We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great long weekend with friends and family. This is the first time in 24 years that we did not cook a turkey at our Bedrock home in Mexico and we have to admit it was a little different. They do have turkeys here and a lot of restaurants serve traditional Thanksgiving meals, but we decided to stay home and fix a nice ham on the grill for the two of us. Being a long holiday weekend it gave us time to go out and buy furnishings for the house. We found a great vibrant painting of a parrot, a reclining sofa with drink holders as well as a fold-out futon for the guesthouse in case anyone visits with kids. Our bed is also in the process of being made as well as some bar stools for the front porch and garage.

We also found a guy that makes live edge furniture, so we commissioned him to make us a big mirror for the bathroom wall. The wood we chose was Granadillo, a local hardwood, and it turned out beautiful. The fun thing here is that most of the furniture has to be made from scratch so that gives us the chance to design it and pick the type of wood, and with all the beautiful wood choices here that makes it tough.

The front door is also being carved from mahogany and should be ready real soon. This is a design that we came up with and once I had it drawn on paper he copied it exactly. The design on the 40” door will extend over onto the two 10” panels on each side of the door.

Since it was a long weekend we finally had time to build the workbench. It is 3’ wide by 18’ long using only 2 x 6’s and 4 x 4’s and it is anchored directly to the wall, I’m pretty sure I could drive the truck on it. Finally, a real place where I can get some projects done, up to now I’ve been using a fold-out table.

Also, we finally got the other half of the front entry gate painted and the locking hasp installed.

A lot has happened on the house this past week. There has been a big blue tarp all around it just in case it rained so that the freshly sanded porch won’t get wet. It sort of seems like that TV show Extreme Makeover where they will reveal your house once it is done. The inside is completely painted, the railing is up all around the porch, the electrician is here today, the lower cabinets get installed today, tomorrow the cabinets get measured for the granite so it should all come together this week.

A few years ago when we bought the property, Ruben had cut a trail down to a creek that borders our property. With everything else going on we had not given too much thought to it until the other day after a good rain. We could hear water running, so we put on our rubber boots and grabbed a machete and started chopping a trail down to where we thought the creek was. We found the creek and it was actually flowing pretty good. From what we remember from the first time we saw it there were some good size rocks somewhere in the creek that would make for a good little waterfall. Eventually, we will cut some trails down to where the best spots are and make small sitting areas so when it does run we can go check it out.

Kelley will not know I put this in the blog until she gets the post. The other day we were walking around the property and there was a huge vine hanging from this big tree all the way down to the ground. I chopped it off so that it was about three feet off the ground and then I pretended to swing on it like Tarzan. Knowing that it probably wouldn’t hold me I talked Kelley into giving it a try. She did a little test with her feet off the ground without a problem, so she decided to play Jane and give it a real try. Well you guessed it, it broke and she landed flat on her ass. She was okay, I just really wish I had the camera with me. Oh, what fun it is out in the jungle.