ONE STEP CLOSER!

So thankful to come home Friday afternoon to see my FBI background check had been mailed, and I am in the clear.  With the two week government shutdown, it took seven weeks to be processed.  Along with Ray, I am not a criminal.  We had already discussed when we would run to the Embassy if the papers came soon, so I immediately got on the phone and called my office (I leave work just a tad bit than the others).  I had to find a sub for December 3rd.  The day is full of patients but not any patients that "request Allison" (like on the 4th and the 5th).  Another hygienist will be out the week of Thanksgiving and her husband leaves on a business trip right after the holiday, so she was all for taking my day.  Yay!  Off to the Panamanian Embassy we go with a stack of papers in hand.  Ray isn't so sure I have to be there.  What the heck?  I wouldn't miss it for the world.  I have never been in an Embassy before, much less the Panamanian one.

The picture below shows my coffee table which has been Ray's desk for the last year or so.  (We do have a lovely desk in the office.)  Note that next to the VOX Spanish vocabulary which I have cracked open once since we bought it in Carly's school bookstore last May, there is a book called "Spanish for Gringo's" (not shown).  Ray has read more of it than me.  Most importantly, next to the Apple Care CD, there is the stack of papers we need to take to the Embassy.  That stack has accumulated joyfully for the last two months.  And two computers?  One holds everything on it that has to do with that thing called "work" that for some reason won't transfer onto the other.  My coffee table houses my laptop.  Clean, smooth, and empty just the way I like it.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner in just four days!  Which means...time to decorate for Christmas!

LOVE, EXCITING AND "RE-NEWED"

This month has been exciting and productive.  Ray is a keeper and, therefore, we will be retiring to Panama most definitely.  Since we renewed our vows last Tuesday, I now know that we are meant to be (after 25 years).  Glad I figured this out now!   How did this all start--the renewal of vows?  this isn't something I ever thought I would be one to do.  Or Ray for that matter.  Six months ago, Ray and I were talking with our lake house roommates and great friends about how we would celebrate our 25th anniversary.  We told them that when 12-12-12 occurred last year and everyone was marrying or remarrying in Las Vegas at midnight, we were going to do the same when 2-2-22 OR 2-22-22.  Then it dawned on Ray that our 25th anniversary was falling on 11-12-13.  It was then that I decided he could take me to Paris!  Las Vegas, that is.  Anything for him to get back to Vegas!  We would send an invite out to many friends and renew our vows (we were going for more cheesy, less romantic--just plain fun with friends and family).  In April, we sent out the invitation to join us at Paris Hotel.  What we knew was that some of us were going to attend The Donny and Marie Show, Ray and I were going to host dinner one night at a Tapas Restaurant (one of our favorite style restaurants), and we would renew our vows at midnight on 11-12-13.  Six months passed with many people unable to attend the festivities.  Job loss, illness, other travels were all sound reasons.  Carly could not attend due to a new job, and I couldn't blame her.  Three days off is a lot of time off as a new teacher especially having the holidays and vacation right around the corner.  We did have five wonderful friends come along for the fun.  Two of these friends were with us (our lake house roommates) on our wedding day 25 years ago.  I found this trip being less cheesy and so much more about love, relationships, friendship, and yes, there was romance.

The five of us spent the days with and without each other.  Ray and I had the opportunity to be with friends we are rarely with one on one getting to know them so much more, meet up with new friends that we met through others (who happen to live near the Las Vegas strip), and we were also able to spend some quality time with our oldest and dearest friends.   Plans were always made the night before (meet for breakfast if you can, happy hour at six, Eiffel Tower tour if you want, take a walk with me at two...), and everyone had the opportunity to show up or not.  Nothing structured except for the show, the dinner and the wedding.  Some gambled and others never went into the casino.  The Donny and Marie show, except for the rude waitress and little lounge service, was fantastic and is highly recommended.  Walking the strip is always interesting.  Temperatures outside during the day made it to 75 degrees, so being poolside was wonderful (it was 45 degrees at home), and this really made me realize I do not like being cold anymore.  Dinner at the tapas restaurant was cozy but like many tapas restaurants, fast paced.  The sangria flowed, the small plates flew by and conversation was never lacking.

On the big night of 11-11-13, we had happy hour at ten pm with the limousine driver picking us up close to midnight.  With Ray in his brand new wedding jeans, crisp shirt, silver tie and jacket, and me in my silver sparkly dress, the seven of us took "wedding pictures", climbed into the limousine, and then we were on our way to A Little White Chapel to renew our vows in The Tunnel of Love. For months leading up to the ceremony, we did not tell anyone how we were going to renew our vows (thoughts were that it would include Elvis, be in a country music themed chapel, or be traditional with a walk down the aisle).  After checking in, we were given the option by our female minister (which, by the way, we had a female minister 25 years ago) of renewing our vows outside of the car, at the drive-thru or having her sit inside the car with us and the photographer.  We took the last option.  We recited traditional vows only this time I made note that  instead of saying "til death us do part", we said "until all of my time".  And Ray added, ever so quietly (I wasn't sure I heard him, but what else is new) "that's 83 for me, 92 for you".  This is the age the financial planner told us the computer had equated we would live to.  It was 12:14 (YAY!) when we said our "I do's" and it couldn't have gone more smooth.  More pictures taken outside the car, champagne for all, and a reception dinner picked up from In N Out Burger followed with everyone drinking more champagne and eating burgers in the car.  Back at the hotel, we snacked on wedding cakes (red velvet, dark chocolate and white) and chatted until two in the morning.  With early flights, we eventually had to call it a night.   What a time it was.  What a memorable time it was.  Cheesy, not one bit.  The entire trip, although it was without Carly and my sister, was still "just right".

Back on the home front, Ray and I grudgingly returned to our jobs.  I had an easier time of it, since there isn't any real drama at the office anymore, no big numbers to crunch, deadlines to meet, and everyone leaves me alone to do my job.  Ray, on the flip side, had end of the year stress already adding to the same old, day in and day out stress.  We better make the numbers, meet the deadlines, and do whatever else is being thrown at him.  Fortunately, the weekend came along quickly, and we purged and cleaned some more.  The basement shows great improvement in that it really only holds a lot of Christmas decorations, a table, desk and shelving unit.  We are still waiting for the owner of all of the "stuff" on one side of the basement to move it all out this month, but for the most part, what an accomplishment.  A sewing machine was just sold off today, and an estate seller has been in touch to come assess the house in order to sell everything off.  A neighbor just stopped by a few minutes ago to do a walk through of our house.  She has friends that are looking to buy a home possibly in the area, or better yet, she and her husband might want to buy this house since it is the largest of all the models and rent their house out for a while.  (Glad we cleaned yesterday!).

Our goal now is to sell the house by the summer months, and if this happens we will live in the lake house through July while selling off cars and finalizing things at work, and hopefully retire to Panama by the end of the summer.  We would then travel back here next Thanksgiving for a few weeks, spend the holidays with Carly and family in Virginia, and pick up any odds and ends that we may have left behind on our first go around.  When we returned home this past week, the Panamanian attorney emailed Ray asking how we were coming along in gathering all of our paperwork for the Residency Visa.  The only thing pending is the FBI background check, but we noticed our credit card payment has been processed.  Here is to hoping that the fingerprints worked!  The attorney is now taking all of our papers that we scanned to him to the Immigration office.  Wow!  He really seems on top of it, and we haven't paid him a dime yet.  In two months, we are in Panama City to pay the attorney and hopefully getting a temporary Residency Visa!  I am looking forward to spending some time in the city (having not been there yet).  Yes, I will see congestion, hear a lot of loud noise, be sitting in government offices, but it will be tropically warm.  It will be somewhat of a vacation (Ray doesn't know it, but we could turn it into a second honeymoon haha), and we will be one step closer to our retirement to Panama.
Here's to knowing that Ray and I will continue to "have and to hold..." for so many more years than  the next twenty-five, and it all may just be in Panama for better, not worse!

Pre-wedding photo

Right before our "I Do's" (our minister is filling out marriage license)