It's Day 2 here in Ajijic and it's like we never left this place two years ago. We had planned to go into Guadalajara with our good friends John and Catherine to fill up the cupboards and refrigerator for the balance of our 29 day here at Casa Forster.

Guadalajara is about a 45 minutes drive to Costco but once you arrive and get inside you'd swear that you were in Costco Abbotsford - except - the hot dog and drink price at on top of was priced at 23.50 Pesos instead of $1.50 CAN$. We filled up our cart with a total of $3,350 Pesos or about $315.00 US and headed back to the house. It's a little sticker shock if you don't do the conversion as some of those big screen tv's were marked at $65,000 Peso's. Electronics are not a good deal in Mexico.

From there we headed back home to get ready for dinner at Eloy and Ginger's to watch U.S. in the World Cup. It was there that we got to see Don and Dale again. Dinner, drinks and a great blackberry dessert only complimented the U.S. tie against Portugal. Eloy is a true craftsman, just about every piece of furniture in this amazing home was made by Eloy at his charitable enterprise for local Mexican kids called "Have a Hammer". It's like a museum at their home - it's decorated in true Mexican style.

When we walked out to the rear deck to watch the sunset we saw a plant that was encased in the middle of a mesh covered frame. When we questioned whether the plant had been bad - Eloy gave us the story. Seems he's also an environmentalist. The Monarch butterfly is apparently close to extinct so they're trying to assist the repopulation efforts. He has set out in the planter about 10 "milkweed" plants - plants that apparently attract the butterflies to lay their eggs. Once the eggs are laid they are normally very popular with birds and bugs alike, so he moves them into these boxes to protect them until they turn to worm, larva and finallly into Monarch butterflies when he releases them into the world to fend for themselves.

Then there was CHEWY - their parrot. Deb didn't expect to be chased and bitten on the ankles but she steered clear for the balance of the night. After dinner, sipping some Tequila I guess I got a little mouthy. John is an avid tennis player who plays at least three days a week - apparently I've challenged him to a tennis match tomorrow at 09:00 a.m. telling him that he wouldn't be able to return my serve. I hope that what my brain remembers can be repeated on court tomorrow.

Score updates from tomorrow's match will be provided in my next blog report. It's really quite nice when you can return to a place that you haven't been in two years and take right up with people - people who have such a great heart and are so so giving.