Time to catch you guys up.

Hello!  Hope everyone is enjoying the Holiday season.  


Let's see, where do I begin?  I have so much to catch you up on.  I guess I'll back track a little bit to our trip in Texas which by the way was very short.  I hate that we were not able to visit with many friends or family.  Bob told me before we left Mazatlan that our trip to Houston wasn't going to be a "social" trip and he was right.  But we did meet our goal of unloading our storage unit, repacking items and bought new items for our return to Mazatlan.  Since we are now residences of Mexico we are able to bring all our household items across the border duty free which is a great thing.  Let me tell ya; electronics and appliances are very expensive here.  Sheets and towels are not the quality we're used to back in the States and costly.  


Bob & I debated heavily on whether or not to pay someone to truck our stuff to Maz or do it ourselves.  My vote was to pay someone.  Bob of course insisted that we buy a "box truck" and drive it ourselves.  As we all know...Bob normally gets what he wants.  We bought a 14 ft box truck from a good friend of ours, Pete.  Thank you, Pete!  


It took Bob 2 full days to pack the truck up.  14ft is quite small when you're loading washer, dryer, refrigerator, 3 pc. couch set, patio furniture and 100 boxes of miscellaneous stuff.  Bob is the "Master" of piecing all the puzzle together and making it all fit.  


Our biggest fear was the border crossing.  We've heard horror stories of trucks needing to be unloaded so Customs & Border Patrol could go thru all the items.  I just mentioned it took Bob 2 days to load.  Well, what can I say; we were blessed.  Absolutely no hassles.  They didn't even ask us to open the trailer.  The Border Patrol was happy with the list I had prepared which listed all the items we had in the truck.  They took that and waved us on.  Amazing!  You know what else was amazing?  The drive.  And of course our little boy, Reece.


Reece was a trooper!  We flew him to Houston (in the belly of the plane) which I was a nervous wreck about.  Since we used mileage; we had a 3 hour layover in Mexico City.  It was a long day for our boy in a crate (10 hours) and he was awesome.  My biggest fear was him not making the connecting flight.  Well, Bob, my internet genius had read some tips on flying with pets.  And this is great advise for anyone flying with their pets.  


We bought a box of chocolates, printed out a small picture of Reece, attached it to the box, and wrote a note to the captain that we were traveling with our pet.  If he would please check on him to make sure he was on the flight with us, that it would be greatly appreciated.  Let me tell ya...that worked out fabulous for us.  The flight attendant located us and said, "Reece was aboard and he was doing well."  That made all the difference in the world to me.  I was able to relax a bit and at the end of the day, he was a happy go lucky dog.  No problems.  And as for the drive to Mazatlan (3 day journey)  Reece was perfect.  He LOVES riding in a car/truck.  We really lucked out with this little fellow.  


Now, that we have all our possessions in Mazatlan we still don't have our condo ready.  The finishing touches have been really slow.  We won't get into all the issues but we are having them redo a lot of things that just don't meet our expectations.   It could be any day now or who knows; it could be after Christmas.  I'll have to keep you posted on that.


We want to Thank Gilda, Kuno, Maria and Caitlin; they flew over for 2 days visit.  Love seeing you guys and glad you used your flying privileges to come to Maz.  Come see us more often.  


In the meantime, our calenders are filled with activities.  Mazatlan is waking up and lots more snowbirds are filling the streets.  Just like back home; this is the time of year of Holiday Cheer.    


Merry Christmas and much love,
Bonnie y Bob