Bring on the funk, Bring on the Waves!!! and the babies...

Lots to report today, and lets start out with the end of our micro perfection and the start of our thumping groundswell. I got some quality water time this morning and last night and I have got to say it is good to have some waves. Today, maybe a slow work day, and I may have to leave the office by about 3 or so...

On to the important stuff... like the baby report!

Sarah is glowing brighter everyday... I acutally thought she may explode on Tuesday at the Dr.'s office. I don't think I have every seen anyone more excited about anything than Sarah is right now. And I am lovin it.

Peanut is over 6 pounds, her head is in position and her femur is over 7cm. She should be a pretty big baby, and we are expecting to meet her on the 21 or 22 of next month. I am still shouting for the 18th, however.



I hate having to go to San Jose, but this trip was super easy... We drove it, and navigated the city pretty well... hit up PriceMart and Don Fernando's meats and made it back in 48 hours.

I hope to have some good pics of the surf in the next day, as there should be some good photos to be had...

Phooey it... Erik.

Bring me waves!!! I said it in the surf report yesterday, but I am really tired of waist high perfect waves. Bring me big and choppy with the death factor in there. This paradise surfing, 1 wave every 15 mintues, no duck-diving stuff is driving me crazy. Don't get me wrong, it is still way better than florida, but I have gotten used to those rushes on a weekly basis. But, I have to go to San Jose tomorrow, and friday we are supposed to have a good swell. I hope the conditions hold.

Baby report. I am going to kind of slack on this one today, as there will be a full report and forecast tomorrow night as the have the appointment tomorrow at 10 (seeing that we can get a rental car today). But, Sarah is feeling good, her belly is huger, and her mood is good. Bring on the nina.

Not much else to report. Late. E.

Que tal muchachos??? Well today is a big day for us, as we are starting our Baby Watch… I know a large contingent of my faithful readers care nothing about surfing, largely don’t like culture, and think my writing is poor, and those of you I thank you for sticking in there, and promise it has all been worth it. For you folks that don’t know me, who only care about surfing, and still don’t like culture… Deal with it… Team Antonson is on lockdown preparing for Peanut Antonson.

I do a surf report on a daily basis, and had a dream the other night in which I was updating the surf report, but it was really a “baby report.” I thought it was a good idea, so Baby Watch will include a daily baby report, giving detailed relevant information such as belly girth, recent karate moves, momma’s mood swings, and doctors thoughts…

Here it goes:

Baby Watch Day #1.

Overall Conditions: Peanut is still inside. I believe that she is growing on a daily basis. The due date remains Dec. 21st, although, Erik is consistently having discussions with peanut about the importance of not being late, and we are shooting to go into labour on the 19th. Sarah is on board with this. Our next doctor visit is on Tuesday, we are heading to San Jose on Monday morning… At this point I will let Doc know about the 19th also.

Belly Girth: Large.


Recent Karate Moves: Peanut is learning a new move lately that is more of a belly push, this move is easy to distinguish as the belly is not kicked, but pushed out up to 2 inches. Sometimes Sarah tells me this is a combo move coupled with a bladder punch or push, depending on the mood of peanut and proximity of a bathroom for Sarah.

Momma’s recent mood swings: Understandably, Sarah has been pretty bummed for the past day, but Peanut seems to cheer her up. Thor did some momma cuddling today also and licked some tears.

Baby reports will be coming on a per blog basis from this point forward.

So on to Thanksgiving in Paradise, Flashdance and Dixon being in town and the swamp to desert change…

I have spent a lot of time in Costa, and I have to admit that 85% of it has been in the rainy season. It is the low season here for tourists, and waves, and I love it. But all my bros in Nosara keep telling me that I will love the dry season more. They keep telling me about all day offshores and cool evening breezes. Well, last week we were about as far from feeling like the dry season was upon us as we could have been. I believe that we had rain, solid rain, in 7 of 9 days going into this week. I read the weather last Saturday, and saw that the wind was forecast to go hard offshore and started hearing folks talking about the Guanacaste winds. I didn’t know what to make of it, and didn’t pay it much mind, and then was abruptly waken on Monday night to 30knt winds with gusts pushing 50knts. It was a gnarly night and in the morning we were without power, and water and trees were down everywhere. Usually the ground will dry out some before the winds blow and it will harden up some. Well this year, Monday it is raining, Tuesday it is blowing and it created havoc! Ice, pronounced e-say, the power company had power back that day I was cold surfing on Tuesday, wore jeans and a long sleeve shirt to dinner, and didn’t sweat a drop. It is amazing how quickly the seasons changed. A week later isn’t a puddle in Nosara, not a cloud in the sky, or a choppy wave all day. Paradise just got better!

Dennis and Dixon’s trip was so fun! It makes me miss having a large group of super close friends nearby. I won’t tell all of the stories, because I just don’t have time to write them all, but I will mention that Dennis earned himself a new nickname to go along with Lil’ Den Den, Stinky and Monkey Boy… and its: Flashdance! Flashdance was earned by dancing on a bar to impress our friend Diana.

Here is a pic of Lil Den conducting his own Imperial vs. Pilsen taste test... Imperial won, and was then beaten by dirty sock water. (Dennis is an actor, big time in Cali, check out his imdb page at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1517726/



Thanksgiving was also super fun here, even though we really missed being home (maybe the first time that I have…). I will let the pic do the talking.



Late, E.

I hope eveyone out there had a great Thanksgiving! I have soo much to report, with the start of winter, the offshores, our friends being here all week, but we got a really sad call this morning. Pap, Sarah's grandpa, passed away yesterday. Right now we can't even travel in our 8th month of pregnancy. We really wish we could be there with everyone! Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

What up folks... I have decided that I need a name for my loyal readers... Rush has the dittoheads, Hannity Hannitizes folks, Boortz is the paster of the Church of the Painfull Truth, I just feel to really start going places that is something I need to do. I will think about it for a while... if anyone out there has a good suggestion, send it on in.

Anyways, have I mentioned that I love living in a small town? Well, I do. I am not sure that any small town would be this fun, having a world class surf break out back and barriers to entry that keep most of the pain-in-the-butt folks out of here, seem to make Nosara almost perfect. But, that still doesn't mean that there is much to do here. And when there is something interesting going on, the whole town comes out.



Last night pretty much the whole town came out for the fights. Now, I didn't have a clue the boxing ring at Brenda's gym actually had steel bleachers! So, our crew, which consisted of Adu, Brando, Jesse, and the folks we do dog work with arrived early and got the back few rows. We had a few big ol' coolers loaded down with Imperial, and I even had the foresight to buy a Imperial Forty. The fights didn't start for another hour, so we all drank a few beers and got in the right mindset while the crowd filled in. Now, I have seen good boxing, and I have seen bad boxing, and there is no comparision. Bad boxing is way more fun to watch. And from the looks of the crazy canucks that were fighting we were in for some bad boxing.

Adu had his money on what appeared to be most out of shape and unprepared boxer of all, but through Adu's rational, "anyone who is smoking cigs with an Imperial in one hand and a shot of whiskey in the other has got to be nuts..."


The fights turned out to be pretty good, with lots of slapping, and even one blow landed quite well, but was followed with "sorry, sorry man."

Brenda handled the winner of the Canadians pretty easily, and we got to bed early for dog work this morning.

Thor is whooping butt now. He may only be 5 months old, but no one told him that. Today he deployed, off lead to 2 attackers, and tore them up, and outed on command... I will try to get some pics of our next work.

I will leave you today with Jesse, our ring girl. Adios...

Hola Amigos... Well some fun things are happening in Nosara today. The sun has returned, after 3 solid days of rain, we are back getting tans. The surf was good this morning, a bit crowded, but I still got plenty. Matt got a pic, albeit ugly, so I will post it up here.

And tonight there is a novelty here...

I guess I need to preface this story a bit... In Nosara there is a Boxing Gym, the Enchanted Forest, complete with a full ring. Brenda runs it, and she is an ex-world champ. I personally would not want to fight her. Andrew and I do kung-fu a few nights a week at her gym, and have gotten to know Brenda. Well, on last Sunday night we were at the Casa Tucan for music night (there is one band in Nosara, and they play at 3 places every week, so if you go to music night here, it will be that band...). Benda has some folks from Canada staying with her, and they had a big table at the Tucan. They are just down hanging out, and have had a few boxing lessons from Brenda. So, at the Tucan I guess the drinks were flowing and these crazy Canadians started talking some smack to each other. Brenda said, well I've got a boxing ring, if you guys would like to settle this... Long story short, 5 minutes later, they are taking the mic at music night announcing that on Friday night, TONIGHT, that they will be fighting each other, and the winner will fight Brenda! The deal is, that the ring is outside, and if it rains it is off.. so let's pray for some dry weather.

Oh, and Andrew convinced Jesse (cute tica surfer) to be a ring girl... Should be an interesting night!!!

The following pic was taken outside of our office today... it appears these dogs are stuck together???? Any ideas how this happened? The light dog, we call momma-dog, as she just had pups, and she is super sweet. She is really funny, as she has really itchy ears, and is always doing funny stuff to scratch them. Later on... E.

Hello all... for the last few days I have been on a surf trip. The rainy season seemed to wind down, and with the arrival of a nice south swell, Adu and I decided to try out a few new spots. We scored some barrels, got skunked, but travelling is fun. It is so sweet to live within 70 minutes drive to remote breaks and reefs.

Lil Den Den and Dixon will be down on Satuday! They are our first real visitors, and we are setting up some killer trips with them. We are planning on hitting up Witches Rock or Ollie's if the swell cooperates.

I wish I had brought my camera for the past few trips, but I like it way too much to leave it in the car while surfing... We have seen some funny things. Yesterday, for example we watched a Ox Cart driven by an old tico and his grandson cross a long bridge. We were at the other side waiting for him to cross as all bridges are one way here. So the guy gets off and tries to get out of our way real quick and gives the oxes a swat and they walk off the side of the road into a little ditch. Just stuff you don't see back in the grand ol'US of A.

Sarah and I are getting ready having a baby, and I have to admit, from time to time I get a bit nervous. I am pumped for January, with a healthy wife and baby, but I just want to get to that point. I feel like I am on cruise control right now.

Anyways, not too much new news other than that... surf, eat, thor, baby... not too bad.

Oh, one solid note... no one ever witnesses anything I do while surfing that is cool or whatever, well yesterday my friends were on the beach and I caught the last wave in a boosted a big backside air with a solid rotation (didn't pull it, but came pretty close) and it got witnessed...

On that note, the waves are solid today, and I am heading out to get some.

E.

Greetings faithful blog readers. It is I, preggo Sarah. I had such a wonderful day yesterday, I wanted to share it with you myself. Last week, I was invited to a baby shower for a girl named Laura. I thought it was really sweet that the new friends I have made in Nosara go so far out of their way to involve me in activities- I was flattered to be invited, even though I had not yet met Laura.
I was told to arrive at a neighbor’s house around 3:30 this Sunday (yesterday) for the festivities. Well- when I showed up, it looked like the party had started without me…everyone was eating and having a grand time. I said hello to a few friends, and it wasn’t until the third person I greeted said, “when I heard that the party was for you, Sarah, I just had to come!” that I realized….my new friends in Nosara were throwing me a surprise baby shower!
Needless to say, the shock was a little too much for preggo, hormonal Sarah to handle. I instantly burst into tears!
I cannot believe that my new friends went through so much trouble for me! The party was organized by my friend Lisseth (Brandon’s wife), and hosted by Yogi (a labor and delivery nurse who I have instantly fallen in love with). About a dozen other friends attended the shindig, and we all had a fantastic time.
We played a few games…..

The first to inflate, squash and pop the balloon wins….

Pin the baby in Sarah’s arms…..

I hit it right where it counts!.....

Yogi wins!

The girls had fun with this one- whenever I incorrectly guessed a wrapped gift, they decorated my face with lipstick.

The party was a blast, and I feel blessed to live in a place with so many wonderful people whom I already consider amigas!

Thank you all for a fun and memorable day.

Monkeys, Scorpions, Mullet??? For the last few days, I have felt like I have been living in a National Geographic magazine. I am not sure what it is, maybe that I am fully settled back in, and thus the animals can sense my tranquillo and are appearing, or if it is just the changing of the season... while I would prefer the former, but doubt that is the case. In other news, our baby is growing quickly, and instead of a belly button Sarah now has a... well, I am not sure of the word for it, but it is like when a basketball's inner lining finally breaks through the leather and squeezes out. We have about 6 weeks left, as the baby will be born on December 21st. I know, I know... enough about the baby, you want to hear about monkeys...

Well, for the past week, there have been two or three large packs of monkeys right around our house. The first encounter was two nights ago in the trees directly above our porch. The pack was moving towards the beach and jumping from tree to tree across our lawn. Now, the packs here range from a few, 2 or 3, on up to 40 monkeys. The larger packs are of females and babys, with a few males commingling. The pack that night was in the nieghborhood of 30 monkeys, and we had a solid 25 minutes of watching them move. The next two encounters happened on the way to the beach on very low trees. In each encounter there were mom's with little tiny babies holding on. The little guys peaking over there moms shoulders just looking at us. They aren't really scared of people, and just usually mind their own business eating mangos or whatever. It is pretty cool to live in a place where daily you see something worth stopping to watch...

It is pretty uncool however to come home from walking Thor, open the door, and have a scorpion jump out and Thor try to bite it.. I caught the little bastard, and took a few photos, so you all don't think I am making up my stories. Thor didn't get stung and we released the scorpion in Andrew's bed... that will show him for eating my banana bread...



I am not sure if what I saw today in the water was cool or not... I have never seen mullet in Costa Rica before, and I am not sure if what I saw today were mullet. But they looked like mullet, in big schools, but would come up to the surface and suck in air??? Mullet back home don't do that.. So if anyone can tell me what kind of a fish that is, and what kinds of bigger fish eat that fish, I would be stoked. Because, right now they are everywhere, so the big ones that eat them have to be also.

On to the dog front. Sandy and Mack are good, they got into a fight with Luka, Brandon's dog yesterday. It was a pretty funny fight, as Mackie started it with Luka nad then ran away, Luka then attacked Sandy who is too old and slow to get a bite on Luka, and Luka, even have a good bite on Sandy's neck is too weak to do anything... So what you had was Sandy trying to turn around on Luka, with Luka trying his hardest to hurt Sandy, and Mackie, who started the whole thing running circles around them barking... Comedy...



On the Thor front, he came out big at school yesterday. His best work yet! Right now, he and his litter are at the age of cutting new teeth and losing baby teeth, so after every bite they were just drooling blood (look closely in the pic above...). Magnus left a tooth in the bite sleeve.



Chow. E.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how different living in Nosara is from living in St. Aug. And what it all pretty much boils down to, is that in Nosara, you take away a lot of the distractions, the traffic, the TV, the fast food, the instant gratifications, the cell phones and blackberrys... things that if someone were to say, "Erik, here is a free blackberry, now you can stay connected all the time," I would take it happily, and be excited. But what seems to happen when you strip away all of the "luxuries" is that you start lower that need of constant stimulous. I don't need to talk to my friends 14 times a day. I don't need to watch TV to not be bored. It is not going to make or break my business if someone has to wait 20 minutes for me to get into the office before I can attend to a problem. Time with family becomes time with family, not time on the cell phone. It makes me very excited to be about to start a family.


Starting a family also makes me want to have roots, and a nice piece of property in Guiones. And working at a real estate company here is one step above a surfer working at a surf shop, or a gear-head working at a custom chopper shop. I see these beautiful pieces of property come by on a daily basis, and then I see excited couples and investors buying them. I just wish I could buy them all.

Yesterday, I took some time to review the L Section of Guiones, getting ready for the season. I just want to make sure that I still know everything that is available, and so on. I think L may be the nicest section in 10 years. EE and K, today are by far the nicest. I don't personally like Pelada, and J is OK, but close to the hotels and restaurants. The thing about L is that it is still undeveloped. And now that the property values have risen, and folks are building nice houses instead of cabinas, L will grow with a different kind of buyer. To have been in on the ground floor in K or EE, you were either a visionary or an ex-pat running away from something. Now, its well-to-do surfers, retirees, just common folk living and moving to Nosara. Time to sell the house back home, L section here we come.

E.

Not too much new news as of late. I have been spending a lot of time in the office and focusing on some new things for Surfing Nosara, the surf report. I am excited on all fronts right now, as our office just got some of the sweetest listings in Guanacaste, a few awesome lots with killer views, and a no-brainer finca that we are trying to get for ourselves.

The photo is of my beagle Machiavelli, who does not live up to his name. We have had Mack for 4 or 5 years now, and in the states he was a horrible dog. Peed inside constantly, ran away on an every other day basis, and ruined many a night of sleep while trying to fight us for the bed. What we didn't know when we got him was that he is a Costa Rica pup, and just didn't fit in back home. He now comes to the beach with me almost everytime I surf, and has taken to running after the car to the office. Today, however Mack followed Sarah to the office and has just been chilling out front all day. He followed me to get photos for the surf report. And then he chased away a huge dog, Ziggy, who I actually thought was going to kill Mackie. He continues to surprise me.

Check out this beetle...



Hola Campos… I am reading Fire From the Mountain right now, and even though the Sandinista party turned out to be a brutal regime, what the Frente went through to obtain power was pretty crazy. It makes our little adventures here look pretty tame.

Speaking of Adventures, yesterday we decided to take the bus to Nicoya to finally get our cell phones working. Last week we contacted our lawyer in San Jose and had him send out our corporate papers which are needed to get anything done if you aren’t a citizen, or resident. The first bus was supposed to arrive at 5:30, but came at six. Now, let me try to explain what a bus ride in Costa is like. The buses are probably from 1970 at the newest. And they are popular! Very popular. Yesterday, our bus to Nicoya had 14 rows of 5 seats and there were at least 12 folks standing. It made for a full ride. Couple the crowd with the excellent shape the roads are in right now, and you have the makings of a mechanical bull ride. The ride to Nicoya is only 2 hours by bus, half on dirt road, half on paved road. Our first bus had some transmission problems, i.e. that it had no clutch, so at each of our 25 stops, we spastically jolted ahead. The real excitement happened at the last bridge, well, you have a bridge and then the last steep hill on the dirt road. The driver didn’t quite have the gusto he needed to make the hill, after clearing the bridge. He was in second gear, and tried to downshift, but with no clutch it wasn’t really feasible. We were a solid 200 meters up the hill, past the bridge, and all of a sudden we are rolling down the hill in the 1971 blue bird bus, approaching a bridge were at best you hang 2 inches of tire over both sides. I think the bridge was made for quads. We made it over backwards, then we proceeded to climb a 1k hill in first gear at 3kph.. but we made it.

After all of that, we were told at ICE, the government controlled phone company that there were no cell numbers available. The government only lets out a few thousand at a time, and last week the paper said they had just released more… well, they have, but they aren’t available until December.

We made the best of it by shopping for fruit and veggies, and bread. We scored on that front, 2 pinas, a bunch of chiles, fresh bread, bacon, spices… for a total of 4 huge bags and only dropped 18 bucks. Another 2 hours on the bus and we were back in Nosara by 12.

On another note, the town is starting to wake up again. The water is getting crowded, restaurants are opening, and our friends are slowly making it back. Nick got in a few days ago, Marco and Joy made it in yesterday, and Adu gets back today. I have mixed emotions going into the high season… I am excited not to be living in a ghost town, and have a choice for food, but it was pretty nice having paradise to yourself, surfing with all of the locals.

Chow, E.

I love living in Paradise!!! The past few days have been almost perfect. Solid surf with great conditions, a big ol' healthy belly, super good food, including, but not limited to, banana bread, banana pancakes, beef tenderloin, eggplant parm (brazilian style), and fresh fruit and veggies. I have already dropped about 5 pounds since returning.

Last night was Halloween, and all the local kids got together at our friends house for some trick or treating. Sarah always goes way, way overboard with everything so she decided to make lolli-pop ghosts with friendship bracelets securing the head. It turns out that there were about 10 kids more than we expected, and we found out a few minutes before the party. So Sarah quickly made the bracelets and I put on the paper and drew the faces. Can you guess which one I drew below??? Sarah was all mad at me about my mean faces, and then the kids came and all were requesting the mean ones! We had a huge laugh about our difference in perceptions, and were talking about Peanut's future. It may be a long road for her.