Shell-Family.com: February 2009

Tristan's Eleventh (thats 77 dog Years)

Tristan achieved a family first when he reached his eleventh birthday on February 22nd. Neither of our two prior German Shepherds lived that long.

Lee was so excited that she did some special baking for the birthday party, attended by Audrey (Bug), Jackson (Boo), and their parents.

Our special birthday cake was in fact a pan of brownies, with an added decoration of a dog rawhide bone with the candles on top. The two candles side by side represented "eleven."

With Tris watching, the two young people blew out the candles. As you can see, Tris didn't take his eye off the chew-bone.

While the "humans" enjoyed the brownies with vanilla ice cream, Tristan began working on his rawhide treat. A wonderful time was had by all.

Hanging out with Daddy

Leighton & Bine Cozumel Vacation - Pt. 3

Here are the last few pictures I'll post from the Cozumel trip. We've been back a week now. The weather here in Chicago is cold and snowy and I feel like I'm getting sick. I want to go back to Mexico. :(

Here's Bine just relaxing and reading outside of our room. I think we were waiting to be picked up for our rental car.

Here's me and Bine in our rental VW bug convertible. We did eventually take the top down. It was a lot of fun to zip around the island in the bug.

Me on the one of the rocky beaches on the eastern side of Cozumel where the waves were a lot bigger.

Me and Bine on the same beach.

Me and the bug with the top down.

Me and Bine on another beach after splashing in the waves.

Our last breakfast was at a restaurant at the local museum looking out onto the docks.

I thought my breakfast croissant looked like the Millennium Falcon.

While browsing around the shops and stores we had a little fun.

Here we are after checking out and about to leave for the airport.

It was a lot of fun and it was great to get away from the cold for a week.

School fun

A Valentine's Day party...

and here's a pic of Jackson performing in the Winter Show. Very cute program.

Eeek!

Audrey's trying out a new look.

Leighton & Bine Cozumel Vacation - Pt. 2

Here are a few more pictures from our Cozumel vacation. On Wednesday we finally got around to doing some actual snorkeling. But first we had breakfast at Diego's.

I had a tasty eggs and chorizo dish.

Bine had a fresh fruit plate and a coconut shake.

The two places we snorkeled were The Money Bar Beach and Playa Palancar. We really enjoyed the snorkeling at Money Bar. There were lots of fish to see.

Bine snorkeling in the water.

Me swimming in the water. I rented snorkel stuff later.

Palancar wasn't as nice. The first 20 feet or so of the water was filled with pointy rocks and broken shells. It was murder on your feet. But they had some nice hammocks on the beach and some interesting residents.

Chilling in a hammock.

Bine relaxing in a chair.

Interesting resident #1.

Interesting resident #2.

I'll post some more pictures in another few days.

Musings On Light

I posted here by mistake. The actual post will be on my blog if you're interested. Sorry.

Leighton & Bine Cozumel Vacation - Pt. 1

Bine and I just got back from our six-day trip to Cozumel to escape the cold Chicago weather (of course it was 60 in Chicago the day we left). We had a lot of fun. We did some snorkeling and got some sun and ate lots of good food. I'll post a few pictures a day so as to not overwhelm anybody.

We stayed at the Casita de Maya, a small "Boutique Hotel" by the airport. We literally rolled our carry-on bags across the street to the hotel (it was actually about a block or two distance, but very close). There are so few flights in and out of Cozumel that being that close to the airport wasn't a problem at all. And since we were not in the main cruise ship/touristy area it was actually nice and quiet and low-key. There are only four rooms in the Casita and I think at most three were occupied on one or two nights.

The open air common area. Our room was the last one down on the right-hand side.

Our room.

There was also a resident cat named Kittie who liked nothing more than lounging around and soaking up the sun. He was very friendly and often wandered into your room for petting if you left your door open.

The owner, Dan, met us when we arrived and after we got settled he walked us around the area personally showing us good local places to eat or buy beer or supplies.

Our first full day in town we took the ~~fairy~~ ferry across to the mainland and rented a car and went to Tulum to see the ruins of the Pre-Columbian Maya walled city.

Unfortunately, it started to rain a little so we ended up cutting our tour of Tulum short.

As long as I'm editing this post, I guess I'll add this link that I found to a high-resolution aerial photo of Tulum. It's pretty slick.

Tomorrow, I'll post pictures of some of the beaches and snorkeling we did in Cozumel.