It's That "South of the Border" Time of Year!

Yesterday I dropped my husband off at SEATAC airport & headed north toward Snohomish in the gray & rainy morning rush hour traffic. By the time I made it back to our son's house & looked at the clock, I realized that Greg was already nearly in Puerto Vallarta!! Crazy.

So, he's there at Casa Susana (photo above) to do the usual end-of-rainy-season-get-ready-for-high-season maintenance there and at Casa Kaeli. Hopefully he'll also get the stove and sink put into our brand new apartment, Casa Cruz del Mar, which we'll live in when I get there in a couple weeks.

The gorgeous pacific northwest fall has suddenly become the beginnings of winter, and I know it's time to head south. Thinking of our first trip down there to see Casa Susana when it was just completed in the spring of 1996, and how utterly amazed & sort of stunned we were: Our gorgeous mexican casa had been built on merely a handshake (these were the "good old days") and a prayer or two or three.

It was our first time driving from Oregon to Puerto Vallarta, and we arrived about 6 pm ~ just after the workers had gone home for the day ~ full of nervous anticipation. Though Carlos, the developer, had assured me on the phone that the casa would be ready, we had received a few photos from my ex-husbands' wife (yes, we are good friends now, they had been in PV one month earlier & went by to take a look for us. She'd mailed me the pix after sending them in to be developed... (remember when we had to DO that?!), showing a rough-looking brick structure with a big brick hole in the ground where the future pool was to be. Her note accompanying the photos said "I don't think your house will be done when you get there!" Yet, before us stood a magnificent two-story casa, crisp clean white with a beautifully varnished hardwood door that was surrounded by clear glass! Inside, an elongated vaulted ceiling dome crowned the foyer above the gleamng white marble floors, and that is where we parted ways...

Greg went through the main floor of the casa; I ascended the stairway and entered our master bedroom suite. Marble everywhere, beautiful architectural accents where they weren't obligated to put them, and then the doors opening to a balcony with the vivid blue Bay of Banderas beyond! Downstairs, Greg had encountered even more sparkling marble, another large ceiling dome in the living room, two lovely bedrooms & baths and a grill terrace in front of the already-filled pool. Each of us retraced our tracks until we met; all we could do was look at each other with our mouths hanging open. This house, THIS house was OURS! We had never owned such a beautiful place, let alone a vacation house at all. This truly looked like PARADISE, and we were all over it!