Life Transplanet

Well Cassie and I are still in the afterglow of our time in Rincon especially since we are in the depths of winter here in Colorado. Lately we have been going over plans on how to remodel the wood house.  If we move a bathroom, pour some concrete and redo the interior and roof we think we could make something pretty cool.  We would save quite a bit of money and make something special.  Saving money would put us a lot closer to moving, which is the goal.

The house from the road in (with the ocean view as a backdrop)

We haven’t seen a whole lot of wood houses in PR.  In Rincon however, they do exist throughout Puntas so it is do-able, possible and not entirely crazy.  Our first thoughts about keeping the wood house revolved around the idea that, wood houses in tropical areas don’t last.  After seeing the current wood house that has been there 20+ years and the wood that has been protected still looks fresh, we are starting to change our opinion.

Not a whole lot going on here.  It’s winter and most people are staying inside.  We had a good time with friends watching the super bowl and having get togethers, but we are ready for spring already!

On Saturday my friend Kelly had another White Elephant/Re-wrap your crap party. We don’t have too much crap left after our multiple clean outs and garage sales, but we managed to put together a pretty good gift of random never-opened bathroom essentials inside a fish bowl. It was also the day of the Broncos big loss, so it was nice to have the White Elephant game instead of just football.

The first present we chose was a powdered coffee gift with two fairly decent glasses with it. I thought we had lucked out. Then, of course, as the game is played…our gift was “stolen” by someone else and we had to choose again. This time, we got what had to be the worst present: pigs feet and Spam! Yuck! But it was a pretty funny present.

Kelly LOVES the pigs feet haha :-p

We had a fun night out and then Sunday we prepared for Puerto Rico. We are leaving this week!! Lots to do still, but we are looking forward to going back to the property and getting some work done.

The other day we took a long walk down the Poudre Trail from 71st Ave past 83rd Ave. It was cold, but sunny, and in our black hoodies and pants and at a brisk pace we stayed fairly ok. When we got to 83rd by the old Hazelton School House which is now being used as the Poudre Learning Center, we went off trail a bit by the pond and happened upon an empty old teepee (or tipi depending on your preference for spelling).

Teepee on the trail- they don’t usually lilt so much though!!

Teepees were the main form of lodging for the nomadic Native Americans/Indians who lived in this area. They mainly hunted the wild buffalo that roamed these areas and moved according to the weather and the food sources in the region. People still find old arrow heads around here in fields from time to time. A reminder of the wilder times only a few hundred years ago.

This teepee is not an authenic tipi, but a reproduction, similar to the teepee displayed at Centennial Village. There was some information inside of it about teepees and the Cottonwood trees of the area. We did notice how much warmer it was inside sheltered from the cold slight wind that day. With a fire in the middle it would have been pretty toasty!

We thought it would be pretty cool to have a teepee for our property in Puerto Rico, or maybe we could go with the thatch huts that the native Tainos used! Could be fun.

Huts that the Tainos used in Puerto Rico (pic taken on our honeymoon)

Looks like it is going to snow here in Colorado this weekend.   It’s been a nice few days with highs in the 50′s.  It makes me think of spring but we are still at least 5 months away from things starting to grow again.

We are planning a trip to Rincon soon which will be awes0me. We are looking forward to seeing the place after almost 9 months away! Not sure what to expect, but the gloomy weather here can drag on a person so it will be good to see some sunshine and green plants!

The geese are migrating this time of year and apparently found some food in our yard which was kind of interesting.

Not Chickens

We (Greeley) are on a flight path for migrations each year and we get thousands of these guys as visitors on their way from Canada.  They stop at all the lakes in town and since our house is in between 2 ponds they occasionally stop by to say hi.  They don’t usually come into the yards to eat though…lol.

This last summer we finally got rid of an old, dirty, smelly, scratched leather couch that we had gotten for free from one of Britton’s friends when we first moved into our house nearly 9 years ago (nine years!!?!). Schnoodle had used it as a bed, and Kitty as a scratching post, and it was already a little dirty when we first got it as it WAS after all from a bachelor pad. We had been meaning to do something with it for the longest while, but weren’t sure what to do with it. When our HOA hosted a free roll-away dumpster, we knew we should take advantage of it to get rid of the old thing.

You can see part of the couch in this old picture

But since then, our upstairs living room has been completely empty save for all of our tropical indoor houseplants. Whenever someone comes in, they ask us when we moved in, or when we were moving since it was so barren it looked like we were unsettled. And since we had Puerto Rico on the mind we sorta were.

Our Bare Upstairs Living Room for the last 6 months

Finally, this weekend I convinced Britton that we should at least have a small amount of furniture in the living room to make it seem more inviting. I knew it would be hard to have money leave our pockets but we did pretty good and spent only about $400 on the whole set up (we already had the side table and lamp). We figured would could get by with just two sitting chairs and a rug. That would at least make it feel warm and they would be easy to sell and/or transport when we are ready to move for good to PR.

AFTER- Our Hotel Lobby Living Room

It’s also nice to have somewhere to sit to put on my shoes in the morning instead of hopping around by the doorway. Since we don’t have a TV or anything upstairs, I think it looks sort of like a tropical hotel lobby, which is fine by me.