Week 27 in PR

Grammie and Papa joined us at the beach this week and we loved being with them in one of our favorite spots. Papa tried to recreate a photo on the palm tree and got up the tree but couldn’t turn all the way around! So…we settled for this photo. But pretty impressive anyway that he could make it up this tree! The days are starting to get longer and the sun is up just a tiny bit for us to have a great warm afternoon/evening on the beach. February is the coolest month on the island and we have enjoyed 

the weather sooo much the past couple of months! It is just THE PERFECT temp all day long.  I can tell a warm up is coming though. With the days getting longer, I can feel spring in the air and the warmer days are headed our way soon. For now we are just completely taking the amazing weather in! 

We celebrated Valentine’s Day and the kids all had parties in their classes for dia de amor. Puerto Ricans love to party and will is any holiday or special day as a reason to party! I love this about living here and we have grown accustomed to knowing a party is happening almost every week at school :)

The adults took the day and went to old San Juan to sea glass for a couple of hours. Grammie is totally into gathering glass and shells to take home with her so she was so excited to have some time at this beach. We found lots of glass, drift wood, shells and some other treasures as well. It was a productive morning for us! 



Late Tuesday night Hayley, Caleb and family flew into town and we could not have been more excited to have them! The kids have been counting down the days to see their cousins and it has finally arrived! Their trip overlapped by a couple days with Grammie and Papas trip so we packed the one full day we all had together with a trip to the west side. We took everyone to one of our favs Gozalandia Falls. It was a beautiful day for it and we had fun jumping and swimming and exploring in all sorts of ways! The kids love jumping off the small cliffs while those that are older (and braver) can jump off higher spots! We had a great time and laughed and laughed the day away catching up on everything! 

After the falls Hayley and her family and Grammie and Papa stayed and had a bio bay tour in Parguera that night. They had a really fun time but got home super late after a long busy day. I’m sure they were so tired!! We headed home while they went to bay and met up with our good friends The Browns who had also just flown into town! We had them over to the house for dinner and swimming  and LOVED catching up with them! So many amazing people that we have loved welcoming into our home. We feel so blessed. 

Thursday morning Grammie and Papa packed up to go home :( We were sad to see them go and feel like this trip went especially fast. But also so grateful that they made it back out here to see us. Tilly DID NOT want them to go and decided to take matters into her own hands. Either they stay or she was going home with them. 

After Grammie and Papa were on their way, we gathered the three families together and headed to Charco Frio for the afternoon. Also one of our favorite spots and we love taking new people there with us. The hike is pretty muddy and sloshy and once in a while a shoe gets lost in the mud, but we always survive and are happy to get to the water and rinse off. We had such a great day and everyone loved swimming and jumping and playing in this beautiful river. I love the variety of the water slides and the rope swing and cliff jumping and I could play in the fresh water of this place all day long. Such a great day together with some of our favorite peeps! 







The rest of the week was full of just spending time together. We ate açaí bowls (our favorite), played in the pool, goofed around, played games, had date night, Desh got a black eye (someone’s head hit him in the eye on the playground), swam some more (this time in the rain), braided hair, and then crashed into bed each night after a ling tiring day of lots of fun! 

Saturday morning the four of us adults attended at session at the temple and it was a highlight of the week. I can’t get enough of this place after so long away from it. I’m so glad we got to take some time out of the busy week and slow down for a bit. 

Saturday afternoon we just stayed in the pool for hours. The kids had an epic dance fight that ended with Kinley as the winner (with a prize of a king size Crunch bar for the winner). We loved the beautiful day and had lots of warm sunshine to sit out in. 

Saturday night we made a trip to the tienda to stock up on treats for movie night and then Rhen also treated us to her famous pina coladas. After a week of playing hard, we were happy to settle down to a movie night and preparing for Sunday. 

We had such a full day at church in Sunday with the Hopkinsons and the Browns joining us, along with a handful of other visiting families. It was the first time in a really long time that our sacrament meeting was almost completely full! Loved being there with all these great people. 

After Sunday naps and the kids longingly staring at the pool wishing they could get in, we got down to playing games and making play doh figures. We ended the night with a HUGE game of spoons and had a blast trying to get someone to spell DONKEY and have to run around the house acting like a donkey. That honor went to Keen who very convincingly became a donkey for a few minutes as he ran around the house. 

Whew! What a big and exciting week we had!!