In August we nailed down our home for the upcoming year and I immediately began nesting in my head. I began to dream about how to turn the house into our home. It is a semi-furnished house and although the furniture isn’t exactly my style or favorite color, I’m grateful we don’t have to furniture shop quite yet. No, I was thinking about towels. Somehow I had the idea in my head that the house would be our home when we had correct towels. With that in mind I convinced my husband we needed a quick trip in October to ‘set up the house’ – by which I meant buy towels. He didn’t really get it “Don’t we have a lot of towels here – can’t we just throw a few of them in our suitcase?” My look gave him my answer. So we headed down to Bucerias for a week in October to get the house ready for our family’s arrival in December.

We spent the week shopping for house stuff and checking out as many local taco stands as possible. But we also knew we needed to start the difficult process of dealing with Mexican utility companies. We had heard many crazy stories and expected it to be time consuming and difficult – but we were ready. Our hot water and our stove is fueled by propane – and our rooftop propane tank was completely dry when we arrived. The first two days we had cold showers – which actually felt amazingly good – and you know I wasn’t looking to cook. But on the third day we decided we better get some propane in the tank. So we waited ….. and we listened….. and eventually we heard the sound we were expecting and needing. The Gas truck guy driving around screaming out of his loudspeaker to let the neighborhood know he had GAS. So I in turn screamed for Grant who went running out the door in pursuit of Gas Guy. Turns out Gas Guy only delivers tanks – doesn’t actually fill tanks, so he made a phone call and told us someone would be there in una hora – one hour. Now I definitely didn’t expect someone to arrive in an hour – I thought maybe 3 days – but we hung around for the afternoon unpacking the weird green dishes we had bought and 4 hours later we heard a big truck outside the house. Impressive really. Of course there was no possibility of English so we used our Spanglish Charade language and voila! we had propane! Gas Fill Guy gave me his card and told me at least 10 times to call him next time I need gas. I wasn’t so sure why he was being so insistent about that – but I realized why quickly. Within the next 15 minutes we had 2 other Gas company trucks arrive at our doorstep – apparently the word was out on the streets that Gringos were looking for gas. The utility company version of beach vendors!

So that went much better than expected. Next is phone and internet. Our gracious friend Fredy is helping us set that up and yesterday he emailed to say we are on a waiting list as phones lines are limited in Bucerias right now. He says we are waiting for a window of opportunity – I picture Grant chasing Phone Truck Guy down the street to crack that window open.

And as for those towels? Every room has soft grey towels ready for use and our bedroom even has the matching bath mat! How homey is that?