Summer and I have spent a lot of time in the water snorkeling around Rincon. We have snorkeled the entire point one time or another. Once I got my spear and dive equipment, we really went a lot.
We both discussed getting certified to scuba dive before we moved down here, but we got too busy and never made it happen. Then we moved into our house project, along came Sydney and here we are, still not certified to scuba dive. We read about the dive adventures over at the Kruse Chronicles and discuss how great getting certified would be, but we haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet.
Last winter, we booked a scuba diving trip to Desecheo Island with friends that were visiting, but then found out Summer was pregnant so we couldn’t dive. Regardless of the non-scuba part of it, we still took the boat trip out to the island and snorkeled while everyone else dove. Since that trip, I have wanted to talk about how great it was, but we had no photos aside from a few of us loading up the boat.
The trip was really well organized and fun. As soon as you step into the equipment area, a feeling of teamwork and responsibility filled the air. We packed up our equipment into the back of their truck and walked down to the boat ramp. Once they beached the boat, we lined up and passed all of the equipment down the line and onto the boat. If loading all the equipment were left to the two Divemasters, it would have taken 2 hours to load up. Getting the group involved in a team work exercise is practical, a great way to introduce fellow divers to each other and a great first chapter in the diving experience they provide for you. Taino Divers did a great job creating a great vacation diving experience.
I have finally made the time to blog about the trip and have some great underwater pictures of Desecheo Island along with a beautiful video of the dive. The video ends with a very close encounter with a 40ft plus whale. It is breathtaking.
I finished up work today around 5:00. We start Sydney’s dinner/bed routine at 6:00pm, so I was looking for the girls so we could get a solid evening hour of daddy time in before bed. We had a couple solid days of rain last week, but before that storm, we were without rain for about 7 weeks. Everything was turning yellow.
Summer and Sydney Watering the Pineapple Plants
Despite the rain, we still need to water daily. The yard and plants have grown enough that it just takes to long to water everything in one shot. It takes us about 2 hours to water the entire property and either of us have time to do that. To make it easy, we split up the property into 4 watering zones. So, throughout the day (we both work from home) we water different zones.
I left the office and hiked up to the top of the hill and found Summer and Sydney (in her sling) watering the plants with the hose. It really is cool to see our plants/trees hit the 2/3 year old mark. They aren’t big yet, but they are established little trees. By the time Sydney is ready to climb trees, she’ll be swinging on branches of trees Summer and I planted. It’s awesome.
Pineapple Flowers
We didn’t just plant trees. Every time Summer and I eat a pineapple, we cut the top off, put it in water and plant it once the roots start to grow. We have a nice little pineapple garden now with about 7 plants. But, we don’t plan on stopping at 7. We are going to just keep on planting and planting. I am of the opinion that there is no such thing as too much fresh pineapple.
We have two flowers coming out of one of the pineapple plants. The colors really are amazing. The plant that is producing this round is the same plant that produced the first round of pineapples we got. The first round had 1 pineapple. We weren’t in town when it ripened so we didn’t get to taste it, but because we never cut off the rotting fruit, the pineapple that grew off of the plant grew into a new pineapple plant. Sweet.
Pinapple Facts
Pineapple Nutrition
I did a little research on pineapples and found out a few cool things.
The English name pineapple came from European explorers that re-discovered due to its resemblance of a pine cone.
The original name for a pineapple is Tupi, which comes from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Spanish word for pineapple is piña.
A pineapple plant can grow to be as big as 5 feet tall and deadly leaves that are 3 and a half feet long. (the leaves are very sharp and spikey, not poisonous)
Each pineapple plant can produce multiple fruit (pineapples).
A pineapple is made up of helically arranged flowers that form the fruit. So, it is not actually one fruit, but many combined into one.
Pineapples are mostly pollinated by hummingbirds (we have a bunch)
Pineapples and the root are used in traditional Filipino medicine as an anti-inflammatory. It was both eaten and applied topically.
Pineapples are chill sensitive and should not be stored in the refrigerator.
Hopefully we will take advantage of our pineapple crop this year, eat them all up and then replant them for pineapples in a few years. This is not a vicious circle.
Summer and I have both been super busy with work this year. Well, I guess we’ve both been really super busy with work since we met, but we never realized it until we had Sydney because now our free time is minimal. During the day, a few hours of our free time is when Sydney is napping, so that doesn’t exactly create an opportunity for Summer and I to bang around the house working on little projects.
Downstairs is soooo close to being done. We need to go to San Juan and buy two windows and french doors. Once we have those, we’ll be able to take down the steel cage we have down there now, empenatar the block and install tile. Then we’re done (except for the tile, baby proofing, the back porch, garage with granny flat, swimming pool, decorative rock walls, waterfalls, yard stairs, trails, landscaping).
Going to San Juan to go shopping used to be an easy task, we just needed to motivate enough to just go. Get there in the morning, spend the day and then drive back. Well, that is no longer an option. Summer and I now have our little Sydney to think about. It would be really tough on her to sit in the car and go from store to store with no exercise, no time to try to practice standing, no high chair for meal time, no nap time etc. You guys get the idea.
When Summer, Sydney and I finally make it to San Juan to buy the remaining items to finish downstairs, we are going to rent a hotel room and do it over 2 days. No more need to rush around and hurry up, Sydney keeps us focused on what is important, enjoying the moment.
Tourist season is coming to a close and the prices at the nice hotels are going to start dropping soon. Once they do, our family is going on its first road trip. Destination, San Juan and hopefully the El San Juan Hotel and Casino!
In case you havn’t noticed…CA2PR.com has a new look!
Here is a screenshot of what we used to look like:
Summer and I have been blogging about our move to Rincon (and Puerto Rico in general) for a couple of years now and we been meaning to update our look for a while. The problem is that Summer and I have different tastes when it comes to websites, so it took about a year for us to finally find something we both liked.
Any how, hope you like the new look! We’re going to be tweaking the site during the next few days and adding all sorts of fun new goodies, so let us know if you find anything weird or not functioning properly.
It has been really dry in Rincon for the past month. Up until the past two or three days (windy/drizzle), we haven’t had a drop of rain in over 3 weeks. These pictures are all at least two weeks old, so there is still some ‘green’ in the background, but as of yesterday, we’re talking yellow grass days of winter. Most of our plants are going into drought mode, loosing leaves and turning yellow but we have a few plants that just love this time of year.
Our banana trees have been producing a lot of banana’s for us this year. Once the first few bananas turn yellow, we chop off the entire bunch and hang it on the front porch for easy picking. Sydney eats at least one banana a day and it feels good to know that WE grew her breakfast (part of it).
Our papaya tree’s are also enjoying the dry weather. We had about 15 papayas growing out of each tree. I sure wish everything we planted grew as fast as the papayas. It took less than a year for these little non-grafted papayas to grow up and give us fruit. Amazing.
Along with beautiful tropical weather comes little annoyances that have to do with all of the moisture in the air. Anytime you open any food, cereal for example, it goes stale in minutes (literally sometimes!). In order to keep things edible, you have to keep them in the refrigerator: Spices, boxes of cereal, flour, sugar, etc…which makes for one annoyingly crammed full fridge!
The moisture issue also creeps into our closets and things that have been in there for more then a week or two smell funky and mildewy. I actually have mildew growing on all of the leather high heeled shoes that I don’t ever wear.
But I recently found a SOLUTION to these two little moisture/humidity problems! For the kitchen we ordered a set of OXO Pop Containers. We actually found one of these containers at the local Kmart, but they were $22 a piece! Once we tried it and found that they work great to keep the humidity out of our food, I went online and found that Macys.com (who ships to PR), had a 10 piece set for $100. These containers really do work so well at keeping our food fresh as they have a type of pop seal that uses suction to seal. We can keep cereal in the cabinet again…YAY!
Next, I tackled the mildewy closets with Space Bags. We have way too many clothes that we NEVER wear now that we live in Puerto Rico. This includes my collection of vintage fur coats, high heel shoes, Stefan’s designer suits, ties and dress clothes, snowboarding gear, etc. These items have been literally rotting in our closets. So the other day I finally busted out the Space Bags that we bought well over a year ago and I LOVE THEM! They are so incredibly perfect for Puerto Rico, or any place that has high humidity. I just ordered 10 more…haha.
We’ve been really tied up with the baby, work and the usual life stuff…but Sydney wanted to say HOLA!
Does anyone know what kind of plant this is that Sydney and Summer and standing next to? It is really cool looking, almost prehistoric. Is this the plant that killed off the dinosaurs?
We’ve planted several dozen (50ish) citrus, exotic fruit and avocado trees on our property, and while many of them are flourishing and doing well, unfortunately we keep losing trees to careless weedwackers. Recently we’ve lost a canepa, tangerine, kumquat and avocado in the battle that is maintaining our property. No bueno!!
We made another trip out to the nursery and spent a couple hundred dollars on a new batch on injertado (grafted) fruit trees and this time, we are protecting our investment! Stefan came up with a plan of using PVC pipe to create little tree jackets to protect our trees from wayward weedwackers. While this is a great plan, it’s kind of a pain in the butt to go buy PVC and cut it to fit each tree, so I made a trip down to the $1 store and bought a bunch of plastic hair curlers. They are much easier to cut then PVC, and you can just add more curlers if the tree is taller. Hopefully this will work!
The town of Rincon does a wonderful job with their Christmas and Three Kings Day lights every year. This year was no different, aside from the fact that they had bigger trees to drape the lights across. The town planted all new trees and plants about 5 years ago and completely rebuilt the square. It looks great. Not only is it nice now, but much like our yard, daydreaming of how nice the square will be in 10 years with tons of shade from all the grown up trees it will be amazing.
Summer, Sydney and I were walking around the square a few weeks ago and I took a closer look at how the municipality hung and powered the holiday lights. Now, maybe it’s just because Brian Henry (aka: The Mad Electrician) is so talented and is certified in all the necessary codes to run safe power and I dip my feet in the civil litigation pool for a living, but the holiday lighting in Rincon is absolutely insane. Instead of planning ahead and putting in power outlets at each section of trees (separated by concrete sidewalks), they simply spliced into the power of the gazebo and ran 3 wire taped together from tree to tree. There are no boxes and the wires are low enough to the ground to touch. Completely rigged. Check out this picture. Felicidades Rincon!
My iPhone doesn’t take the best pictures, but they work for the web and I always have that thing with me so I have been capturing a lot of moments on my iPhone. Here are my top ten (11) photos from the past two weeks.
Summer getting ready to surf parking lots
Sydney passed out in the sling (5 months old)
Sydney loves this springy seat
Sydney and Stefan at a sunset surf check
Summer and Sydney on dads birthday
Summer bathing Sydney
Sydney and Stefan kicking it in the hammock
Sydney smile monster
The Sydney smirk is cute
Everyone loves the evening walks on the property
Walking on the beach with Sydney while Summer surfed
