Puerto Rico

In June, we took a week long trip to Puerto Rico.  Our family flew to PR on Thursday and then Jake's family all met us there on Saturday and we all stayed until the following Thursday.  It was quite the trip with lots of ups and downs but it was definitely one for the books.  We had a lot of fun, but next time we go to PR it will be sans kids. :)

The flight there wasn't too bad considering we had to leave our house at 4am.  I tend to overpack and we wound up with 2 carseats, 5 suitcases, 2 carryons and a stroller.  Do you know how hard it is to get around with all of that?!  Terrible. We were a bit rushed and were the last ones to board but once we were situated we were fine.  We stopped in Florida then headed on to PR.  Ellie napped a bit and Lizzie was great at entertaining herself with movies and coloring.

After we picked up our rental car we headed to the hotel for a much needed nap and play time.  Unfortunately our room was not ready.  And they didn't get it ready for almost 3 hours.  Needless to say, we were frustrated and upset, as were the girls.  We sat by the pool for a bit and ordered food and drinks and let Lizzie swim in her clothes since we had given all our luggage to the valet.

After much complaining, threatening and begging, we were upgraded to an ocean view room and were finally settled in.  I'm not sure the upgrade was worth it, but it was a gorgeous room with a gorgeous view.  We changed into our swimsuits and headed to the beach.  It was Ellie's first time on the beach and she loved it!  Elizabeth hated the sand when we took her to the beach for the first time, but Ellie was the complete opposite.  We swam and played and built sandcastles until bed time.

 Friday we did some exploring.  We tried a restaurant that had great Yelp reviews and it didn't disappoint.  I could have eaten there every day.  Luckily we weren't staying in San Juan past Saturday or I probably would have come home 10 pounds heavier thanks to mofongo.

On Saturday we explored a couple of the castles in Old San Juan.  Lizzie was confused as to why they weren't rainbow colors and wanted to know where the princess was.  Once we had a little history lesson, she was fine just exploring and wondering around with her daddy. :)

That afternoon we headed out to Humacao where Jake's parents rented a house for all of us.  They flew in that evening and we had dinner close by.  We were starved and didn't feel like wondering around so we went to a place called Jungle Burger that was close.   Their burgers quite possibly came straight from the jungle.  We didn't go there again. :)

We took a late night trip to Wal Mart to get groceries for the week and Elizabeth chose that opportune time to throw up everywhere.  We rushed her home and got her cleaned up in bed.  Unfortunately she had a rough night and we stayed home on Monday while everyone else went exploring.

Coqui frogs that were pretty loud! :)

 On Monday we went to a gorgeous beach on Culebra Island.  The whole trip was quite the fiasco.  The ferry ride was terrible, half of us had motion sickness.  When we got there it was hot and we weren't feeling well.  We made it to the beach and were able to get an umbrella but no chairs so everything and everyone was covered in sand.  It was SUPER windy so the sand attacked us relentlessly and had Lizzie screaming.  She was terrified of the water for some reason and wouldn't go all the way in with us.  We played in the water, built sandcastles and sat in the shade but nothing about the day screamed relaxation like you would think this beautiful place would.  It was rough!  Absolutely beautiful though.  Oh and in my rush to get the girls sunscreened up, I forgot to put it on myself.  I was burned SO SO bad.  It was pretty miserable for the rest of the week.

On Tuesday morning, half of us went scuba diving while the rest of us hung out at the house.  There was a great pool in the backyard which Lizzie loved playing in.  We went swimming at the beach club that evening and had dinner down there too.  The girls had a lot of fun playing in the water and we even got Lizzie to go down the water slide a few times.  And little Ellie is always game for anything so she went too. :)  I started feeling really sick at dinner that evening and wound up getting pretty sick that night.

I stayed home on Wednesday morning with Ellie since I was still feeling pretty bad.  Everyone else went rain forest exploring.  I'll have to add pictures of that later since they're on Jake's phone.  That evening the adults went kayaking in Bio Bay which was also quite the experience.  It was pretty awesome to see the luminescent microorganisms though.  It was just a little rough and crowded with all the kayaking groups out there in the dark!  We had fun...pictures of that are on my video camera so they'll come later too.

On Thursday we headed home!  It was another long day of travel and we were so glad to be in our own beds that night.  Ellie did not do well on either leg of the flight home and it took forever for us to get our bags and our car.  We all fell into bed and slept in the next morning.

It probably sounds like I'm complaining about this trip and I apologize for that.  It was just hard!  I know I shouldn't complain about being able to take a nice trip with my family.  But if I didn't tell you all the crazy things that happened, I would by glossing over it and I hate it when people do that...act like everything is perfect.  So I'm being real!  Honestly, though, despite the difficulties we had at times, we really did enjoy our trip and are so glad we were able to go.  But next time we fly, we're either packing extremely light, or the girls will be old enough to carry their own suitcases and not not need carseats!! :)