Week 28 in PR

Monday morning we boarded the ferry to Culebra to spend the day. It was a holiday (Presidents’ Day) so the kids already had school off for the day, but also made for a busy day in the ferry and the beach. But it did not stop us from making ourselves a great spot at Flamenco and enjoying the day together. Hayley and some of the kids made a huge pyramid sand castle and others read while sun bathing. Fresco ball has become a favorite beach game along with frisbee and football. There was a high surf warning that day so we were pretty careful in the water but also took advantage of the good boogie boarding waves that came with it. The kids couldn’t get enough!

Beck and the triplets have had THE BEST time together this week and have been the best of friends doing everything together. They did their best at surfing along the shore on their boogie boards :)

We attempted our customary jumping picture and came up with maybe one that got most of us jumping. Ha. That’s a hard task with such a big group! Such a beautiful day on my favorite beach on the planet! 

Of course we had to get an empanadilla and pina colada on our way out. So delicious! On the ferry ride home we sailed right into a setting sun that made for a beautiful night on the water. 

Josh, Desh and Kinley took a little excursion one day to find some rare plants that were growing wild down near a river next to the church. They had seen them on the way home from church Sunday and the three of them made a plan to go back and cut and dig some up for us to have at home. The took off with a bucket, a shovel and three machetes. After lots of hard work they came home with a dozen plants that they fittingly named the “Kinleys”. After getting them home, some of them got planted right away and the other roots were put in buckets to be planted later on. The boys had the best time with Josh and were sooo cute following all his instructions to the tee. Can’t wait to see our Kinleys grow and bloom! 

We couldn’t stop having fun with so many kids around. I may or may not have let my kids skip a few days of school while their cousins were here. 

The last night the Hopkinsons were in town we took them to Old San Juan for some shopping and to our favorite gelato shop. It’s always fun to be downtown and see a different part of Puerto Rico. And the kids all loaded up on the souvenirs they wanted to take home with them! 

Of course the night lasted as long as possible and the kids swam until super late just soaking in the last minutes together! 

Early Wednesday morning we said goodbye to them and had a hard time saying goodbye again :( 

It’s been so fun to have them back in our life for a few days! Thanks for making it all the way out here with us! 



The rest of the week passed by quickly as we got back into a normal routine again. Desh started a new goal of doing 20 push ups a day spurred on by some motivation by Elder Barnes :) 

Josh left early Thursday morning for the rest of the weekend to a conference in Indiana. I somehow caught a cold and it promptly made me want to just snuggle up and do nothing all weekend. So that’s exactly what we did! We watched lots of movies, played games and I wish I could say I got to bed early every night to sleep off my sickness. But in reality, I stayed up into the wee hours of the night with Rease and rhen watching a new show that they somehow talked be into binging with them. Outer Banks took over our weekend nights and before we knew it, we were one whole season into it! Gosh what have I done?! 

Sunday we had stake conference and the kids drew pictures as they listened. There were quite a few gems that came from this session of conference drawing! 

Sunday night Carlos and Laura invited us for dinner and a ride on their new 4 wheeler! We had a blast riding around the neighborhood with them and riding bikes in between turns. The boys have been saying how much they miss their bikes lately so this was a fun break for them to be able to ride! It was a beautiful night to be outside and we always love the time we get to spend with Carlos and Laura. They are simply one of the best things that have come into our life here on the island. We just think the world of them!!

Another week in the books. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone! We are in love with this life that we’ve come to call ours. 

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!!

Week 26 in PR

We ended up at Fishterra for beach day this week. Liev got a new fishing pole for his birthday and wanted to try it out on the small dock there. Turned out he didn’t have the right stuff with him to get the pole set up so we didn’t fish, but we enjoyed the beach anyway! We even found a small cat shark that had beached itself the night before and wasn’t able to get back out to sea. So crazy to see that on land! 

We had a few pretty normal days at the beginning of the week with a good routine of school, dinner with missionaries, branch activity, relaxing around the house and preparing for Grammie and Papa to arrive! It’s been a couple weeks since we’ve had visitors and we were so excited to see them!

They got here early Thursday morning and we all got up before the sunrise to greet them. They were last here in September so the house and yard have changed significantly since they saw it. They LOVED seeing the pool and how it changed the yard and adds so much to it. We were all up admiring it and looking around when we suddenly heard a quick yelp and a splash!  Looking down into the pool we saw Grammie emerging from the water, clothes and all! I didn’t know if she had fallen in or jumped in but she got out and said, “I told Papa that I was jumping in the pool as soon as it got here.” She was true to here word and was in there within the first 45 seconds of arriving! She’s so crazy! Along with that surprise, she also brought us 3 boxes of Crumbl cookies which we promptly ate for breakfast and continued to eat through the day! I’m sad to say that those 4 boxes of cookies were gone by the end of the day. 

We spent the rest of the week enjoying the time with Grammie and Papa and taking full advantage of the pool. They came from lots of snow up at Heber Valley Camp and have been excited to swim and get some sun so that’s what they’re doing! 

We took a trip to the temple together and couldn’t wait to be back in the temple after such a long time away! This is the first week it has been open so we’ve been excited to go. I couldn’t help but get a little emotional as we got there and went inside. I forgot how much I have missed it. Such a beautiful spot to spend our morning together. 

Saturday was work day and the boys worked hard cleaning out the car and pressure washing the tiles on the outside fence. The pressure washer and Papa are good friends and he worked hard on those tiles into the afternoon. I didn’t realize how dirty they were until he’s started to clean them! Amazing how much better they look now. 

And yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday so we celebrated in good style! Josh made the most delicious homemade empanadillas and we just munched those down as fast as we could. Carlos and Laura came and we played games, ate good food and watched the football game together until it was over. It was a such fun day to end our great week!

Week 25 in PR and Liev’s 12th Birthday!

Beach day at Playa Azul again this week and though it was a bit of a rainy day, it cleared up just in time for us to sit on the sand and get some sun. Sometimes I have to just marvel at the place we live and how beautiful it is! 

We’ve been on a dance kick lately and the Josh found this video on YouTube for the boys to start learning some dance moves. It was hilarious and awesome to watch them follow along so closely and try to replicate the dance. Hopefully we all learn some rhythm before too long! 

Other happenings this week:

Rhen got her graduation shirt from school and now the 8th graders get to wear them every Monday instead of their uniforms if they want to. Graduation from middle school is kind of a big deal here so they were excited to get their shirts and show them off! 

We introduced Chinese checkers at the branch activity and it was a huge hit! 

Our friend Carlos, who is a recent member of the church, is so sweet and has started coming to all the branch activities and sharing his sweet soul with us. 

Desh dancing naked in the pool, Tilly lounging in the hammock, running in the rain and Desh celebrating Miss Garcias birthday in class this week rounded out the school week. 

Friday night Josh and I tried out a sushi restaurant in Condado that was actually pretty good. We haven’t had sushi since we got here so it was fun to find some! We loved walking around the little shops and ended up down at the beach and watched some surfers while the sun was setting. It was pretty beautiful and we just realized again how lucky we feel for this little window of time we get to be here on the island! 

Saturday we celebrated the big 1-2 for Liev! How can my boy possible be that old already?! I will say, he has started to seem more grown up the past few months and I can see him growing into a young man right wife my eyes! He’s been passing the sacrament at church, has found a calm, thoughtful side at times (especially when he’s not with his brothers) and has even found a girl at school that he thinks he likes! All things that prove that he’s getting older and wiser :)

He invited some friends from school over for a pool party and they spent the day swimming and splashing and making a big ruckus in the pool (just what you’d expect from 12 year old boys), ate lots of pizza and cake, and even ended the day with a dance fight in the pool with the music cranked up loud. They were such fun boys to have around and they all love Liev as a friend and classmate. I’m so glad to see my boy have good friends and making such good memories with the kids here. It makes my heart full to see him happy! 

Happy birthday to our 12 year old Liev!

12 year old stats:

Height: 5'4" - 93%

Weight: 104 lbs - 69%

Week 24 in PR

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! 

Week 23 in PR

We welcomed the Chalk Family to our home this week and could not have been more excited to see them after so long!  It was so fun to hug and catch up and be in each other's lives again even for just a few days.  They had traveled all night and were tired from being on the road.  So we got them settled in for a nap and some time to catch up before we showed them all our favorite spots on the island.  

First stop this week was a visit to Old San Juan and San Felipe del Morro. We don’t often make it into the fort and the historical sites so it was fun to walk around inside and see that old fort. So cool to learn about it and see how old the building is. It was a perfectly overcast, cool day to be able to walk around. We loved walking along the old walls, jumping from stone to stone, hiding in the secret caves, looking at the huge walls towering above us, looking out at the gorgeous view of the ocean, playing frisbee on the big open lawn, and taking in the salty air. Of course we ended up at Bari’s for pizza and Anita’s for gelato. How could we visit old San Juan without? It was a fun day showing the Chalks the old town. 





The next day we had planned on a trip to Culebra and Flamenco Beach, but the high tide and rio current warnings kept us on the main island instead to try and avoid a seasick voyage on the ferry. We ended up on the north side at Mar Chiquita instead. It’s a pretty little cove of a beach that we’ve been to and love and wanted to try again. Turns out the high surf and Rio currents were all over the island and ended up at mar Chiquita as well! What a difference it was being there this time vs the last time we came in June. We found huge, crashing waves and the surf all the way up the beach past where we usually sit. It was crazy! But still so pretty and we had plenty to do even if we didn’t swim much. We climbed up the big rocky ledge that looked out over the north shore and watched the waves rolling in. It was so beautiful up there looking out at the endless ocean and then back at the cove that our beach was in. We could have stayed up there for hours. We eventually came back down and sat on the sand playing fresco ball and frisbee while we soaked in the sun. Liev climbed the palm tree and gathered coconuts for all the kids that wanted one. Somehow they got some of them open and drank the coconut water out of them. 

We wandered over to the other side of the cove later on and found a small swimming hole where the water came in from over the rocks. The kids invented a game to see how long they could keep hold onto the rocks before the waves crashed over and got them wet. We all had a laugh as we watched them each get wet with waves they thought they could avoid and even some waves that drenched everyone sitting closely. It entertained those of us that were just standing and watching! Eventually one of those waves caught up with the boys that were standing there “taking it like a man” instead of running from it. Beck, Desh and Liev all got taken by a huge wave and knocked into the rocks bordering the sand. Lots of cuts and scrapes and one or two deep cuts ended that game and we bandages them up. It was an unfortunate end to a fun game with the waves! They’ll all be fine with no major injuries :)

Overall such a fun day at the beach! Mar Chiquita never disappoints. 

We loved being with the chalks and just hanging out when we had some extra time. It was so fun to catch up and welcome them back into our lives for the short term. We loved seeing our table full of these people we love and didn’t want it to end. Rhen made her famous pina coladas one night, we visited the açaí bowl truck, played games, swam in the pool and watched the sunset every night from the deck. I think they settled into the island life rather well! 

One morning we took them to Charco Frio and had fun jumping frim the rope swing and cliffs there. Their little ones all went down the slides and were so proud to be able to do something so adventurous. 

We also made it over to Gozalandia Falls in San Sebastián and had such a fun day swimming in the fresh water and jumping from the cliffs there. I love this place for all the variety it has. Every age can do something here whether it’s just swimming or jumping off small jumps or climbing behind the water falls. And the older, braver ones can be more adventurous and jump off the tall cliffs and swim into the underwater cave. It was a really fun day to be there and I’m so glad we made it over to that side to do that with them! 



Before they left, Mark made a few good things happen around the house! He knew we needed some fans put up in the garage and got right to it the last morning here. He and josh worked together and got them done so fast! Before we knew it all three fans in the garage were up and running. It is going to be so nice to have those especially in the warm summer months when it’s hot even in the evenings. Seriously so nice to have them done!!

They also got our microwave in the kitchen installed and we finally got to get rid of the small countertop microwave we’ve been using. I’m so grateful to have these two little projects done and so happy to have someone here that could help us! 

We said goodbye to our dear friends and sent them on their way home. We have LOVED every minute of having them here with us and are so grateful that they made the effort to come visit. We love this family dearly and were so glad to get them back with us for a little bit. 

The weekend was spent relaxing. And by relaxing I mean having a paper airplane flying contest from the deck upstairs. We flew hundreds of paper airplanes from up there and always tried to guess who made the best looking one, the one that could fly the highest, the longest and the farthest. Of course once dad joined in he won every category! 

Saturday night josh and I headed back to old San Juan for the fiesta de Calle de San Sebastián or “Sanse” as people around here call it. It’s a weeklong party to celebrate the end of the Christmas season in Puerto Rico and is a HUGE gathering of all Puerto Ricans on the streets of old San Juan. There’s lots of art and jewelry vendors, food trucks, live music and people everywhere. It’s the party of parties here on the island and we wanted to witness it first hand! We had such a fun night walking around and people watching :) Every type of person and personality was there with something for everyone to do. It reminded me of what Mardi Gras might be like and we were happy to be a part of it for a couple hours. Once it started getting dark, the party crowd showed up and things started to get wild. We headed out pretty quick after that but were so glad we got to be there and have good food, good music and enjoy lots of people around us. Sanse 2023 seemed to be a huge success!

Sunday ended up being a great day for the Beutler family. We had been asked to speak in church and after prepping for a few hours during the week we were ready to get it done. I was so proud of each of the kids as they had prepared their talks on their own in English and then had josh hell them translate it to Spanish before Sunday. Each of them got up and read their own talk in Spanish and did so good! It brought tears to my eyes as I listened to each of them and contemplated how far we have come in the past few months. Of course we have a long way to go with the language still, but hearing each of my kids bare their testimony’s in a new language made me so proud. I felt the spirit so strongly as we all testified of our savior and the lessons we’re each learning every day. What a good day to remember and a great way to end the week!