This is the amazing view from my new writing space at Java Coffee Co (it’s wonderful, review to follow). While researching Costa Rican lore, legends, and baddies, I came across a story with the always intriguing headline “Fountain of Youth.” Now, I have been fascinated by this idea since I was wee, admittedly considered searching for it once upon a time, and the story did not disappoint.
They say there was a natural hot spring in the hills south of San Jose that was the center of trade and ceremonial capital for the Huetares people for centuries. The water was renowned for its healing abilities, and all were welcome to it. The Huetares would carry little satchels of spring water and mud made with it while they traveled to heal anything from scrapes to intestinal issues. Hearing of its powers, Juan Vásquez de Coronado, the Spanish conquistador, declared it his new capital in 1563, naming it Cartago. Fast forward to 1886, colonials found out about the spring, its incredible healing powers and built a massive spa resort around it called Bella Vista where royalty, dignitaries, and anyone with some cash come to stay and drive the locals out. The visitors tell the world about miraculous tuberculosis recoveries, eyesight restored, gout healed, and asthma recoveries. The resort quickly grows so profitable it is traded on the European stock exchange.
The locals believed the Bella Vista was angering the Gods. And here is the amazing part—in 1910, a massive earthquake destroyed everything. Everything. Many died, the resort was destroyed, and the spring was lost for almost a hundred years.
In 2007, Avraham Kotlitzky, an Israeli adventurer in love with the tale and determined to find the spring, forged the jungle, dug for weeks through refuse and garbage now covered with a century of rainforest growth, and found the hot spring. He spent the next ten years slowly building a magnificent resort reminiscent of Bella Vista that he named Palacio Purapora…but never finished. I have been trying to find out what happened to him, and the spa, but all stories, Facebook posts, and news articles stopped in 2017.
The spring, Agua Caliente, is still there and supposedly healing people. A new resort was built about 7 miles away, and they bus people in. We might have to make a trip over to drink the 135F sulfuric waters and take a mud bath.
But man, doesn’t that sound like the beginnings of a fun novel?
Our first week in Costa Rica over, we left San Jose for the hot and humid northwest of the country, Playa del Coco. There are several ways to travel the five to six hours north. For $200 per person, you can take an hour-long flight from San Jose to Liberia, rent a car or taxi for $50 and drive forty minutes to the beach.
A local bus is only eight bucks and takes about six hours, stopping at a dozen villages along the way. I have to admit, I pictured this bus straight out of Romancing The Stone with straw-filled wood crates strapped to the roof and Kathleen Turner sandwiched between locals with pigs and chickens running in the aisle. Fun, but grossly condescending and ignorant of me. It’s not like that at all and is actually pristine and bright pink. You are still crammed next to fifty strangers during Covid for a really long time, and you couldn’t pay me enough to put Sophia in that situation. No one would make it to their final destination.
So, we opted for the third option of a private transfer. No shame, it was wonderful. For $300, the four of us and ten, yes ten, pieces of luggage were transported in a large, air-conditioned white van with a driver who provided cold bottled water, answered lots of questions, and offered to stop whenever we liked.
Trees, trees, trees everywhere. Not the monotonous forests of fir trees like our home in the PNW; we drove through rainforests of Glory Bush, Guancaste, Travelers Palm, and Golden Rain Trees. Of course, I didn’t know the names of any of these. I had to look them up later, but it was fun to imagine I was in a white blouse and khaki trousers, traveling by overcrowded bus, pencil and notebook in hand, scribbling away about the landscape—for about five minutes. Then I appreciated our private van, my phone, and the tortilla chips I’d brought.
We passed jaguar crossing signs, sloth crossing signs, and my ears kept popping from climbing up incredibly steep hillsides only to plateau for moments then careen down the other side, reawakening my fear of topheavy large white vans driven by masochistic drivers who get paid the same amount of money regardless of drive time so are determined to shorten the trip as much as possible.
Tim spent the beginning of the trip bettering himself, reading an energizing book titled The Compound Effect, and promptly fell asleep. I chose to traipse through Europe with my travel writing hero—Bill Bryson. Well, I kept trying to read but would catch myself gazing out the window at the incredibly skinny white cows, hoping to see a jaguar even though they are expertly camouflaged, are nocturnal, and it was 9:15 in the morning.
Sophia slept almost the entire trip. I don’t know what I did to deserve such a treat, but I was more than happy to endure another three-hour numb butt episode as I was wedged in between the crack of two seats. A view of the seat that Sev smashed an uneaten banana into the mesh pocket with her foot while she dozed. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Tim clean up that bit of fun.
For two hours, we followed a small truck with an advertisement for MAX EQUILIBRIO! FOOD FOR HEALTHY DOG OR CAT! I felt it was shouting at me and grew to resent it. We drove so close, I could read the fine print and disclaimers. Don’t cats and dogs usually eat different food? Or is that a whole other level of privileged thinking I was unaware of?
But this, this was waiting for us on arrival: Home for the next two and a half months.
Many of our friends and family have been to Costa Rica. None have spent much time, if any, in San Jose, the capital. The impression we got from everyone was, “get in, and get out to the countryside or beach as fast as you can.” Even blog posts and travel writers state it as a stopover point and mention a few highlights before moving on.
Pictures online tell a different story—colonial buildings in bright colors with swirling wrought-iron balconies, palm tree lined pedestrian roads filled with festive Pura Vida signs, bustling markets, and smiling locals. We wanted to see it, experience the place where many locals live and work and thrive. Since we would be in this country for three months, we felt a week in the capital was enough time to get to know it before moving on to the beach.
We arrived midday at the San Jose airport, and if you read my previous post about our flight, you’ll understand our prickly mood— Red Eye to San Jose
The heat that smacked us as we deboarded had us all sweating by the time we trudged up the boarding bridge. The terminal was quiet but having sat at the back of the plane, we were the last to get our luggage and join the queue at customs. And what a queue it was. Hundreds of people from dozens of flights lined up in a Disneyesque line that twisted for seeming miles. Yes, we chose to travel during Covid, and I was prepared for times of close proximity out of our control, but we were looking at hours of standing elbow to stinky travel body elbow with a thousand strangers. When we approached the line, Sophia stopped in her tracks, refusing to move, and summed up our collective mood nicely with a loud “No.”
An angel, or Costa Rican Airport Authority worker, saw us, recognized Sophia’s body language, and made the gesture every parent dreams of—he opened the Costa Rican citizen rope line and waved us through. We hugged and cried and laughed for joy. Then put on our serious faces at the murderous looks from the other passengers as we, with less guilt than we probably should have had, skipped to the front and only had to wait ten minutes.
This whole experience set us up to love San Jose immediately. We were through the rest of the airport and outside in a taxi within twenty minutes. I won’t sugarcoat it—the drive into the city is not attractive. Certain areas look like a hurricane recently swept through and hadn’t been rebuilt yet. Other parts were filled with high-rises and new shopping centers. Costa Rica has one of the highest living standards in Central and South America, but it does look vastly different from what that means to many travelers.
San Jose was not love at first sight, though, in hindsight, it was really our mood and perception. Our hotel, the Hotel Presidente, was lovely, with bougainvillea climbing the balcony’s and stairs, open to the sky wood-beamed ceilings, and a lobby filled with books and vintage typewriters (I mean, come on!), but we had been up for thirty-six hours, not eaten in 12, and at this point, all felt like our surely three-year-old.
We dumped our bags and left immediately to find sustenance. Now, if that had been our only mission, we probably would have been fine, but we made the mistake of asking the hotel for a recommendation for a restaurant that would suit both of our finicky eater’s needs. While we did eventually find this fantastic restaurant, it was after two hours of stumbling over broken sidewalks, exposed drainage ditches and circling a red-light district one too many times to seem like an accident.
When we returned to our room, Tim and I honestly wondered what the hell we were going to do in this city for the next seven days. It didn’t look anything like the pictures, and we guiltily, prematurely, agreed with all the naysayers who smartly skipped it.
Then something lovely happened. We heard a squawk, and opening the curtains, found a pair of green parrots on our windowsill. They tuttered for a minute while checking us out and flew away together in a graceful swoop, their wings almost touching across the rooftops. We went to bed well-fed in an air conditioned room and slept for ten hours.
For the next week, we ate better than we have in years, fell in love with a small suburb called Escazu full of art and adobes and parks, and basically roamed and roamed a city we now have unforgettable memories of. The locals were incredibly friendly and welcoming everywhere we went and forgave our horrible Spanish without hesitation.
Seven days later, we couldn’t believe it was time to leave. Due to Covid, we decided to skip indoor activities but still didn’t see everything we planned on. The Post Office is a national landmark, but we only saw the outside. There is a $10 fee to see the inside of the National Theatre, but I’m told, if you eat at the café inside and ask to use the bathroom, you can wander the halls for a moment for free and see the opulent rooms heads of state used to entertain royalty in. At the inside market, Mercado Central, a man makes vanilla ice cream, and only vanilla, so good that copycats have opened all over the country but none as good as his. In seven days, we missed all this. If you go, you have to tell me about it!
Here is a list of our favorites:
Hotel Presidente – Corner of Calle 7 and Avenue Central. Simple rooms, lovely staff, wonderful restaurant and bar upstairs. Sev would say it has the best buffet breakfast ever! Double queen room about $90/night. http://www.hotel-presidente.com
Mercado Central – Calle 8, Paso De La Vaca, 8am-6pm Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday.—an inside maze-like market full of produce, crafts, tourist gifts, spice shops, apothecaries, and sodas (small eateries).
Pedestrian Walkway – Avenida Central, approximately a mile long and spanning from Calle 3 to Calle 20 in between first and Second Avenue. It is lined with everything from local shops and restaurants to Starbucks and McDonalds.
Correos de Costa Rica, Post Office – Calle 2 between Avenue 1 and Avenue 3. A gorgeous late neo-classical building with a working post office and café.
Tenedor Argentino – Av. Segunda Frente Al Costado. This is an Argentinian-style grill across the street from the beautiful National Theater. They had fat juicy steaks smothered in garlic and cilantro and wonderful empanadas, but the best thing was this ridiculous multitiered dulce de leche meringue cake. Yes, it was as good as it looked.
Restaurant NaPraia – Edificio Sigma, Dente, Across from the mall San Pedro. About a $5 taxi from downtown is a huge mall. HUGE. We got lost in it. Across from the mall is this fantastic seafood restaurant. We had the house seafood platter with grilled octopus, tuna, prawns, and chimichurri. It was only $20. We were laughing out loud it was so good and made us so happy. That’s just one of the reasons Tim and I get along so well.
Escazu – Suburb about 10 minutes taxi ride from downtown San Jose. It’s split into three levels—lower, middle, and upper. The lower is full of newer businesses, restaurants, art galleries, breweries, and wine shops. The middle is the oldest area, full of families, smaller local restaurants, and an excellent playground for kids. Upper Escuza has large homes, art galleries, and a few restaurants, along with fine views of the city and water.
Four excellent restaurants in Escazu:
Sin Domicilio Fijo- Av. 32 134. Art gallery, boutique shop, and fabulous restaurant. We had black sesame crusted tuna with caramelized potatoes, tomatoes, and yuca in a passionfruit sauce that was absolutely delicious and so big we actually couldn’t finish it. We also had an amazing dorado ceviche that was beautiful, but we ate it before I could take a picture.
Madfish – 100 SE de Rose Plaza en San Rafael – Wonderful seafood restaurant we went to on purpose because it had great reviews, then got trapped in when a torrential rainstorm hit and lasted for three hours. We didn’t mind at all. The food is from the Caribbean side of the country, and I had a spicy coconut curried fish that was so good I picked up the bowl to drink the sauce. Tim’s ceviche was the perfect cooling counterpoint, and we traded back and forth.
Appunto Gourmet Market – Del Cruce de Escazu – Totally unassuming front entrance had Tim and the girls asking to go back to Sin Domicillio Fijo—until we stepped inside. Easily one of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve ever been to. It had a freaking river running through it! Besides the amazing food – eggs benedict, huevos rancheros, and whoever heard of red velvet waffles, it had a playground next to our table. Sev said she was in heaven, and we had to agree. The inside of the market was equally incredible with cakes, pastries, empanadas, pates, prepared salads…I could have eaten there all day.
So, I thought overnight flights would be the best plan with an almost-three-year-old who is incredibly active and not super excited about wearing masks for hours on end. We would just get to the airport, get all tucked in, and sleep through the flight, right? Well, kind of. Sophia did sleep most of the flight.
Man, I wish that was the end of the story.
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10 pm. The lovely lady at the check-in counter informed us it was now 10:20 due to a late arrival. No biggie, let’s watch a little Netflix on mom’s phone and quiet down. Then they extended it to 10:45. Okay, let’s get one last run around in before being trapped on a plane with hundreds of people trying to sleep. When they announced the flight wouldn’t be leaving until 11:15 due to a mechanical issue, always comforting, Sophia lost it, and I couldn’t blame her. Sev wanted to know what was wrong with the plane, and Tim and I wanted to know if the bars were still open.
Sometime before midnight, we boarded. Dinner was long gone, last drink already a headache, sleep-deprived toddler both overexcited and pissed at the world, and Sev, questioning everyone with every thought in her intelligent little head.
The devil picked out our seats. At least for myself and the girls. Tim was thrilled. Three seats in a row on one side of the aisle, one all by itself on the other side. Tim sat in the solo seat with a trying-to-be-apologetic-but-actually-ecstatic-smile, knowing full well the toddler would never leave my side. So I got the middle seat. It was fine. Both girls could lay their heads in my lap and go to sleep. I’d tuck a pillow in my neck and dream along with them.
Four hours later, I had slept seven minutes. Sev’s legs kept falling open into the aisle where she was getting trampled on by and tripping every passing passenger. Sophia braced her legs against the side of the plane and headbutted Sev every chance she could. Both growled like Manchester Terriers, guarding their territory every time I thought about moving. First, my feet went numb, then my legs, then my butt. I would try to flex my butt cheeks to get blood flowing fearing the ever possible blood clot They always warn you about while flying, but soon lost all capacity to do so. My head would nod every hour or so, then snap back and crack my neck in a helpful way, so there was that. I’m pretty sure I drooled on Sophia’s head at one point but then became so dehydrated there was no drool to be had. Sev woke about two hours in and had a complete screaming meltdown about how awful everything was, waking everyone within five aisles of us, then passed blissfully back out, remembering nothing later.
And our seats. I clearly remember picking out our seats months earlier. I do not remember picking seats at the very back of the plane. Seats that do not recline. Seats right next to the only bathrooms. Bathrooms that are lit disco-style with bright blue lights every time a passenger opens the door. And the doors are constantly being opened. CONSTANTLY.
The only saving grace of this hell of my own making was the in-flight service had Sex and the City episodes. I can stand a lot if I can binge-watch Sex and the City, which I did for four hours straight. Long live Carrie Bradshaw.
Tim had a great flight. Somehow, I still love him.
Our Worldschooling journey has begun. We left last Tuesday for three months in Costa Rica. But let me back up a little. I closed my catering company and began pursuing my lifelong delusion of grandeur of being a writer and Tim worked his fabulous butt off to get his two mattress stores in a position where he could run them from abroad. We paid off credit cards, student loans, sold a work van, and personal vehicle. We switched from Verizon to Google Fi which has great international rates (well, sort of, but that’s another story). We sold or donated most of our belongings, moved out of our rental, and packed our few remaining possessions into storage. We stayed with my mother-in-law our last week in Washington State and celebrated an early birthday/baptism/going away party and said our goodbyes for now to everyone. Many a skeptical everyone.
Not that family and friends weren’t supportive, they were just, well, not totally excited about this whole crazy idea of ours. I get it. It’s hard to explain wanderlust to people who haven’t experienced it. It’s also hard to explain a feeling that we don’t live in the most amazing place in the world, and while it can be wonderful, there are many, many other wonderful countries, people, and cultures we would like our girls to experience before they are teenagers and “the American way” is the only “way” they know.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Worldschooling, I found it’s best explained like this—start with the idea of homeschooling but take away all workbooks, curriculums, tests, structure, etc…and add that it is child-led, aka whatever they are interested in learning about, and do it around the world while slow traveling. Simple, right? Here is a link that explains it better:
People often ask, or yell, what about math? Science? AP Chemistry? No child is going to ask to learn AP Chemistry! Well, that part might be true. But we have found our oldest, who is all of seven, gets just as excited about doing math and science as she does dancing and talking about dinosaurs. It’s all exciting to her, all interesting. Our job as her parents is to facilitate her excitement and find cool and interesting ways for her to learn about things. To include math and reading and climatology in every day and traveling life. Here’s five dollars for a $3.28 ice cream. How much change should you get back? They speak Spanish in Costa Rica? Let’s learn it! What is the political system here and how does it differ from where we grew up? It’s actually very easy. We have conversations. Lots of them. About everything around us. And we’re not afraid to say “I don’t know, let’s look it up together.” We all learn.
Now, the question of how much learning is actually happening when you’re jet-lagged, arriving in a foreign country, and said kids won’t eat anything—well, that’s the story for next time.
I don’t know if you’ve written a book, but it is an interesting process. I have written a manuscript. I refuse to call it the four-letter “B” word at this point because, well, you know…jinxes, bad luck, broken legs, run-on sentences…
This being my first manuscript, and me being a naive newb, I have decided to take the path of insanity: Traditional Publishing. Many fellow readers and writers suggested self-publishing. That is what all the cool kids are doing these days, but no. I wanted to make the process extra hard on myself. I’m not knocking self-publishing. It’s hard too, just for totally different reasons. Now, come with me on a journey through the traditional publishing process.
I’m somewhere between 99% and 1% finished. Roughly. The manuscript has been written, rewritten, edited by me, edited by test readers, edited by me again, edited by a professional editor, edited by me again, back to the professional, and back to me. Nauseated yet? It is now out for its final test reading and depending on the comments that come back, I’ll either have some more editing to do, or have a good cry and then have some more editing to do. The editing could go on for decades, but I’ve been at this for a year and a half and am itching to move on to the next step.
Querying a literary agent! Unfortunately, the big publishing houses no longer take direct submissions. You need a gatekeeper on your side. Someone to sing your praises, go to battle for you, tell the big guys no, we don’t want a buxom chef with a bloody knife and cleavage on the cover. This hero is your literary agent.
Normally these lovely people get many submissions a week they have to wade through. During the pandemic, many a soul left their 9-5 desk job to enrichen and delight the world with their novel. Now, the submissions are overwhelming and agents can be found weeping on Twitter and having nervous breakdowns. Bless them, they trudge on.
But you don’t just send your manuscript to them, oh no-no. They won’t even look at it. To get an agent, you have to send out queries. Many, many, many queries. Or so I’m told. Your query is a one-page letter, on white paper, Times New Roman 12-point font, and basically has to sell your manuscript in 1.2 seconds. They read an infinite amount of these so it has to be stellar and catch their interest in the first two eye blinks.
Agents work 100% on commission and only make money if they can get your book picked up by a publisher, so it is a major commitment for them. This means they are to really, really like a query or they pass on it. If I am graced by the gods, I might hear back sometime in the next 6 weeks to 6 months with a request for a synopsis. If they like that, they will ask for more pages. Eventually, many moons later, they will ask for the whole manuscript. And could still not make an offer of representation. I’ve read stories about authors that wrote a few queries and got an agent and about authors that wrote to over 200 agents before they were asked for more pages.
Now self-publishing is Now once I have my agent extraordinaire, because dammit, I will make this happen, it is their job to find me a publisher. But it’s still not guaranteed. Just because an agent loves you and your wannabe bestseller doesn’t mean it’s the right time for the publisher, or the market, or the editor’s dog just died and a dog dies in your book and they just can’t go through that again. The timing really is magic.
At this point, it’s advised to just forget about your agent and let them work. I’m supposedly supposed to concentrate on the next book in the series and pretend not to check my phone a thousand times a minute to see if we got an offer. Weeks or years later, in my delusions of grandeur, I’ll be offered a publishing contract. Which, if I accept, can take up to ANOTHER six months to hammer out the details—how big the advance will be, foreign rights, the before mentioned book cover design, audiobooks, net profits vs gross profits (gross profits for the win!), intellectual property, pole dancing at the book signings, etc…
So, in summary, twenty-seven-years from now my urban fantasy will be traditionally published and have a home on a book store shelf near you.
After having re-read this, self-publishing is sounding better than ever. But is a completely different beast, and we’ll tackle that topic at another time.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, salmon is everywhere. My catering company specialized in weddings and couples always wanted to show off local flavors to their thirty cousins flying in from Boston. Unfortunately, even in Washington, fresh wild King salmon—the best of the bunch (or school)—is expensive. Even in season, it can run more than $20 a pound. While most couples yearn for a menu to be proud of, money is always a factor and that’s how this delicious plate of cheesy, basil goodness came to be. I wanted to offer a pasta dish that was easy on the mortgage, would hold well on a buffet, highlighted local seafood, and, most importantly, tasted amazing. Hello Pesto Salmon Lasagna!
Lidia, one of my past mother-of-the-grooms and a current reader, requested this recipe which she says, nine years later, guests still compliment her on. Use the fattiest salmon you can for this dish. Sockeye is less expensive but is very lean and dries out easily. Fresh, wild King is best but, please don’t judge, Atlantic farm-raised works well too. You only need one pound to feed eight people. Bargain!
Tips from the Pro Kitchen:
Please read all tips, ingredients, and directions before beginning.
Chefs always set up their mis en place before they start a project. This is everything you need in one neatly organized area – cutting board, towel, salt, pepper, knife, utensils, and prepped ingredients.
This size recipe works best in a 9×13 baking dish but can easily be doubled.
As in everything, quality makes all the difference and that includes fat. Use full fat ricotta and mozzarella for best flavor.
Like most lasagna, this holds together best when made the day or two before you wish to eat it, then gently reheated to serve.
Please undercook the salmon a little. It should be glossy, shiny, and a little jiggly in the center when done. This helps it stay moist when cooked for a second and third time in the lasagna.
Depending on the fat content of your salmon and the other ingredients, oil can accumulate at the top of the cheese when finished. If this is unsightly to you, just dap with a paper towel to remove.
Usually recipes call for extra virgin olive oil. I only use this for drizzling over salads, cheese, dipping bread, etc…as I find the flavor too strong for most cooking. Using a regular olive oil or even light olive oil works great for a mild flavor, especially in the pesto. See below.
I’ve included a recipe for a simple pesto below but store-bought, especially the Costco brand works well too. Same goes for pre-sliced mozzarella.
Please use no-boil lasagna noodles. They are a revelation and should be celebrated with a parade. I’d wave a flag.
Portion while cold for neat slices or eat straight out of the pan with your fingers by the light of the refrigerator at 3am for maximum enjoyment.
This dish is wonderful served with a Caesar salad, a wilted spinach salad, or roasted broccoli and cauliflower.
Please feel free to request any other recipes you’d like to see. I’m happy to share!
Place salmon on a parchment lined baking sheet and season with a pinch of salt, garlic powder, and a drizzle of olive oil.
Bake for 10 minutes or until salmon is 3/4 cooked through.
Remove from oven and set aside to cool. Reduce temp to 350F.
While salmon is cooking, mix ricotta, pesto, and eggs in a medium bowl.
Set up 9×13 baking dish, salmon, mozzarella, ricotta mix, and parmesan where you can reach everything.
Place a small smear of ricotta mix on the bottom of the dish then place 3 lasagna sheets on top. Layer half the ricotta mix on top, spreading it smooth, then place chunks of half the salmon evenly over the ricotta. Top with half the mozzarella slices. Repeat with lasagna noodles, then the rest of the ricotta mix, the rest of the salmon, and the rest of the mozzarella. Sprinkle the parmesan.
Bake for 45 minutes. Top should be golden brown and bubbling around the edges. If the top is getting too dark at 30 minutes, place a loose sheet of foil over. Remove from oven and let rest for a couple hours or overnight.
Hi! I’m Sunshine, chef, writer, and mother of two awesome little ladies. Here I’ll be sharing my writing and journey through traditional publishing, unqualified book reviews, recipes, travel stories, parenting fails, and probably lots of picture of what I’m cooking and eating.
Meet my family—Tim, who I met long ago in the far away land of downtown Seattle, is my partner in parenting and travel shenanigans. It was not love at first sight, in fact I reported him to management a number of times but they refused to fire him and he grew on me. Of course, a few months in I got restless and my ever-present wanderlust shouted “it’s not you, I just need to leave the country”. He said great, I’m coming too, and we’ve been together ever since (outside the time I unfairly left him behind in a crazy small town in Maine and flew off to France. Totally a story for another time).
Seventeen years later we have two charmingly exuberant and overly loquacious daughters, three and seven years old, have closed my catering company for good, packed the house, and are preparing to embark on a round the world journey with our delusions of grandeur and laptops packed.
Tim will be running our two mattress stores while we are abroad and I’ll be—mommying, writing, cooking, travel planning, reading, eating, drinking a metric ton of wine, and having an all- around heck of an amazing time. Can’t wait to tell you about it!
Sunshine Dunning 