The Metropolis - our home in Auckland for the next few months. 

Boots on the Ground

John arrived in Auckland on January 21, Conor and Mike on January 27, and I will be leaving Bend on Monday. The wheels are starting to turn, the money is in place, and we have accomplished quite a bit in the past few weeks. John bought a green Suburu from our friends Malcolm & Janet, and he has been staying at their house while looking for a home. Conor called yesterday when they arrived at Prince's Wharf from the airport to check in. John found them a nice apartment on the wharf - right near one of the cruise ships that has just docked. I anxiously await pictures and news which I am sure Conor will be posting to this blog just as soon as he finds an Internet connection. (hint, hint)

John found us a very nice apartment at the Metropolis (see photo). It's something we have always wanted to to . . . live in a city, take advantage of all of the cultural opportunities, and walk to work. It's about seven blocks from the Met to the restaurant which is a walk I am looking forward to. In the building we have a gym and a swimming pool, not to mention a spa and a fabulous view of the city and the harbor!

I have been tying up loose ends here in Bend. We have cut off our land telephone line effective Feb 1, so the number we have had for 25 years will go back in the hopper. As my friends know, I won't miss it at all since I rarely even answer the phone! My last official duty as Paula Day drives me to the airport on Monday morning will be to drop off the digital cable box at BendBroadband.

It will be sad leaving Bend, my home for over 30 years, but I am looking forward to a fabulous adventure with my family in our new adopted home. There's not a more beautiful place on earth, except maybe Broken Top on a warm sunny afternoon in October with the geese flying overhead, the leaves turning orange and red, and that inimitable sweetness of Fall in the air.

JB's model of the future Mexicali Fresh. I should have saved all of the others . . . we would have a veritable museum of restaurant models! 

Our Kitchen Manager, Mike Moor, testing some new recipes in the Buell Test Kitchen, 

Travel Plans & Other Activities

We have made our travel plans for our return trip to Middle Earth. I was starting to get a little frustrated with the price of airfare, and then stumbled upon a fantastic resource. Travel Team out of Seattle has taken care of all of our plans, for about half the price of other fares I found online. Seriously, if you are planning a trip to the South Pacific, send Dale at Travel Team an email. I would estimate that so far they have saved us about $5,000. (It will come in pretty handy when we are buying that new Robo Coupe.)

JB leaves Redmond on January 19, Conor and Mike on January 26, and I take flight on January 31. Tyler will be following after the mighty Sonoma Academy Wolves complete their basketball season in February. We are on hold with those plans just in case they make the playoffs.

We have completed the menu board and are fine-tuning the recipes. Some of them we are taking from popular items at Mexicali Rose and Baja Norte. Others we are developing fresh and new. We will have our famous carnitas and margaritas that have stood the test of time, and have mastered a wonderful new garlic-lime chicken marinade.

It's been great fun making a testing the new recipes. Today we even got our housekeepers Maria and Susanna into the mix. They suggested a little more salt and oregano for the veggie mix and it proved to be a very nice improvement!

Let's see . . . 25 days and counting until we get the keys!