106: El Rancho is finished! Now we start on the casa..

If you've been following our progress, you know we had a major set back on the construction of our Rancho due to a tropical depression that locked in on us for 14 days. Even the locals were complaining they hadn't seen a storm last this long in something like 15 or 20 years. It was definitely one for the record books. Last week we watched all the freshly applied concrete block sealer and paint wash away with the rain. We finally pulled the plug and told the construction crew to go find some indoor work while our place dried out. This week we've had several days of dry, summer like, weather and the team came back to finish the rancho.

Everything had to be re-sealed and re-painted. Yesterday, we were finally able to finish grouting the tile floor. Today, we installed bathroom accessories; mirror, towel bar, tissue holder and shower caddy. The only thing remaining is a good floor mopping and we're ready to move the patio furniture in so we can enjoy our outdoor living space.

Thanks to the poor job our packers did when they loaded the sea container, most of our wrought iron patio furniture managed to get nicks in the paint surface when it was shipped from Houston. John borrowed an air compressor from our contractors today and he is in the process of re-painting everything with an anti-corrosive paint in a nice hunter green. We will be planning the fiesta to inaugurate to the Rancho very soon.

Last week we received approval from the Chamber of Civil Engineers on the architectural plans for our new casa. Now the plans will be submitted to the local municipality for our building permit. In the meantime, our construction team is ready to start preparing the lot for the new house. Since they finished the rancho, the team started putting up temporary fencing today that will section off the area of the lot where the house will be built. This will make the dogs so happy! Throughout most of the rancho's construction, the pups had to be chained to a post to prevent them from biting the workers, or wandering off down the street. This fence will give Randy and Gus plenty of room to play and chase, but they won't be able to get out of the yard and, even better, they won't be able to bite any of the workers.