Week 15 in PR

It’s Thanksgiving week! So that means a short week of school for the kids and some prep to do for dinner Thursday. But the first half of the week was business as usual. Here are some highlights:

Rhens sores are starting to look soooo much better after starting on the antibiotic. Her leg definitely got it the worst and still looks really red but the open sores are starting to heal and scab and peel which is much better than it has been. 

Beach day was spent at Playa Pinones in Loiza. We got there a little later than normal so we didn’t have too much time in the water but still or really pretty night to be out. 

Some of the kids we’re home Wednesday and Josh put them to work unloading a load of gravel and moving it around the driveway. Eventually we want to extend the driveway out a bit and put another parking pad in. For now some extra gravel will do! 

Beck drilled holes in the bottom of our garbage cans so they stop collecting water when it rains. 

Josh worked on some drainage around the concrete by the pool. He wants to make sure we don’t get standing water that will eventually leak into the pool so he put in a French drain that will help direct the water better. 

And the kids that were at school all partied on Wednesday! Lots of snacks and movies to celebrate Thanksgiving at school. 

Wednesday night and Thursday morning we all worked hard getting food ready and the house cleaned up for Thanksgiving dinner! We had some people from our ward over and we’re so happy to have some loved ones join us for the day! We ate so much good food and talked and talked about how much we have to be grateful for. David and his dad, Eudaldo, Laura and the missionaries were all there with us and we have grown to love these people like family. We’re so blessed to have had such great people placed in our life just when we needed them. 

Later on we played games and laid around while we let our stomachs empty a little bit to make room for pie. So we are more after a while and then laid around even more. It was just the best day! 



The rest of the weekend we had to do whatever we wanted to do! Josh and some of the kids took a walk down the road one day and met some neighbors that we hadn’t met before. They chatted about plants and flowers and ended up coming home with armfuls of starts from different plants to put in our yard. 

One evening we walked down to the basketball court and played speed and then a mean game of ultimate frisbee that ended in a close 5-4 score. The winners were a little bit, how do you say…, poor winners. But we handled the loss well and will be ready for them next time! 

Saturday was candy day and we got to work first thing. We didn’t have all our equipment to do everything like usual, but we still made some good stuff. Oreos, peanut clusters and Twix bars were what we ended up doing and they all turned out great and looked good in our packages for neighbors and friends. The kids all helped a ton…and also helped themselves to plenty of tastes during the process as well. Let’s just say we went to dinner that night and didn’t realize until we were all in bed that we hadn’t had dinner! Chocolate and snacks filled us up for the day! 

Today is Sunday and after dropping off our packages of candy today I can’t help but feel so grateful for the people we love here. We have been blessed beyond belief to have been welcomed into a ward and community that has just opened their arms to us with no question. We feel grateful for the many many blessings that continually flow into our life on the daily and the chance we have to be here in Rio Grande as a family. We know this time isn’t going to last forever. But while we’re here, we just want to enjoy every moment of it. This week I’m grateful for this particular moment of my life. It’s so good. 

Week 14 in PR

We had the best time with Uncle Greg this week and he joined right in on all the things we did. Beach day took us back to Playa Azul where we had big waves to boogie board and perfect sand for castle building. We stayed until dark and we were all worn out. Greg loves the beach and we were happy to have him with us at our favorite spot!

Rhen’s ringworm from last week continued to get worse and worse and I finally texted some pics to our friend Jared and also to our pediatrician Dr Erickson, both who I trust completely with anything medical. They both agreed that it didn’t look anything like ringworm and instead looked more like empetigo. We had been treating her sores with an anti-fungal but we switched to an antibiotic instead and Dr Erickson kindly got that sent to the pharmacy for us. We’re so hopeful that the switch of medications will help heal up these sores quickly! 

Desh made dinner for every one one night - his specialty: quesadillas. 

Work on the pool continues to march along. We got quite a bit of rain this week and fill up the pool with muddy water one day. It was pumped out easily enough but it looked pretty crazy to see if filling up with mud! The project this week was framing the sidewalk around the pool and the patio we had planned. It was so great to see how quickly it all started to come together. Then as soon as it was framed, the next day they brought the cement trucks in and poured the cement all in one day! They got the two back walls done, the walkway around the pool, the small platform for the pump and equipment, the patio and even a small form we had set up out in front of our main wall for our garbage cans. They worked hard and fast and in one day the concrete was all done! It looks amazing! 

The elementary kids had a turkey run and family activity this week at the school so we went to watch and participate in the festivities. We had a chalk art activity and made big posters to hang up around the school. Then we gathered for the run. Each grade got to run separately and it was so cute to see them all getting ready for their run. The winners of each group won a gift card to the econo. Our boys were super motivated by the gift card and gave it their all on the run! They all did awesome and keen ended up winning his age group and received the coveted gift card. He informed me that he would be spending all $20 of it on candy :) Of course. 

One day this week Keen was out of school so he got to spend the day with uncle Greg all on his own. They went to the beach, bought treats, made sand castles, took pictures and just enjoyed hanging out together! We took Greg down to old San Juan the night before he left and ate pizza and ice cream with him at our fav spots. It’s always fun to be down there and enjoy the vibe of the city! We had so much fun with Greg this week and hated to see him go. 

This week was also Semana de la Puertoriquenidad (puerto Rican history week) and the schools all had big celebrations at the end of the week. Deshs class participated in a presentation of all things Puerto Rican including dances and songs and lots of artwork. They dressed up as archeologists for the day and performed a Puerto Rican salsa dance. They a were so dang cute and obviously had worked hard on their dance. We all loved watching those cute kids do that! 

After the performances we walked around and saw all the artwork the kids had been working on. We got to come home with lots of papers from Desh. 

And Keen had painted rocks and made little pots of clay for their class presentation. Everything was so great and the kids all had worked hard for this week to come. It was an awesome display of all things Puerto Rican. 

The week ended with belly gong fights and haircuts and a long training for Josh and I on our duties as temple open house ushers. The best part about the training was that we got to go through the temple for the first time! It is a gorgeous, tiny little temple that is just perfectly Puerto Rican. It has bright colored mosaic tiles for the floors with bright colored chairs and benches with turquoise stained glass throughout. I loved every bit of it and we’re so excited to be a party of this huge blessing that is coming to the island. Such a good way to end a good week! 

Week 13 in PR

We had a busy week and had so many things happening all at once. As I was putting pictures together tonight I realized how much went on in just he last 7 days! Here’s a brief update on our life…

Desh, Beck and Keen all celebrated super hero day at school this week and got to wear their favorite superhero shirt. Deshs teacher is the best and always sends cute pics of the class and what’s happening at school. 

Along with super heroes, I also have crazy faces from my kids that show up on my phone somehow, the amazing growth of “D Papaya” and major bed head some mornings. What do you do? 

Beach day was a rainy soggy day and we ALMOST didn’t make it to the beach at all. Just as we were driving there it cleared up just enough for us to feel good about going and having fun anyway. We got drizzled on here and there but overall it was just a gorgeous night to be out. I know we said we’d go to a different beach every week, and we’ve really tried hard to do that.  It today we opted for a close one and Playa Azul never disappoints. It’s one of our fav close beaches and super easy to get to after school pick up. That’s where we spent the afternoon this week. The boys passed the time playing flies up in the water and us girls just basked in the sunlight and warm afternoon :) Love our beach days!

Josh has been searching all over the island for these certain plants called Heliconia. We’ve seen them here and there in yards and such but have not been able to find a place that we can buy them from. Finally Josh got fed up looking :) and jumped online and ordered a whole bunch from a place in Hawaii. The box of Heliconia arrived this week and he got to work getting them all planted in their own pots. He has become quite the horticulturist  since moving here and cares for every plant and tree in our yard as if they were his children. He’s constantly walking around the house in the early hours just checking on things and seeing how much a certain tree has grown or which plant needs a little more attention. He’s so great at making our yard look beautiful! 

We’ve been putting together a list of “one hour projects” that we can work on each day and try and knock a few things off our to do list a little at a time. This week our project was painting the garage. Although it did take more than one hour, we taped and covered and prepped the garage and then got the sprayer out and primed it one day and painted it bright white another day. The prepping is by far the hardest part but once it was done and sprayed it was a great job to have done! It looks so nice and clean and fresh. Loved having this project done and behind us!  

Other things happening around the Beutler house:

Grammie and Papa gave the girls their Christmas present early - an electric piano for the house here! They were so excited to get it! The reason for the early present is because the girls were both called as ward pianists in our branch and have needed a way to practice. So…grammie and papa to the rescue and merry early Christmas! 

Keen and his tutoring class were able to read aloud together to a visiting puppy in their class! 

Rhen LOVES her friends at school and had a great time on her field trip this week. She couldn’t tell me enough about how much fun it was riding the bus with everyone singing and laughing and having fun together. Love that she’s happy :)

Desh is getting long hair. Too long. Haircut time. 

We have pumpkins growing in the yard! Want to know how? Two weeks ago when we carved pumpkins for Halloween, some of the seeds fell and were washed down the driveway and out the front gate. Sure enough, we have pumpkin plants growing now!

Ring worm made it to our house. I’m not surprised but now we’re working hard to rid it from poor Rhen.  

And...the most exciting thing of all this week.  We got our pool started!!  Everyone is excited around here!  Henry with Caribbean Pools has been working with us to get all the details finalized and now we're all ready.  They came Thursday morning and started first thing digging the hole and taking down the wall behind that we're having replaced and rebuilt.  They worked all day and dug the whole thing and hauled the dirt up the hill behind us.  It was amazing to watch them work!  Then Friday morning a whole crew showed up bright and early and placed the rebar inside the whole pool area and prepped for cement.  I was sure that they were prepping it to have ready for another day, but nope.  That same day a cement truck showed up and they started the cement walls and floor for the pool and the footings for the new wall.  It was incredible how fast they worked!  They used the coolest method to put the cement it.  It was a big tube that blew the cement in and attached it to the pool walls and then someone came behind and smoothed it out by hand.  They worked hard and fast and got the whole pool done and the footings poored by Friday evening.  And just like that it was well on it's way!  They tell us that it will be about 5 weeks to get the whole thing done and already they are making such good progress.  It makes us so excited to see this happening.  We can't wait!

Friday night for date night, Josh and I went to the FIBA world cup qualifier basketball game at the Roberto Clemente arena in San Juan.  It's a game that we bought tickets to a couple months ago and we were excited to have it here!  Puerto Rico played Columbia and all these qualifier games give them points towards their entrance into the FIBA World Cup which will be next year.  It was SO FUN to be there and watch our team play. I loved being part of the crowd and watching live basketball.  And...we won! So that's even better!  Josh is a good sport for letting me drag him along to the game :) We had a great night.

Saturday was full of errands and yard work including a trip to Costco, the panaderia for fresh bread and a lunch date for Rease and Josh.  We were out of water almost the whole day which was a bummer, but late afternoon Saturday it came back on and life was back to normal.  Saturday night we had homemade pizza, watched Start Trek together and prepped for Uncle Greg to join us early Sunday morning.  The girls moved their things downstairs and very graciously opened up their room for our guest.  So excited to have him here!

The boys worked hard helping Josh put in a form for a platform for the garbage cans outside of our wall.  There is so much cement coming and going from our house in the next couple weeks that we're hoping we can get this little big poured as well while they're here.  The boys got that all ready just in case.  

Sunday morning we got Greg here early with lots of hugs to go around!  He had flown the redeye flight to get here and we couldn't be more excited to have him here for the week.  So great to see him again after so long! 

That's our week in a nutshell.  Such a good one.  

Week 12 in PR

Happy Halloween! We were so excited to celebrate Halloween Puerto Rican style this year and did so with our friends Carlos and Laura. They invited us to come to their house for dinner and trick or treating and we were happy to find a place that the kids could trick or treat. Halloween isn’t celebrated hugely down here and a lot of kids don’t even dress up or trick or treat at all. Carlos and Laura live in a gated community though and there were lots of kids out and everyone passed out TONS of candy! It was pretty cool cause everyone sits out on their porches and wait for kids to come trick or treating. So there was no door knocking but we loved seeing everyone out and about and LOVED the gorgeous night that it was. The boys ran up and down the streets gathering candy and we walked behind them watching and enjoying the evening. We ended up at the clubhouse in the community where there was an ice cream truck, nachos, popcorn and drinks. Such a fun night celebrating with our friends!!

Beach day this week was also spent with Laura, Carlos and her family. Laura was throwing a birthday party for her mom and invited us to join them. We went to Playa Carolina up near the airport and had a great day with some new friends :) We even saw some dolphins jumping in the water right where we were swimming! It was crazy because at first we thought it might be a shark fin that we were seeing, but glad it ended up being cute dolphins instead! 

We’ve been thinking of taking family pictures since we got here and weren’t quite sure where to take them or who could help us. Finally we decided to just head down to old San Juan near San Felipe del morro which is one of our favorites spots on the island. It’s such a great place with gorgeous views and a huge field to run around at. We ended up on a couple side streets with the colorful houses and also down by the fort. Aside from a small fall from the top of the wall (yikes Beck) the night didn’t turn out to be too bad. A couple good samaritans stopped and took a few of the pictures for us and some were taken with our trusty selfie stick. I think between them all we should be able to find one good family pic! I also snapped some individuals of the kids as their “school pictures” since they didn’t have any done at their schools this year. Sometimes when I see my kids individually like this I realize how much they’re growing up. It’s pretty crazy to see that happening right before my eyes. 

We had a cleaning day this weekend and everyone pitched in and did their jobs, including Alice and her tag along pals. 

This kids have all become little chefs, including Desh who learned how to make quesadillas and fried eggs this week. So proud that he can light the stove on his own and make something from start to finish. 

This weekend we had some wild weather pass over us and we got lots and lots of rain. A tropical depression was showing up on the national hurricane center website and alerted us about the rain headed our way. No wind to go along with it just buckets of rain! Super crazy.  That night we went to the Light the World concert in San Juan that was a collection of songs, dances and gathering of all 5 stakes here in Puerto Rico. It was awesome. So fun to see the traditional dancing and hear the songs that have been passed down from lots of generations. We loved it! As the concert got out we had to run through the rain to the car that Josh had brought close to the front door for us. He braved the storm and ran all the way to the parking lot (which was super far away) and got the car so we didn’t have to go so far in the rain. Even so, we were all soaked by the time we got in the van!

Today as we’re taking the day of rest very seriously, I’m grateful for the week we’ve had at the things we’ve been able to do together. The kids are doing great in school, the Spanish is coming along slowly but surely and we’ve been able to grow comfortable with our life here. We are grateful for the time we have to be together and grow in our struggles (which come frequently throughout the week). But we’re good and happy which is all we can ask for! 

Week 11 in PR

Another good week on the island! We love our Mondays that take us to a different beach each week and love getting to know all the things around us. This week the beach was Las Picuas just not too far from our house. It was a great spot to just hang - shallow water, grass to sit on and shade under the big palm trees. I couldn’t have asked for a better beach for the day. Liev got out his new fishing pole and tried it out for the first time. He didn’t catch anything but was glad to finally get it figured out. We laughed and played and read books and took a bunch of crazy pictures before we called it good for the day. Loved our beach day this week! 

Josh is traveling this week visiting his mission president in Arizona and then up to Denver for a conference. A few other things of note that happened while he was away:

- Desh’s class to a field trip to the ice cream shop 

- Tilly got her first Puerto Rican haircut and was mad at me for hours because of it

- I put up curtains in the kitchen and family room and hung out windchime that Kim made us 

- We finished the bathroom with the table that we found that happens to fit perfectly in the empty spot

So many good things. 

The boys spent some time with the girls and each got a “makeover” with hair parted down the middle and all. Crazy kids. 

We had a HUGE thunderstorm roll through on Thursday and Friday. I didn’t really realize it was headed our way until the rain started. By Friday we had so much rain coming down that the schools cancelled the rest of the school day and I made my way down the mountain through rivers of rainwater the whole way. The schools were getting water inside the classrooms from so much water pooling up and running through the schoolyards. It was a crazy minute trying to gather up all the kids with so much water everywhere. The storm lasted through Friday but by that evening it had pretty much passed by. We have a bit of clean up to do downstairs where water had come through. One of these days we’ll get it all fixed up so we don’t ever get flooded down there!

Friday night the girls had a stake Halloween party and we took them to dinner before we dropped them off. They were so cute and a little nervous to go but did great once they got there! 

Saturday we planted a few trees (we’re getting to be pros at planting these days) and then taped off the area where the pool is going to be. It supposed to be starting next week and we wanted to make sure we had the dimensions right. It’s so exciting to see it taped out! Can’t wait for that to be done!

All in all a great and routine week around here. The kids are doing great in school and just finished up the first quarter. The teachers all had good and positive things to say about each of the kids and I’m so grateful to be surrounded by such good people here. We love our Caribbean life here on the island.