Year's End

As we approach the year's end, perhaps we can look forward to the next year instead of reflecting on the past.

2014 highlights did include a Panama Canal cruise followed by some time at Disneyland in May,  An Eastern Caribbean cruise followed by a week at Walt Disney World in August,  A quick Western Caribbean cruise in November and then a trip to Anaheim for friends' Disney Wedding later in November.

Our Eastern Caribbean cruise also included a trek to the Mexican Consulate in Orlando to apply for our Residente Permanente visa as we were out of Mexico on the magic date for the changeover here in San Miguel.  (A past blog entry dealt with that in detail.)  We now will not need to visit the INM offices on a yearly basis (until the government discovers that they don't have the same revenue flow and does something about it).

2014 was also the year that we said goodbye (temporarily, we hope) to our good friend Victor as he moved to Puerto Vallarta.  He had proved so helpful in dealing with landlords, the Mexican DMV, and on many other occasions besides being great fun!  Michael helped Victor move house, transform a former private hospital into a B and B, and Victor graciously house sat and looked after our Wheatens while we gallivanted off on our travels.  Now the poor dogs are thrust back at our earlier solution: Wendy's Pet B'n'B out in the campo.  Not quite the same as staying 'at home' for them, but they like it there, too!  Lots of room to run and a comfy house in which to spend the nights.  We'll have to renegotiate our lease this coming Spring at our current house with our landlords (who speak only Spanish) without his good services.  Wish us luck!

And without Victor and his visiting family to amuse, we had to branch out for the recent Christmas holidays and found that we could manage a new group of acquaintances.  That's a good thing, too!

Looking forward to 2015, as promised, we have three weeks in Cabo this year.  We'd decided to make it two weeks until the family asked us to extend an additional week.  Happy to oblige.  We now need to whittle down the forty-two dinner recipes to a more manageable list.

And instead of flying home from Cabo for a week before heading out to New Orleans, we'll be flying direct!  Time to seriously work on the packing list (already done!).  We've never been to New Orleans, but a great friend - who goes yearly - asked that we put it on our schedule this next year to celebrate her fifth year of cancer remission.  Everyone to whom we speak tells us how much we'll like it - so I guess we've just been missing out on a good thing!  I understand that there are a group of neon colored wigs for us all to wear while viewing the parades....

Then it's home for a bit before we head out to another bucket list contender - a set of three Baltic cruises that begin in Orlando (after a week at Walt Disney World again; we've always managed to combine cruising with the Parks) for a 15-day transAtlantic, followed by a week of cruising to the northern European capitals along the Baltic Sea, and then a week doing the Norwegian fjords.  We'd been thinking of trying an eastbound transatlantic (we'd flown to Spain the last time and cruised westbound) and a 15-day cruise with only three port stops (New York City, Newfoundland, and Iceland) tempted us with all those sea days.  Then there was the week doing the fjords and we just filled in the week between those two cruises with the northern capitals cruise.  That's going to do us for cruising in 2015! 

Our TA (travel agent) managed to find a cabin for us that was available for all three cruises so there won't be any packing/unpacking until we finish the cruises at the end of the month.  Then we have the excitement of flying home from Copenhagen with a very brief stopover in Chicago.  Hope O'Hare is in better shape than the last time I had to sleep on the floor of the terminal when our flight was delayed....


Then no more travel until 2016.  It may get a little boring, but we'll need to save up our pennies for further adventures!