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!

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.

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)

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.

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.

At Texas Roadhouse in Greeley

Then we went over to our friends Matt and Jamie’s house to play some Texas Hold-Em poker (a very Texas night for some reason) and ring in the new year. We played tournament style which takes way too long for my patience, but is fun for a night counting down the hours, minutes and seconds to the new year.

After about three hours of playing everyone starts getting restless and not paying much attention to the game and instead starts telling jokes and messing around.

Me and Hailee playing around

To add a little spice to the night, Britton and I had  decided beforehand to play a practical joke. We found some “untearable toilet paper” at the dollar store the other day. Britton inconspicuously traded out the regular paper in the bathroom for the un-tearable kind. We thought about removing all the regular toilet paper under the bathroom sink, but thought that might be too mean, so he just removed and replaced the roll on the spring.

After about 2 hours of playing poker, finally someone went to the bathroom. Britton and I waited to see what would happen. Finally, our friend Erin came out and said “Matt and Jamie, what IS this stuff? It’s just about impossible to tear. Are you trying to re-use your toilet paper?” They were mortified and said, “We just bought it at Wal-Mart the other day.” Britton and I just laughed along with everyone else, and no one knew it was us for the longest time until we came clean. We were just shocked that Erin was actually able to pry it apart and even used it!! That takes some doing. It was pretty hilarious.

Erin with the TP around her neck

Finally as we were nearing midnight only Britton, Erin and I remained as the last three in the poker tournament. We decided to call it and Britton and I took first, and she took second. So we walked away with $60! Not too shabby!

This was the final table. I had the most chips (on the right)! Yay

Erin, Jamie and Me- Making the Money-haha

It was a fun night out with friends and a great start to the new year. We hope everyone has a wonderful and prosperous 2012!

The sustained winds are about 35 mph but there are gusts between 60 and 100 mph! It’s just crazy and agitating, especially when you can hear the shingles tearing off the roof, because that means work for Britton. We drove around Greeley just to check out the damage and saw that our neighborhood had some broken fences, lots of missing shingles and more tree damage (after the early snowfall broke a lot of branches).

It’s funny to us when people worry for us about Puerto Rico because it’s a Caribbean island in the middle of a hurricane zone because we have hurricane force winds here in Colorado all the time, especially in the spring and fall. There are often tornadoes that pop up all over the eastern plains, and we even had a major one just 3 or 4 years ago in Windsor (ironic name, I know), a town about 10 miles from Greeley.

Another thing about the crazy winds of Colorado and the plains in general is that it always brings up the tumbling tumbleweeds. We’ve met people who are not from around here who thought that tumbleweeds were fictitious, and part of the western folklore kind of like Paul Bunyon or Tom Sawyer. But, they are very real and roll all around during windstorms like these. While driving, they often tumble and slam into your car grill. They are strange because they look like alien creatures rolling along the prairie.

Tumbleweed that was blown up on our front porch

So, we try to make the best of these days and stay down in the basement where we can’t hear the house being torn apart. After it is all done, we will have to check for and fix any damage to the fence, greenhouse, trees, chairs that have been thrown off our patio and shingles that always take flight.

It’s kind of a strange way to end the year, but I suppose the wind is sort of like nature’s vacuum cleaner doing some last minute work.

We hope this crazy Colorado wind blows in a great new year for everyone!