I thought it might be a good time for a bit of our "back story."

Back in about 1991, my son was graduating from high school. My ex-husband had traveled in Mexico for about a year after our divorce - and a couple he knew well offered my son the opportunity to live with their family in the town of Colima and attend a year of college. My son was unsure about his future plans and thought it would be fun.

He enrolled in TEC (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey) without knowing a word of Spanish. The friends he was living with knew English but would only bail him out if he had worked hard at figuring it out first. He had to take a lot of classes over as he learned Spanish, but in the end, after eight years he graduated from college with a degree in International Business. Of course he was living on his own by then and had a girlfriend who is now his wife. And it goes without saying, he is bilingual. His wife is now fluent in English. They got married in Colima and have lived part of their married life here in Washington State within an hour's drive of us but now live in Mexico City.

I visited him down there many times, sometimes traveling around with him by bus, sometimes by car, and sometimes with his wife's family as they visited relatives. I can understand Spanish somewhat; my verbal skills are not as good. The 10 years of French I had in school does nothing but trip me up!

After Paul and I got married we started taking vacations to Mexico, too. We've traveled around a fair bit - Colima, Comala, Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarta, Guadelajara, Chapala, Mexico City, Zihuatenajo, etc. We always stay in B & B's and are constantly on the lookout for "the place." Paul has a real facility for languages and his Spanish is pretty good already!

We have two dogs and want to make sure wherever we land has a great place to walk. Our vacation trips have to be - as close as they can - some type of preview as to how life would be in the community we are visiting.

The decisionmaking is fun - but we are both very ready for our lives in Mexico to become reality.

-Nancy