BLT's and Lemons

For lunch yesterday I made Club Sandwiches and French Fries!! It was so good I have been eating a spinoff of that meal every meal since (and once in between). I liked my lunch so much that after Enrique and I woke up from our nap yesterday I decided that I had to have another one. Well maybe 3 slices of bread and chicken and bacon and all the veggies was a bit much so I opted for a BLT with avocado. It was delicious and as I woke up for the third time during the night to use the restroom (not my favorite part of being pregnant) I found myself thinking about my sandwich. I was VERY tempted to go make one but I decided that I could wait for breakfast. So sure enough breakfast rolls around and I am having my BLT with avocado and Jose is looking at me like I am nuts. I don't think this is a pregnancy craving. It is reminding me of the road trip we took as a family in the mid nineties to Oklahoma to visit my Dad's family. The whole way there breakfast, lunch, or dinner I ordered BLT's but with turkey instead of avocado. The distance between Southern California and Eastern Oklahoma measures out to be A LOT of BLT's.
Now, I know that bacon is probably not the healthiest thing out there but in my defense Mexico's bacon is super thin and they are tiny pieces, the two slices that I use don't come close to covering the bread ;) But on to my next subject LEMONS!!! Once or twice a year Soriana gets yellow lemons in stock. Some of you may say aren't all lemons yellow?? Well no, not here they aren't a lime is a limon (lemon) and lima is some other citrus fruit that is sort of sweet. I spent a year in Queretaro and never once saw a yellow lemon and I came to miss them quite a bit especially since the presence of the lime in at almost every meal. It wasn't until my second year here in Navojoa that I first saw a real lemon. They were at Walmart in Obregon (about a 45 minute drive from Navojoa), they were real Sunkist lemons that cost 10 pesos each (a little less than a dollar which is a lot for here). I bought a bunch and froze the juice, I even kept the empty shells to clean my sink with. There just isn't anything like the smell of lemon. So now I get super excited when lemon time rolls around. I haven't thought to ask anyone at the supermarket when they get them in because I prefer the element of surprise.

Soriana After Dark

I mostly do my grocery shopping in the morning around 10ish while Enrique is at school and Jose is tucked away at the Corporativo Juridico. However, due to our car situation I had to go last night around 8pm. It was a WHOLE new experience for me. Usually when I am at the store so are all the stockers, you can barely get through the isles. At first I was really annoyed by this but now I am kind of used to it (except on my I hate Mexico days). I still do not understand why they don't stock the store after or before customer hours, but hey, that's Mexico for ya. So, anyhow, Enrique and I are cruising through the spacious isles and getting everything done very quickly. It normally takes me about 1 hour to shop and last night it only took half that time. The customers were completely different too, instead of all the stay at home moms the store was packed with people just getting off work or rushing off to a get together (there were a lot of cakes going into carts). Also, the store seemed cleaner, in fact it looked freshly mopped I was so excited. There is usually dirt everywhere along with miscellaneous puddles of unknown liquids on the floor. When I am finished with my shopping I normally stop and buy a coke for the little old man who watches my car (it is getting up to 100 degrees now and coke is the thirst quenching beverage of choice for most Navojoenses). However, since it was evening I decided a coffee and pastry would be more appropriate so Enrique and I stopped over at Donya (lack of nye on computer ;)) Tota's for those items and a bean and cheese gordita for Enrique's dinner. The car guy was super excited and said he had not eaten yet so that worked out perfectly. So it was an excellent trip to the store and I hope that we can visit Soriana after dark more often ;)

What to Write About???

I was commenting to my Mom this morning that I had not written in a few days because I had not left the house so nothing interesting had happened to me. She suggested that I write about that. It is very common for me to go 2 or 3 days here without leaving the house, something that in Southern California never ever happened (except maybe after the Northridge earthquake). But between the heat, not having a car, having a husband that doesn't like me to take public transportation, and the lack of urgency to go anywhere makes for a housebound Nikki. So what did I do all day Monday??? Well Enrique and I watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks THREE times!!!!! Now, that used to be a favorite of mine but let me say that three times is two and half too many at this point ;) My poor Dad can still quote it from the thousands of times he was forced to watch it. We also washed dishes, mopped the floors, blew up Enrique's new swimming pool, and took a three hour nap. So even though we did not go anywhere we were still productive, had fun, and rested ;) (the resting part is VERY important for Mom!!)

Preschool teachers

You have to have a gift to be any sort of teacher but preschool teachers a most definitely special people. Today was Enrique's birthday party at school. 25 kids from ages 1-4 eating cake, drinking juice, hitting a pinata, eating candy, singing, and dancing; well lets just say I had a MAJOR headache when I left. Jose and I started talking on the way home and decided that the teachers that spend 4 hours a day 5 days a week with all those kids are angels. Their patience was never ending as well as their energy. So here is a shout out to all teachers but especially to maestras Lupita, Gloria, Heidy, Viviana, and Ana. We had a great day and Enrique had a wonderful birthday party!!

"So Jose, How is the Ranch?"

So finally I hit the 14 week mark in my pregnancy which is when Jose and I decided that we would publicize our good news here in Navojoa. For those that are not privy we suffered a miscarriage in October 2009 and it was very difficult to deal with all of our extended family members asking why I wasn't showing or my favorite "weren't you pregnant?" I cannot speak for ALL mexicans but the majority of my friends and family here take little issue with asking about very private things in very public places such as parties, the grocery store, church, and restaurants. This may be true for some americans as well but since I went through this particular issue here in Navojoa I have nothing to compare it to. Anyway so yesterday was my last 'nervous' OBGYN visit. Jose and Enrique accompanied me and were going to remain in the waiting room but Doctor Covarrubias told me to tell Jose to come in. "AAWW how sweet," I thought, "he wants Jose to see the ultrasound and to be there to reassure me". Not so, as I am laying (or is it lying) on the table looking at the TV where the baby is going to appear the Dr. begins to ask Jose about the ranch. Ok, wait the baby is not moving, I am starting to freak out and he has not turned on the doppler thing so that I can hear the heartbeat. Meanwhile they are STILL going on about Akiwicichi and San Juan and cows and droughts etc. etc. Finally after looking over and seeing my face Jose asks if the baby is ok. "Oh yeah," says the Dr. "The measurements are perfect and wait here is the heartbeat do you hear that?" "And look when I press down like this he starts to move." WHEW!!! Relief at last!!

So tonight at "cafecito" I will be letting all the girls in on the good news. We are so excited and feel very blessed that up until now everything is going very smoothly. I guess also I should feel fortunate for having a husband that accompanies me to my OBGYN visits and has so much in common with my Doctor ;)

My Nana's biscuits

So I am without a car for at least a week, probably much more. I am not quite sure what is wrong with it but Jose said the dealership said it would take a while to fix so of course we are sending it somewhere else. Ok, so I have a problem, I have places to go and many things to do. Solution public transportation easy enough right. Well when it is 100 degrees at 10:00am that complicates things, when you have a two year old (days away from being three) to tow with you that complicates things further. When you are pregnant and have a neurotic husband that thinks you shouldn't walk while pregnant that pretty much kills the whole solution. SSSSOOO what to do when you can't leave the house??? Make biscuits of course!!!

Enrique and I got out all of the ingredients and started working. I gave him a little bit of dough and he had a ball. He made Buzz (of toy story), Papa, and a dog. However, he did not like the idea of cooking them so they are sitting on my countertop where they will probably dry and be stuck there forever ;)

I feel very fortunate to have an oven that it functional here. 95% of my friends and family owns ovens but they do not work. Some of them are missing parts and all of them are used for storing tupperware and grocery bags. My mother-in-law has an oven AND it works. However, she ONLY uses it on Christmas Eve to make turkey.

I find that when I am feeling down here in Navojoa that making something in my oven immediately cheers me up. Today I made my Nana's biscuits for breakfast. When my little brother and I were young we would spend parts of our summer and winter vacations in Lindsay California with our paternal grandparents. My Nana taught me just about everything I know about cooking and baking. She did almost everything from scratch, and I thought she was the best cook around. However, if you ask my Dad he can tell you some interesting stories about childhood meals that he did not particularly enjoy. Quite a few of them involved ground beef if I recall correctly. To this day I prefer her enchiladas over any that I have eaten here in Mexico. One of my fondest food memories of her is waking up in the morning and making biscuits or waffles, hash browns, and sausage patties. At home we usually ate cereal or frozen waffles with peanut butter in the car while practicing spelling words (don't get me wrong that is also a very fond memory of mine). But breakfast at Nana and Papa's house was so different and very special for us.

It has been a while since I have made biscuits here and when I took that first bite I was transported back to Lindsay, back to my grandmother's dining room with the green carpet and billowy white curtains. Back to being so excited that we could hardly wait to start the day because whatever we were going to do it was going to be great!

How I ended up in Sonora

I grew up in southern California and now at 27 I am living with my husband and son in Navojoa Sonora. What's that? Quite a change in location you say, well yes. I ended up in Southern Sonora via Queretaro (a state in Central Mexico), hhmmmm odd. Not really. I spent my junior year studying abroad there where I met Jose Enrique Gaxiola Lopez a 25 year old also studying abroad, well not quite, studying out of state. He was getting his Masters degree in Agrarian Law and I was learning Spanish. Let's just say while dating a Mexican that does not speak any English that I learned Spanish very quickly. I still have a thick accent and probably always will but I am now 99.9999% fluent (I still have some trouble at the hardware store, tack and feed store, and with the plumber but I probably would in English as well).

I finished my year in Queretaro (2003-2004) and went home to finish at CSULB where I graduated in 2005 with a Bachelors in Chicano Latino Studies (one of the areas of study that the governor of Arizona wants to get rid of which makes me sad, I really enjoyed my time in that program). In December Jose and I got married and after a fun honeymoon in Cancun where none of the hotel workers would talk to us in Spanish we moved down to Navojoa.

Almost five years later I have a 3 year old son, Enrique, a baby on the way (due in November), a black labrador (Socrates), and a black cat (Stanley) who is due to have kittens any minute :( I am not excited about that. When she was given to us the vet told us that she was a he so his name is Stanley and he will always be a he to me ;) We all live in a big yellow house that is a work in progress but generally very comfortable.

Stick around as I muse about daily life here in Navojoa.

Jumping In

So after reading numerous blogs written by Americans and a couple Canadians about living in Mexico I decided that I just had to start writing down my adventures as well. They may not always be Aladin style adventures- mostly they will consist mundane daily life stuff- but they will usually have a twist as everything done in Mexico does ;)