Very, very hectic few weeks for us here! I totally jinxed our "good luck" with the rental carts when we first broke down while my dad was visiting. I swapped out carts when headlights or parking breaks went out, but up until my dad's visit, we had not experienced a total breakdown. On one of his last days here, it died by the high school and we had to call to be rescued/have a new cart deliv ...

Last week was a race to get things done before our first guest, my dad, arrived on Thursday. The villa needed a deep cleaning, we wanted to set up the bed back in the third bedroom (mostly because the mattress was leaned up against the sliding glass door in the "guest bedroom"/Nathan's office) and general decluttering. We have an unholy amount of linens as we need 18 towel sets and 9 bedding ...

Back at it another week... Last Thursday was Ethan's birthday, our oldest; he turned 24. Today is my mom's birthday, and also her twin's, Joyce, who we unexpectedly lost last October, so today has been fairly mopey. It's tough not being around the ones you love, especially on important dates.  In honor of Ethan's birthday, we had dinner at a restaurant he would enjoy - Oh! Bombai! by the ai ...

If the code is still showing in the below article, my deepest apologies. I have reached out to my web host to resolve the issue. You may read the same article for free on my Medium blog by following this link: We Expatriated the US Six Months Ago - Here's How It's Going   <p>&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;Today m ...

Last Wednesday I made arrangements to walk a home constructed by the new builder I met with, directly with the client - he (Ed) had offered as much on the builder's Facebook page. His home is WAAAAY south by Playa de Sala, about a 40-minute drive. If you have been following our adventure, the builders we have met with to date have been at least one of the below:1. Astronomically expensive - o ...

Last Monday afternoon, I drove out to meet with the foreman of the lot-clearing crew to reiterate the scope of work we all agreed to. The meeting went well, and then it rained and/or was insanely windy the rest of the week, meaning no further progress has occurred. While our water heater looks somewhat new, it also seems to be leaking in the room it is stored in, and our hot water is getting ...

Welcome back, here is an update from last week! Monday morning I woke up feeling not quite right; not nauseous, but not right. Something was "off" with my stomach and I wanted to SLEEP. No fever, no bird-flu symptoms, just super-fast digestion if I ate anything - and I wasn't very hungry. Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, I easily took 3-hour naps AND slept 8-10 hours at night. Nathan was entirely f ...

Time is absolutely flying by - I feel like I wake up and before I know it, it's 2:30. I do the same things every morning - feed the cats, clean their boxes, make ice cubes, do the night's dishes, maybe make coffee (to fridge for Nathan's iced coffee in the mornings), pick up around the house, water/check on the outside plants, and then try to prioritize the rest of my day. This past week thre ...

I've been slacking a bit with the holidays but will be back to our regularly-scheduled programming now! On the 30th, we parked for dinner and our curiosity got the best of us - we see random, small, mostly windowless buildings that say, "Games" on them, and peeked into one on a side street - it was a small casino! After dinner we popped in for a little entertainment - it had at most 20 machi ...

Our "Tax-Free Weekend" was not the Supermarket Sweep I had anticipated - I forgot the swatch for my blue paint, and Comex didn't have a concrete coating that Nathan wanted - yet. It should be in-country by mid-January. I'll have to go back this weekend (tax-free weekend #2 of 2) to get white and blue paint and probably more roof sealant. At $75BZ per gallon, may as well slather that stuff on. ...