This week was great! Lots of the usual stuff but had some fun visitors to our house too. Monday night we changed our plans from beach day and had a pool day instead. Carlos and Laura haven’t come to swim at the house yet so we had them for dinner and a swim night. We had the best time with them like always and played pool games all night with them. Carlos made a good bottom half for chicken fights and also started a game of “who can make the smallest splash”. Beck ended up with the smallest splash and congratulated himself on a job well done :) We always love the time we get to spend with Carlos and Laura!
Tuesday morning Dixie and Delaney flew into town to be with us for the rest of the week. It was sooo fun to see them and welcome them to our home!! I got to the end of the week and realized we didn’t take very many pictures together, but we filled our week with lots of fun. They joined right into our routine and also got to relax like they were in vacation which is just what we wanted them to do! We took them to the beach, they ate dinner with the missionaries at our house Tuesday, took them to our ward activity Wednesday, took them to eat açaí bowls and drive down to the south side to Patillas to sea glass with them. One day they ventured out on their own and drove to Oracovis to go zip lining. Delaney said she loved it after she got over being scared :) We were so glad to have them in our home, to catch up on lost time and just be together! We recognize it’s a long trip to come see us and we just appreciate them coming all this way! It was a great week with loved ones.
Saturday after Dixie and Delaney left we spent most of the day outside in the pool. We had a pretty relaxing day just soaking up the warm sun and playing games in the pool. The day ended with the boys competing in a “dance fight” across the pool and showing us their best moves. We got some priceless videos that will one day show up on their wedding video. They were hilarious dancing like no one was watching - which is the best way to dance!
Today (Sunday) was a good day. After church we had a “Family Inventory” to check in on how we’re all doing. Whether we like it or not, we’ve just hit our halfway mark her in Puerto Rico and we figured it was a good time to check in with each other. We made two lists together - one list of all the things we’ve done well and the progress we’ve made here so far. So many things were mentioned; the language, the relationship with our branch members, friends we’ve made, school, learning a new culture, making new traditions, family scripture study, just to name a few. Talking about the past 5 months in that setting was so good for all of us to really appreciate how far we’ve come. We have made some great progress and grown together as a family in the process. The second list was a list of what we can improve on in the second half of our year. We know we have a long way to go and this list ended up just as long as the previous. But it was good for us to be open and honest with each other and talk about what we want to do to make the most of the short time we have left. The things we listed; continuing to work hard on the language, being positive at school, having more people in our home, being kind to each other, etc. We talked a good long time and had some great ideas about how to make the most of our time. It was a bittersweet discussion as we have all fallen in love with our new home and the people here. There were tears shed and goals made and overall it was just a great family inventory. At the end of the discussion we challenged the kids to think about what they’d like their life to be like the next 6 months and what kind of things they’d like to incorporate in their world. We gave them each a chance to express their thoughts and feelings for themselves and gave them a stack of magazines and a poster to make their own vision boards with. It was the perfect activity to end with and the kids loved searching, cutting and pasting all their thoughts into their boards and then sharing them with the rest of us. I LOVE how they each turned out and how they are perfectly just the style of each of the kids. Such a positive way for them to share their feelings in a way that was all their own. I can’t wait to hang them up so we can refer back to them as often as we can! Love this family of mine just so so much!
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