Vacation Time....

I am sitting here, amidst piles of laundry and unfinished Utah Posts, and all I want to do is blog about our trip to Puerto Rico {can you hear me rolling my Rs?}.

For our 10th anniversary, we decided to do something special. We figured we've been saving up since we haven't done anything for the past few years. So, we left the kids with Grandma Kay, got on a plane and flew straight into Tropical Storm Fay!

We landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico just a few hours before she did. Needless to say, it rained all night long. But, the next day it was only drizzling....so we decided to hit El Yunque - the rain forest.

We saw many beautiful waterfalls, lots of lush green landscape and even a large cement tower. Ohh, Ahh Plus we were able to see an old {unused} swimming pool called Bano Grande. Elliott and I even tried to do our best impressions of Adam and Eve - of course we had to use the largest leaves we could find. 

And last, but definetly not least, as we were driving out of the rain forest, we saw a dog on a roof. You might not think that's too odd, but his house and food were also up there with him and he was literally chained to the roof. Take a look...I took pictures.
On the second day of our trip we went to visit Viejo San Juan - that's Old San Juan for all of you non Spanish speakers. We decided to forego the expensive taxi and take the free local bus. Of course we got on a bus thinking it was the right one, and then started to rethink our decision the farther along we went.

I was sitting by an older gentleman, so I decided to try and ask him if this was the correct bus. When I asked Elliott how to ask for directions all he could come up with was "Donde esta el bano?" - immediately followed by "yo Carrero Taco Bell"...(as if that meant Thank You).

I then tried to remember all the High School Spanish I could - ran through what I was going to say about 10 times in my head - and I asked him:

"Pardoname. Es esta el autobus para Viejo San Juan?" 

Now all of you people who speak Spanish CANNOT laugh at me right now. I haven't spoken anything more than Dora Spanish in over 10 years. The polite man looked at me and imediately started speaking in VERY rapid Spanish.  I'm pretty sure I looked dumbfounded. He then tried to explain again, this time with hand gestures.  I think he said that the bus would take us all the way there and San Juan was the last stop - I think.

Well, he left us at the next stop - I'm pretty sure he was scared of the crazy Americans - and we proceeded on our journey. Luckily, we made it there without any issues and Elliott even agreed to take the bus back.

San Juan has two castles - El Morro and San Cristobal. We decided to visit El Morro. The views were amazing, as was the castle. But, I did notice that the outside walls smelled like a urinal. There's nothing like people relieving themselves on the walls of a 450 year old castle.

After the castle, we had lunch in a local diner. Their spicy steak fries - made with plantains - were the best.
After the long morning of walking in the heat, we decided to go on a little night excursion. We drove down to Las Croabas - by Fajardo - and went kayaking to a bioluminescent bay.

We weren't sure how long it was going to take us to get to Las Croabas, so we left pretty early. Which means we got there pretty early - like 2 hours early. But, we lucked out. There was a motorcycle festival of sorts going on in the park right by the bay. Elliott's favorite part was seeing the line of Harley's followed by the pimped out Vespa's complete with pipes and chrome wheels!  He's even talking about getting one.  

We walked around and visited booths, bought some crazy puertorican fruit, and enjoyed the loud music.
Then, finally, it was time to go. We kayaked out into the bay, then through a mangrove forest, and ended up in another bay that was filled with micro-organisms that glow when the water is disturbed.

Here we are on the kayak - it was the double person kind so it was more like a shallow canoe.
And here is my picture of the bioluminescent water.Yes, I know it's black. I couldn't get a good picture. We turned the flash off, and then tried to agitate the water while holding our non-water proof camera over the ocean and snaping pictures.   It didn't go so well.    

So, I went and got a picture off the internet. There were lots of pictures online, but this one was the closest to my memory of what it looked like.
After we were done kayaking - which by the way is not that difficult, so why did so many people in our group end up in the mangrove trees? - we drove back to our hotel. I think we got in around 1 am.

The next day we decided to just relax and take it easy. We walked around the hotel.....

....went to the pool...

...and swam in the ocean.

We even enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
And, no, these pictures are not ones I found online. We took them ourselves.

It was a wonderful trip. We enjoyed spending time together and just being able to relax.
But it was also good to come home. I missed the kids more than I thought I would. And I guess they missed us too.....