.

We ate. We swam. We ate. We swam. (I would say that we slept, but we have a two year old that likes to wake at 5am). That about sums up our 3 days. At the end, we looked exactly like Max in the above photo. (The new slideshow is a result of our eating and swimming adventure...)