My loving partner of the last nine years is Carmen Lodise.

 

I met Carmen just after I finished building a small house (Little House in the Pasture) in Atascadero, California. He's from Santa Barbara but was almost ready to retire to Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico where he already owns a house. Since then we've split our time, six months in Barra and six months in Atascadero. 

 

We drive to Barra (2,000 miles from door to door) with our dogs, Rio and Rocky. Rio is a large lab mix and Carmen bought him when he was a tiny puppy in Barra. Rocky is a medium corgi/pitbull mix who was a street dog until we adopted him. Both of them are bi-lingual, more so than either of us! 

We love our life and have a great time together.