¡Da me mas gasolina!

Gasolina “la primera bebida alcoholica en una bolsa”. This stuff fills your drunk tank instead of your gas tank. It is packaged like a capri sun, sold in the alcoholic beverage case. For about $0.99 you can get your hands on a high octane rum cocktail. It contains rum, tequila and fruit juice, 11% alcohol. Oh and the straw is placed right inside, for your convience. It says it's only packaged and sold in Puerto Rico. It got me wondering, why?? Is it the alcohol content for the individual package? If you slam two of these it's like drinking 6+ beers. So when we get visitors we may just have to limit drinks to two (like Zombies at the Pearl). They don't taste that great and they have many flavors pink martini, fruit juice, mojito. The locals love it, we bought one last night because two people ahead of us both got them! Just another "interesting" characteristic of beautiful Puerto Rico...get drunk for under $2!! Only after baby girl goes to sleep, of course! :)

Puerto Rico's climate

After a small couple surf sessions @ Maria's and parking lots. I am "surfing" the web and wanted to check out the climate in PR. Our backyard has inspired me to check this out because when it's dry our overgrowth will HOPEFULLY DIE. Eliminating the misquitoes, yeaaaaaaa!! In this tropical paradise we get a rainy season from April to November. Dry season November to April. We get some East trade winds, they are such a relief. The weather here is not as predictable as it is in New Jersey. When you see those big cumulonimbus clouds in the distance you can expect some thunderstorms later. Or when the sky get's all dark & gloomy you know what to expect. Not here, no way, We get clouds, then it's windy and looks like it's going to downpour. They dissapear and the sun shines bright. Or we get mean, monster dark clouds and it downpours for 10 minutes then stops. Unpredictable. Because of the moutains and hills the weather is shifted and pushed and changed and changed again. The poor weather guys in PR. Ha. The difference between winter and summer is a whopping 6° change. Average temp is 82°, it's really humid, bad for curly hair. Tsunamis are a threat here too! We get small earthquakes thanks to the Puerto Rican Fault. It's the deepest part of the Atlantic. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/PR10/13.23.-71.-61.php

another round one

middles action

what's up to everyone.
i just thought i'd give the jersey crew a little preview of what middles was doing this morning. i got out early so luckily i scored a couple before the local isabela crew came out and dominated the lineup.
i actually had a rad day so i might as well share it. i got up at five, made coffee for cora but she decided to sleep in and meet me later. then i packed shit and was out. i got a call from kirk and the grom crew saying it was way overhead and pumping when i was passing the airport. well all of you who know me realize i was freaking out. i parked the car and got out there the first sequence is my first wave, which was before seven. i surfed till after ten, then grabbed a bite with mikey c, his dad, and mark a cool photog from rincon. we went and surfed surfers for a bit. i caught a couple it was like a mushy overhead lowers. then i met up with cora and the neighbors and went to chill at jobos. i kicked it with the girls for a bit, but had to get a couple it just looked to fun. after some grub it was back to middles for a long evening session. when i first got out there was only like six of us and the wind just died, so, shit, i scored again. after all that it was time for some brews. what an awesome day!!!!

Giving Thanks

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Since this is the last of Sienna's first holidays we had to go big! I cannot believe she will be 1 years old on December 12th! It seems like only yesterday she was our lil bundle of joy and now she's a walking, talking and giggling machine!! She brings joy to our lives every second of the day and that is what we are thankful for, among plenty of other things.

Our health, our family's and friend's health is a blessing in itself. We are so greatful to have such supportive families. We do not know what we would do without you guys. Our friend's are dear to us as well as we miss you guys too! We are thankful for being able to live in such a beautiful island and can't wait to share with EVERYONE. It is an amazing feeling to know that we are loved and everyday people want to see what we are up to. I hope everyone had a great day and ate as much as they could. YUM YUM. I always love a good Thanksgiving meal.

Our meal was fabulous. We cooked with our neighbors downstairs, Shannon and James. They are from Florida and are engaged! They are awesome and we are stoked we are neighbors. They have a blog too so check it out! http://www.shanjamespr.blogspot.com/ They both work at Rincon Surf School, Shannon teaches yoga and James gives surf lessons. Way cool.

Jacques drove up north on Thanksgiving early in the AM. (He will be blogging all about it later). And James went out for a surf. Shan and myself took Coop (their doggie) and Sienna for a walk down our street (up and down hills, it's a work-out!) and did some Roxy excersizes (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=55D729FACA7E5789&search_query=roxy+athletix). After a rinse we got to cooking! We made green bean/broccoli casserole (PR doesn't have those crunchy onion things so we used plaintain chips instead), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (I tried but burnt them 4 times, so they were nixed), stuffing, salad, mac-n-cheese and roasted chickens! There is a little story behind the chickens...we wanted to originally get road side chickens. These guys set up shop on the side of the highway and roast chickens all day out of their vans. For about $7 bucks you get a tender, delicious, greasy chicken. We were like screw the turkey! We'll buy some PR chickens. When we went to buy them the guy was done for the day. A lot of people must think the same cause he was sold out and closed! We decided "ok, we'll cook a turkey, no big deal" jumped into the car headed back to town to the supermarcado. A PACKED PACKED supermarcado. NO TURKEYS. SOLD OUT. Ok, so we buy our own fresh chickens and roast them ourselves! The men handled the birds because we are not into performing surgery on poultry. Shannon and I went out for a fun surf session, Maria's was chest high on sets and clean. We came back to the men in the kitchen, bird in the oven and empty bellies ready to fill up!! Everything turned out delicious and thanks to both our Mom's (Shannon and I's) we had beautiful decorations! All we were missing was pumpkin rolls. Mmmmm, hopefully I will get my pumpkin roll fill on Christmas...

Here are some pics of Thanksgiving. Hope everyone had a good one!!

The only "fall" we are seeing is water!!

It was flat a couple days ago so we decided to go to the waterfalls!! We tried to find it last time we were visiting PR and got totally lost. But alas, we found it this time!! It is soooo beautiful. Fresh water, cold, refreshing fresh water. In the pictures you will see where people are standing behind the waterfall is where you jump. We think it's about 30-40ft. People were drinking and chillin there all day. Sienna loved the water there too!! The hike down was HARD, even with our pimpin stroller. On the way back I carried Sienna and Jacques drug the stroller behind him. It was a work-out, my legs are still sore! When we get visitors this is a sure thing to do!!!

Dog days!!

Sienna with our neighbor's dog COOP. (pronouned coupe). He is the sweetest doggie to her, they are best buds. But Zoe is still the bestest dog EVER and we miss her & everyone!! Enjoy the giggles!!

misquitoes and a "turkey"

We've been in our place for 10 days now. And we are loving every minute of it. HOWEVER, there's something that creeps in the middle of the night and awakes me and Sienna. For some reason they do not like Jacques' italian skin, but they love ours! Misquitoes are a 5th roomate in this household. I have no idea where they come from but they are definately hungry. Poor Sienna, she was eaten by some mean blood sucking misquitoes. She has a bite right on the tip of her nose. We tried different things to no causatum (did I use that word right?). They keep waking us up during their peak feeding hours (dusk til dawn). Two nights ago I woke up and couldn't believe these little shits are not only messing with me and my daughter, they are messing with my head. It's a misquito paranoia. How can someone lying right next to me not be touched, (maybe one or two bites) and myself get 20+ bites all over??? I know, I know, I'm sweet and so is Sienna. But I had to get to the root of the problem. Some say it's your CO2 levels, others say O blood types, sweat, etc.

It was 3:30 am, the whole house was awake. I googled how to get rid of misquitoes. "clearing the yard of debris" was not going to cut it. Our house is on the edge of a valley, a thick, lush valley with plenty of places for misquitoes nestings. I found they cannot fly against wind more than 15mph, sweet. I made a list of things we need to get rid of these dang skeeters. Oscillating fan (check). Jacques said he and JB used to use misquito coils in their room in Barbados (check), our dear friends offered us a clip on fan for baby girls crib (check), MISQUITO NET for crib (check) and finally, some family care off bug spray (check). Can you believe we spent $60 bucks to get those things outta our room?? That is over 30 pinchos! WTF?! We have checked all the screens, some look a little old but no obvious holes. They are starting to make us think they come from the tiolet, sinks, shower SOMEWHERE...SOMEHOW. Alas, I have good news! Last night was a good night. We put Sienna to bed, misquito net, clip-on fan and some long jammies. I said a lil prayer that she will not wake up and have a good nights rest. Jacques and our neighbor downstairs taped up our water reserve half drunk (that had a hole in it). I was convinced a bazillion skeeters lived in there. After pouring another rum and coke we had to put together this fan. If we only had a video camera of me trying to put this thing together in espanol. My spanish is not great but I generally know what's going on. Nope, Jacques took over and did his "man duties". It took me longer to "read" the directions than it did for him to put it together. Comedy. We retired to bed LATE (around 11ish) and SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! I don't notice any new bites on myself or baby girl. So either the oscillating fan, clip-on fan, coil or misquito net worked! Gosh, I really hate misquitoes with a passion.

Tomorrow I am blogging about Thanksgiving and our "turkey". Please stay tuned. I am craving some of my Mom's bangin pumpkin roll though!!! YUMMY!!

tiempo para descanso

what up homies, sorry its been a minute since my last post but i've busy getting my surf, dad and boyfriend on. middles has been mental, i love that wave. well love hate that is since it claimed my two shorties last week. i guesss thats the price you gotta pay to get pits and push your surfing. luckily, i've been shooting a bunch and got some ill ones before they went to the snap collection. oh well, i got a 6 2 step up that worked insane this morning and got k r to order two more shorties to pick up over christmas. i got one glassed shop standard just for middles and gas chambers when it breaks. anyways to whoever s reading check out some of my amature photos i took before i surfed the other day. it's middles and a couple from surfers beach. wish i had some from table top but got to amped and ran out.

action shots are forth coming

quez

i'll be ready to get some cold pits over christmas hope we get a monster nor easter

It's electric!

We had an awesome lightning storm last night. No rain, just a couple rumbles of thunder and entertaining lightning. It wasn't hitting the ground it was just inside the clouds. COOL!


More to blog later!

you don't know what you got til it's gone

...we have lost water twice within the last week. something that is new to me because in jersey, Cali, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica and other places we have never lost water. Warm water, yes, but never went without water. But here in lovely PR we lose water. Because we are at the top of the hill the pumps have to build up enough pressure to pump the water up to us. When the pump gets LAZY it doesn't do it's job therefore we lose water. Nothing to drink, shower, wash dishes, brush your teeth or USE THE BIDET. Thankfully it has only been a combined 7 hours in a week (and we have good friends that allow us to shower in their house). Almost all houses here have a huge water reserve tank either on top of their house or on the side. The water in the reserve tank is not great, it kinda smells and I'd rather not....We're still getting used to it. Guess the water pumps are on island time as well. But we will pass on the reserve. EW.

when in rome...(or rincon)

I have seen a many...have used one once (maybe twice, three times)...but never got into it... but now that we are living with one for 6 months I guess I’m going to have to. Yes, you guessed it...I’m talking about our BIDET. Before I start with the logistics, I will post some precautions. These things are not for the weak at heart. I will let you all think about that for a moment or two.

· Dry wipe at least once after having a bowel movement and before using the bidet. Excess fecal matter may clog the bidet drain. This can be quite disgusting for someone who uses the bidet after you.

(just take a dump in the BIDET, leave a gift for the next lucky visitor)

· Be very careful adjusting the temperature and pressure on the bidet. You want to avoid scalding sensitive skin, and high pressure can be very irritating.

· Some people use bidets to bathe babies?!! This should not be done unless this is the sole use for the bidet; be sure to ask the caregiver if this is the case, as bathing bidets are quite similar to traditional ones.
(is this some kind of sick joke? Who would bathe their BABIES in a place where people, who sweat all day wash their buttholes and genetials??) Sienna’s not getting any baths in our BIDET, fyi.

· Drinking from a bidet is not recommended. The stream can ricochet off a soiled area and become contaminated.
(I ignore this precaution; we’re going to make it our bathroom water fountain. Keep hydrated!!)

· If you are in an area with questionable water supply sanitation, refrain from using a bidet on broken/irritated skin. Your skin is only an adequate barrier against infection when intact.
(ummm that would be HERE)

· Do not over tighten the bidet fittings, otherwise the rubber washer may get damaged
(WTF is a rubber washer? And what kind of damage if the fittings are over tightened? ...rubber band effect?)

Ok, so you squat over this toilet looking thing. It has hot/cold water and a jet-stream faucet. The water shoots up, straight up into the air and you hover over this thing. Soap is optional and so is your dignity. I want to meet the person who invented this thing. What was he on? I may let you know how I’m doing with the BIDET or may not. I have a feeling I will be leaning more towards Charmin wet-ones to get my shit clean. Hell, we should fill it with ice and use it as a beer cooler!!! Or just switch to barbaric plaintain leaves, we ARE in the islands ya know

…when in rome!

loving it

what's up everyone,

Since cora is covering the details of gettting set up and making the move down here and all that, I'll try to keep my boring blogs a little more surf oriented. Before i get to that though, i want everyone to know that sienna is amazing and might like the tropical warm waters more than myself, plus she's the cutest little munckin i ever seen.

anyways, when there's some type of swell and light winds pr is mental. the variety is enough to keep any level of surfer amped. for example, we left rincon the other morning and it was head high and looked fun at domes, indicators, pools, and sandys. then we checked surfers and table top, but tables wasn't quite big enough so we headed to isabela. shacks, jobos, and middles looked sick. so with no wind and some swell pr is the spot. supposed to have good winds this weekend and a bigger swell. keep your fingers crossed for me i want some square ones.

this morning was another good day at middles. i actually had it to myself for an hour me intiendes yo tuve middles solomente sin otra por una hora con olas perfectas tubos y todo.

the only problem was i had to cut my session short cause i buckled my freshie, so bummed, but atleast it happened in a blue round one. dam can't wait to get it big up there.

here is some pics of the family mission to middles today with our friend teo. check em out. post something again when it gets good.

All I want is my two front teeth!!!

If you look closely, you can see my two front teeth!! Woo hoo that makes our teeth count to 4!!

November 16, 2009: Couldn't post yesterday but here it goes!!

Jacques purchased our car on Sunday morning at a flea market. You have to be there early in the morning to nab a decent ride. Today we drove to Mayaguez to pick up the car and made a day out of it. Our friend joined us on the half hour cruise to the city. Mayaguez is called Ciudad de las Aguas Puras" (City of Pure Waters). It is a city that is located on a bay (Somers Point, anyone?) that houses many small rivers and streams that empty out into the Mona Passage. It’s the 3rd busiest port in Puerto Rico. This is where a lot of shopping, doctor visits and general important things go down (social security, auto publico (DMV), etc). Mayaguez once was a major contributor to the tuna industry ( 80% of canned tuna consumed in the US) Starkist, Chicken of the Sea and Bumblebee all holding major factories. But economic turmoil and other reasons have left only Bumblebee standing. It also has a lot of housing projects, like any city here, there or anywhere. What I also found interesting was the Pan American games will be held here in Mayaguez the summer of 2010. The Pan American games are the "latino olympics" from what I am told. That would be cool to see!! It is obvious when you drive through because there is construction everywhere. Hope the local economy flourishes by housing the games. While Jacques and Chino (car salesman) went to the auto publico (DMV) we decided to hit up the Mayaguez mall. First of all Wal-Mart is an anchor store at the Mayaguez Mall..maybe the Shore Mall in EHT could use a Wal-Mart where the Value-Shitty used to be?? Just a suggestion! Anyways, we took a walk through and I was thoroughly impressed! I saw Journey’s, Sears, Pac Sun, Marshall’s (another anchor store), Hot Topic and tons and tons of shoe stores. Every other store in that mall is selling shoes. So now I know where to go if I need new shoes or some basic clothes. We putt around the mall and I bought a couple of things needed for the house in Wal-Mart. It’s strange to think that Wal-Mart has the best prices in Jersey, but in PR I wasn’t seeing it! Select items were pretty frecking expensive! We also noticed that NOBODY, NOBODY parks in designated parking places: people were on the curb, right in front of the store, they are parked around bend…it was like a free-for-all. “Our car can fit here, we’re not walking ALL THE WAY OVER THERE.” It is great and goes with the vibe of “anything goes”. Sienna was happy as a clam shopping and observing her new environment. She’s so cute how she sees someone and wants to chat away with them. She will do anything to get their attention and they love it as well. We hope all the Spanish rubs off on her because I am pretty rusty right now. On our way home Sienna was awake for our photo session and then she went to bed in the rental car. We met Jacques back at our friends house and I had my first look at our whip that is going to be taking us from point A to B til May. My goodness, she’s a beaut! I don’t know if you would call it a car, per say, because it’s more like a BEATER. It’s a late 80’s poop brown Mazda station wagon. “We gotta name it!” is the first thing I say. My first car I ever drove was named tuna can. I beat that car to shit; she was more like a half priced smashed tuna can after I had her for 4 years. We HAVE to come up with a good name for this one. I want to call it Bentley, but if you guys have any other suggestions we would love to hear them. A name will come that will be appropriate for this piece of shit. So that was our day today. Jacques got the morning session in at Jobo’s then we were productive!! Tomorrow we have to return our rental car and rely on this and only this.

There she is!! We have been calling her the shaggin' wagon, bentley and OP (for Old Poop).

Mayaguez traffic

visual stimulation....

Enjoy these pics. Hope it's not still raining in dirty jerz.

Our rental car!

Our front porch!!!

View from our back balcony!!!

...and some shrubbery.

xoxo,

Cora & Sienna

Pinchos R Us..

We have gotten to our endless summer!! The flight was interesting with baby girl, our first flight was PACKED, every seat was taken. They were begging people to check in their carry-on luggage cause there was not enough overhead room for everything. The guy we sat next to has 8 week old TWINS. We were blessing him every other minute. Once the plane dropped people off in Florida it emptied out and we had a whole row to ourselves.. Sienna liked sitting in her own seat like a "big girl" All in all she was good on the plane, sticking her tounge out at anyone who made eye contact with her... she is comedy. We arrived in Aguadilla at 4:30am, two hours late. We slumped up to the rental car place and got upgraded to a larger sedan but we were too tired to be excited about it. I have a picture of what our car looks like with all the luggage on it. We had an audience while we were packing it. They were probably making bets like "these gringos are not putting ALL that luggage in that tiny ass car." A crowd of about 15 gathered around us. We made their night, they may still be talking about it. "How bout that shit all at 5am." Sienna slept like a baby the whole car ride home. We didn't get lost, we decided it was a "detour" but it took us about 45 mins to get to our house. OUR HOUSE. HOLY SHIT OUR HOUSE.........

AMAZING. We knew exactly where it was so it was a piece of cake driving through these narrow, winding roads. Our house is the second floor of this gorgeous 2 story duplex with the most amazing views! Panoramic ocean views, sunset views, city views, mountain views. Gorgeous views. We have 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, A BIDET(wtf?), kitchen with bfast bar. Everything we hoped for. It is bright, light, airy and big. There is always a breeze and we highly doubt we'll be using the air conditioners we have in our rooms. We do not hear the hustle and bustle of downtown or vacationers. We are in a perfect location for a family.. Our neighbors are super friendly....we already have a grill date set up to cook on our patio. Mmmm homemade pinchos and grilled veggies. We cannot wait to share this beautiful house with our friends and family!! There will be more pictures to follow.. Right now Sienna is watching some ELMO, Jacques is at the Mayaguez flea market trying to find a car. He had my camera so I will be posting pictures up soon...

brought Sienna to the playa Domes yesterday. I got my surf in and so did Jacques. It was stomach high but clean. We had a blast. Lil miss Sienna is lovin the water!! When we would take her out she would yell at us to bring her back in! After many handfuls (mouthfuls) of sand I gave up and said she'll poop it out tomorrow. I WAS RIIIIGHT. She had so much fun on the beach she was passed out at 8 oclock and didn't wake up until 8 this morning!

p.s. water is 80 degrees. can't complain about that!!

HOLY LUGGAGE!!!

Here is what we are bringing to PR !!!

...plus another suitcase. HOLY LUGGAGE BATMAN. that's a lotta shit. can't wait to see the look we are going to get at the luggage check-in. I will try to get it on film.

Sienna helping with wax removal.

so we leave Atlantic City @ 6:30pm tomorrow night headed for Aguadilla, Puerto Rico!!!

little stressed, nervous, anxious and excited all jumbled into one. we just wanna get there already! crossing our fingers the flight isn't delayed tomorrow night.

Weather in AC tomorrow night: feels like 42 degrees. Cloudy, rain, & wind with NE winds 25 to 35 mph. GUSTS to 50mph....coastal flood advisory...wind advisory...high surf advisory

Weather in Rincon, Puerto Rico: 89 degrees. Partly Cloudy, chance of t-storms in the afternoon. ESE winds 10 mph.

PINCHOS HERE WE COME!!

is blogging the new black??

Helloooo!! We have decided to jump on the wagon and catapult into the blogosphere..

As I watch cheaters on channel 7, sipping some WaWa coffee and checking out my baby girl sleeping in her highchair. Thinking about what the hell we are going to write on here...nothing too interesting as of yet. But come November 12th myself, my boyfriend and our 11 month old baby girl will be boarding a plane to beautiful Rincon, Puerto Rico!!!

WOOOO HOOO maybe then I will have some stuff to write about.
for our last couple days in NJ we are visiting friends and family. taking our last strolls around town and packing like mad dogs! I'm starting to feel the pressure...

When I get some time I will elaborate more on the place we are going to be staying for the next 6 months!!!