Motorcycle Adventures

Kyle bought the Italika 150 before Christmas and we have loveloveloved the many mini-treks we’ve been able to take on it. We’ve been limited to an hour radius from Melaque, mostly due to the discomfort experienced after an hour on the bike, it isn’t exactly a touring bike. But what fun within an hour from home!

Looks good right?

our secret sunset spot.

we have gotten lost a few times…

found some wind!

amazing vistas!

We’ve flipped over rocks and seen some weird sea creatures under them, and like true interior-forests-and-fresh-water-folk, we freaked out.

It has been a real treat having our own “wheels” while we are down here. It broadened our horizons and made our experience richer.

So these days we are packing up the cafe and our stuff for the summer. This summer we are both working at Rockridge Canyon, in Princeton B.C.. Kyle will be in the maintenance department and I will be in the bakery. We are really looking forward to our second summer and being closer to family!

What are you anticipating from your summer?

Today

Something significant happened this weekend at the cafe, we ditched Sunday lunch/brunch. Forever. The coffee and baked goods are doing so well that we don’t need to continue putting on a rather delicious meal on Sundays to lure folks into the cafe. Most people who walk in these days say “We’ve been hearing all about you!”. Word of mouth is good advertising!

So no Sunday brunch means that I win 4-6 hours of time that was spent prepping on Saturday, PLUS the time we spent planning and cooking up these fabulous meals, PLUS the time I spent dreading all the work at the end of the week. It is awesome. Very minor change of life but I feel so invigorated! I made apple butter today! I took pictures! Just to share with you, mi amigos.

This is how I start my morning; yawning, stumbling about slamming oven doors too loudly, mixing together coffeecakes, muffins, and scones, not really cheerfully either I must say for the first hour and a half. But then, miraculously, Mr. Wonderful, mi esposa, makes me the first latte of the day and generally things perk up a bit after that.

Here he is, the man of my dreams and life. With mucho hair.

This is a Blackberry Crumbcake, one of the most popular dishes in the cafe. One of my favorites.

Today Alexa walked me through Potato Caraway Bread, which is oh-so-yummy-in-your-tummy. She is the bread master.

The finished product. Soooosososo delicious toasted with butter! yummo.

Then Kyle and I did the grocery shopping for tomorrow, ate tacos from Pedros, watched a parade, I made two key-lime-pies, prepped for the morning, and had a swig of Baileys. Oh, and a shower, because the water is hot.

Hope you all had a lovely day as well! Buenas Noches!

High Season

All right, my bad, its been a little while since I’ve put up a new post! What would you like to know? Someone asked how the weather has been lately down here, and surprisingly it hasn’t been completely sunny, humid, and hot. We’ve actually had a few days of an overcast sky with some tinkles of rain. The slightest dip in temperature and hint of some sort of winter-ish weather finds us immediately bundling in the first long sleeve shirt we’ve worn in four months, adding an extra blanket to the bed, making soup and sipping hot chocolate. Its a short lived sense of coziness and comfort, as the next day is usually extra humid (thanks rain) and a scorcher.  The humidity has decreased a little bit, maybe 10-20% during this Mexican ‘winter’ season, which is giving us these amazing sunsets!

January and February are known as the “high season” around here. Gringos and Canadians are flocking into town. Which is great for business. We certainly have our noses to the grindstone, making hay while the sun shines! Our baking recipes have doubled, the roaster is going almost everyday of the week, and our days off are extremely precious.

The Boys (Kyle and Ben) have been working hard developing two new blends of coffee that we are offering. Our green bean coffee comes from Chiapas, Tepic, Oaxaca, and Vera Cruz, all Mexican coffees.

There has been a lot of this being served up these days; latte art, a symbol of excellent coffee! Kyle is very driven to get a perfect product to our customers consistently. I know that even in this cup you see below, he sees something amiss with it and will be improving the next one.

We had to upgrade our espresso machine from a single grouphead, to a double grouphead machine to keep up with business. At first when every seat in the cafe was taken and people where standing and waiting for a seat to open up for them to come in we were a little shocked, but we have adapted well and are becoming increasingly efficient and competent at our jobs and a big day like that doesn’t slow us down.

This is Kyle’s action stance when the rubber hits the road at 8am:

I hope these posts aren’t getting too redundant for you, what would you like to hear about? see pictures about?

The fullness of life!

Our life has been extra full lately. The work at the cafe does not just end when we close at 2:00pm. Kyle and Ben might be roasting for around two hours some nights when the sun goes down and it is cool out, Alexa and I do grocery runs, catch up on dishes, and prepare cinnamon buns most evenings. These are the things that have to happen to make the cafe function on a daily basis, and there is this unending list of other things that would make not only the cafe better but also our lives better such as putting up a Christmas tree, decorating for Christmas, calling family, cleaning the bathroom, doing the laundry…you get my drift. We feel like we could be busy every moment of the day. There is a healthy amount of stress driving us to mop the floors on our days off, treat the tables with bug repellent stuff during our closed hours, and makes signs in the down time. So we don’t always get to go to the beach everyday to enjoy the sun and the ocean, and sometimes a trip out for pleasure has to be combined with business, but you know, when I think about waking up at 6:15 in the morning to bake something fresh and put the cinnamon buns in the oven, I actually look forward to it! God is good.

Life is not only full these days with tasks and work, but also full to the brim with many joys! Here are a few of the things we have been enjoying lately:

Kyle got his motorbike!! He has been stashing money away for a long time for this. He looks very serious and macho here but inside he is ecstatic! He was glowng for days. An Italika 150, great for beer runs, trips to the beach, and picking up groceries!

We found a Miniture Schnauzer for sale and scooped her up. We have talked forever about getting a dog but kept putting it off waiting for life to become more ideal to introduce a dog into our life, but life is never going to be ideal for a dog, so we just went ahead and got one. A small dog, but she can travel with us in a plane and keep up with our semi-nomadic life! Her name is Pippa. Too cute.

As Kyle says, we have the cutest household around! Cute puppy, cute baby, cute place!

We really enjoy Ayden (Ben & Alexa’s little boy) and feel very blessed that we get to share life with him and watch how he changes everyday!

We’ve enjoyed some beautiful scenery with great company

The boys try to get to the beach as much as possible after closing time to body surf, they are getting pretty good at it.

As you can see, we aren’t all work and no play. We’ve been trying to get into the Christmas spirit too and even have a live tree in the cafe. I keep comparing this Christmas season with our last Christmas in Garden Hill and marveling at what a different place we are in this year. Last year I was battling adjusting to the lack of sun and Vitamin D in my life, we were both busy with work, and Christmas was spent by ourselves in Garden Hill and we felt pretty lonely. This year, I am getting a very healthy dose of Vitamin D everyday, we are both loving our work, we are spending the advent season with great friends and Christmas with family, we feel so blessed.

A Day Off.

We’ve had another amazing week at the cafe! We are getting into the groove of things and this new rhythm of life.

Some of the things that are becoming part of our daily life include shopping at the market. Fresh food comes in on Wednesday and Saturday, we usually do some big produce trips on those days and then back on forth throughout the week for other things like flour, eggs, and milk.

We keep the cafe looking good. Here it is set up for brunch on Sunday. We make a pretty good spread!

Here is the espresso machine that the guys are keeping busy with. Word has it we have the best coffee in town!

This week our friend Jacque finished up our logo on the wall, it looks pretty snazzy!

Francois (previously referred to as Franchesco), has been getting gutsy and creeping around more.

Kyle has been researching how to tame an iguana….oh bother.

A picture of the crew on our first Sunday Brunch day and the last work day of our busy first week!

I am so proud of us and our little cafe!

We are enjoying a few days off before we start up our work week again. I FINALLY completed moving out of my suitcase!! A very momentous occasion for me, we have been here for three weeks already! Tomorrow we are headed to a beach with some good company to relax and enjoy Mexico.

Time to reminisce.

Things are finally settling down. Kyle and I are sitting down at 8 o’clock in the evening with our respective interests; he is reading a coffee book named “Coffee Basics”, and I am researching food ideas for brunch on sunday. A beer for him and a glass of vino for her.

In fact, I’ve even had time to reflect! I’ve noticed that lack of snow, and the many facebook comments and photos from friends and family up north talking about snow falling, christmas trees being set up, and a general settlying into the coziness of winter. Ifeel like a true Canadian wishing I was there for winter! I would love to feel the warmth and weight of added blankets on the my bed, my rabbit fur slippers from Garden Hill, enjoying a hot beverage without sweating, making comforting soups and apple crisp….I am filled with longing for these things and more.

I remember waiting for the bus at the end of my Grannie’s driveway when I was a little girl. If I was at Grannie’s during the school year it usually meant that one of my siblings was being born. It was still pitch black dark at 7:30am, and it was snowing those big beautiful flakes that will always remind me of Prince Goerge. The pickup lights bounced  off of the flakes and when I stared into them I would feel myself falling into the vortex of swirling snow. We sat there waiting for the bus, starring at the snow, and I cracked into the white mints Grannie always packed in my lunch for me. It was golden.

What is your golden winter memory?

back to work again…

Here we are in day two of having the shop open. It has been great to meet new people and get more involved in the “scene” down here. It is a relief to have the shop open now and to be finally just doing it. There was a bit of a crunch to get everything ready for opening day, but we did it! Now we can tweek things a bit.

I’m trying to remember to take photos in the midst of  the busy days, and for today it is mostly pictures of food. Truthfully, we are trying to tempt you all to come on down here and have one of those cinnamon buns and the best damn coffee you’ve ever had…

Now, aren’t you just dying to come down?