California 2 Puerto Rico

Today Stefan and I went to Sears and picked out our appliances for the kitchen. We went with the Kenmore Elite line in stainless steel and bought our refridgerator, stove, microwave/hood and dishwasher.

We really were trying to NOT go with stainless steel, but the only stove that Stefan wanted only came in stainless, sooooooo….Cie la vie.

I feel poor now :). Appliances are quite expensive, but Sears was having a 20% cash back deal, if you bought 3 appliances priced over $399. So we bought the stove, microwave/hood, refridgerator, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer and an airconditoner. We spent $7500, but we get $1500 cash back. So, $6000 for (fairly) top of the line appliances, isn’t too bad.

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Today, Gino was going to finish up the tile work in the guest bath. Unfortunately, when the drywall was put in around the sink area, instead of moving one of the pipes…the guys just screwed the greenboard in over the pipe causing it to bubble out. If we had done regular tile instead of butt joints, Gino would have been able to lay the tile over the bow and it wouldn’t have been a big deal but since all of the tiles are “butted up tight” against one another…it would have made for a bad tile job..so Gino spent a couple of hours chipping away at the greenboard and evening out the area with grout and didn’t have time to finish. So…still no toilet for us to use and no pictures for you to see. Once it is done, I’ll post the pictures so you can see how rad the travertine looks.

We bought all of our appliances at Sears today (summer is going to post pictures later) and met with our cabinet maker to tie him down to a price and time frame. More to come….

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Gino is coming tomorrow to finish the guest bath with the walnut/Tuscany colored travertine. We ended up needing 190 tiles instead of 160…but Paradise Ceramics in Aguada had us covered when we went to buy more…so no worries. Once the tile is all set, we are going to run a champagne unsanded grout over it all to seal the holes and cracks. We are hoping it doesn’t get rid of the crystals that you can see at certain angles. That stuff is neat.

Joche also showed up today and installed our shower valves…Gino is going to hang the concrete board and make sure all the walls are level…unlike the guest bath.

We will post pictures tomorrow night…Guest Bathroom…Start to finish

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I made it down to Puerto Rico, yesterday and I’m SO happy to be home :). It really is impressive to see the amount of work that has been completed since I’ve been gone. The dogs were especially happy to see me. I think they were wondering what the hell happened to me and how the heck they ended up in this strange land. Now that mom and dad are both here, I think they are starting to understand that this is their new home.

It’s been really hot here during the day and the dogs have been panting like mad, so today we took them for a walk in la cabrada (the stream) that runs through our property. It was MUCH cooler down there and the water was actually refreshingly cold. I found a really cool tree that has grown over the water that I want to put a swing on. Here are some pictures of la cabrada:

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The regional supervisor of the electric company, whom I met and had a couple of drinks with earlier in the week (I may have greased him a little), showed up to the house with three trucks and an army of guys this morning. He told me that he will have the poles up with the lines run by Monday…but I didn’t know if he meant this Monday or next Monday. Either way, the ball is rolling, they got the holes lined up and drilled out…now we just need some poles, lines and juice. Once the poles and lines are up, I will need to take a letter of completion/certification to the power companies office in Mayaguez so they can check the line from the Meter Pedestal to the House to ensure it is up to standard. As long as that gets approved…we could have power that day.

Come on power!!!!! Let’s get some fans in the house (have I mentioned its hot AND the fans keep the mosquitoes off of you too)!!!!!!

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When i spoke with Summer last night, she went over a list of things I should look out for with Kuta down here in Puerto Rico that I may not have noticed in California (due to lack of weather systems and construction). The first thing she said was to be careful with the dogs and the hole in our floor that drops 12 feet to the basement. I had already put a board over the hole to make sure no dog accidentally walked over it. The second thing isn’t quite so easy to fix.

Kuta is a thunder dog. He is very afraid of loud noises and becomes very jumpy during storms (never had any in Carlsbad). I am sitting through our first major Thunder and Lightening storm with Kuta right now. He is doing pretty good, but I had to let them inside for fear of him bugging out and running off.

If we had the time and the know how, I would liked to have tried some Desensitization techniques with him before we moved down here with them. I probably could have started with Pots and Pans and moved my way up to Fireworks. Well…I guess his desensitization started today. Sorry buddy.

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We left Rincon around 6:30pm last night to get to the airport early just in case anything came up. FYI: Don’t try to pick up your dogs at the terminal…they are transported from the terminal to the Continental Cargo Depot which is in Carolina. A not so great area to get lost in…eventually we found the Cargo Depot…waited for Monks and Kuta and saw them as the forklift dropped them off on the loading dock.

Monkey is all the way to the left, Kuta all the way to the right.

Once I signed the paperwork and got them in the back of the truck, we parked on the side of the road and took a little walk. Kuta and monkey both went to the bathroom like it was going out of style (neither of them soiled their crates) and kuta drank about a gallon of water. Monkey had a couple of sips and asked what time room service was coming around….

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I just got back from dropping off Kuta and Monkey (our dogs) at the airport. Today they are making their permanent move to Puerto Rico! Their flight left at 9:22am out of San Diego and arrives at 9:30pm in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I’m nervous! Neither of them have flown before, but they seemed to be doing okay in their crates. Monkey was a little whiney, but Kuta was kickin’ it like a pro.

They are flying via Continental’s PetSafe® program, which is supposed to be the best. It cost $641.60 total, for both dogs to fly from San Diego to Puerto Rico. As long as they arrive safe and sound, it will be worth every penny. You can track your pets progress at CoCargo.com (Kuta and Monkey’s tracking number is: 59476373) and there is a 24-hour Live Animal Desk (800.575.3335 or 281.553.5052) that you can call with any concerns of questions.

Status: They’re in Texas! I wonder if they saw Ricky and Lyndsay?!

7/24/2007 3:22 PM Received from Flight CO1606, 2 pieces Houston, TX (IAH)

7/24/2007 9:22 AM Departed on Flight CO1606 San Diego, CA (SAN)

7/24/2007 Shipment Booked on Flight CO1606, 2 pieces San Diego, CA (SAN)

Status 2: Stefan just called (7:35 pm) and he is driving home with the dogs as we speak. YAY! I’m SO relieved!

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Today is going to be a tough day (but not in the manual labor sense of the word “tough”).

When the tile guy started installing the tile he thought the shower hardware may need to come out from the wall a bit more in order to properly fit the trim. He measured it and said we were going to “just get by” but he didn’t factor in a non-level wall. So, once he leveled the wall with mud, the shower hardware was too far into the wall to connect the shower trim. Now, we need to figure out how to get into the wall and pull the pipes/hardware out without tearing the house apart (or the expensive ass tile he already set). I feel I will be overseeing this job for a couple of hours, although they are insisting it is only going to take a half-hour.

I would like to trim the screen downstairs and finish installing our temporary railings (get the ones there now to code) on the back porch bringing us one step closer to getting our “permiso de uso” or “certificate of occupancy.”

I am going to get Jerry to finish up any little miscellaneous work around the house (the little things add up quick) while I am overseeing the plumbing demolition and then we are both heading over to home depot. I am going to buy all the wood I need for the trim/railings and I am going to get Jerry to grab what he needs to stucco (smooth finish) the back of the house in the porch area so it looks the same as the front porch finish. I into the symmetry thing.

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In 2 weeks, our house went from this:

to this:

I had no idea that the house was already so pimped out. Stefan, you need to post pictures more often ;).

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