I even got a short video of the waterspout:

This was the first time that I’ve seen a waterspout in person and it was pretty close. It was really cool to see the water getting sucked up from the ocean and the waves up the waterspout were so rhythmic, it looked like an optical illusion.

A waterspout is a tornado over water and is formed when cold air and warm air start swirling around thanks to a fast-moving thunderstorm. The waterspout we saw lasted for about 15 minutes and seemed to be increasing in strength, until it suddenly dissipated.

In other news…Looks like a tropical storm (Emily) is heading our way and will likely hit Puerto Rico this weekend. Will it be our first hurricane?!

Sydney and Eli playing with the alphabet and animal magnets Santa brought.

Christmas Cookies

Christmas Day wagon rides.

Just delivered cookies (see above) to our neighbors.

This video was from a week or so before Christmas, but I laugh out loud every time I watch it so here it is for you guys too!

One of my friends on facebook just posted this video, stating; This is Puerto Rico. I couldn’t agree with him more. Check it out:

Yesterday, Sydney discovered how to turn on the cold water on the water cooler. Now, every time cruises by the cooler, she looks up at the spout and goes for a quick pull just to see the water come out. I have a feeling it may be time to raise the water cooler.

We completely baby proofed the back deck (it didn’t take much) and set up a bunch of toys and books back there. It is Sydneys domain. I sit out there with coffee every morning and watch her explore her toys and her new little world.

Here is Sydney standing up using the wall. From here, she’ll cruise all the way around the corner to the other side of the window and look out at me. She’ll chuckle a little, go for the water cooler and then cruise back out to the deck.

Click to Get Full Size Version

Some Sydney Video Action

Here is Sydney in action on the back porch demonstrating her ability to make an elephant noise, crawl, cruise along the wall and take some steps. What a rad little girl

- Clean. There was annoying construction crap (spackle/drywall dust that took more then 4 floor scrubbings, stray concrete, etc) that I had to clean up.

- Paint. I painted the ceilings and soffits white, the walls light blue and one wall a bright blue.

- Install stripper pole. It might seem strange that I have a ‘stripper pole’, but it really is the best excersize and it’s super duper fun. Like playing on the monkey bars when you were a kid!

- Install entertainment center. 32″ TV mounted on the wall, hooked up to a Mac Mini so we have internet access, DVD player, Wii Fit and stereo system.

So, there are all sorts of fun things to do in our gym now! We have a treadmill, stripper pole, Wii Fit balance board, Tai Bo/Dance/Fitness DVD’s, yoga ball, free weights and jump ropes. And most importantly, we have air conditioning in the gym (This may seem like a given for a house in Puerto Rico, but most of our house does not have A/C.)!

While I would consider the gym as being done, these are a couple of little things that will be done in the near future:

- Trim out the windows. But I havn’t figured out how we are going to do that yet.

- Organize/hide all the cords hanging from the entertainment center.

- Install grande mirrors on the back wall.

And one last thing that we will eventually do:

- Install Brazilian teak hardwood flooring. We have just enough left over from when we did the upstairs, so whenever we get around to doing the floors downstairs we will install that in the gym. But we are pretty burned out on construction, so the polished concrete floors are just fine with me until we decide to open that can of worms .

Here is a walk through of our gym today:

Despite sitting around the waiting room for hours, learning new things about our baby along with seeing and hearing her again is amazing. Here is a video I took and edited using iMovie to give you an idea of what a twenty-week check up is all about. Seriously, the only thing I edited out of this was the wait in the waiting room, which I certainly wasn’t recording anyway.

This guys name is Ernest Ranglin, and I would describe his music as Reggae/Ska/Jazz all smashed together (description by Ken). He sent me over a few you tube videos of his live gigs, and his music is tight. The first video is him rocking out with just an acoustic base (maybe a cello) at his side (he is playing the guitar) and is much more jazzy with a island style base line. The second video is of him with a a full crew on stage rocking out some ska/reggae/jass styley! The third video sounds as if it professionally produced and is really really good.

Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

You can watch the 1st part of Top Chef – Puerto Rico, here:

http://video.bravotv.com/player/?id=259465

I’m still looking for the 2nd part…

Julie and Stefan

Carrie, Nicole and Redeye

Summer and HOLY CRAP! Who’s that guy?! (Lorenz)

Drew and Julie

Roberto and Summer

Brittany and Tony

Here’s a little video of everyone getting down to “Thriller”:

He loves to nurse on that blanket!