CHRISTMAS

I hope you and your loved ones have had a great Christmas. It has been great Skyping, emailing and chatting with many of you. We miss you all. We have had to make up some new Christmas traditions as it can be quite tough finding a place to toboggan and skate here in Panama. So this is what we did this year. We spent Christmas Eve at a friend's house with about 40 of our friends. We had an incredible potluck feast and sang Christmas carols by candle light. It was great to spend Christmas Eve with friends and not feel quite so lonely.

We have heard of some interesting Christmas traditions here in Panama. For example, many paint their house, inside and out, if they can afford it. It is a symbolic way of getting rid of any bad memories or experiences that may have happened in the past year, and starting the new year with a clean slate. We've also noticed that many wrap their front doors in Christmas paper and put their decorated Christmas tree on the porch for everyone to enjoy. And of course, you can't help but notice the firework displays at midnight on Christmas Eve. It seems like literally everyone - except us - stocks up on fireworks and lights them up at midnight! This year we heard more than we saw.

Christmas morning we enjoyed a special Christmas breakfast together complete with Jelly Bellies, Dutch chocolate, pancakes, eggnog lattes and fresh mango's. Yummy!

Christmas morning 2008.

Fresh out of bed in front of our Christmas tree.

Interesting fact - most of the Christmas trees sold here are actually imported from Nova Scotia! As well, you may notice we are eating around the coffee table. This has become a common practice at our home. The dinning room table top is slanted which is not so great for a family that is already a little clumsy.

After a leisurely Christmas morning, we packed up a cooler full of food and drinks and headed to Las Lojas Beach (about 90 minutes from our house) with 3 other families for a day of sun, fun, quading, body surfing and "sandcars" (I'll explain later). We were able to drive our cars right out onto the beach. I have never driven a car on the beach. It was kind of cool! This beach was very flat and went on for miles and miles. The water was so warm and the waves were perfect - not too big and not too small.

Sydney on the back of the quad with Alayna driving.

(Jayden in yellow shirt, waiting his turn.)

Paul and Joshua's "sandcar" complete with license plate 2HOT4U

Jenni, me and Sharon

Paul and Steve

The day was so much fun, not only because of the beautiful weather, but because of spending time with great friends. I think we may start going to the beach on Christmas Day as a new Day Family tradition. Anyone care to join us next year?

Until I blog again,

Linda

CATCH UP

I have been thinking, I really need to get blogging. It has been a while since my last entry. I was thinking that nothing exciting has really happened as life has gotten into a little routine. I was talking with Sonia (friend from Calgary) the other day and she asked me what I was up to. I very nonchalantly said, "just hanging laundry on the line." I heard a heartfelt sigh on the other end. Got me thinking maybe my routine might be of some interest to you. First, I must say. My heart goes out to those of you who have been stuck inside for a few days because of the crazy winter weather hitting so many back in the Great White North. Second, feeling empathetic about your situation, I have downloaded some pictures to give you an idea of what we've been up to lately.

Paul teaching music class to the kids in our homeschooling room

Our friend, Mahlin, demonstrating our version of a juice box.

Kids at gymnastic class.

Our favorite place to cool off, complete with rope swing, climbing rocks and a waterfall.

The kids enjoying water melon to cool off - followed by - Syd and Josh B playing watermelon baseball. Can you see the rind mid air?

Syd and Josh decorating our tree

Syd and Alayna show off new shirts made by Alayna's great-grand mother - delivered from the U.S. by Alayna's Grandma, Judy.

Josh during science class - experimenting with his trebuchet.

Days tailgating with the Bliss' at a local dirt bike race track.

Josh taking his Mama quading.

I will close with this final picture. Not a great shot, but an interesting "Panama" story. Yesterday, a green Union Fenosa (electric company) pick-up drove up to house. We greeted the "visitors" only to realize that they had arrived to cut off our power. Apparently, the electrical bill hadn't been paid in 3 months. Please realize, it took a little while to get this information as the workers spoke no English and Paul, well, its a steep learning curve. After some incredible hand gesturing and head nodding we clued in! Electricity is included in our rental contract - so it was the landowners responsibility. Also note - we have only been in the house for 3 weeks! After calling our broker and negotiating a deal (we pay now, decrease next month's rent by the same amount) Paul begged the Union workers not to cut our power and negotiated a one hour grace period to rush downtown Boquete to pay off the bill right away. Paul drove away and payed the bill. Today, our landlord dropped by to apologize profusely and reimburse us the full amount. All is good today in Panama. Who knows what tomorrow will bring!

Until I blog again - have an incredible Christmas Season,

Linda

NEW ROOMMATE

Look who I found snuggled up against our closet tonight. You guessed it, another tarantula. I wonder if he heard about our cozy bed and wanted to get some loving. He got no loving from us! This one was at least 7 inches long. Yuck. My dear husband beat it to its death but not until after he got this great shot of it for your enjoyment. Lucky Sonia who I was on the phone with at the time, she got the play by play version of tonight's entertainment. Not for the faint of heart. You get snow, we get monster bugs.

Until I blog again,

Linda

THE BARBIE AND THE BEETLE

No explaination needed.

HOME SWEET HOME

Syd's photo

Six weeks after leaving Canada, after surviving one earthquake, one flood and living in 5 different “temporary” homes, we finally have a place to call home. We have empted and put away our suitcases. What a great feeling. It was like Christmas finding all kinds of clothes I had forgotten about. I was really just wearing the same clothes over and over again, it was so much simpler. What a time we have had finding a suitable place to live. We are now living in a 2 storey, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathroom “A” framed home in an area we love. The house breathes and is very bright so mold is not that big of an issue. The temperature is just perfect. Warm during the day, cool at night for sleeping. So far, a nice quiet neighborhood. I say so far because the holiday celebrations will start up any day, and that could mean a few weeks of noise at night! Just a 5 minute drive to town, 15 minute walk to the local “Chino” as they call them here because all the corner stores seem to be owned by people from China. I know, not very PC.

The house came “furnished” but let me expand on what “furnished” means here. Couches present, but extremely uncomfortable. Table present but slanted. Pass the salt takes on a whole different meaning! We call it cardboard furniture as it seems to be the uncomfortable theme in all the places we have lived here in Panama. We had 3 beds, but all of the mattresses I am sure had mites living in them. One of the mattresses had tire tracks on it! We have had to put a bit of love and elbow grease into this place to make it livable: New water tank, new water filter system, new shower heads, new mattresses, and new toilet seats as the old ones were just awful. I actually had to get a screw driver and chiseled some unidentifiable matter from it. That is coming from a nurse! Ewwww. We have had 2 different workmen in to fix a stove and fridge and as of 2 days ago, internet. I could cry I am so happy to be able to connect with people again. I am sure many of you thought we had been washed away by the floods or sucked up into the earth by the recent earthquake, but no, we are alive and kind of well. All of us have been fight colds and viruses. Nothing major, just change of climate and lowered immunity due to the stress.

We have a huge yard with orange trees and the potential for a nice little garden for my daughter the budding horticulturalist. I asked her to take some pictures of the house today so I could post them on our blog. She came back with photos of every flower, tree and nest! She is her Opa’s granddaughter.

Our sweet little home. Look to the top right balcony, we have a little lounging couch we set up. It is our favorite spot to hang and watch the birds and stars.

The kitchen. We had to buy dishes, cutlery and that great storage shelf to the right. Love the open concept idea, hard to find here in Panama

The living room complete with a coffee table engraved with the name "Edgar". It matches the engraving on the lower kitchen cabinets!

The dining area viewed from the loft

This is the master bedroom on the main floor with an attached bathroom. You may note that the bed is tiny, it is a double. We were going to get a larger one, but after sleeping on it we found it surprisingly cozy.

The home schooling loft complete with a door out to the upper balconey.

Syd's room.

Josh's room. The kids bedrooms and the loft are all upstairs with another bathroom and shower.

Our yard.

There ore no photos of the bathrooms for good reason. Hey we wanted to simplify and scale down and that we have done!

So much more to blog, but all in good time. Hope everyone is staying warm. I heard about the snow fall in Calgary. I won’t tell you what our temperature was today!