Hi Y'all.
What happens to a blog when you forget what it is called and can't remember where you put it??? Let me tell you!! It gets ignored until a light bulb moment three years later when you suddenly remember what it was called.
So I am back and boy have we been busy since my last post. I checked out my last post to see where we were and have been surprised by how much we have done since there.
I left off when we were in Florida waiting for Bryce. We had a fabulous time travelling Florida and shared our Christmas with Lynne, Ron (from Waynesville, NC) and their family in Jacksonville, Fl.
We then left for Livingston where we caught up with some friends then visited Fredericksburg, Tx. Gorgeous place although 5 inches of snow on the ground one morning was not our idea of fun.
From there we went to Big Bend NP for a few days which was a real eye-opener!. It was bitterly cold and the Rio Grande is no longer very 'Grande'. The only water that flows into the river is what comes from springs in Texas. No water comes from New Mexico where the river originates. Mexicans can just walk across the river and back again, leaving their little trinkets for tourists to purchase. Although we were told not to buy anything as we could be charged and fined $5000 for importing illegal goods.
After Big Bend we found our way back to Arizona where we left the RV and truck in storage as we were joining our friends Kelli and Don on a 17 day cruise from Long Beach to Santiago, Chile.
The cruise was unbelievable with stops at Cabo San Lucas, Huatulco, Guatemala City, Lima and Valparaiso. And something I didn't know - Panama hats do not originate from Panama but from Ecuador. We had a fabulous time on the ship and at each stop. We spent a couple of days in Santiago before flying back to Los Angeles and then home to Perth.
I am trying to keep this short but we came home to an absolutely devastating situation. Our house sitters had left us with debts, destruction to our block and to items in the house. They had also drunk all Norm's red wines and my French champagne. We were shattered and Norm vowed that we would never go away for that length of time again. Me - I just wanted to sell up and move to somewhere else that we could just lock and leave and not have to worry about house sitters in the future.
We gave it a lot of thought and decided that, as we were going to sell and downsize in a few years, we may as well do it now so we spent some time tidying up and fixing things, doing some painting and getting the house ready for sale.
Needless to say it didn't sell and we felt as though we had put our lives on hold. Norm had a hip replacement during this time and recovered extremely well.
We decided to put the house in the hands of another real estate agent while we went off to the USA for a few months to catch up with friends and have a good time.
As the time for our departure drew near I started to do some packing. I just had a belief that this agent was going to sell the house while we were away. I organised the settlement agent, the packing and removal and storage of all our belongings (if it should sell). Norm thought I was silly and the agent was worried I was expecting too much of him!! LOL
So it was off to the US in August 2014 for us at pretty short notice. We were both glad to get away again.
More to come tomorrow!! I am determined to get this caught up to date. Caio family and friends!
