Puerto Rico - Day 2: Vieques

Sunday morning we got up early and headed to the "lancha" to catch a ferry to an island called Vieques. This was one of Garrett's area and we were excited to meet the people in the branch and see the island.

Tickets to the islands are $2 each - not bad for a trip to another island!

This truck was parked in front of the ferry station and was selling delicious looking pastries - this is such a latin america thing and totally reminded me of Brazil.

We were all dressed up for church. Garrett was joking with Justin that he was the only one of the group that looked like a Jehovah's Witness because he wasn't wearing a white shirt. Hee hee.

The ride to Vieques was about an hour long. We were all worried about getting seasick so we each parked on a bench and fell asleep to avoid getting sick. It did the trick and no one threw up on the way over or the way back.

Looking back as we sailed away.

We got to church a little bit late but enjoyed being there with the members. Church was only 2 hours - 1 hour Sunday School and 1 hour Sacrament Meeting. There were 9 members there so the 9 of us doubled the size of the congregation. Those of us who speak Spanish and Portuguese (Garrett, Josh, mom - spanish. Me and Caleb - Portuguese) were able to get a lot out of the meeting and translate to the others. We learned about temples in Sunday School and I realized once again how blessed we are to have so many temples within a few miles of us while these members plan for a year or more to make it to the temple in the Dominican Republic. What a good example to all of us!

They were all very sweet and kind to us. They had tuna fish sandwiches and juice for us to eat after the meetings. They didn't realize that if you put food in front of the Losee's, it will be gone before you know it. Yep - we gobbled it down, right to the last crumb. It tasted delicious to all of us!

We didn't have much time on the island but grabbed a couple of pictures with the members before we loaded back onto the ferry for the trip back to the mainland.

It was a beautiful island and fun to be there for church!

When we got back to the house, Josh and I went straight down for a long nap. I'm not sure what everyone else did, but we were glad for the extra time to catch up on our sleep.

That night - being October 31st - we had a Halloween costume party! Josh and I were chefs, mom a cat, dad was Jack Sparrow, Hayley and Caleb Twins fans, Grandma Iverson a baby, Garrett a nerd, and the others I wasn't sure what they were but we were all in costume! Mom made quasadillas and we had beans and chips and salsa. It was quite the party!

The world series was going on the week we were in Puerto Rico so we caught as many games as we could. That night we watched and the Giants won 4-0. We had a $1 pool going on and dad won $15 that night!

We spent the rest of the night playing scum until about midnight. What's a night in the Losee house without games? Dad ended up being king even though I think I spent most of the time up near the top and got demoted just near the end. Rematch!

Day 2 in Puerto Rico and Vieques was a great day!

Puerto Rico - Day 1

We just took a fabulous trip to Puerto Rico. It was one of my favorite trips of all time and best of all we got to spend time with my brother Garrett who just got back from Puerto Rico after serving for 2 years. We were able to see the places he lived, the people he met and so much more! The trip was a surprise to Garrett - he was going back with mom and dad but didn't know that the rest of us were meeting them there. They flew out the day after he got home and stopped in Dallas for a day to see Chad, Britt and the boys. The rest of us were planning on leaving the day after them and meeting them at the airport in San Juan. I decided the best way to do show everything from our trip is to just go day by day - so here we go: Day 1.

Josh' parents were kind enough to allow our girls to spend the week with them while we took our trip. We dropped the girls off and then headed to the airport for our 12:50 am flight Friday night/Saturday morning. It was such a wierd night because we didn't sleep much and then also lost 2 hours in our travel - so I wasn't sure what time it was most of that night and next morning. Hayley, Caleb and I spent the first few hours playing the "in flight Trivia" game with some others on the plane. It's a 20 questions game and most of the questions are seriously random and it's just a wild guess to get the question right. Caleb won the first game, Hayley won the second and I was on track to win the third until Caleb swooped in a snatched it from me with the last question - Lucky guess. That's all it was. He's really not smarter than me! We flew from Salt Lake to Atlanta where we had about a 4 hour layover. We grabbed some breakfast and then most of us fell asleep on the floor, bench, or wherever we could find. Hayley was awake watching our stuff for us (thanks Hay) while we tried to get a few minutes of shut-eye before we boarded the next plane. She told us that while we were sleeping, another flight from our same gate was in the final stages of boarding. One of the passengers from that flight was worried that we were going to miss the plane. He walked over to Josh who was sleeping on the floor and said to him, "It's time to get on the plane!" Josh of course didn't hear him but the guy saw Hayley looking at him. She told him that we were on the next flight and the guy apologized for almost waking him up. The rest of the trip, whenever someone wanted to wake anyone up, all they said is, "it's time to get on the plane!"

We got on our next flight to San Juan and by then it was morning and we had lost a night of sleep.

We tried to find comfortable positions, but none of us slept much that flight either.

We got to San Juan just an hour before mom, dad and Garrett did. Hayley brought these signs for us to hold up for Gar. We were going to do something fun and jump out from around the corner or line up somewhere that he couldn't see us right away. But it ended up that we were too tired to do much besides sit on our suitcases and wait for them to come down the escalator. When he saw us all sitting there he said, "No way! You guys are all here!" He was excited and so were we to be in sunny Puerto Rico! Grandpa and Grandma Iverson, Grandpa and Grandma Wisniewski and Jim and Laurel also met us at the airport to spend the week with all of us. We grabbed some lunch at a restaurant just across the street from the airport.

Grandma Wisniewski and her brother Jim.

We rented some minivans for the week and drove about an hour to a place called Humacao which is down on the southeast end of the island. We ended up getting a little bit lost on the way so it took a little longer than we expected. We rented 2 beach houses for the week and this is the one our family stayed in. Dad, mom, Justin, Steph, Hayley, Caleb, Garrett, Josh and I.

The vans we rented were KIA vans - one tan and one blue.

The beach was literally just steps away from our house - just behind those palm trees.

This is the other beach house (sorry about the cloudy picture - it was so humid there that our cameras were always fogging up.) G and G Iverson, Wisniewski, Jim and Laurel stayed here - they lovingly were called "the oldies" for the week, just to make it easier. Their house was just on the other street - a quick 2 minute walk.

That was it for our first day in Puerto Rico. By time we got to the beach house and all settled, it was dark and we were exhausted from a long day of traveling. We all unpacked and then headed straight to bed. I don't think anyone had any trouble sleeping that night!

Staying with Grammie and Papa Beutler

Josh and I left Rease and Rhen with Grammie and Papa Beutler while we took a trip to Puerto Rico. We had a fantastic trip and we were able to do that because we knew the girls were taken care of - we didn't worry one bit. But we did miss them and were glad to be back after the 10 days we were gone. We could tell they had a great time when we saw the pictures of everything they did together! Here's a quick snapshot of their time together.

We took a redeye flight to Puerto Rico so we dropped the kids off at bedtime and headed out.

They took trips to the park...

I love this picture of Rease - just having a moment to herself on the swing.

We left just a couple days before Halloween. So they carved pumpkins...

Got dressed up for a Halloween party at the church... (Rease was so excited to be a bride this year!)

A cute girl from the ward took Rease under her wing and they had a fun time at the party.

Grandpa taught them how to ride scooters.

There was nice enough weather that the girls could play outside for a while - that's a nice break for Grandma!

The girls helped with dishes...

And went trick-or-treating of course! I think it rained that night, but they made it to a few houses and got plenty of candy before they called it a night.

Rease loves to help make cookies - I'm sure she talked Grammie into doing it a few times!

And Rhen just loves to eat the cookies!

Grammie took them on a train ride to the city.

Rease kept telling me how much fun the train was.

Papa made a big pile of leaves and of course that was for the girls to jump in!

And Grandpa joined them!

The girls had such a fun time with them! Thanks for letting us have a vacation!

Uncle Garrett is home!

My little bro Garrett got home from his mission to Puerto Rico on October 27th. We were all so excited to meet him at the airport and see him after 2 years. The girls, especially Rease, were also very excited!

Garrett had sent this shirt to Josh about for Christmas one year and Josh felt it was appropriate to wear for the homecoming.

Just like all missionaries, Garrett didn't quite know what to say when we were all gathered around him at the airport. He was pretty quiet that day and night but by the next day was starting to ease back into being normal. It was so great to see him and have him around again!

The day after he got home, him, mom and dad turned around and headed back to Puerto Rico to visit. They made a stop in Dallas on the way to see Chad, Britt and the boys. Little did Garrett know that the rest of us were packing our bags and heading to Puerto Rico as well. We met him at the airport in Puerto Rico and spent a week with him there. More info and pics of our fabulous trip to come...

Welcome Home Garrett!