$9 fare club, pppssshhh

Our trip has come to an end. We had a wonderful time going to and from all of our families and friends homes. We are so grateful to have such a great people in our lives. Christmas eve, Christmas day and all the days in between have been jam packed with drinks, food and laughter. It was fabulous. I have gained 7 lbs to date, Jacques 5lbs. Sienna has been porking up as well but has not been eating much recently because she is cutting 4 new teeth. Running a fever, diaper rash and runny nose to boot. It sucks to see your daughter in so much pain, I wish I could take it all from her. Tylenol, orajel and decongestant help her out so I feel a little better about that. We have seen SO MUCH WEATHER HERE: snow, rain, wind and sun. It's been 19degrees to 50degrees. Freezing to a comfortable freezing.

Pictures are going to be coming up when we head back to PR. I forgot the wire that hooks my camera up into the computer. Go figure. The following posts when we are back are going to be a throw back to Christmas. Starting in Puerto Rico, it's a little project that I couldn't get around to before we left, planned on doing it while I was in NJ but again...forgot my wire.

I just need to rant because this is very recent news I just got while I was writing this blog. And hopefully somehow a Spirit Airline employee, executive, someone can see what I am going to write.

Dear Spirit Airlines,

YOU SUCK. I am sorry to put it so bluntly, but that is being nice. I love the idea of you, Spirit, so close and convenient to us here in South Jersey. You fly where we all want to go, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican. Your prices are pretty good, until you further check out your reservation. You nick and dime us for reserving a seat, luggage, taxes and fees. You have a good marketing team there Spirit, for dumb monotoned Americans that do not notice you ripping us off. OH YEA I FORGOT, NO WATER, SODA, PEANUTS, NOTHING DURING THE FLIGHT. If you want to pay with a credit card you can enjoy these luxuries at extremely inflated costs. (think $4 a soda, $2 for about 10 animal crackers). Oh, Spirit, I am only just beginning.

We left Atlantic City and moved down to Puerto Rico. We brought along everything we needed for the baby (reference one of our first posts). We check in our stroller, and arrive in Aguadilla with no jogging stroller. Silly Spirit people left our $200 stroller at the gate in Florida!! No problem, they had a "replacement". Our "replacement" was a $12 umbrella stroller with two working wheels. NICE ONE . You also told us our stroller would be there the following day! We waited a week for your call (which came in at 4:30am, waking the WHOLE house up) saying our stroller has returned. Thanks, Spirit. Oh and thanks for the $25 voucher, really broke the bank on that one.

We had our friend down for 10 days, Spirit. And he unfortunately missed his flight. His flight was in the middle of the night 2:30am and slept through it (coulda been the rum, but we like to think it's the time of the actual flight). He called as soon as he realized he missed his flight. He was told he was canceled out of the system because the plane already took off. He was charged $300+ to RE-BOOK a flight he already paid for and couldn't get a flight out until 2 days later. That's not the Christmas Spirit, Spirit!!!!

It was our turn to come back up to Jersey. A huge snow storm was swallowing the mid-atlantic. Our flight was to leave at 4:30am. You guys would not tell us that our flight was canceled. You said to call at 1:30am. When I asked if the flight was on time you guys told me yes. I said to Atlantic City? And you guys said, no, to Florida. I said what about the flight to Atlantic City? You finally told me after 15 minutes of holding that the flights were canceled. What you did not know, Spirit was while I was on hold I GOOGLED flight cancellations and BOOM got my answer a LOT faster than you people could. What you also wanted us to do was board the plane to Florida and get stuck in Florida for 16+hours. Sorry, Spirit, we are not that dumb. We knew our flight to Atlantic City would be canceled, you wanted us in Florida...we wanted to stay at the comfort of our own house in PR.

Thanks again, Spirit. We got to New Jersey two days later than expected.

Now, the reason I am writing an open letter to YOU, Spirit. IS BECAUSE YOU PUSHED ME TO THIS POINT. Today I received a call saying flights are delayed and we are not going to be able to catch our connecting flight to Aguadilla. We have to reschedule, for tomorrow. What if I had work, reservations, or I was on vacation? Would they compensate me? Nope. I asked them what I get (vouchers, free drinks during the flight, big front seat?) nothing. I get a response "if you want to upgrade to a big front seat it will be $596 extra." YOU INCONVENIENCED ME, YOU SHOULD BE NICE AND COMPENSATE. a free drink at least! Geesh! So, Spirit, I have traveled you back and forth to Florida, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, etc and I'm thinking of not being your friend anymore. You sound nice with your $9 air fare bullshit. But it's not really $9 (hidden fees, luggage, etc). I am thinking of driving to Newark, a non-stop flight to Aguadilla and ship my freaking boards down via UPS/fed ex cargo. You're just too much for me to deal with. And you do not make up for your bad services. That is why, you suck.

Sincerely,

Me

travel day!

Whew! We made it back to South Jersey, safe and sound. AND my there is a butt load of snow. Sienna was good on the plane, she's a natural traveler. She woke up at the airport in Aguadilla, PR and was talking to everyone. EVERYONE. You could hear her throughout this little airport. This was at 2:30am. She stayed awake until the plane took off and I gave her a bottle. Sienna & Jacques were out like lights. My arm was falling asleep from this 25+ lb cutie pie. So I opened the food/beverage trays, laid some sweatshirts down and put Sienna on 2 beverage trays....when in Rome!! She slept for two hours, til we got to Fort Lauderdale. Guess she was comfy! On the plane to Atlantic City, NJ they had an open row for us. So Ms. Big Girl Sienna had her own seat. She loved it, we strapped her in and put her toys on the tray and she was so good the entire time. A couple of times she got over it and hopped on my lap to look out the window. We saw the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, it's really neat from the air cause you can see the tunnels completely submerged into the water. As we were going up the coast I was thinking to myself, where is the snow??

Oh...we saw snow!!!! Not in Virginia, Maryland or even Delaware. But once we flew over the coast of Jersey it was WHITE. EVERYWHERE. Sienna was saying "NOOOOO". She's still gotta work on her "S" sounds. Hehe. We landed and met Nana & Mom-Mom at the airport. How cute! She played her shy game then warmed right up. We have only been in Jersey for 24 hours and Sienna has had a couple "firsts". She saw snow for the first time, we are going to put her in it and take some pictures later. Our island baby also put shoes on for the first time!! In PR we are barefoot all the time. It was soo cute to see her checkin these weird things on her feet, she walked around the airport like she had flippers on. She was asking me where her toes were. TOES? TOES? Haha. We had lunch at the Anchorage in Somers Point along with some much needed bloody marys. yum.

My Mom had everyone over for dinner that night. Sienna was pretty tired and slept a bunch, as we did too! My Mom made filets for Jacques who hasn't had a good cut of meat since we moved down to PR. I pass on red meat and was perfectly happy with my chicken. So good to be having our family's home cooked meals. We're definitely fattening up while we are up here. Chicken pot pie tonight for dinner. A perfect compliment to my snickers ice cream bar I had for breakfast!!

slackers!!!

BALLOONS!!!

We have not posted in quite some time. But for good reasons!

Jacques has been busy giving surf lessons and I have been busy taking care of Sienna and my new guilty pleasure....farmville. Yes, admitting you have a problem is the first step and I can say that I definately do have a problem with being preoccupied with FARMVILLE on facebook. For those you that don't know it's a simulated farming game (real time). You can plant, grow and harvest crops. When you harvest a crop you get coins, when you get coins you go up levels and you acquire better crops to grow and get more coins! It's crazy addictive and keeps me occupied cause we have no TV down here. So maybe that's why I haven't blogged in a while....

me and my cows on FARMVILLE!!!

We have jobs!! Giving surf lessons to people down here.. it's a good gig with some money involved and we get to teach people something that we love. Did I say it's good money? Yea, score!! Another reason why we haven't blogged in a while.

The waves have been fairly good down here, but no big swells to blog about. Another reason why Jacques hasn't blogged.

However...tomorrow (Saturday) it's predicted to get pretty big around here and build all day. Up north in Isabela should be really really good (think Hawaiian waves), Jacques can't sit still..I will not be surprise if he is asleep by 9:00 tonight. Sienna and I are taggin along to watch, then hopefully I get to surf some building Rincon swell (Maria's).....such a fun wave. It reminds me of Waverly on crack! (before the dredging/beach erosion). It mushes out then bowls up again on the inside.

Saturday night we are going to a slideshow of a local photographer that we have shots in. Then we are headed on a plane, back north to JERSEY. Snowing, cold and windy Jersey. We a super excited to see our family and friends. Wait until you see our lil girl Sienna. She is simply amazing how much she has grown, even in 6 weeks!!

if you're checkin us out in COLD COLD Jersey, we will see ya soon!!!!
if you're checkin us out in warm warm Puerto Rico, we will see ya when we get back!!

Sienna Sienna Sienna

Today was a wonderful day!!!! I woke up this morning before Sienna because I was so excited. As you all know from our two previous posts that IT'S SIENNA'S FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!

I decorated the night before so when baby girl woke up the whole dining room was ready for her special day. Thanks to my Mommy (who sent us decorations) there was a happy birthday banner, a fiesta banner, balloons, plates, cups, napkins, a candle and wrapping paper!! She woke up to 8 huge balloons and instantly said "WHAAAATS THAT?!". She loved playing with them. After birthday breakfast Jacques, myself & Sienna went for a walk down our street. It was a treat for Sienna and I because it's usually the two of us. How nice!

We got Sienna ready for the beach and headed over to Colleen and Matt's. They got her a cute little boat toy we can bring to the beach or put in the tub or use anywhere. THANKS GUYS!! Their card was too cute; they took a picture of Sienna sleeping on the beach and made it into a b-day card. So thoughtful...

We dropped John (Uncle Bird) off to surf @ playa domes (it's his last day). And the three of us headed to the Caribbean side of town. Most of the beaches there are sandy bottoms and perfect for us to swim with Sienna. She LOVES the water so it was a perfect day to take her out there. She was cracking up and having a great time. We realized we forgot to pack her bathing suit so the BIRTHDAY girl went swimming in her BIRTHDAY SUIT! We sat right in front of Rincon Ocean Villa and they were setting up for a wedding. http://www.rinconoceanvilla.com/ The DJ was testing his equipment and Sienna was jamming out and dancing all around to Black Eyed Peas (like we do at the house!). She was totally in her element and it was the icing on the cake. A perfect beach day with my boyfriend and baby girl.

After frolicking in the warm waters of the Caribbean we made it back to the house. We had a couple people over for dinner and gave Sienna her guava pastries. She loves them! They are these flaky puff pasty with guava within the layers, sprinkled with powdered sugar. Easy for her to eat because they crumble up and she just takes handfuls of them. We serenaded her with happy birthday and gave her some green beans and mac-n-cheese (her favorite).

What a wonderful day. If only we had endless money to fly our friends and family down here to share in the celebration.

Turning 1 years old brings many milestones. Sienna is a toddler. Her car seat faces forward instead of backwards (she loves it!!). We can now switch to whole milk instead of formula (we are doing the 1/2 formula 1/2 milk as of right now). She can have peanut butter (loves peanut butter and guava jelly sandwiches). And she can errrr, have seafood, even though she had it before! Little story: we went out to eat at Outback when we were in Jersey. Sienna was about 10 months old. We munched out on king crab legs and coconut shrimp. We gave Sienna both!! The next day we go to a routine check up to her pediatrician and he states "Ok, not peanut butter or seafood until she is a year". Jacques and I both look at each other like "Ohm Shit". But she was fine, they say that because there is a high rate of allergic reactions in young children. Now she can munch on basically anything (except nuts and raisins, etc.)

WOW. It seems like only yesterday I was a nervous, excited, anxious mess waiting to meet my little angel that was growing inside of me for 9 months. She came into this word weighing 6lbs 3oz at 3:04pm on December 12th, 2008. Now it's 9:06pm on December 12th, 2009. I just put my little 25+lb healthy princess to bed. She's sound asleep after a long day of celebration. All for her, our little wonderful bundle of joy. My love for her cannot be accounted for through words, it's higher than that. I am so thankful we are complete. :)

1 YEAR OLD TODAY!!!!!

post to follow from me about baby girl's big FIRST birthday!!!

sienna's bday

birds amatuer photograph at tiny pools, and me having fun on his 5'10'

her ooo face that everyone loves

bird chillen on the patio soaking in the sunset, and all the shredding he did on his trip.

que pasa mis amigos de nueva jersey? espero que todo esta bien con ellos. estoy alegre para nativadad con mi familia y pasar tiempo con todos.

i can't believe my little girl is one today. i remember when she was just a tiny squid, not capable of anything. it's safe to say she's turned into a rad little toddler, now she's cruising around, kicking it on the beach, trying to swim, getting into everything, and being adorable. we're taking her to the beach outside rincon a little later where we can all swim. she's stoked being in the water with her mom and dad. we have fun to cause there's a cool reef down beach that's loaded with underwater life, and we're we swim is all sand. it's perfect to work on lung capacity and do some free diving. sienna will be surfing and freediving before she's five. if she wants to of course. (sorry mom not trying to stress you out already).

anyways, after the beach we're going to have a little bday party for her. cora's going to decorate, and i'll probably do the cooking. we'll have si's favorite mac n cheese, beans, and some chicken. after that she'll be having cake and a candle. i'll be sure to send a pic.

on the side note, we all got a little drunk last night and my boy john fogs (bird) missed his flight. sucks. he had to buy a 300 dollar one way ticket for tonight. atleast, we've had fun waves for the past three days and surfed six to eight hours a day. he got a little taste of middles yesterday morning and has some urchins to show for it.

sienna was stoked on her presents thanks mom, mrs. j, naumchik family.

we gotta get to the beach, so i'll talk to everyone soon.

quez

flat puerto rico

buenas tardes amigos,

i hope all the surf crew got some good ones back in jersey last swell. i'll be down to get some cold water pits if it does it while i'm home. i'm stoked to get back for ten days and see everyone. i'm sure sienna is as well. she's really becoming an awesome little chica.

the wave's have been pretty much flat the last few days. i didn't think it was possible after what i saw in november. i guess my boy john (bird) brought a little of inconsistant jerz with him. we do have a swell that should fill in overnight. thank goodness. looks like its an early morning middles mission tommorrow, than fun rippable rincon all day. talk to everyone soon.

jacques

island routines..

our man Elmo!!!

The boys (Jacques & Bird) woke up early this morning to surf up north and Sienna and I decided to stay here and do our island routine.

Our routine goes like this: she wakes me up between 7-7:15 (6-6:15am jersey time). I put the coffee on and make her a 10oz bottle of formula while she watches her favorite: ELMO. While the coffee is brewing I give her the bottle and then back to Elmo. It's nice time for both of us. I get to drink my coffee, check e-mail, blog, facebook or whatever I feel like. And she gets to watch her favorite monster. When we used to put it on for her she would just stare in amazement. Ha, now she cracks up at Mr. Noodle and hums along with the songs. It's amazing to see her development. There's nothing better than Elmo in her eyes. I have tried to show her some other shows and she's not into them. Good for us! He is educational, diversified and entertaining (even for Jacques and I, we know every word!). After Elmo is done we go for a walk... down our dead end street that consists of three hills (the last being the hardest), a couple horses, sheep and about 30 dogs. When you walk by the first house the first dog barks, then every house after is a secession of doggies. Sienna loves it, and Shannon and Coop sometimes come, too. But the best part of our daily walk is her naptime! By the time we turn around to go back to the house she is getting sleepy. It puts her out like a light. Woo hoo. Baby's fed and sleeping. Time to do some chores. I putt around the house doing laundry, cleaning floors, taking out the trash, etc. It's like you have to be super anal around her if not you get these lil ants all around the place. Mom you will be proud!! we haven't left dishes in the sink since the first week we were here! It must be the coffee (strong PR coffee) and the strenuous walk that fires me up to clean. Oh yea, and no TV = no Wendy Williams! By the time baby wakes up the boys are home and we get ready for the beach. Mommy gets to get her surf on while Sienna and Jacques play on the beach. It works out great.

Sienna in her stroller at Middles, around 6am!

Sometimes Sienna and I will come with Jacques and company on their dawn patrol sessions.. We wake up before the sun gets up and hope into the car. Sometimes Sienna stays awake for a little until I give her a bottle in the car. Then she sleeps until we get into Isabela (about 20 minutes from Rincon). We bring the stroller to a beach called "Middles", where Jacques has all the sick barrel shots from. Jacques goes surfing and we eat breakfast on the beach, then go for a walk. It's a tough walk through deep, soft sand. We walk for about an hour, which puts her to sleep. (catching onto the pattern? walks = sleep for baby. walks= excersize for mommy.) She sleeps maybe an hour or more, wakes up, plays in the sand for a bit. If she wants to go in the water (which she sees the ocean and points and says "that" "that" "that") we walk down to the tide pool right north of the beach. It's knee deep and super warm. Sienna LOVES going into the water. I have just started to "dunk" her underwater so she gets used to it. They naturally hold their breath and the lil munchkin loves it! She's going to be swimming soon, she wants to go on her own so bad! She's like "ok, Ma, get off ...let me go!"

We can't wait to see everyone when we go back for Christmas. I am excited for her to see all the Christmas decorations.. she's going to be asking a ton of questions! Love you guys. xoxo

.. time for our walk, Elmo's done!!

buen dia

hello to everyone. i hope the my friends and family are doing well. i'm sure there's plenty of good food and wine to go around. my cooking skills have been getting faster to fulfill mi linda hija sienna needs. she's trotting all around pr, you'd think she owns the place.

the waves have been good as usual. the trades have started to blow so i've been surfing dogmans and indicators the last few days, plus there was a pulsing north west swell. anyways, i'll be getting some cold pits in december, stoked, sike.

mom i want some lasagna and meatballs when i get home.

pop i could use some sassi (no clue how to spell it)

here's a couple shots to keep you cold water surfers dreaming of warm water

jacques

my boy john kemenosh (bird) is landing tonight, hope he gets some surf

special thanks to everyone who' s helped cora and i here and at home.