During this season of celebration it is a joy to live in such a beautiful country. These two little Ngobe Bugle Indian girls say it all. We love it here and it would be a perfect paradise if we had all our friends and families just down the street. Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!

My sister Peggy, from Durango, CO visited us for the first time. Notice the blanket on her lap - she couldn't believe how cool the evenings felt. It was great fun to have her here.

The master surveying his kingdom - this picture was taken the evening before he had to go to the hospital for surgery.

A trip to the Mercado - My son Matt and his wife Stacy - their third trip to Panama in two years. We were buying ingredients for salsa - Stacy makes the best salsa I've ever had.

Michael had emergency spinal surgery about a week and a half ago - he had two ruptured lumbar discs - the surgery was a little complicated by the fact that he had two previously healed spinal fractures that he was unaware of. All went well and he has been home for over a week. He feels great and can't wait to get back to his regular routine. I knew he would be OK since he never lost his appetite once.

While I was at the hospital with Michael, Peggy, Matt and Stacy began decorating the house for Christmas - I don't know what we would have done without them - they were a great help!

Our new garden room decorated for Christmas.

Looking from garden room into living room.

Looking from kitchen into garden room.

Now we actually have room for the piano.

This update will take you through the end of the addition project (finally!). Here goes some color into the garden room.

Another look into the garden room.

Here's the cutouts in the original outside wall. This waited till the end since it was like dropping a dust bomb!

The tile floor is finished.

Here are the cutouts from the outside (now the garden room) looking in.

Next up, cutting the wall above the new tub for glass block.

This is the cutout for the new sliding door in the guest room. The open part is about all the window there was.

Work in the downstairs studio area. This will have an outside entrance only.

Things are progressing on all levels.

A little chili lunch with the construction team plus Ricardo.

Putting the final plaster (or repello) on the arches. You can see finished versus unfinished. The arches have downlighting.

We did some of the smaller painting jobs like this inside work.

Here are the cutouts for the lower sliding door in the guest room and a new huge window for our bedroom.

Another shot of the cutouts. Timing was a little bad as the wind and rain blew straight in for three days while these holes were open.

Yeah, baby. The hot tub has arrived and is in place!

The downstairs studio with a door to a storage area behind.

Thanksgiving. We missed our target since we were having two couples over. No dinner in the garden room.

Thanksgiving day the windows arrived and the team started installing. The same day the roof tiles went on. Not a holiday in Panama and we weren't going to shut things down.

Windows in the garden room.

First of the family on the new furniture!

Here are some looks around the finished addition. This is looking into the garden room from the driveway.

View of the garden room from the tropical garden.

Upper master bedroom window and lower guest room sliding door.

Guest room has a new terrace.

View towards the studio.

Here's how the whole thing looks.

The old dead tree takes a fall. We figured if we didn't cut it it would fall into the garden.

Down she goes. It may not look like it but it landed in the perfect spot.

Macheteros cutting the other property.

This post shows the construction sequence of our addition.



The embankment was dug out by hand. Luckily we have a small ravine off to the side.

The bottom floor will house a studio with storage in the back area.



This was the end of the bottom terrace. Now it will be a half wall with an arched window. The hot tub goes on this terrace.

The studio will have a sliding door entrance.

Studio floor is poured. All the floors will have the same floor tile that is throughout the house (and carport and terraces).

The outside wall will have an arched window looking into the tropical garden.

We plan to put another garden area around the studio entrance.

The bottom floor takes shape. The steps on the right had to be redirected alongside the room.

Inside the studio looking out.

This guest bedroom window is being replaced with a sliding door out to a small terrace.

Steel underlayment for the upper floor.

Cross beams (cariolas) for the upper floor.

The upper terrace will extend over to the new outside wall.

Upper terrace and walls going in.

Upper floor is poured and up go the walls. Another sliding door out to the terrace and big windows overlooking the tropical garden.

The walls are formed from Covintec. It's basically styrofoam with a metal mesh framework. This is the latest building technique here and is strong but flexible. It's also easy to form window openings, etc.

Roof trusses going in. This will give us a nice multilevel roof line.

The view from inside the upper garden room. We will be adding lighting and a waterfall to the tropical garden.

Sissy loves hibiscus!