Moving Right Along!

Casa del  Gato Azul (now)

We, CQ and PQ, (also known as Carlos and Pat) purchased our property in 2008, just after we decided that Panama City, Panama was not going to be our retirement haven. (Think high-rises with 80% empty investment held units) We got our preliminary drawing from the architects we decided to work with and was ready to go... however we had not planned on the economy taking a dive south, or PQ's breast cancer or the fact that her job of 25 years also went south. So we waited... and waited.
In 2010 we spent the month of December in our house in Merida... we wanted to make sure what we were planning to do was what we actually could live with. Our December experiment was great, even though it was just a little more than camping out. (mattress on floor, no hot water, cooking on a two burner gas stove, a table and two chairs) We spent some time with our wonderful friend and agent, A and finalized plans and made a few changes with R and D our architects.
We joined the English Library and went to their MEL nights and got a feel for the expat community. We left at the end of December and returned to STL.
And finally after several months of back and forth plans, contracts and specs we have sent our first payment to R and D and we should be starting the construction. This day has been a long time coming!

Casa del Gato Azul (future)

So here we are still 4-5 years from retirement and 8-? months from our house being ready. We have planned to be in the house for the month of December again and hopefully not camping this time. I (PQ) plan to keep this blog going to record and archive the construction process, and to just record our musings and thoughts of the entire process.