Earlier this month, we met up with Jacob's family in Puerto Rico for a special family get together. We spent the majority of our time at a beautiful hacienda that's nestled into the foot hills of the El Yunque Rainforest. The hacienda is actually a part of a working horse farm and had some amazing views and cozy outdoors area. Here's a few pictures from around the property and our family get together.
Brenna was excited to wear her "island" dress that she picked out.
While in Puerto Rico, we stayed at the Rio Mar Beach Resort located in Rio Grande, which was about a 45 minute drive outside of San Juan. The beach front resort sits just outside of the rainforest, so no matter which area of the property you were at, you had amazing views of the rainforest and ocean.
The view from our room's balcony.
The kids had a great time at the beach. Since it was early October we missed the busy season and practically had the entire resort and beach to ourselves. The weather was great and the water was warm. The girls spent hours surfing the waves, searching for sea shells, and building sand castles.
When we weren't at the beach, we were at the pool. The girls made at least 100 trips down the slide in every configuration they could think up. They played Marco-Polo, volleyball, and dive rings all day long and just enjoyed each others company.
Iguanas were everywhere around the resort. The kids had a great time spotting them and seeking them out. At the pool, you didn't have to work hard to find one. They enjoyed lounging by the pool as much as we did. And when they got hot in the mid-day sun, they took a little dip in the pool just like us too!
One night, our group visited Fajardo for a trip Bioluminescent Bay. The excursion began just after 9 pm as we all boarded kayaks for our 1.5 mile paddle through the Mangrove Forrest on our way to Bio Bay. I've seen beautiful pictures of the Mangrove Forrest, but you will find none here. It was PITCH black, as in not even the slightest ray of light pollution and since we had a cloudy night even the moon rarely made an appearance. As we made our way through the dark in a caravan of 10 kayaks, we had a few bumps along the way. We ran into each other a lot. You could never be sure who you ran into, unless they complained because you couldn't see beyond the tip of your nose. Also, I ran Brenna into the tree branches more than once because you wouldn't know they were there until they whacked you in the face. The tour guide continued to press the need to stay to the right, but since we couldn't actually see the shore on either side, we weren't sure how far right we were until we hit trees. The grove finally opened up into Bio Bay and we got to see the full effect of the bioluminescence. Yahoo Travel recently listed Bio Bay as one of the seven natural wonders of the world that you should see before you die. The water is filled with a special plankton that glows with a blue luminescence (similar to a firefly) when it's exposed to kinetic energy. Each gallon of water contains roughly 720,000 of these single-celled plankton. The effect is that the water glows with an amazing blue light with each touch of your paddle. After we paddled around the bay for a while and splashed around in the water from our kayaks, we began our journey back through the Mangrove. It was a great experience. I was so disappointed that I couldn't bring my big camera along to get pictures of this amazing trip. I did take my iPhone in a waterproof case, but due to the total darkness, it was useless. But, here's a few pics before we left for our journey.
One afternoon, we headed back into Old San Juan for some sightseeing, shopping, and to taste some of the local food. Old San Juan is beautiful with narrow cobblestoned street, colorful store fronts, and lots of historic monuments. I was happy to see the area during the day and get another picture of the Christopher Columbus statue at the city center. The last time Jacob and I visited San Juan years ago we walked through the city at night. It was a completely different experience during the day.
We spent one day exploring the El Yunque Rainforest. El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest that is a part of the United States National Forest System. It covers more than 28,000 acres. We hiked about two miles through the lush forest and got to see the La Coca and La Mina waterfalls. It was very hot and humid and we were all coated in insect repellant. The falls were beautiful but the water was cold! Only Jason and Ella braved the swim under the falls.
La Coca Waterfalls
The "Big Tree" on Big Tree Trail.
La Mina Waterfall
Our last day in Puerto Rico, we decided to take it easy and spend the afternoon at the beach. The girls played in the water with Jacob and Jason while Jessica and I watched from one of the beach-side cabanas.
It was a great vacation and we enjoyed getting to spend time with Jacob's family. We returned home to fresh fall colors and cooler weather. Within the week, we had our first overnight snow flurry, followed by hail and sleet. We didn't know it at the time, but our Puerto Rico getaway was a beautiful send off for summer. Now we're bracing for winter, buying new snow boots, and changing over to snow tires.
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