Category Archives: Moving to Mexico

30 Days and Counting

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CalendadrAs we enter the final 30 day countdown to liftoff, I feel a shift in my heart and in my mind.  This is happening.  Soon.  I am sad and I am overwhelmingly happy.  I am nervous and I am increasingly bold.  I want to stay but mostly I want to go.  That is what makes life worth living – the mixture of emotions and confusion of thoughts when change is around the corner.   I see similar emotions in the eyes of my friends and family – they want to be excited for us but are not sure they should be, or can be.  Change in one person affects the whole community – and honestly the community didn’t really ask for this change.  The hardest part of this last stage is that I feel I need to focus on the details of such a move – how is my mail going to find me?  Who’s going to pay for my medical needs?  What color towels will make my bathroom homey?  Why on earth did I ever buy this many Wii games and how many can I reasonably pack?  How do we get this house ready to sell?  But I worry that what I should be doing is spending these last days with the people who I love and who are really unsure about what we are doing.  Oh I know we’ll be back lots in the first year – and I have Skype and Google Hangout loaded on my computers and phones, ready to beep and buzz my way back into people’s lives.  But I know it will not be the same – and I don’t really know quite how to process that now that we have entered the pre-liftoff stage.

Time to Find a Home

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Last week I felt like I was a participant in a House Hunters’ International episode as we searched for a new home to rent for the first year or two while we build our home on the mountain in La Cruz.  Although we won’t be leaving Canada for 3 or 4 months we feared that if we waited until fall or winter the rentals would all be snapped up for the busy winter season.  So we decided to have a look and once we got started there was no turning back.    We looked at a few options:

  1. 6 months ago we had looked at a home that was for sale in Nuevo Vallarta, a suburban, residential area halfway between Puerto Vallarta and Bucerias. The house wasn’t for rent at the time but when we arrived this week I called the owners and asked if they were interested in renting the house.  As luck would have it, the current renter was moving out that very day and they were very open to renting to us at a great price.  I had really loved the 3 bedroom house with the open roofed courtyard right in the middle of it.  It had a big yard and a great pool and I could picture our family there (okay they ALWAYS use that line on House Hunters!).  Grant pointed out the downsides of the open roof such as bugs, lizards, scorpions, bats, floods – but I thought it was cool.  Definitely a possibility, although it was 30-40 minute drive to our land where he will be spending a lot of time building.  But still, maybe….
  2. Next we had a realtor show us a home in a neighborhood I had never considered living in. The town of Bucerias is divided by the highway – on one side is the ocean and art galleries and restaurants and English speaking Gringos; on the other side are chickens and horses and taco stands and sweet Mexican children and their mamas who only speak Spanish.  So when he showed us a home in the Mexican neighborhood I was uncertain – is this too crazy for even us?  The house only had 2 bedrooms, a very small outdoor space and was on a super loud corner.  Not so sure….
  3. He then took us to a 3 bedroom home on a beautifully manicured golf course. Super quiet and peaceful, with a private pool and windows that open from a bar to the outdoor area.  I could definitely picture Jose my private pool boy and bartender bringing me a refreshing beverage while I relaxed.  It needed some renos but the realtor told us he was overseeing the work and we could choose what we wanted in the home.  Tempting…..
  4. We had three very different homes to choose from ….. and then there were 4. As we drove past the local church, our friend and pastor Fredy waved us down and told us he knew of a nearby house that was for rent.  We were back in the Mexican side of the highway, but I admit my mind had been opened earlier in the day to this new possibility.  As we waited for the owner to come and unlock the house we watched three untethered horses wander down the street with a couple of chickens following behind – looking at us as though they were also wondering what these gringos were doing in their town.  Curiosity more than displeasure really.  The house was large with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and an office area.  There was a balcony off the bedroom for morning coffee and a back area large enough to make into a garden.  The house was a 10 minute walk to the beach and less than a 10 minute drive to our building site. And a garage – it had a garage!  The price was unbeatable and there were taco stands and a fruit market and a fish store close by.  But certainly no ocean view, no pool, not even a bathtub.  I don’t really think so……

We were leaving by noon the next day and were very confused by the choices.  On House Hunters they sit down for 3 or 4 minutes, eliminate one house, argue halfheartedly for another minute and BAM – decision made.  We did not have that experience – so we decided to sleep on it.  I was definitely leaning towards the Nuevo Vallarta house with no roof and Grant was leaning towards the quiet golf course house.  So we went to bed and sometime in the night God pulled a bait-and-switch on me.  When I woke up in the morning I was somewhat horrified to experience that sense of clarity that I recognize as God’s leading.  I leaned over and told Grant that I was thinking we should take the Mexican house with the horse neighbors – and he said he was thinking exactly the same thing.  That is always our decision clincher – when opposites agree without debate it is a powerful thing!

We only had a couple of hours to raid a few ATMs to get enough cash to pay a deposit and a couple months’ rent and to meet with the owner to sign a contract.  Our wonderful friend Fredy dropped everything he was doing to meet with us and be our translator as we negotiated final terms and took one last look around.

A housewarming gift from Rinconcito de Poncho in Bucerias

A housewarming gift from Rinconcito de Poncho in Bucerias

So we have a home!  It is nothing like we had envisioned and yet in many ways much more than we had expected.  I remind myself that I am not ready to retire by the pool and be served drinks by Jose – I am here to love and serve and touch Mexico close up.  This neighborhood IS Mexico and it is the perfect place to jump ALL IN, to learn the language and customs and hearts of my new home. And don’t worry – when you visit there will still be cool drinks served in my garden!

Our Craziest Idea to Date – We’re Moving to Mexico!

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It’s not that we’re unhappy here in Saskatchewan – we’re definitely not.  Life is good – business is good – family and friends and faith….it’s all good.  So why would we want to sell our family home, quit our jobs and businesses, say goodbye to those we love and head south to a country with an uncertain economy and a crummy reputation?  Is it some kind of strange mid life crisis?  Like most ideas that grab the hearts of dreamers, there is really no easy way to explain what’s stirring inside.  But when the same idea grabs hold of both me AND my husband Grant,  I know we have to pay attention, since Grant and I are extreme opposites in most areas.

That’s what happened to us 4 years ago.  After some fantastic vacation times in the Puerto Vallarta area of Mexico, we were both gripped with the desire to pack up and move south for good.  Not to retire – but to continue the adventure of our self-employed lives in a place where we weren’t deprived of Vitamin D for 6 or 7 months a year because of the great snow conspiracy.  As we marinated in the idea and continued to visit the towns on Banderas Bay, we knew this wasn’t just about weather or tacos – this was a God idea and we were being led into a life of service in an area with much need.  Not to fix Mexico, but to love Mexico.  And love always means serving.

So we bought a piece of land up a mountain and started the process of dismantling our lives up north.  I am so grateful we had no idea how hard that would be and how long it would take.  We owned a construction company in a Canadian community in the middle of a building boom.  While I was trying to shut it all down, God was prospering it.  That made for some very strange, and possibly selfish, whining on my part.

But now it is time.  We are finishing up the very last house building project – and this is the one we will sell to finance the new life.  There are still millions of details, but those details will mostly be managed from a plastic table at a beach restaurant with vendors playing their games around me.  We will continue to work because today work doesn’t have to be done face to face – it can be done over an invisible desk that reaches across borders.  Together we will negotiate with our belongings as to what gets to go and what gets left behind.  How do you tell a gravy boat that you received as a wedding gift many years ago that you no longer expect to make much gravy and are replacing it with the guacamole bowl?  Sentimentality will wage the battle of my life with practicality.

I am creating this blog mostly as a way to process my own feelings and thoughts as we start this crazy journey – and I thought some of you might just be interested in following along.  You KNOW there are going to be challenges and I expect some of them will be entertaining.  Or maybe I just need to feel I am staying connected with all of you whom I love and will miss deeply.

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Let the adventure begin!