As I toyed with the idea of publishing a blog post to wrap up the year, I could not help but think about the letter we write every year to include in our Christmas cards. I thought how simple it would be to write a post by using the letter as a reflection of our year. Our list of holiday greetings go out to about 40 friends and family by U.S. Postal Service. When I thought about that, I thought how there was no way this completed our desire to send greetings to everyone. We are blessed to have friends, and others who we consider family, all over the world now. Our core of friends and family here in Panama swell and contract with the seasons, but is tending to mostly grow now with my book on the shelf for more than a year. I continue to be amazed by the reach of the written word and how people are helped by sharing the experiences of others. I get frequent messages in my inbox from fans sharing pictures of themselves holding my book. I also have people approaching me to ask if I am the guy who wrote that book. These people have often become fast friends. I have even started getting messages from people who are purchasing the book locally since it started showing up on the shelves of El Hombre de la Mancha the first week in December. There is no doubt that this has been an exciting year, so allow me to unpack our Christmas letter below. After the letter I will make a few more observations and share some pictures.
We hope that this letter finds you all in good health and enjoying the holiday season. We are happy and healthy and still enjoying our retirement in Panama.
2021 has been a slow and unique year but filled with blessings for us. It started off with a bang as we were in Gulf Shores, Alabama to ring in the new year with our good friends, Ray and Diane Barber. Although the sun was shining every day, it was a little on the chilly side there. When we left to come home to Panama, it was a mere 34 degrees Fahrenheit. We were happy to come home to the 34-degree Celsius weather!
In January, there was a second wave of Covid in Panama, and we were put back onto restrictions. We had a special trip planned to Bocas del Toro with our travel buddies, Lyn and Ty, for Lyn’s birthday. Bocas del Toro is a series of islands on the Caribbean side of Panama. Unfortunately, our trip was cancelled due to the restrictions. We were able to reschedule it to April but, as is just our luck, we hit the beginning of rainy season there. We still
had a good time, but it was sure wet and muddy!
In May, Melinda (Greg’s sister) found us a cute little condo in Port Charlotte, Florida. We thought that pulling money out of the stock market and investing in a hard asset was probably a good move for us, so we purchased it. It became ours the first of June. We spent several weeks in the states during this time decorating and making sure the condo was to our liking. We did find time, though, to take a trip to Michigan to visit with
family and friends. It was nice to see everybody and to spend time on Gravel Lake, our old stomping grounds.
Our plan with the condo is to rent it to snowbirds for the winter months and to stay there when we visit. By the time we left Florida for home in June, we had tenants lined up for February through April of 2022. What a blessing! And it is nice to have a place to stay when we visit the states, so we don’t have to impose on family and friends (at least in Florida)! And it is also a nice place for Greg’s mom and Rich to get away from the cold of Michigan when it’s not rented.
Since coming back home to Panama in June, we have not traveled much. We went to an archeological site, which was on a farm in Las Tablas, and explored around that area. We spent a long weekend in Boquete with Greg’s writing group and did the hanging bridges tour in and above the tree line (a huge accomplishment for Jen with her fear of heights). We also decided to spend a weekend in Panama City and explore the shops, restaurants, and other tourist areas we had not yet seen.
It seems like we are not doing much, but it seems we are always busy! To occupy her time, Jen is typing transcripts for a couple different courts in Michigan. To occupy his time, Greg is working on a new project — a murder mystery fiction. In addition, he is very busy promoting his published book, 2 Retire in Panama?, which is doing well. His book was approved to be sold in the Panamanian bookstore, El Hombre de la Mancha (The Man of La Mancha). That is very exciting for us!
We are looking forward to 2022. Greg’s mom and Rich are coming to visit us for the entire month of February, and we have our good friends, Ray and Diane, visiting us for a week in April. Our home is always open for visitors. We know with Covid that travel plans are iffy and have to remain very fluid. We’ve tossed around the idea of traveling or not traveling in 2022. We’ll see what we decide next year.
Our wish for all of you this Christmas is to be able to spend time with family and loved ones, and to stay safe, happy, and healthy in 2022.
Have a very Merry Christmas!
No recap of 2021 would be complete, for me, without sharing the amazing Father’s Day celebration in Florida. This was the first time that all three daughters, all four grandchildren, my dad, sister, and I have been all together to celebrate Father’s Day. We got these special pictures and many others.
They got me a special Father’s Day gift from Story Worth. Story Worth sends me a weekly prompt to write from. This goes on for a year and at the end of the year I will get a bound hardcover book of all my written prompts to share with my family. I highly recommend this gift for yourself or a loved one. This is a gift that will live on in infamy. I have attached a link below to subscribe to Story Worth. The subscription link below will give you a $10 discount while crediting me with a sale to help purchase volumes for my family.
The pictures above of our condo in Port Charlotte. It is only a couple of miles from the harbor and sits on a great location with a lake, pool, and clubhouse. The neighborhood is quiet and the area is convenient to everything. It is a bonus that it is near my dad and sister.
The pictures above are but a few more highlights from our year. The biggest highlights include friends old and new. I have around 600 subscribers now to my free weekly newsletter. It helps me to keep information about Panama fresh for friends and visitors. Readers of my book appreciate the newsletter for keeping them informed in changes to covid requirements and other government information which is constantly changing. Recent changes in immigration requirements, for some visas, caused a portion of my book to be already outdated. As we prepare for Christmas and the coming of a new year here in Panama, I remain committed to publishing updates to the original book and completing my first work of fiction.
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of appearing on a podcast interview with Roberto Hernandez at Morning Tempo. My interview was very humbling. It has been my goal through the writing of my blog, book, and newsletters to help people. Through the process, I have become an influencer and a go-to guy. I did not set out for that distinction, but enjoy the feeling that people are being helped. It amazes me that there are so many people, like myself, who would rather explore Panama themselves on their own terms without being driven around on a “relocation tour”. A link to that interview is below. If you click the link you can read the synapsis or listen to the entire interview (it is 27 minutes long)
I hope you will consider subscribing to this blog and the free weekly newsletter. Liking and sharing also helps others to find it that may not see it otherwise. I have the previous blog posts listed on the right sidebar and the previous newsletters are on my Pinterest feed on the tool bar below. I often share interesting things on my You Tube channel which is also on the toolbar below. At the bottom of this post I am sharing links to several of the things that I talked about above. We love to hear from all our readers, so feel free to send us a message.
Blessings From Paradise,
Greg and Jen
#welovepanama
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Great summary of the year. I do like the pic of your new friend. Do you see him often?