A measure of Goodwill

A good will wedding!

Two of our friends who are avid Goodwillers, decided to get hitched at Goodwill in Tempe

This past week.  (on Valentine's Day actually)

They sent out invites to a "scavenger hunt"  and after the teams were divied up and everybody had their items collected and the winners were announced....they broke out the news that there was going to be a wedding!!

(I had insider info that this was happening....I kinda knew the officient..;-)

Elvis even showed up

Group of friends

Tommy and Lia Noble

The wedding party

Following that celebration, we walked over to Sweet Tomatoes for the "reception" and then loaded up and headed to the Kiwanis park for some outdoor fun.

Boys' paddleboat

Girls paddleboat

Silly Girls

Selfie with the boys

Fog along coast

A couple weeks ago we had crazy amounts of fog for about a week.

It was the thickest fog I had ever seen. Every morning, driving in was an adventure.

It varied also where I saw it.  Sometimes it would be thick in Mexico going up the Libre

and sometimes it would be light in Mexico and then thick when I got into CA.

Unpredictable.

These are all from the city that I work in.  The fog was just light on the freeway and as soon as I got off and down into the city, thick!

about a quarter mile off the freeway.

A block before my work

The street I work on

Then a few days after that I was coming home from work and when I dropped down from the border heading west to Playas, all of a sudden there was a dense fog.  It was unbelievable.  I could not see too far in front of me and when I was driving down the coast, no ocean view.  Sun was not even visible.

When I got back to our neighborhood, same dense fog.  It was definitely a crazy afternoon.

Road to Playas.  (I have never known the name of this road...)

Before toll booth

Toll road

That should be a view of the ocean

Looking up the hill into our neighborhood

Saturday morning Uno game

No Staging...ever

This is what a typical Sunday morning looks like in the Bartley house.
This IS what our house looks like.
I did not arrange anything or set it up to look like anything other than our daily life.

I didn't even crop any of the photos....Happy Sunday!  Hope everyone enjoys the superbowl!

Pancakes on the griddle

Moogly watching the pancakes

Kids on Lego Digital Design, Bryce answering email and Jesse napping...

Giving Back

Mexico is a very poor country in many places....VERY poor.  

Devastatingly poor.

  Mexico poor make our poor look middle class.....

There are many opportunities to help in Mexico.

You could help daily by just handing a few pesos to a beggar (thousands of opportunities for that)

There are a large number of American supported charities also.

Flying Samaritans is a group of Americans and Mexicans dedicated to 

providing free healthcare to those in Mexico who cannot afford it.

This group is made up of a variety of healthcare professionals 

(doctors, nurses, dentists, etc.) They all volunteer their time freely for weekend clinics in 

rotating areas of the Baja California peninsula to provide their services.

Even if you have no healthcare back ground you can volunteer to help with 

clerical or translation stuff

There is a group of people who also donate time, food, clothing and blankets to the homeless population at the Tijuana canal along the border.  A lot of these men and women are deportees who are now stranded in limbo due to lack of identification or resources.  There is a church and volunteer group that offer them

showers, food, temporary shelter, computer to check email and phone to call family that at many time does not even know where they are.

Then there are the children of Tijuana who have done nothing other than chanced to be born

into a drug addicted family situation.  

There are several orphanages in Tijuana, Otay and Tecate that help these children.

Leigh became involved last year with one of the orphanages that a friend of ours is active with.

She wrapped dozens of gifts for their Christmas party in December

Judy, Leigh's inspiration and friend of ours

Riding a fire truck with kids

Fast friends despite a bit of a language barrier at times!

So yesterday, she helped Judy make about 50 sandwiches and then spent the night with Judy before we all drove up to the barrio, where the orphanage is located, and accompanied them to the interactive museum in Tijuana,  El Trompo.  The museum was cool and the kids had a great time!

When we got to the orphanage, the kids were hugging Leigh and calling "Hola Leigh!"

She was able to converse with them minimally in Spanish and introduce her 'madre' and 'hermano'

to the kids.  The goal of today was to let these kids just play all day at the museum and 

also it was a fundraiser to raise money to send the kids to a great private school.

Before the event, they had enough money to send 3 kids for a full year.

I'm betting that after today's event, quite a few more will be able to go!

kids and volunteers

Fun with bubbles

More fun with bubbles

Shorty Rossi from Pitboss is also really involved in this cause..