Rincon Adventure

It's official, we have moved back to Puerto Rico! I will try to recap everything that has happened over the past couple of months to get everyone up to speed and then do weekly updates.

Marcus and I put our house on the market last May in the hopes of being able to move back to Puerto Rico (we lived here from July 2002 - May 2004). At the time, Marcus received authorization to work remotely, whereas my job was a little less flexible. But of course everything was dependent on us selling our house so it was a waiting game.  The summer passed by quickly with wonderful Colorado weather. Then the fall was upon us and we were discouraged and frustrated that we hadn't sold our house. We realized that with the worst housing market in history and 15 foreclosures in our surrounding area the odds were against us, but we stayed optimistic with good reason. Our house was a bit unique - A-frame 750 sq. ft completely renovated with 1.5 acres of land with only one neighbor to speak of with beautiful panoramic mountain views at 7,000 feet. However, along with this beautiful surrounding came cold, harsh winters, lots of shoveling and many layers of clothing. With cold weather looming we were postponing buying 3 cords of hardwood for the winter ahead.

We had discussed when we would pull the house off the market because neither of us wanted to spend the winter wondering if we would have to move in the middle of the winter. So by mid-September we decided Oct 1 would be the day we would pull the house off the market. Well, apparently the stars were aligned or destiny would not be detered because on September 28th we got an offer on our house. We accepted. The owners couldn't have been more perfect - paid cash (no appraisal, no mortgage approval), used as a summer house (wanted the house furnished) and anticipated keeping the house in the family for generations so some of the standard and worrisome inspections were avoided. Happy, happy! We signed and accpeted the offer September 30th, closing date October 30th and move date November 15th (these wonderful homebuyers let us stay two weeks past closing at no cost - it doesn't get any better really). We were on our way back to living in Puerto Rico - we were going to rent Marcus's parents house - beautiful house, gorgeous property with a spectacular panoramic view. Not so different from our house in Coloraoo. It was all starting to seem like this was meant to be, but it dawned on us - holy cow we are moving to Puerto Rico in 6 weeks!

Now, the real work began. Packing, packing, more packing and shipping. Since we sold our housed furnished we simply needed to ship the things we wanted to keep and then leave other items with family to store. We shipped 36 boxes to Puerto Rico - some on the 'slow boat' and some priority mail. We went to our local post office in Lyons, CO every week with about 8-10 boxes. They were extremely patient as well as interested in our plans. Usually there were a few people in line behind us with many eyeballs staring right through the back of my head, but as they learned of our plans curiousity got the best of them and they waited patiently for us to finish with our many boxes. We got delivery confirmation and insured every box. However, we usually did $100 to make things easier. So, some boxes were way under this and some were way over this amount. This would come back to bite us later.

We said our good-byes to family and friends the weeks leading up to our departure. Luckily my work came around and gave me the thumbs up to work remotely. So, we were on our way back to a place we loved with friends and warm sunny weather waiting for us and on top of that we had both our jobs - couldn't be more ideal. We were sad to be leaving Colorado because we had really grown to love it and had a nice life there, but we were counting down the days until the move date. We were excited to just not have to think or talk about moving anymore and just wanted to acutally do it! Some things had to wait until the last minute (some boxes we wanted when we arrived, the dogs Rabies vaccinations and selling our cars). 

We rented a mini-van for our drive across the country to hold the dogs and lots of stuff we were dropping off along the way. The drive was uneventful (the best kind), but looking back we were also very quiet. I think we were both in shock about how quickly everything happened. Don't get me wrong, we love change, we love moving to new environments and love taking ourselves out of our comfort zone, but still it was a shock to both our systems.  

We drove the 17 hours to Louisville, KY with the dogs in the back and everything piled up behind them. We stayed overnight and had a nice family get together. Then we were off to State College, PA where Marcus' family lives to spend the week of Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, we didn't take anytime off work for this grand trek which was a big mistake we realized afterwards. We left Colorado at 12:00 pm on Friday, November 15th arrived in Lousiville around 3:00 pm, left Sunday November 16th to arrive in PA around 6:00 pm. Then we got to go to work (remotely) the very next day. Not smart. On Tuesday we realized that the rabies shot the dogs received the week didn't follow the policy for the Continental flight. Hmmm, not good. This created a lot of stress and tension and worry that week. Just to try to cover ourselves we took the dogs to the vet in State College to get another vaccination just incase we would have to leave the dogs behind for 30 days with my in-laws.  We also received the top of one our boxes (yes, the top) in the mail this week. Of course, murphy's law it was one of the most expensive boxes we shipped. It apparently was somewhere in Florida. So, a box we insured for $100, but was actually worth about $600 was now lost. Fantastic.

We had a stressful Thanksgiving week with both of us under deadlines for work. Not fun. We left State College on Monday November 26th (with conference calls on the way) to drive to Newark for our flight to Aguadilla and worried the whole way whether or not the dogs would be on our flight with us. Luckily, all the paperwork was fine, no questions asked. We were on our way!!!

We finally arrived into Aguadilla around 1:00 am on November 27th with dogs in tow. The dogs were nervous and uneasy, but healthy and alive, Hopkins is 5 yrs. old and Myles is 12 yrs old. We rented another mini-van to fit the dogs, their crates and our 3 carry on bags. The next day we were back to work - ridiculous I know. I have no idea what we were thinking. We gathered our boxes that we had shipped that week with unpacking at night and working during the day (we actually received every single box (except the one lost in Florida) with only one ceramic bowl breaking. Pretty amazing).

We were exhausted. We also had the rental car we needed to turn in which meant we needed to buy a car. Thankfully, our good friend Gaby went with us as our interpetor. I had done a lot of research on small cross-over cars to easily maneuver on the small roads, but have room for the dogs. We settled on a Suzuki SX4 - great consumer report reviews and high ratings. Cars in Puerto Rico are about 2-3k more because of the importation. We would have liked to have bought a used car, but we simply didn't have the time necessary to look around. We needed to buy a car that weekend, so we did. We love it and couldn't be happier. We went to get our drivers license, necessary in order to get the private car insurance coverage. All cars have government coverage, but you have to buy additional collison coverage. Unfortunately our previous PR licenses had expired so we had to get all the various stamps and passport photos taken, but it took less than 2 hours - a breeze.  

We got the dogs acclamated and Marcus quickly got the electric fence working for our active and fast dog Hopkins. There were many new noises, voices, smells, weather and terrain the dogs and we had to get used to. The week after Thanksgiving to the week before Christmas were a blur. Work, work, work. Both of us were working 60-70 hour work weeks. We didn't go to the beach, we didn't even look at the view. It was not fun.

My family (Mom, sister, brother in-law, his mother and my 2 nephews came for the week of Christmas). Luckily, I had the whole week off and Marcus simply took his crackberry (a.k.a. blackberry) with us wherever we went. We had a nice time with everyone going to the beach, making dinners at night and just hanging out. Unfortunately, for me the exhaustion and transition since we had arrived had not gone smoothly and I was still a bit wired this week. I couldn't shake off the work mode into the relaxation mode. Marcus was also having a difficult time separating work from life. Work seemed to seep into everthing. So, needless to say we were both a bit of a mess and not doing a whole lot of communicating. I think we were still in shock and disbelief over how quickly everything happened and how difficult it was for us to get into a routine. The three hour difference between Colorado time and Puerto Rico time didn't help either.

Marcus was also traveling during this time - he went back to Colorado in mid-December, again for 10 days in January and then a couple of 2-3 day trips in February. This was all taking it's toll on both us. Neither of us were happy, neither of us were satisified with the way things were going. We couldn't find the rythmn and hum of everyday life. We finally had a long conversation to work through everything that we were feeling, thinking, fearing, disliking, etc. It is amazing how quickly things can spin out of control. We weren't communicating and both of us had a lot of anxiety we were keeping inside. Things got a lot better after this - we finally started to relax, find our rythmn, enjoy our surroundings and really appreciate what we had done (again).  During this time we decided that it would be best for me to stop working and start focusing on the whole reason we moved back to Puerto Rico - to start our own business.