Around the world in 80 hours...

Okay - so we didn't go around the world....just around a few countries.

90 days comes really fast these days. As you may (or not) recall we have to leave the country every 90 days to renew our visas because we prefer to stay on the right side of the law. We have to go all the way to Belize because of the 'grouping' of several Central American countries so this makes for a long road trip. We love our truck...really we do. But after 16 hours (one way), the roads here, and the haggling at the borders; the glory of having a vehicle (plus the trailer don't forget) is waning...

The trip came about rather suddenly as you may remember we've been a bit buried in some governmental chaos. Rather distracting it was. Plus - because we never do just one major thing at a time, our house was being remodeled. (Landlords idea - NOT mine.) New floor tiles. EVERYWHERE.

Before and after shots commencing....(I can't believe I'm posting pictures online of my house in this condition...although I am slightly impressed that I can move my entire house from the various rooms it is into a space the size of my old kitchen in the states. Of course we couldn't really function like that as you will see...)

Day 1 ish...




Living room.....er....honeymoon suite....






So in amongst moving out of every room while still living here we were reading news online in Spanish, talking w/ friends and neighbors trying to get an idea of the coming wrath, so to speak. Add in trying to determine if we could get across the country to help our friends move too. Our part in that hasn't happened yet; next week. Every day we moved a new room, had 3-5 workers, landlords, friends, and family here 'helping', and tried to live in and amongst it.



It was nuts.

Thursday - a truck full of 'supplies' showing up without us realizing it was going to happen.
Saturday they started in.
Major government shake up Sunday.
Rest of the week - construction.













Alan - working some here and there when they (AH and AS) could leave town, and (AH) working on the designs of buildings and bridges. (Doesn't this look like a nice engineering office???)

Me - trying to stay sane.
Saturday night 5:30ish they finish and leave.


The floor is beautiful and will be really nice. The dust was amazing but 'vale la pena'.

So - as Alan and I are trying to move back in Saturday night....literally....we look at a calendar and realize - "SHOOT! Our visas expire during a week where we have to be here! Special needs family's food deliveries! Pastor Training School! Dentist appointments (more blog fodder for later)! Getting ready for a team coming down! Bridge meetings/plans needing to be delivered! When can we leave and still be on time with everything??? Hmmmm....tomorrow morning????????? YEP! That's it."

Oh my heck. Not to mention that there were rumors flying here there and everywhere that big stuff was going to come down. "Convenient! We'll just leave at o' dark thirty after the curfew is lifted for the night and be at the border first thing!"

Did I mention that our house was still in major disaster mode?????????? But - it's amazing what you can do when you have to. I stayed up 'till 2:30am to get everything ready and semi-put back together for two reasons. One - I didn't want to come home to THAT and two - just in case we couldn't get back, I didn't want anyone seeing THAT. Yes, I know I have a pride issue to work on.











I don't remember much of the drive out. :) Everyone did great (I guess) and when we got to the border we realized that our visas expired a week before we thought they did so we would've been in trouble had we waited. Hmmmm....timing.

So now we're home; and legal again for another 90 days mas o menos. We are unpacking, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and finding out how thing are here after a week being gone. We'll let you know when we figure it out. For now go to the La Gringa's link on the side bar. She's able to stay on top of things better than we are.

These next couple of weeks will be busy as all that stuff listed above will commence shortly (tomorrow). Thankfully I don't have a construction project to balance at the same time; at least I don't think so.

Faith