It's That Time Again

It has been a day as we have been preparing for our return to Ecuador. Our plane leaves at 6:30 in the morning and the shuttle will be at our front door to pick us up at 5:00 am (Yikes!), and I'm still up doing last minute packing (double Yikes!). This trip promises to be interesting as we will be carrying several kitchen and bath faucets with us as well as two steam generators for the showers.

When Rod and I carried all of the plumbing fixtures to the house in order to start packing them, it didn't take me long to realize that the suitcases we had weren't going to cut it. I decided to look on line for a couple of footlockers that I could purchase locally and that were TSA approved. I found what looked to be the perfect set at Walmart and read the reviews carefully to make sure that these footlockers would be compliant with the airline baggage size restrictions.

Sterlite Footlocker

This morning I promptly ran out and purchased the footlockers, but before I got to the checkout I noticed that the lockers were 7/8" above the published 62" size limit that Continental airlines allows. A quick phone call to the airline confirmed that indeed these were above the size limits, but after convincing the agent to look into it further, she confirmed that the airline actually allowed 63" before a hefty oversize charge was applied.

When I returned to the office I decided I had better double check what the agent had told me. I could just picture us dragging two foot lockers weighing 50 pounds each and three suitcases only to be told that we were over the limit and that we would have to fork out an extra $200.00. This little known (or maybe I'm the only one that doesn't know it) fact is not published anywhere on the website and I was told that if the check in agent gave me any grief I could tell them where to look up the information in their own system.

Needless to say I have spent the better part of the night packing, weighing, unpacking and shuffling items around to come up with the perfect weights and dimensions. I'm just hoping they don't confiscate all of our plumbing in Guayaquil thinking that we are trying to bring it into the country for resale. I volunteered to put the ominous faucet valve that pretty much looks like a bomb into my carry on bag and gave Rod instructions to bail me out should I be thrown into prison for carrying such a device.

This time I am leaving my laptop behind and will be attempting to work and blog totally from my ipad, but before leaving I wanted to bring everyone up to date, so please enjoy the pictures and stay tuned for an update, I'm confident there will be stories to tell.

The Back Wall Of Our Garden Area

New Doors

The Stone Wall in Our Bedroom

New Windows

What A View From Our Terrace

Laying The Brick Floor On The Deck

The Deck Floor Again

 

New Doors On The Front Of The House

The Crew Decides To Make Good Use Of Our Mantle

Laying More Brick

We're excited and nervous all at the same time seeing the house after so much progress has been made.