California 2 Puerto Rico

Well, I think we official have a new kitty. Stefan and I were driving to dinner tonight and Stefan swerved to miss a kitten that was standing in the middle of the road. I thought we ran it over, but Stefan saw that it went between the wheels and was still standing, frozen, in the center of the road. Stefan pulled over and ran back to the kitten and snatched it off the road, just before another car came around the bend.

The poor little guy was tiny and was mewing like crazy, but other then that he was fine and pretty sweet for just losing one of his 9 lives…He was obviously hungry (as he is pretty much skin and bones under all that kitten fur), so we drove back home and fed him some turkey. We took him to dinner with us and after a few minutes he was purring like crazy with his little belly full and getting lots of love.

So, here he is…What should we name him?!

I was thinking we should name him Bronco (since that’s the vehicle we almost ran over him with), but we need more suggestions…

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It seems when people come to town we make the same rounds to the same places; all of which are relaxing to Summer and I but brand new exciting experiences for our guests. It kinda makes it more fun, watching the reactions of our friends as we do the same ole same ole and they are in awe of the beauty, flavor or even ridiculousness of a situation.

We took Conner and Dianne to the waterfalls outside of Rincon in San Sebastian on their last full day here. The drive out there (only about 30 minutes from Rincon) was quite uneventful and we found it without a hitch. It will be much easier to find for tourists now that there is a new landmark to look for; there is a brand new Walgreen’s at the light where you need to turn left to get to the waterfalls in San Sebastian.

As usual, the trail down the hill was treacherous and slippery. It is only about a quarter mile to the river from the parking spot on the side of the road but the hike usually takes about 20 minutes due to all of the negotiating through mud and slippery exposed roots. I like to wear shoes for this part of the trip because it gives me better footing, but whatever you wear will get muddy and will need a good cleaning when you get home.

I was the only one wearing sneakers so I was able to maneuver quickly and basically played the photographer the entire time. I was setting up to take a picture of Summer and Dianne climbing over this one tree when Dianne slipped and would have fallen down if Summer hadn’t caught her. I just so happened to take the picture mid fall. ASR, here I come.

Action! Good catch Summer




Once we got down to the waterfall, we took the opportunity to shoot some prom photos. The rain forest and the beautiful waterfall make for great photos our families can put on the mantles above their fireplaces. The shots we took turned out pretty good.

Conner and Dianne Irwin in Puerto Rico at the Waterfall

Summer and I posing for our aquatic prom picture




As soon as we finished up with the prom pictures, conner and I hopped in the chilly water and went right to the waterfall to start our climb up. Say what you want, I probably deserve the ridicule, but I don’t like jumping off of this thing from the high jumps. You either need to clear about 15ft out from the rocks or you have to stand directly underneath one of the streams pouring over the side in order to get a safe jump. I have enough fun surfing…but regardless, I had to show Conner the jump spots in case he wanted to go.

Showing Conner where to jump

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I have been working or overseeing work on the house now for over 8 months and including all the financial shenanigans I needed to pull off to negotiate the approval of our loan I have had this house in my head non-stop for over a year and a half. In the past month, I have felt a bit consumed with it so when our great friends Conner and Dianne decided to come down for a quick visit, Summer and I decided to not do any construction work or have anyone else come work on the house for the length of their stay.

(Yes, we did finish building the closet, but all the measuring and cutting were already done and it was cool to have Conner and Dianne help us glue and finish nail it together…Nail Guns are cool…we owe the experience of using one to visiting friends)

At the end of their trip, Summer and I drove them back to San Juan so we could go to the Marshals Mega store and hopefully score some furniture, rugs, kitchen stuff cheap. We decided to go up a couple of hours early so we could visit Old San Juan and eat at one of our favorite restaurants FireFly DragonFly.

We scored a parking spot right before the streets turned into little one way alleys allowing for easy parking of the truck. Conner and Dianne won’t know the difficulty of finding a parking spot in Old San Juan on this trip.

We walked around, checked out the architecture and ate some food. We may have had a rum drink or two as well.

Check out some pictures of the architecture of Old San Juan Puerto Rico:

Can anyone tell me what the significance of any of these buildings are? I know that the buildings with the big front lawns (i am jealous) are government buildings of some sort…




I know this picture of the Airport in San Juan Puerto Rico is completely random, since I am showing pictures of Old San Juan, but I couldn’t help but think that this new terminal looks a lot like a space ship. I have a completely new fascination with construction projects now that I am building our house. I’d say it compliments my life long fascination with architecture quite well.

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The last two days, Stefan and I have been concentrating our efforts on getting our offices in order. It’s really, really hard to work when your office is a construction zone wreck, filled with random piles of crap! So, here is the progress on our offices. I’ll let you guess which office is Stefans and which is mine ;)…

I spent a good hour or two just moving the furniture around, trying to get the perfect lay out. As I mentioned before, the walls are concrete block and plaster, so we have to drill into concrete in order to hang things on the wall. This leaves little room for error when making the final decision on where everything is going to go. Getting everything on the walls perfectly straight was probably the most time consuming part, but I got everything right on the first try, thanks to my handy tape measure, calculator and level!

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The plants are coming!

Last week Stefan and I went to Montoso Gardens in Maricao, Puerto Rico, where the have all sorts of interesting exotic plants. Like lemons as big as your head! Well, as big as my head at least…

David Brunner was nice enough to show us around and educate us on various exotic plants that they have on their farm. We placed a fairly large order and the plants should be arriving shortly. Here is what we will soon have planted on our property:

2 Areca Catechu palms 6′-7′
2 Macarther palms 7gal., 5′-6′
1 Triangle palm 3gal.
1 Red Sealing Wax palm 4′-5′
2 Grafted Rambutan trees
1 Grafted Abiu
2 Purple Grumichama 1gal
1 French Peanut 1gal
1 Cinnamon tree 1gal
1 Cannonball tree
1 Grafted Maprang
1 Noni
1 Mangosteen
1 Yellow Jaboticaba
1 Spanish Tamarind
1 Aemygdiana rhizome
1 Tahitian Ginger 3gal
2 White Torch Ginger 1gal
4 Red Torch rhizomes
4 Pink Torch rhizomes
2 Cacao Trees 1 gal
1 Ae Ae Banana 3′-4′ division
1 Peanut Butter Fruit 2gal
3 Pink Ginger 3 gal
3 Red Ginger 3 gal
3 Polynesian Princess Ginger 3gal
6 White Bird of Paradise
4 Orange Bird of Paradise
3 Mexican Gold Heliconia 1gal
3 Oriole Orange Heliconia 1gal
3 Iris (red) heliconia 1gal

Most of the plants above you may have never hear of, but that is because Montoso farms specializes in exotic fruit trees from around the world. If you’re looking for the standard fruit trees (mango, orange, grapefruit, etc), you won’t find those at Montoso farms. They are far more interested in rarer varieties of fruit, which is fine my me…I can’t wait to have our property overgrown with interesting plants and fruits!

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