Dalanie's Store

After gathering goods one evening, her store was open for business.  Hudson was her first customer.  He took advantage of her low priced candy, pencil sharpeners, and pencils.

Her best seller was the back rub punch card.  You had to pay attention to each certificate because they varied slightly and some were a better deal than others.

She was excited to hand over the piece of paper and collect the money.  Making good on her promise has been another lesson in and of itself, but she is pretty good about keeping up her end of the deal.

If there was an audit, I'm sure Delsie ate any of Dalanie's profits- quite literally.  That girl can sniff out a piece of candy tucked in the dark recesses of Dalanie's purse.  And when it's in open sight, a full-fledged feeding frenzy insues.

Overall, I think it was a pretty lucrative evening in business.  She brought in nearly $10.

It ignited a little flame within Dalanie that has been burning ever since.  She was the top seller in her class for a fundraiser.  She sold eight discount cards, helping her class win a trip to the movies.  She had developed quite a little sales pitch.  Several people commented on how cute and effective she was as a saleswoman.  She scoured the ward directory and had lists of names from her brain storming sessions.  I can't help but think that she would be an amazing missionary if she decides to do that.

She is always dreaming up business ideas and ways to make money.  It sure does make her tick.

Data, Drones, and You!

We knew that it was going to be a little crazy once we got back to Mexico, considering our annual planter clinic was in 10 days.  Our invites were supposed to go out while we were gone, but many people hadn't seen them yet.  It was a lot of time emailing and calling people.  Despite the craziness, the kids were as eager as ever to get out of school and contribute to the cause.

They were responsible for setting out pens, folders, and tootsie rolls before the meeting got underway.  During morning break, they passed out peanuts and granola bars.

The advantage of putting on your own meeting is that no one can tell you what you can or can't do.  At the beginning of the meeting, Brent had the kids come up.  He recognized them for their help and paid a tribute to them and the future of agriculture.  It was surprising how emotional he got over it.  Also, Brent has taken it upon himself to offer a blessing on the food before lunch.  The first year he did this, he was a bit apprehensive.  But now he does it regardless.  Although a majority of growers there are probably members, it's an opportunity for us to demonstrate our devotion to our Heavenly Father and religion.

We were a bit worried about the numbers since several other grower meetings were going on.  That morning we committed to 100 plates for lunch.  And they served exactly that!  During lunch I was grateful I wasn't the one over the food.  They serve lasagna, salad, and cheese toast.  

Hudson was upfront and in the thick of things all day.  He was Brent's right hand man.

A new and exciting part of the planter clinic was a drone demonstration.  We had Bret Chilcott with us from AgEagle.  He spent several days with us, training and troubleshooting.  He is a great guy and it was great to have his expertise.

Wiggle Car Fun

Sometimes you just have to create an excuse to get together with friends.  When the shop was cleaned up, we decided to have a few families over to play.  We had quite a posse of wiggle cars.  The kids loved racing and playing tag on the cars.  We also pulled out our jump ropes.

 Dalanie pulled out her snow cone maker and treated everyone to a sweet treat.

Mahekal

We had been working towards a couple's get away for awhile.  It's not that we haven't enjoyed vacations with our kids, but after being in the trenches of parenting and business owning we needed a break.  We left everything behind and set out for an adventure, just the two of us.

Saying goodbye to the ice and cold of winter.  We had a non-stop flight to Cancun.

Prior to our trip, Brent spent countless hours researching resorts and places to stay while in the Cancun/Riveria Maya area.  He finally narrowed in on Mahekal (I got a little irritated with all of his searching.  If it were me, I would have looked at a few options and booked our week.  That's the difference between us.)  Mahekal had wonderful reviews and was a small little resort with palapas and friendly service and good food.  He was a bit disappointed when after booking, learned that a disco-tech/electronic music festival was going on  during the exact same dates we were.  We decided to split the time since we  didn't know how much bumping and thumping we could take.

We did our share of walking.  There was a shopping district not far from where we were staying.  You could find anything there.  It was super touristy and worldly, but we did get awesome massages the first day there.  It was so relaxing.

On Sunday we walked to the chapel that was under construction.  Luckily, there was another family their that had a taxi to take them to the temporary meeting place.  They were nice enough to let us hop it.  The hymns were sung without accompaniment.  Listening to the entire meeting in Spanish took me back the the days in the Spanish Branch.

During church it started pouring.

We decided to catch a taxi back instead of wade through the streets.

I cannot do Mahekal justice.  It was muy tranquilo.  The offered wonderful buffets for breakfast and dinner.

The reception area and dining hall were both open air pavilions.  It was the only place for wifi, so people would congregate to check in with the outside world.

I enjoyed seeing poinsettias growing in their planters.

On Monday we decided to walk down the beach to see what it was all about.  The seaweed was thick and a real problem.  There were several crews working in front of all the different resorts to remove it.  They actually dug pits and buried it.  It true Mexico fashion, there was a lot of man power to get the job down.  Something that you wouldn't get people to do back in the states.  There would have to be some kind of equipment to take of the problem here.

It didn't matter what time it was in the day, there was always some sort of party going on in conjunction with the music festival.

We stopped for an authentic 'Mexican' meal and it was quite disappointing.

 The location was great.

The best food we had was at a place called AquaChiles.  They had lots of different sauces to try and it was fresh and flavorful.

Along the beach, there were two places that ferry went across to Cozumel.  At the southern most ferry, it was quite built up for the tourists.  We had our first taste of the Mayan culture and music.

There were vendors selling cups of fresh fruit for $1.50.  We used dollars the entire time and never exchanged for pesos.  It was generally 13/14 pesos to the dollar.

I usually just did the math on my phone, but after awhile it started messing with our minds.  There was one instance when we ended up paying more than we ever should have for some personalized bracelets.  We had to chalk it up since we walked past 5 other bracelet makers that offered to make them for 1/2 of what we paid.  Live and let learn.