We have been in Ecuador for almost six months. In that time we have lived in a house that is undergoing major renovations. People have called us crazy, brave, insane and probably many more things, but as we are nearing the end of this wild ride of construction, I have to say we would not have done it any other way. Everything has taken us much longer than we thought, but I think in the end we will be very glad we made the decisions we did.
About three weeks ago, when we were just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we had a little snafu. The electricity ground line broke at the pole and sent power surges through our house. It shorted out one of the two phase lines into the house. Instead 110 volts of electricity we had 220 volts surging through (after speaking with John's brother Jim who is an electrician, we found out this could happen anywhere). Needless to say, we had some losses of electrical items. The dishwasher, refrigerator, dryer, coffee maker (my nice big Cuisinart I brought from the states), Keurig and television all have taken a trip to the appliance graveyard. A couple of the things we could live without for a bit, but the coffee maker and dryer were devastating. A huge thanks to our neighbors, Bob and Freida, who brought down a big pot of coffee for us the day it happened. We try to look on the bright side of things, because, to be honest, it just sucks not to. We now have new electricity lines running to our house, but of course the electric company didn't want to repair anything too quickly. So we hired someone to take care of it for us. That repair was only $120 so not too shabby. The cost of replacing the fried electronics, well, hopefully our homeowners' insurance will take care of a good chunk of it. There is, of course, many hoops to jump with and we won't hold our breath for that to be settled. On the bright side, I was able to find the exact same coffee maker I had, but it was about $150 more than I paid for the original. Ouch! The Keurig is nowhere to be found here. We are very lucky that this happened at the time it did. Thank goodness we were not open yet, so we were the only ones affected by this.
I know someday we will look back at this whole experience and say, how did we ever do that? The short answer is, one day at a time. And also, you just cannot take things too seriously. When our puppies dig and roll in the mud of our flower bed and come up on the porch and look at us all innocently, we just laugh. When one of our workers puts all the handles for the screens on the wrong end, we just .... well, not laugh initially... that one take a bit. We really just want to be finished with the construction phase. We have had our fun out of it so time to move on.
The next bit of excitement for us will be having our friends, Matt and Nelly visit. They fly in on April 25 and will be here about 10 days. It will be a nice break for us, because soon after that, we will be heading full gear into our grand opening. The tentative grand opening celebration date is Sunday, May 26, with the actual opening being Friday, May 31.
We have taken the good with the bad, enjoyed every moment we could, but it is time to move into the next exciting phase in our lives. If you haven't yet, (and you really want to :), "like" our Facebook page, Las Palmas Del Mar. Thank you!
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