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.

We made it!

Just a quick note to say that we all made it to Panama City safe and sound.  The dogs and cats are all happy and healthy, eating and drinking.  We are packing up this morning for our 4 plus hour drive to our rental house in Pedasi.  We successfully purchased Panamanian phones and a hotspot yesterday so we will post again later this weekend with all of the details.

Love and miss you all.

The Panamanian Twins

Counting down

March 8, 2014

We are making fantastic progress in getting ready for the big move.  Now that the pet transportation is resolved we move on to logistics and documentation.  We were able to file our federal tax return jointly as a married couple for the first time!  Woo hoo.  Perfect timing since I am living off my sugar-mama and had no income.  Hope this puts a stop to the annoying IRS letters we receive every year.

Here is a short-list of what we have been working on...

Mail:  Panama does not have a mail service - they don't even have addresses.  Our new house is the bright orange house in gringo village down from the high school.  As it is impossible to exist as an American without an address we have found a mail forwarding company which will receive our mail, scan it and email it to us. This works great for day to day correspondence.  They will even throw out junk mail and deposit checks if any arrive.  Once we get to Panama we will get a box at a Mail Boxes etc. location to receive packages or anything that we have to physically have (i.e. credit cards etc).  It is very expensive to ship and receive packages so no more Amazon for me!  Thanks again to Pat and Carol for putting up with our endless stream of mail over the last two years.

Phone: We will be purchasing new Panamanian cell phones when we get there, but these are really only to be used to call Panamanian numbers.  Our existing AT&T phone would work to call the U.S. but at $2.90 per minute not to mention the monthly plan fees it is not cost effective.  So,  we now have a new Skype phone number.  We have unlimited calling to and from the U.S. for only $8 per month.  We have been trying it out so if you get a call from a strange number it could be us :).

Banking: Who knew getting to your own money could be so hard.  We found out that T.R.S. will not deposit Peg's retirement check into a foreign bank account.  So after researching all of our options we have decided to continue to receive her income into our U.S. bank and just wire transfer money to Panama as we need it.  We were able to set up a recurring wire which means we just call in and away it goes.

Health Insurance: We have now gone through the approval process for two different international health insurance companies and been approved without any exemptions for coverage at less than $300 per month for both of us.  We submitted a cancellation notice to TRS-Care and are still trying to figure out how to cancel my Humana Obama-care.  There is no way to cancel on-line!

Visas: We submitted fingerprints to the FBI for our background criminal checks and both received clear reports.  These then had to be submitted to the Panamanian Consulate in Houston for authentication.  We sent these express mail in the hopes of getting them back before we leave.  We can stay in Panama with a tourist visa for six months until we have to leave so we are hoping to start the visa process as soon as we get there.  If it takes longer than six months I guess we will go to Costa Rica - not a bad option.

The Lasts:  Now it is time for the lasts.... last haircut, last RV space rent payment, last hood dinner, last book club, last Nex family dinner, last meal at Flores, last happy hour with friends etc.  I am tearing up as I write this, but every new beginning comes after an ending.

Travel Schedule:  We pick up the rental car on Wednesday the 26th.  We drive Suni-Bat to our "wheel-estate" agent at Spring Branch RV for the consignment sale.  We spend our last night at the Hotel De'Scheppner with all four butt-holes and six suitcases.  Morning of the 27th we drive to Houston, drop off the dogs at their comfort station and stay in a pet-friendly hotel with the cats.  On the 28th we drop off the cats at cargo at 6 am, turn in our rental car and head to our flight.  We arrive in Panama City at 1 pm get the cats through customs and head to our pet-friendly hotel in the city to wait for the dogs.  We pick up the dogs at 8 pm and get a very restful night's sleep.  On Saturday morning our shuttle service will pick us up in two cars to drive us 4 1/2 hours to our new home in Pedasi.  Whew!

On a completely different note... Alex and Jacob closed on their very first home in McKinney and I was able to brave the weather to drive up to spend a couple of days with them.  It is a great house and I know they will make many happy memories there in the coming years.  I am one proud mama.

We are still trying to figure out the best way to get our new address and phone number to everyone who wants it.  Please email me and I will send it privately for now.

They are called butt-holes for a reason

February 20, 2014

Well the moving frenzy has begun.  The "to do" list a quickly moving target that we attack with a vengeance every morning.  We have renewed Peg's passport, applied for international health insurance, ordered our FBI reports, received our TRS income verification letter needed for Peg's visa, taken all four animals to the vet for vaccinations (has to be less than six months but more than one month before travel), fixed the minor trailer boo boos, put the trailer up for sale, and bought more luggage (thank you Goodwill).  The biggest chore so far has been figuring out how to get the butt-holes to Panama.  For those of you that don't know the story....

A good friend of ours overheard a little girl repeatedly asking her mother for a new pet... first a kitten, then a hamster, turtle etc.  The mother says no over and over until finally saying "What have I told you?"  to which the girl replies "No more butt-holes".  We love this story and have been calling our animals butt-holes ever since.

Well we had done our homework and knew all of the forms we needed etc.  A health certificate has to be signed and dated within 10 days of travel and has to be authenticated by the Panamanian consulate in Houston.  We didn't realize that the cargo charges for the animals are basically the same price as a seat and that everyone charges $30 to "authenticate" the health certificate (USDA and consulate). We also knew we wanted a non-stop flight because we certainly didn't want to worry about our animals missing a connection.  We determined the only non-stop flight to Panama from Texas that arrives before the airport vet office closes at 3:00 pm is a United flight from Houston.  So we call United to be sure they will let us "check" two dogs and "carry on" two cats and yes a maximum of four animals can be transported, but Panama doesn't allow animals to be "carried on".  So I call the cargo line and proceed to get our animals booked.  I am then told two things that have prevented us from sleeping for a week.  First, we can only book a cargo reservation for two animals and have to call three days before the flight to see if there is still room for the other two.  Secondly the crate must have 3" of headroom clearance and the crate we have for Calcite is the largest that will fit through the cargo door of the plane that goes to Panama.  So if she doesn't fit in that crate she doesn't fit on the plane!  WHAT?  We both spent a few sleepless nights trying to talk ourselves into getting rid of at least a couple of these butt-holes, but we can't do it.  We just love them too much. So in an effort to figure out if the crate we have will work we reached out to a pet relocation company here in Austin.  They generously offered to look at Calcite in her crate to determine if it would work.  NOPE.  Not gonna work.  This company is amazing!  The staff was completely knowledgeable about relocating pets and actually have business partners at the Houston "comfort station" and at the Panama airport.  We have never felt so relieved to find a solution.  They also informed us that the bigger plane that will fit Calcite's crate is flying through March 31st so we are moving our departure date up to March 28th.  We will be on one flight with the cats and the dogs will come in a few hours later on a different flight.

Calcite's new larger crate takes up the entire living room.

We have had one couple come look at the trailer and we are still hopeful they might buy it.  If anyone needs a beautiful 5th wheel trailer or Ford F350 truck please let us know!

The next adventure begins

We headed to Panama with a huge to do list and armed with just enough information to be crazy dangerous.  We had achieved the amazing feat of opening a bank account in Panama during our last visit in the summer of 2012.  I know what you are thinking.... open a bank account?  How hard can that be?  Well in Panama you have to have a sponsor introduce you to the bank manager, who interviews you in person wanting to know how much money will be coming in and out, then submit several reference letters from two banks, an accountant and a lawyer.  After about a month we heard we were accepted as a bank customer and our account was opened.  The purpose of this visit is to get on-line access to our account and a debit card both of which have to be done in person.  Luckily we found an English speaking bank representative to help complete these tasks.  We arrived for our 10:00 am appointment at 8:45 am to meet Eva who had no idea that we had an appointment :).  After two hours of Spanglish we had on-line access and had ordered a debit card which would be ready by the end of the week for us to pick up.  Yeah Us.

The next few days were filled with a Panama City tour, meeting with a residency lawyer, an international mover, health insurance representative and renting a car so we could drive to Los Islotes and Pedasi.  The most difficult and challenging task facing us in our move to a foreign language speaking country is...... driving in the city!  OMG!  No lanes, no blinkers, no manners, no street signs, too many cars, lots of honking and no idea where we are going!

Panama Canal so amazing

Two toed sloth hanging in the city

View of Panama City

 We were thrilled to get to Los Islotes to see the progress that has been made in the last year to our future neighborhood.  We were able to drive to our new address, see the beautiful ocean view that will be ours and meet with an architect and builder to discuss our new home!  We were part of a group of 25 people touring the property some of which like us had already purchased a lot and others just checking it out.  It was great fun spending time with the developer Leif Simon and his team of great people as well as our new neighbor Patricia.

The swimming beach in our hood

The surfing beach in our hood

View from our lot - yep that is the ocean

Our architect and builder

We then made the two hour drive to the town of Pedasi to meet with some real estate professionals to see if we could find a house to rent.  We fell in love with a cute little house with a nice backyard right in town.  It is a fully furnished two bedroom and will be our home for three months starting April 1st.  With that chore out of the way we spent the next day touring the town, beaches and grocery stores.  We had a beautiful celebratory dinner on the beach with our friends Pat and Kim.  And to drive the point home of why Panama.... we had four appetizers, lobster dinners, two desserts, cocktails and wine all for $100!

Our new home

Our new backyard

Dinner on the beach

It was a fabulous productive trip.  A very special thanks to our dear friends the Scheppners for putting up with our two dogs for twelve days and our new friends Cindy and Lawton here in the RV park for taking great care of our kitty's.  Now the daunting task of getting everyone moved.