California 2 Puerto Rico

That’s right, Summer is here. Both of them.

Summer arrives in Puerto Rico I

Summer flew in almost a week ago from her three week business trip to San Diego. The entire time she was there she was working 15 hour days, moving warehouses, setting up new utilities, working with accountants and bookkeepers and I can only imagine what else. She left San Diego at 9:45pm on Jet Blue and arrived in Aguadilla around 10:00am the next day. I got to the airport a little early and decided to hang out at Wilderness (surf spot in the flight path) until her plane cruised in overhead. Here is a picture I took of her plane with my phone. Sitting on the beach waiting for her flights is definitely better than circling the San Juan Airport in the truck.

Jet Blue Arriving in Aguadilla

Summer arrives in Puerto Rico II

Not only is MY Summer here, but the summer heat is here as well! The past couple of days have been hot (but they are always hot when you are in the sun), but the evenings have been hot as well. In the winter, the nights really cool down quite a bit. It is perfect weather for shorts and a t-shirt and maybe jeans if the trade winds are blowing or there is a storm system over us. Once summer starts to hit, the evenings don’t cool off quite as much and the idea of putting on long pants becomes quite unsettling.

This prompted us (along with a visit from Brian) to install our new ceiling fan in the master bedroom and begin our research on installing air conditioning in the two bedrooms upstairs and the offices/guest bedroom downstairs.

We will be getting split units for upstairs, but Brian brought up putting in Ducts and central air downstairs since we haven’t drywalled the ceilings yet. Let the Air Con research begin! Have any of you guys made a Air Conditioning investment at your house? If so, do you have any input for us (cost, brand, pitfalls etc)? Let us know!

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Listen up people! It’s time to go bowling and all of you need to join us. We have been bowling in Aguadilla a couple of times (Next to the Wendy’s and Freshmart Health Food Store on the No. 2) and have decided if it is a worthy enough sport for The Dude, it’s a worthwhile pastime for all of us. Summer and I would like to loosely organize a Rincon bowling night in Aguadilla. Tuesday and Wednesday nights offer $5 a person all the games you can bowl from 4:00pm to 9:00pm. Medalia is only $1.25 and the place is air conditioned. The way I see it, anyone that goes is making out on the deal.

Rincon Bowling Night

: Tuesdays, 6:00pm

Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

This may not be ‘Nam, but it is Puerto Rico so I am not going to make any rules at all. If you would like to play, Summer and I are going to go Tuesday nights around 6:00pm and would like all of you to come. As far as we are concerned, the more the merrier (rowdier)!

If you have never been to the bowling alley in Aguadilla, it is tricky to find, but once you have been there once, you’ll never have a problem finding your way back. It is right across the street from the Walgreens and next to Wendy’s on the No. 2. It is hard to see because it is up about 40 feet on a hill above Wendy’s and they don’t have any Vegas blinking lights advertising * Bowling * Bowling * Bowling . I embedded a Google Map below with directions to the Wendy’s. You will be able to find it from there.

Bowl Aguadilla with us, Tuesday Nights at 6:00pm

View Larger Map

Let us know if you are thinking about going. Once we get this rolling on the weekly basis, we’ll reserve lanes, set up some teams and keep an official score sheet that we’ll post publicly here. It could be that my poker habits are bleeding into the rest of my life (especially since I am no good at bowling), but I think I’d like to make a $1 wager per game (yes, an entire dollar). Ya know, spice it up a bit. Who’s in!

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Summer and I are anti-chemical when it comes to treating our house and yard for insects. We do our best to not allow standing water where mosquitoes will breed and I have started adding a cap full of bleach to the baby pool we leave in the back yard for the dogs. Despite all this, we are still going to have mosquitoes on the property (proven by the assault on my exposed skin at 4am last night) because of the cabrada (stream) and the puddles from all the rain. So, I did some research and found a few plants that will actually repel mosquitoes!

Plants that Repel Mosquitoes:

• Catnip
• Lemon Grass (aka. Citronella Grass)
• Marigolds
• Mosquito Plants
• Rosemary

Catnip: I know what you are thinking. Catnip is legal marijuana for cats and cheech is too young to experiment with such a controversial gateway drug. Don’t worry, catnip has another very useful purpose, it repels mosquitoes! The natural oils found in Catnip is actually a more effective mosquito repellent than the highly toxic DEET. You can plant it all around your outdoor living areas and you can also crush it up, retain the oil and use it as all natural mosquito repellent (I can’t guarantee cheech won’t kill you if you do this).

Lemon Grass: Lemon grass is a delicious herb used in many Thai recipes like Thai Grilled Chicken Salad with Lemon Grass Coriander Dressing and it is also a mosquito repellent. Lemon grass (aka: Citronella Grass) is a plant that grows in clumps, and can grow up to 6ft tall. I really like the idea of having lemon grass clumps planted around the yard because this stuff smells so good and grows as fast as grass. Uh, hence, lemon grass. The long and the short of it is this. If you plant a small clump of lemon grass by all of the windows downstairs, they will be 6 ft tall clumps of mosquito repelling love in 6 or 8 weeks .

Marigolds: Marigolds repel all kinds of bugs, not just mosquitoes. We planted Marigolds around our vegetables to try to help keep the little veggy eating bugs away from our booty. Marigolds do a good job repelling mosquitoes around the house, but they are annuals (life cycle of one year), so they are not going to live year around like some the other mosquito repelling plant options.

Mosquito Plants: This plant was created for the consumer. It is the hallmark holiday of plants. This plant (in my opinion) is banking on the ’sucker’ in all of us. What scientist would name a plant the Mosquito Plant! It is marketed heavily and as its name implies, it is a mosquito repelling plant. I did some research on the Mosquito Plant and can’t find any solid evidence that these things actually repel pesky mosquitoes, so I am just going to dismiss the Mosquito Plant as an option for us.

Rosemary: YES! Rosemary actually repels mosquitoes. I love this. Rosemary is one of my favorite herbs to cook with as it has a really strong unique flavor (great for marinating lamb/chicken, infusing with virgin olive oil). Rosemary also grows year around and can grow into quite a large plant. It can become a total ground cover (if properly groomed) or a beautiful hedge once it matures. Rosemary does better in more temperate climates and tropical climates, but it grows quick enough that if you are in an area that actually has seasons, you can grow it on the porch and then bring it inside come winter. The oils in rosemary also work as an all natural mosquito repellent.

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Summer and I both lived alone before we met each other. I lived in a little one bedroom cottage in La Jolla and she lived in a 3 bedroom house in Carlsbad. She worked from home (except when she and Kuta would go to the post office with the daily shipment) and I commuted to downtown San Diego to my office. So, when we moved in together, we both had to get used to having a roommate again. Of course, living with you significant other is different than a run of the mill roommate, but once the honeymoon stage is over you need to get used to each others domestic shortcomings and step up to pick up each others slack (For example: I hate doing laundry and summer hates doing the dishes).

Domestic routines and chores have never been my strong point. I am either OCD clean, or a complete slob. When Summer left for California, my plan was to organize, scrub and set up a routine for both of us to follow so we won’t constantly feel like we are living in a construction zone (with dirty dishes and dirty laundry).

But now that I am here alone, I am finding myself unmotivated to complete this monumental task (3,000 sqft of house, tools and supplies), but not because I don’t feel like doing it, but because I miss my girl. Back to paragraph one, it was nice to have some alone time at the house, but that only lasted about a day, and now I am aching to have my chick back in Rincon at my side. We are such a team. It is rare to see either of us outside of the house unless we are together (not counting my ridiculously early dawn patrol surf session that usually start around 5:15am).

Last night, on my way to the poker home game we love to play (Summer taught me how to play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker), I caught a glimpse of the sunset. It was the nicest sunset I have seen down here in a long time and I really wanted to share the moment with Summer. I pulled the car over, walked down to the beach and fired off a photo to send to my girl (Hallmark doesn’t have anything on the sunsets Rincon is privy to on the nightly basis) telling her that I was thinking about her (no need to dwell on the I miss you part, it makes it harder on both of us). Then it hit me, how selfish am I being? Summer knows I love and miss her, but you guys deserve to see the Caribbean Sunset as much as she does!

So, if it were normal to ‘toast’ to a sunset with our blog instead of a drink, this would be normal;

I toast this beautiful Caribbean sunset to everyone reading our California 2 Puerto Rico blog. I hope you have/will find a love in your life like I have found mine and that you work actively every day to make your wants/desires/dreams a reality!

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Okay. The website is OFFICALLY moved over to our new server and is working properly again. Sorry for the delay…Back to your regularly scheduled program: Ca2Pr.com!

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Summer and I like to send postcards. They are quick fun ways to say hello to friends. The problem is, Rincon doesn’t have any cool postcards. They are all super old and not quite cheesy enough to be cool. Maybe Summer and I should make cool postcards for Rincon. hmmmm….summer is the genius with PhotoShop…here is a digital postcard for personal websites, blogs and social networking sites that I made. I bet she’ll do a better job.

Just right click the picture to save
it to your desktop OR past this code into
your MySpace profile or comment field:

<a href="http://www.ca2pr.com"><img src="http://www.ca2pr.com/images/rincon_puerto_rico_0708.jpg" /></a>

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Ok, so maybe I haven’t been putting as much time into the blog lately as I would like to be. I’ll admit it. But, in my defense, I have been doing other fun things. Summer and I have been chipping away at our master bedroom ‘to do’ list (I’ll update some pictures), we have both been really busy with our businesses and we just said goodbye to our last planned guest for this season, Drew.

I put together a little pictorial explanation of Drew’s visit to Puerto Rico:

Wrecked boat on the beach in Rincon Puerto Rico next to the jetty at Domes Beach

Rincons Nuclear Power Plant Dome, Domes Beach looking back.

Summer getting her golf on in Aguadilla next to the airport.

Picture I took on our way to go snorkeling at Steps Beach in Rincon Puerto Rico

Tapatio Mexican Restaurant sign and a cold Corona. A little Mexico in Puerto Rico

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What a great trip. It was awesome having Eddie and his new family down at the house for the past couple of weeks. They flew down to watch the house and enjoy the heat of the Caribbean (as opposed to the chill of Rhode Islane).

While here, the house turned into a home. Their 2 month old baby girl helped the place smell like baby powder and numerous ointments…the oven was kicking it at all times of the day…water was constantly boiling for either coffee, oatmeal or tea. Someone was cooking breakfast or cutting fruit. When the kitchen of a house has life, it feels like a home.

Eddie worked his ass off on our yard also. He planted new seed, helped set up a watering system, helped me organize where certain plants and trees should go and helped me understand the process of growing plants just a little bit more.

Cheers Eddie Thacker

Thanks for the help…it is greatly appreciated!

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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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