As we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are reminded constantly of how fortunate we are to have a wonderful life here in Panama. It is hard for us to believe that it has been nearly 18 months since we officially made our move here. Looking back over the past year we realize how wonderfully blessed we are to experience life in this beautiful country. We have no regrets and are truly living life to the fullest. Our friends Ray and Diane left last week after spending a little more than a week vacationing with us here. They took our Christmas cards back to the States and mailed them for us. If you are on our Christmas card list you may notice similarities in this post to our Christmas letter. As I sat down to make a final post for 2019, it occurred to me that a perfect recap of our year was right there in our annual letter. Those who read our blog regularly may find some of this year end review to be a repeat of some of our previous posts.
Our biggest news of this past year is that we bought and moved into our own place. We made our offer and it was accepted just prior to the end of last year. Things move quickly here and we were able to close the sale and do a minor remodel prior to moving in at the end of January. It is a 1700 square foot condo in the Coronado Golf Community inside the gates of Coronado. Our building, El Alcazar, is one of the most beautiful and well maintained condo buildings in the beaches area. We are on the 11th floor with beautiful views of ocean, mountains and golf course out every window. Every morning we wake to amazing views and praise God for another perfect day in paradise.
Our first guests to visit in our new home were two of Jen’s cousins Robert Buck and Bill Gilmore. they flew in from Pittsburgh to spend a week in April. While they were here we went zip-lining, took a Rum Distillery tour, Visited The Mira Flores Locks and Bio-Diversity Museum, ate a ton of great food, and relaxed on the beaches. We even stopped along the highway where we bought and ate ceviche’. When one lives on the beach, getting fresh seafood is marvelous and convenient. Buying ceviche along the road was a little unnerving for me, but it was very fresh and very delicious.
While our good friends, Ray and Diane, were here at the beginning of the month, we spent the entire time they were here exploring places that they wanted to see. We took a two day trip to a wonderful bed and breakfast on the island of Contadora. Contadora is in the Pearl Island chain which is where there have been several episodes of Survivor filmed. Not only did the Survivor reality show from the United States film on an island nearby, but other Survivor shows from other countries filmed nearby. One even used the island where we stayed to film portions of the tribal counsel. The bed and breakfast where we stayed was home to crew for some of these filming’s. We spent hours enjoying the beaches on this awesome island and the food in the restaurants was unbelievable. After hanging out on Contadora, we took the Rum Distillery tour. and spent a day exploring in Panama City. We also spent a little time on the beach and went deep sea fishing with Lyn and Ty Gilbert. Ray and I even got a little dune buggy time while Jen and Diane went to the beauty salon.
One thing that we love about Panama is how easy it is to explore from here. While we have been settling in to our new lifestyle, most of our exploration has been local. We did however, take two trips to the States this past year, one trip to Costa Rica, and one trip to Jamaica. We went to Key West in February for the marriage of Jens older Brother Bill Jewell to Deb Wilson. In May we travelled to Michigan for our daughter Hope’s graduation with her Masters in Education. The trip also provided a perfect opportunity to see other family and friends. The Jamaica trip has been an annual tradition with good friends and we were able to continue the tradition. In 2020 we plan to travel at least one time to the States. We also will be exploring Israel, Greece, and Turkey in March, as well as Machu Picchu in Peru in May. We plan to continue our annual tradition of vacationing with our friends in Punta Cana Dominican Republic in April. The first few months of the year we will be pretty jet lagged, however when we are home we always look forward to welcoming guests and meeting our readers when they make it to our area. One thing you will not expect is to see us visiting any place where we can not wear shorts and flip flops. We do not have clothes for cold weather exploring.
It is always a thrill for us to connect with readers. Please, leave us a message or send an e-mail with questions and comments. We had a couple who started as readers of our blog and have since become friends, over for dinner this past week. We have frequent inquiries and we always try to provide a quick concise response. The highlighted portions of the previous paragraphs are links to past posts. Clicking on the links will lead you to those posts. We hope you are enjoying our blog as much as we enjoy sharing it.
Feliz Navidad,
Greg and Jen
Please Like and Share here:
I’m so happy that we get to spend so much time with you guys, making memories to last a lifetime.
….And a very Merry Christmas from Texas to the Kitzmiller family in Panama….. Love you guys, Jim and Marsha