Where to begin.....

Back Porch, Orange House, Pedasi, Panama

We had a beautiful last week in Austin!  We got to spend a lot of time with many of our dear friends and made a lot of memories.  I was especially excited to have my middle daughter Amanda join us for several of our farewell dinners.  She has grown into a beautiful young lady and I am extremely proud of her.  One of our best friends, Ken Brown even drove to Houston from Gilmer in the pouring rain on Thursday to have a last meal with us on American soil.  It was so hard to say good-bye to everyone, but we continue to look forward to having each and every one of you reading this come visit us in Panama.

Sarah and Dave Berg - the party house of the hood

MaryKay - one of the saddest to see us go

The five H's and little T!

Macy - all grown up!  When did that happen?

Book Club - too much laughter not to mention wine!  What book?

Bob and Amanda - She has so many people to love her.

Now that I have had a few good nights' sleep, I can say that all of our preparation and planning really paid off.  I am now sitting on the back porch of our little rent house in Pedasi listening to the chickens next door watching the beautiful wild birds and feeling very content.  We were able to fit our eight suitcases, four animal crates and four animals all in our rented Dodge Caravan without difficulty.  We hooked up the BAT to Suni like we were old pros and headed to the consignment lot in Spring Branch.  It was a little nerve wracking after four months in one spot, but it was just like riding a bike.  We were sad to leave our home of twenty months.  She is a good rig and will hopefully make someone else very happy soon.

After a finale celebration with dear friends we headed to Houston with a "deer in the headlights" look in our eyes to start the three day process of moving.  And yes I said eight suitcases.  We had more little squabbles about what we could and could not bring over the last few weeks than we have had in our many years together.  We finally broke it down:  one carry-on each, two checked bags each and then two additional bags that we would fill if necessary at $150 each.  Peg decided to forgo clothes and bring all of her spices, her favorite saute pan ( a birthday gift from her mom) and knives as well as her favorite cocktail glass.  I chose clothes and shoes I will probably never wear, my precious files filled with paperwork and bottles of bathroom items that were just too expensive to get rid of.  Oh and each bag needs to be less than 50 pounds or it will cost an additional $200 each!  Thanks to Mary Kay's handy dandy luggage weigher thingy all of our bags were appropriately weighted a true miracle of God!

Calcite and luggage in the minivan

We had trouble finding the Ramada Inn at the Houston airport because it has been two years since we have driven in a car without G.P.S.  Rome from the Pet Relocation company met us in the parking lot of the hotel to pick up Calcite and Zoe.  Calcite has still refused to get in her crate up to this point and we are dreading the trauma of having to force her 85 pounds into the cage.  Rome has to have the dogs in their crates for transport so we are standing outside the minivan putting the dog crates together when Peg sees a flash of black fur running across the parking lot.  Miciou has ripped through her soft carrier and escaped the van!  Rome quickly runs over to block her way to the highway and I dive under the parked car she is hiding under.  We decided to put their airline crates together asap.  When Rome is ready to go, Peg and I are in tears not wanting to say good-bye to the poochers.  He pats the inside of the crate and says "Calcite come" and she just jumps right in no questions asked.  Unbelievable!  We get ourselves all checked in with Ken's help and head to Chuy's for a finale Texas meal.  We hit the bed early as Rome says we should be at Cargo check-in at least four hours prior to allow for processing time.  We rise at 3:30 am, pack up and thanks to Ken's hair roller, try to de-animal the minivan (initial here saying no smoking or pets in the vehicle).  We drive around in the dark following the signs to the International Cargo area, but cannot find the United Airlines spot for the life of us.  We ask every live person we can find to no avail until finally we find an actual United employee who directs us to Central Cargo (instead of International Cargo).  All of our diligence pays off and the paperwork is in order so we leave the cats in their hopefully capable hands and head to the passenger terminal (after paying a small fortune).  I drop off Peg curbside with all of the bags, head to the rental car return and shuttle back to check-in.

The airline kiosk won't let us complete the check-in process and a United Rep asks us when we will be returning to which we reply "We aren't".  He says unless you have residency visas you have to have a departure ticket.  It's a Panama rule to prevent people from just staying in the country without residency.  He graciously offers to sell us a refundable ticket to Costa Rica for a whopping $800+.  Okay whatever.  Luckily we were there early enough.  We waited to board our plane on pins and needles hoping that the cats made it safely on board and the dogs were not too stressed out.  Rome let us know they were doing fine awaiting their flight and the Pet Relocation company kept us posted every step of the way.

We arrived in Panama made it through Immigration and then "hired" two hombres with carts to help us collect the luggage, get through customs, get the cats and find our transportation.  We were directed to the area where the cargo customs and immigration vet is located.  We give copies of all of the appropriate documentation, pay the fees, sign the paperwork, pay the fees again and then we pick up the cats.  I had put all of the exact change for the pet fees in an envelope to be sure there would be no problems.  The Vet was fabulous explaining all about making sure the cats had plenty of water etc.  She also knew that the dogs were coming later in the day very comforting.  I forgot to include the directions for finding our transportation in my "travel folder" so I had to pull up the emails on my phone and call the hotel.  Gabrel showed up and we headed to our hotel.  The Balboa Inn is in a residential area and run by two expats from Germany and Holland via Spain.  They were fabulously helpful.  We quickly got the cats settled and made our way to the Claro store at the mall hoping that here would be someone who spoke English to help us get our new Panamanian phones and a WiFi hot-spot.  After lots of pointing and running around... mission accomplished!  Back to the hotel where Gabrel was going to pick us up to take us back to the airport to pick up the dogs.  We were a little stressed due to the traffic (think rush hour downtown on a Friday night), but we spoke with Karena from Pet Relocation who walked the dogs through customs and all was well.  We were as happy to see the dogs as they were to see us!  We headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep with all of our butt-holes back by our side.

More to come.... sorry there aren't more pictures.  I guess I was too stressed to take them.