Monday, June 29, 2009

6 More Weeks


Shots of the family:




The Salyers Family... JJ, Jordan, Uncle Bill, Jenna, Jessica, and Aunt Pam
That's us...Erik, Dad, Chris, J, Ab, Mom, La La, me


The whole gang



Lauren, Meemaw, Me, Mom, Mimi, and Abbie
The Looper Girls
My Sisters:)
Jeremy and Chris with Mimi
And with Meemaw


Sunday, June 28, 2009

Pool by Day...

How we spent our days...

Laying out soaking up the sun
Abbie, Erik, Jeremy, Lauren, and Chris

This is corn hole.  A game where you throw bean bags in to that hole.  It's addicting!  We played all week long!  Even Meemaw:)

Jeremy and Erik


Dinner by Night....
Mom and Mimi
Lauren and Meemaw
Abbie, Meemaw, and Erik
The Looper gang

We had Puerto Rican cuisine this night, out by the sea.  It was really good!   



Interesting things about eating in PR....
  Their main meat is pork.  
  They eat plantains about 100 different ways.  At the PR restaurant lots of the family got Mafongo.  That is plantains made into a dressing sort of dish.  They said it was really good.
  There are NO refills on your drinks.  Not even at McDonalds!  That was so weird to pay for each and every glass.
  Everything is a la carte.  So it's pretty expensive to eat there.
  They have lots of American restaurants, but they don't taste as good, not even close.  We went to Chili's, McDonald's and Burger King at different points.
  It takes a really long time to get your food.  I guess they are just more laid back about meal times.  Even if we weren't all together it would take just as long.  Not a big deal, we weren't in a hurry.
  If you want anything extra, like more butter for your bread, that will be $2 dollars!  They charge you for everything, literally.

  Just in case you were wondering why we didn't go all-inclusive, there aren't any resorts that do that in PR.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

The Rain Forest

The El Yunque Rain Forest...

Getting ready for our hike through the rain forest
We climbed to the top of this tower to see the views below....

These are the views of the rain forest canopy.  It's a fairly new canopy due to a hurricane a few years ago
Since there's so much rain, the trees adapt by growing their roots outside of the ground
We were really hoping to see "rainforest animals" but this is the only one we actually saw on our hike
Just pictures along the hike
Never a dull moment....The leaves are HUGE due to all the rain
Okay, so there isn't too much to do in PR as far as sight seeing goes.  We planned two excursions, one to this rainforest and one to the Bioluminescent Bay.  The Bay is a place you kayak out to and all the fish and microorganisms glow in the dark.  Pretty neat we heard.  But we didn't end up getting to go because they messed up our tour times.  So anyway, we ended up just doing the Rainforest.  

Now they told us it was a low impact, 30 minute hike to this waterfall.  Let me just tell you, they lied!!!  I can't believe I made it!  It was really a tough hike.  On this narrow path we walked up and down hills and steps.  It was wet and slippery and people were passing you on their way out while you were trying to get in.  Mimi and Meemaw had to turn back.
Hikers:)
And all that hiking was for this!!!  What???  We were a little miffed when we got to this waterfall.  It was pretty wimpy.
But most of them went for a dip.  Heck!  Might as well since we walked all that way!!  It was freezing they said.
After about 20 mins at the waterfall, we had to walk the same path back.  It wasn't any easier the second time!  But we made it and now we can say we've been to a rainforest.

Oh and if you ever go, wear tennis shoes.  Most of us just had on flip flops.  Well, they did say it was low impact....

Monday, June 22, 2009

Puerto Rico #2

Here is where we spent most of our time....at the pool


There was a really fun slide!  That's my Dad
The pool felt soooo good!  This is Jenna (my cousin), me, Mimi, Meemaw, Jeremy and Abbie
Meemaw and Dad
My Aunt Pam.  I just love this picture of her


The water was beautiful and the snorkeling was good.  Here the guys are investigating the fish I think....Chris, Jeremy, Dad, and Erik




  There are no private beaches in PR.  So even at the resort, we had to share the beach with the natives.  Most of the beach is rocky.  So there was only a small part that was sand. But it was a nice beach.

The weather while we were there was not the greatest.  It rained on and off every day except the first day.  So there wasn't a ton of sun to be had.  But that was okay with us cause it kept the heat down.  Sometimes we would just sit out in the rain and wait for it to pass.  

The temperature was perfect.  It was in the mid 80s and there was a constant breeze up at the pool.  So, that is where we parked for the week:)  I stayed in the water alot.  I feel lighter in there:)

Jeremy loves to snorkel, so he spent a good part of the week in the ocean.  And he got very burnt the first day:(  Poor guy has second degree burns on his shoulders.  And yes, I did put sunscreen on him, twice.  But it wasn't enough SPF for my farmer's-tanned white boy.