Yes, it’s been awhile. My apologies. I went from being housebound to a lot of excitement, and before I knew it 23 days had passed since my last post!! But don’t worry, I’ve got my notes all organized and will be breaking things up. (This post is from January 25 – 28)

Once Ken returned he made sure I was properly resting, so much so that I wasn’t allowed to even go to the pool! I mean, I get it. An injured wife involves a lot of extra work for the husband. He’s really just looking out for all of us. Needless to say, we ordered a lot of pizza. Eventually I wore him down, and using a system Noah and I devised, I was able to get to the pool! Basically I sent Noah as a scout with a towel. If there was an empty chair, he claimed it, ran back, I got dressed, and made my way. This worked out relatively well. During this time, Ken and Noah were always on the look out for monkeys, birds, and iguanas – as usual.

As I gained mobility the cooking and cleaning became my jobs again. Lucky me… This involved three critter encounters. The first happened on Thursday, January 25. I was putting dishes away, cooking dinner, the usual, and in the glass cabinet a “sun spider” (also called a “wind scorpion”… not much better) was staring me in the face. I shut the cabinet and went about my business until Ken came home and caught it in Noah’s bug catcher.

The second was the night of January 24th. Ken was on his computer, I was on the couch, and we saw a shadow fly across the sliding door.  Originally we believed it to be a bat. It was huge! After opening the curtain we realized it wasn’t a bat, but rather a LARGE grasshopper.

A few mornings later (January 28th to be exact), while I was folding the towels we used the day before at the pool, I felt something poke my leg. I had some tingling and burning, but couldn’t find a mosquito on my pajamas or anything. As I lifted the towel again to fold it I noticed it. A scorpion. On the towel. The towel must have brushed my leg, allowing the little bugger to poke me. Luckily for me the towel hadn’t lingered on my leg, or the sting would have been pretty bad. I placed the towel on the kitchen chair, said (very calmly), “Kenneth, there is a scorpion on that towel, I need you to handle it. I’m freaking out.” We again caught it in the bug catcher (this was one of the best gifts Noah got for Christmas… thanks Santa!).

Once we all calmed down from that experience, we were off! For the first time since Ken arrived back home on January 21st, I was leaving the condo complex in a CAR. To DO something. To be honest, I didn’t care what it was but it just so happened to be a rodeo. After lunch at our local casado place, we drove two minutes away to a small arena where the rodeo was being held.

If you’ve ever been to a rodeo in the states or seen bull riding on tv, this was not that. The arena was half existing, half makeshift. As I hobbled up the wooden steps, to the wooden stands housing a substantial number of people, Ken and I both agreed: Alfred and Alberto would not be happy with the craftsmanship of this structure. We were “safe,” but I wouldn’t have gone back at night with even more people packing the stands.

The next thing we noticed were the number of people in the ring. Let me clarify, not people, adolescent BOYS. There were at least 40 in the ring. I thought that they were between rides and these guys were there to… do… something? But nope. They stayed in the ring as the next rider erupted out of the gate on a bull. They stayed as the rider held on and bucked around. And when the rider dismounted, they stayed to TAUNT THE BULL!!!! Ken assured me that the announcer made it clear “young children” weren’t allowed in the ring, and the announcer threatened to have the security remove the “young children,” but their rules of no young children didn’t apply to these adolescents. Thankfully while we were there no one was injured. There were a few close calls, for sure, but no one got hurt. I can’t say the same for the other nights. In looking at various posts on social media I saw many of the same adolescents run over by horses (cowboy wranglers) and trampled by bulls.

It was interesting to watch Noah watching the rodeo. We didn’t explicitly say that we were shocked or bothered by the boys in the ring, but Noah was clearly uncomfortable with it. We all recognized this wasn’t safe or something we would do ourselves, but we all enjoyed experiencing something that, locally, was cherished and revered. To be honest, I was just glad to leave the house. 🙂

Here’s a few extra shots from this week – since we didn’t leave the complex much, Noah spent a lot of time in his PJ’s… and as usual there are tons of animals!