Man, I miss México. It was an awesome thing to have Lynn with us many if not most evenings to describe México and cultura Mexicana. From life in the working class Mexican neighborhood of the apartments, to the doings of the cartels in places like Culiacán, Durango, Jalisco, and the individual neighborhoods close to us, to the culture of the albañiles who remodeled the apartments and are remodeling our house on the hill to the neighborhood convenience store that was willing to sell us a single egg or a single stick of celery. We are grateful for our seven months in México and are very much looking forward to spending some months every year with our family in Nuevo Leon.
I am putting this picture of the house further up the hill from the apartments to show that its progress continues to move forward even though it is at a bit of a slow pace. All the apartments but one down the hill are now leased for a couple of years and Lynn is working to fill the last one. The next step is to sell the apartments to get some resources to go forward up the hill and purchase another property in the same zone to just keep going. It is an amazing amount of fun to see the progress.
We have no words sufficiently adulatory to express how grateful we are to the Cokers, our friends in Texas. They went wildly above and beyond to help us with our move out of Texas to Virginia, then they did it again the next day to help a friend move to Texas from Louisiana. They are literally the most hospitable and servicial people in the world.
The picture above is from when Lorena and I made a final toast for a spectacular seven months in San Pedro. We cannot wait to go back, but it will be a while because Tío Lynn needs to finish the remodel of the house up on the hill. In the meantime, we had a beautiful and uneventful drive from Texas to Virginia. More on that over the next few days.
it is a beautiful right clear in San Pedro. This is looking up from the associate of the apartments toward the house we are remodeling up on the hill. If you look closely you can see a house with four Arch windows at the top line of houses.
Tío Lynn continues to make progress on the house up the hill from the apartments in San Pedro. We have a new goal now. He is going full speed ahead to get the first floor ready so we can move all our things up there from the apartment as we get ready to move to Virginia. He already has a renter lined up to move into where we are living now, so that should help the flow of funds for the work on the hill.
Tío Lynn has been working hard on the first floor of the house up the hill. It is starting to really look amazing. He has the mini-splits mostly in place and all the lighting, electrical, pluming, and sheet rock ready to go.
We have been celebrating Lorena’s birthday for the last week or so and we only have about a week more to go! Here birthday was on a Tuesday and I had to work so all se really did on the actual day was to run down to Shake Shack to get a hamburger. We made up for it big time on Friday. Grandma Conchita and Tíos Lauro and Lynn came over and we went to our favorite taco place, Sonorense in the El Centrito neighborhood of San Pedro. Afterward, we all came back to the apartment to sing Las Mañanitas and eat mango cake from Pastelería Leti. I definitely did not adhere to my diet in any of this. Today, we ran down to the Chili’s at the mall where Lorena had chilaquiles and I had chicken fried chicken–a very nostalgic moment because that is one of the places we frequented when we were first married. Tomorrow, we are going to have our church meeting together, then probably have lunch with Lynn and Conchita. On Monday, we are going to watch the inauguration of President Trump and then head up to the hill to see the remodel progress on the house because, supposedly they will have hit a major milestone in the work on the first floor.
I am truly grateful to have spent more then thirty years with this beautiful woman. Each year just keeps getting better. We hope, God willing, that 2025 will be our final, big, cross-country move, close to the kids in a place that has easy access to a lot of infrastructure. We are looking forward to one more push to make that happen, but the good news is that we have done it so many times before that we do not get too stressed over all of the little things that go wrong because they WILL go wrong. Good thing we are just passing through in this life–it is great to have such a spectacular partner with him to take the journey.
Tío Lauro took this panorama which is about a 210 degree view from the second floor balcony of the house up the hill. The apartments only require a few finishing touches now, so Tío Lynn has moved his workers up there to get the first floor ready for us to move in within a couple of months. We are amazed how quickly it is taking shape now. For a long time, it did not look like much was happening, but there was a bunch of hard structural work and tons of infrastructure that needed to be put into place before the more cosmetic, but less labor intensive cosmetic work could start. For us to move in, the first floor has to be complete along with the open stairway to the azotea and some work in the basement so we have more than just one bedroom for visitors. We are looking forward to seeing the progress after we return from a week away to see Christian and Kelly for Christmas.
I know I put up an image like this yesterday, but I went out onto the deck and decided to take another that was zoomed in a little more. We are VERY much looking forward to moving up there. We just got notice from the kids about when they will arrive for Thanksgiving and we are very excited to both see them and show them the improvements to our new places!
You can see the house we are remodeling up on the hill from our apartments in San Pedro, but just barely. Tío Lauro took this picture this afternoon. We have such a great view from where the picture was taken, we are excited to get move up there to an even better view. Tío Lynn is, little-by-little transitioning from the work here on the apartments to work on the the house on the hill. Lorena and I have not been up there for a few weeks, but hope to run up there to see the progress.
Still marveling at what a great place we have to throw a party. We are rapidly getting to the point where the place will be finished other than for regular maintenance and then we will move out and put the whole thing up for sale. We are hoping to have at least a minimal setup for having dinners in an area with a view by the time the kids get here for Christmas, but we are not sure we will make it.
Tío Lauro came over to the apartment last night so Conchita, Lorena, Lynn, and I could celebrate his birthday with him. We (again) cooked up a boatload of chuletón, ate way too much, sang La Mañanitas, and ate birthday cake. The apartment is perfect for entertaining small crowds inside and much larger groups out on the azotea. We are very grateful to be here now with people of such good will. We hope to do this as often as we can. Lauro is programmed to come spend the day with us next Saturday. I am hoping to take him up the hill to the remodel so we can see what progress has been made.
Lorena and I decided to walk from you apartment up to the house on the hill and found that it is quite a steep walk. I have decided I am going to do that every day for a couple weeks, then gradually work myself up to further walks. If I can get through the pain of not having walked on any serious inclines for years, it will be a great way to get into shape and, hopefully, stay there. The views up there are amazing and only getting better with the work Lynn is doing to make the house more open with more views from more floors. The picture below is of the new picture window in the first floor living room/office.
This is the view from the apartment’s azotea looking toward the Huasteca this morning. If you turn about 60 degrees and look up the hill on the other side of the valley, you can see the house Lynn is remodeling where we hope to be living within the next 4-5 months. The four window balcony is very distinct.
This is the view out the front window (over the kitchen sink) on the side of the house opposite the beautiful valley behind the house. It is amazingly quiet compared to many similar neighborhoods we have been visited throughout Mexico, but in the evening there are lots of people around with kids playing football (soccer) and other games on the street and sidewalks. The smell of Mexican food cooking and the sound of Latin music of a million varieties are ubiquitous. We are truly enjoying it, but realize that the street that runs by our house up the hill is significantly less active. I am enjoying the non-quiet for now.
The running like crazy has now slowed down to the running like mildly neurotic. We are very happy to be ensconced in our apartment where we can see this (and a much broader view) ourselves rather than through pictures sent to us. I took this picture Sunday morning in 75 degree weather with a light, cool breeze blowing. We are still getting set up and, after seeing everything, have changed our plans about what we want to do with the Mexico properties. We absolutely are going to love living here.
All our worldly goods are not safely in short term storage while we wait for our hose to be built in Granbury, Texas. The house is empty, so Lorena and I are spending the night in sleeping bags on the floor for one more night after which we will drop off a few things at our builder’s office (Coker & Company) before our favorite airport shuttle driver picks us up to catch a plane to Monterrey. If every thing works as plan and God is willing, Lorena’s brother Lynn will pick us up tomorrow night and install us in our apartment where we hope to stay for the next four to five months until our house on the hill, five blocks above the apartments is currently being renovated. Stay tuned for pictures!!!
The packers came to get everything in the house ready to move. There are three guys and the hope to be out of the house in 3-4 hours. Lorena has been a real champion in preparing and organizing everything so it will be a fairly easy job for the packers to make everything move ready. We got a bunch of snacks, water, and protein drinks for the works and plan to do it again tomorrow. I think we might run down and get some KFC to bring back to the house for tonight because we really do not have any way to prepare food in the house. I cannot believe we are only two and a half days from flying to Mexico. We can hardly wait.
Lynn sent me some images of the area around our house in San Pedro this weekend. There has been some much ran there, that the park that is about a block away from our house and they mountain in front of our house where there are no other houses look like they could be in Oregon. It is all very green and overcast. We cannot wait to get down there and experience it in real life.
