Big Waves

Rob Machado was all the buzz this week. As I mentioned in the previous post, he was staying at Mark and Dave's beach front surf lodge along with his family and a couple of big wigs from Hurley including, Bob Hurley himself.  (Anna, your favorite company!)  Ian had the opportunity to split a peak with Rob at Panga Drop's one fine afternoon and I got to feed him.  The baking job was a success.  I whipped up some puffy blueberry muffins on the first morning, my mom's delectable Russian teacake the second morning, banana bread the third morning, and for the grand finale on Friday, homemade cinnamon rolls that came out PERFECT.  (and I mean perfect.)  Marie, the friend who hired me for this culinary endeavor, emailed me a quote from Machado stating that the rolls "raised the bar to a whole new level."  Needless to say, I'm satisfied with my first paid baking job and Ian is stoked that I let five of the twenty-six cinnamon rolls stay home.

The waves have been huge and it looks like it's going to stay that way for awhile.  Ian ripped a handful of double-over head rides at Pangas two days ago.  That same day, the Hurley crew brought out the jet-ski and used a step-off platform to tow the boys into sets.  Yesterday, the middlemen who loaned the ski to Machado and his crew, were driving the machine back to Gigante when they thought it would be fun to take it to heaving Colorado's.  Check out August 21st's nicaraguasurfreport.com for pictures of the jet-ski going over the falls after stalling out in a very precarious spot.  I'll bet the boss man wasn't too pleased about that little stunt!

Not much else this week.  We are quickly approaching broke and it is seeming more and more likely that we will be returning to Hawaii a little bit earlier than we planned.  Poor us.  Trading one paradise for the other.  I'm sure ya'll feel really bad for us.  Thanks for reading everyone.             

Waves, Garden Boxes, Baked Goods, and Cabbage Patch Dolls

I slacked on updates this last week.  To my small but loyal group of devotees, I love you and I'm sorry.  There were fun, small waves all week at Colorados and I'm really becoming quite fond of the spot.  Panga Drops still rocks my world, as it did yesterday, tossing me around like a sweatshirt on spin cycle.  I did have one fun, small day there and was able to catch some rights.  Then the tide changed, some bigger sets came through, and I got stuck inside for an eternity.  This inevitably took all my energy, and I paddled in, humbled as usual.  Poor Ian has had to endure my frustrated tears more times than once.  What a beautiful, empty beach though.  Incarnadine sunsets and sand dollar heaven.  Not to mention, it's a dog's paradise.

Ian and Juan Pablo completed the garden box this week.  It looks really cool with the varnished, bamboo frame.  We don't have any seeds yet, but we transplanted some basil and cilantro and made a nice pasta with fresh herbs the other night.  Hopefully, we can get some vegetables started that will probably be ready just in time for us to leave.  Juan Pablo is the cuidador (night guard) of La Vista and he is excited at the prospect of maintaining our garden while we're gone.  Our banana plants are really starting to take off and the orange tree and papaya trees are going strong.  Unfortunately, the avocado tree didn't make it but, Juan Pablo planted a new one for us.  Ian gathered some Bird of Paradise that he planted along the back part of the house too - a little touch of Hawaii for our Nicaraguan 'hale.'  It looks awesome.

So, while Ian spends his time in the yard, I spend my time in the kitchen.  I have been dabbling in all sorts of baked goods.  My bagel shapes have improved dramatically and I think I've perfected a mix of recipes.  Our friends Gustavo and Marie manage a beach front surf lodge and have thirteen guests coming next week.  They asked me to do some breakfast treats and desserts for them which would officially make this venture, my first job in Nicaragua.  On the menu - cinnamon rolls, muffins, bacon and cheese biscuits, Russian tea cake, banana bread, brownies, cookies and cakes.  One of the guests happens to be pro-surfer Rob Machado and luckily for Ian, I'm nervous - so I've been testing everything out on him.  I never claimed to be a professional.  Wish me luck everyone.  We could use some grocery money.     

And in totally unrelated news, in 1983, the state of Minnesota sold out of Cabbage Patch Dolls.  Weeks later while on family vacation in LA, my mom found them in a department store and we had to have them.  It didn't matter to us that we were the only white girls in MN with black babies.  I'm pretty sure this is where my obsession with Motown started.  Here is a picture of a picture. 

 

P.S. - Happy Birthday to Ian's mom, Kathy!

A correction to start things out today - "pupuseando" is the proper spelling from an earlier post.  It is from the verb pupuser - which means to diarrhea and pupuseando is the gerund, which means diarrheaing.  We are not sure if this verb can be reflexive but we think it's funny to put "se" on the end of the infinitive form, giving you pupuserse, meaning "to diarrhea yourself."  I have yet to find any form of this word anywhere else but Nicaragua - our dictionary shockingly, does not have it, and I haven't seen it used online.  If anyone has more information on this highly entertaining Spanish verb, please leave a comment at the end of this post.

A handful of visitors this week.  Ryan Mudd came in from Oahu on Wednesday.  He was faced with crappy surf because of another tropical storm in our region.  I tried to make up for the weather by feeding him copious amounts of food.  We celebrated his birthday on Saturday, also the day that Allegra and her sister Aislinn arrived from Costa Rica.  After excessive amounts of rum and some bomb fried chicken katsu curry, we ate vanilla cake with chocolate frosting - especially delicious because the sisters gifted me with some good old fashioned American vanilla.  It's the little things that you miss.

The wind seemed to calm down this morning - just in time for a big swell to roll through this week.  I sprained my ankle about five days ago and my cankle is officially released most of its swelling and should be good to go by tomorrow.  How did I sprain my ankle, you ask?  I stepped in a deep rut in the road while I wasn't paying attention.  Awesome.

In house news, locks on the windows and doors tomorrow, varnish for the downstairs floor, the solar panel should be coming this week and Managua is really going to happen.  We have managed to avoid the city for almost three months but it has finally become mandatory.  We need to extend our passport stamps as our ninety days is almost up and visit the solar store to purchase our propane fridge.  We are excited at the notion of going to an air-conditioned movie theater and eating McDonald's in between our errands.  Ian has said, (and I quote) "I would run over a chicken for a McDonald's double cheeseburger right now."  I wouldn't run over a chicken, but I am pretty excited to eat a double cheeseburger.  Again, it's the little things that you miss.

And here are a couple of random photos.

A couple of baking endeavors - homemade bagels and cinnamon rolls

a preview of our house color

shower floor - we collected all the rocks

Ryan Mudd, headed to Costa Rica - he got a seat inside.

San Carlos, my favorite grocery store - Ian "shopping"

Mabel, the slowest checker in the history of checkers