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

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.

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....

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.

Puerto Rico

Here's a look around the resort....

One of the pools

There's lots of rocks on the beach and in the water....
That's an old fort


This is our hotel.  Conrad Condado
The view from our balcony
Our room

Jason's Pictures

Okay, here they are in full.

Please check out Jason's photography site too!

The Kovacs

UPDATE:  THE PHOTOS ARE NOT IN FULL SIZE ON HERE BECAUSE MY BLOG DESIGN DOES NOT ALLOW FOR THEM TO BE.  I AM TRYING TO RESIZE THEM, BUT I AM CHALLENGED:)  SO LOOK AT THEM ON SHAWNDA'S BLOG FOR THE FULL AFFECT UNTIL I CAN FIGURE THIS OUT.  SORRY FOR THAT.  I'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN I GET IT RIGHT.

Hey Friends!  

Our dear friends, the Kovacs are passionate about God's command to help orphans and widows in their affliction.  They have taught me so much about God's heart as I have watched them live out this command.  I respect them so much.

This is their adorable family:

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I am not able to share pictures with you of their sweet little boy until he is in his forever home but trust me when I say...He is ADORABLE!!!   And they need your help!  Isn't that amazing that God can use us to help bring this orphan home, forever!!!

Jason and Shawnda just returned from Uganda last weekend. They spent an entire week in an orphanage there, caring for the children and if I know them, which I do, I know they cared for the staff as well:), and they were trusting God to lay a specific child on their heart.  And God did it!  He is so faithful!  Please pray with us that Shawnda can go back to Uganda the first week of July and stay until she can bring him home.  It will likely be three weeks that she is gone.  They have to have a court date.  If they don't get one before July 15th, they won't get one until September.

One of the bazillion talents God has given this couple is Jason's gift of photography.  He took pictures of our family a year ago and they are phenomenal.  It's the ones of us dressed in black that you see all over my blog and house:)

Anyway, they are trying to raise money for this adoption by selling some of Jason's prints.  I am pretty sure many of these were taken in Uganda.

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CHECK THEM OUT!!

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If you are interested in purchasing them, head on over the Spirit of Adoption.

You can click on the photos you like there and it will tell you how to buy them.

You can also find updates and how to pray for this precious family and their new son there.

And there are several other ways they are raising money too, so please check those out.  Next Saturday, the 27th, they are having a yard sale at my house.  If you have anything you want to donate, bring it on over to me!!

Thank you for helping!

Love you all for how mightily you serve the Savior!!!

Here we come Puerto Rico!!!

It was really hard to say goodbye to these sweet little faces tonight......

But they are in good hands as Jeremy and I head to Puerto Rico tomorrow morning.

We are going for a week with my whole family:)

We're just livin!

What???  I haven't posted since May 16th?!! That's just crazy!  I have forgotten!

Nothing too much going on around here, just livin....

And playin....

And trying to tame that hair!

And bein silly....
And growin...Veges and kids....
This is our "old" garden.  The one I posted about that Tracie and I slaved over...yeah that one.  Well, as you can see it is totally taken over by weeds.  We knew this was going to be a problem but we weren't sure what else to do, so we planted anyway and decided we'd just weed like crazy.  That was, until our dear friend Michelle told us there was another way!!  Thank you!!
It is still producing fruit....zucchini almost ready to be picked!  And there's squash, peppers, and tomatoes still out there.  But the rest of the plants....

Are in these awesome earthboxes!!!
I should have taken more pictures, but the idea is to make a self watering, no weeding necessary gardening system.  That's what we did!  I don't have pics of all the work it took, and trust me, we just thought we worked hard on the first garden!  But the final product is these awesome boxes chocked full of good nourishing soil for our dear plants.
We have tomatoes, squash, peppers, okra, melons, and cucumber in them and they are doing fantastic.  We transplanted them from the original garden and they have thrived!
Look at all those squash buds!!!  
Yummy!  Good thing we all like squash:)  We're going to have lots and lots...and lots

Oh...and we're growin a baby too:)  7 months, 30 weeks, only 10 more to go!!!  I seriously cannot believe I am writing that.  Only 10 more???
That means 10 more weeks to come up with a name....HELP!!!!

So that's what we've been doin, just livin:)