Rincon Adventure

So, it seems over the past week or so the temperature has increased ever so slightly. It seems that the glorious and perfect winter months are drifting away and the warmer less windy days are here. Now, every day in Puerto Rico is beautiful, but it does get hot and without a little breeze to cool things off, it gets really hot! But that is what the ocean is for, right? To jump in and cool off.  Also, the mango trees are starting to get weighed down by all the fruit growing. Soon, there will be mangos everywhere! The avocado trees are just starting to get buds on them so in a couple of months we will be in avocado heaven! It is amazing the abundance of fruit everywhere you look. On a daily basis I hear 4-5 grapefruits hit the Casita roof and roll onto the ground. Each morning the grapefruits were a nice meal for a rodent or two. This is just the way it is - where there is fruit there are rodents. Enough said about that.

We had a great group of friends and kids (about 15-17 total) over a couple of weeks ago for pizza. We made 14 pizzas - yes I know this sounds almost ridiculous and it almost was, but the pizza was sooo good. We made several types of dough, but Deep dish was by far the most popular. At one point during the party a group of people started singing old Puerto Rican children's schoolyard songs.  It was really fun and funny to watch -similar to Red Rover in that there is a line of people on one side and one person across from them asking them what they want to be when they grow up and either the line accepts what the one person says or says no and asks them to pick again. I am sure I am not explaining this well, but trust me it was fun.   

Marcus and I recently purchased a pizza oven (outdoor grill with a pizza stone and large propane burner) that cooks 10" pizza in about 3 minutes because it reaches about 800 degrees. It's pretty cool. We have been experimenting with different dough like Neapolitan, New York style, etc. My favorite is Roman style or Neapolitan cooked slowly to get a really crispy crust. We have been cooking pizza for years and thought we had perfected it, but once we got this new oven (really it's a fun outdoor toy) we have been experimenting quite a bit. Marcus was making dough everyday to the point we couldn't even really eat pizza anymore - we would have a slice or two to taste test the dough and give the rest away.  So, that has been a fun activity we have taken on recently.    

We also just co-hosted a baby shower with our good friends Ivelisse and Gaby. They are expecting their second child, a boy (Enrique) in the next week and we are very excited. Gaby designed the most beautiful cake with the baby noah's ark theme. Too cute. As party favors we had customized M&M's with Enrique Grabiel and also had 'It's a Boy' Hershey kisses wrapped in tulle with ribbon - very sweet. So, we had a lot of fun at the party this past weekend. 

We have been trying to spend more time at the beach - we had been on a beach holiday for about a month so we were due to get in some beach time. The waves have been pretty good lately so it has been nice for the surfer's, but not so nice for snorkeling. We really like Steps beach, but also go to Sandy beach (Puntas) and Sea beach (Stella).

Earth Day was yesterday in Rincon - the only town in Puerto Rico to celebrate. ARF had a booth with resource information, adoption information and yard sale items - to make a little money. Other booths were Natural High - organic and vegetarian/vegan deli and smoothie shop next to the Post Office, plants/herb nursery's, surfrider.org, etc. Pretty cool. And this week Rincon is hosting the first ever Film Festival. There are many short films and feature length films from all over the world hosted at different guest house/hotels each night. Not sure if we will go to any - but seems like it could be fun.

Last, but certainly not least we shipped Willow (the dog at El Faro) to Colorado this past week. She made it safely and was greeted with snow! She is being well taken care of at the Boulder Valley Humane Society (no kill shelter) and was even apart of their big fundraiser they had this past weekend. I know she will find a wonderful home in Colorado! I found some great contacts through our dogsitter/trainer we used while living there.  A volunteer from the BVHS contacted me to help get Willow to CO. It all went very smoothly and we couldn't be happier for her! I will keep you posted on her progress. There were many people involved in this process in Rincon and Boulder so it was a community effort on both ends. 

Next on the ARF schedule is another Bingo Fundraiser in late May and an Animal Clinic in June to offer discounted immunizations and spay/neuters to Rincon residents. This will be our first ever clinic, but putting our funds to good use for the community.  

Only 11 days until we leave for Italy!!!