Arecibo

On Sunday we went with my mom (Andrew stayed to watch football) to visit Arecibo and the northern side of the island.  It was about a 2 hour drive, but we wanted to see some of the rest of Puerto Rico.  We also wanted to visit the Arecibo Observatory, a huge radio telescope which was made famous by Goldeneye and Contact.  





Ike climbing the many steps to get up to the observatory and museum.

That's a lot of stairs!

Dave playing with cool science stuff.

At the telescope.  It was huge!










After the observatory, we drove along the coast to get to cueva del indio.  Before we got there, we stopped at this beautiful beach to snap a couple of pictures.

The kids were not feeling the pictures!










Cueva del indio (cave of the indians? maybe...) was awesome!  Probably my favorite thing we did on the whole trip.  We paid $2 to park and then some guy told us to walk out to the red flag and we would see the cave.  This was the way things went a lot of times while we were in Puerto Rico!

And then we walked up to this!













Turns out the cave is "naturally lit" which just means there are tons of holes everywhere that a small child could fall into.  Yep, wasn't stressful for me at all.  :)  We decided not to go into the actual cave (the ladder down did not look all that sturdy), so I took some pictures and we wandered around for a little while.

Waiting as I took some pictures.

Cave drawings from the native islanders.

So beautiful!

Josh and Dave off exploring.

Probably not safe.  I had a kung-fu grip on his wrist most of the time.

View of the "arches".  I didn't really understand what the guy was saying about this, but it was pretty.







After the cave, we drove some more along the coast-where the road turned into a one lane street that went both ways of course.  And then we were back to being beach bums again.

Rainy Day and Pork Highway

Hey, I rhymed!  After a gorgeous day on the boat, we woke up to steady rain.  Everyone said that it never rains all day in Puerto Rico--they were wrong!  There was a giant blob of green over the whole island all stinking day.  We ended up watching some TV, checking out the surfers who were brave enough to get in the water, and heading out to TJ Maxx.

Why is it raining??

We thought we would check out the rain forest, but then encountered this river that looked like it was going to cross the road at any second.  











Josh tried to body surf (or whatever it is called!).  He was not the most successful at this, haha.












The rain finally ended and we drove to Guavate to experience the pork highway.  You basically take a series of switchback roads to get to the middle of nowhere.  On a stretch of the road they have set up probably 5 or 6 lechoneras where they roast whole pigs and serve traditional Puerto Rican food.  It was awesome!

Had to take this picture for Dave!

The pork highway.

Ike and Josh ready to get their pork on.

Other side of the street.

Mmmm...pig.

Dave sampling the food.  It was so good!

Mom and Andrew enjoying their lunch.








After we got back from Guavate, we went to the beach for a little while.  Then we went to the kiosks at Luquillo beach to get some dinner.  The kiosks are super cool-they are open in the front and back and out the back you have a view of the beach.  They kind of look like garages, but nicer?  Hard to explain!  Anyway, there are about 50 of them and they serve all kinds of food and some have souvenirs and such in them.

Gamma and Dave walking the beach while we waited for our food.











We ate at one of them called Luquillo Beach Barbecue.  Man it was delicious.  Wishing I could go back there right now!  I will say that Puerto Rico is definitely on island time-we were always waiting what seemed like forever for food!  We did get used to it after a while-just different from the mainland.

Snorkel Trip

We got up nice and early to go on our boat ride with East Island Excursions.  This company was great and super flexible (I kept changing dates and asking a ridiculous amount of questions).  We chose to go on a trip to an island called Icacos, mostly because they allowed kids under 3 to go.  





Leaving Puerto Rico and heading into open sea (well kind of!).

Gamma and Ikey.

Looking back at Puerto Rico.

Look at that gorgeous water!

On the beach of Icacos.

If you look close, you can see a dolphin.














Dave loved playing in the waves.

Ike building himself some sandcastles.
















Josh did a little snorkeling and surprised the kids at the window under the boat!








So, they parked the boat on the island and everyone got out to snorkel/explore the island a little.  We had lunch and hung out until it was time to board back up and they took us to an area with a reef.  The water was pretty rough, so we only got out for a little bit there.  On the way back from the trip, some other people on the boat had an impromptu dance party which the kids enjoyed immensely!  The whole day was so much fun and we would love to do something like that again!

First Days in Puerto Rico

So we are back from the heat, just in time to experience some snow flurries!  Glad we got some sun to help fortify us for the long winter ahead  :)  Of course, I have a ton of pictures from our travels, so I am going to break it down and do a couple days at a time.

We took off from Detroit bright and early on Tuesday.  Had great flights again from Spirit (they get a bad rap, but we have only had good experiences with them!).  A bit of a layover in Fort Lauderdale, and then we were off to San Juan.  Not a great start to the trip-it was raining when we got there!  And one of our bags was super late-so late that I thought that it was lost, but it ended up coming about 30 minutes after the rest of our stuff!





Riding in the plane!










Headed to Luquillo to see my mom and Andrew and check out our condo.  The area we stayed in was extremely shady looking-rundown buildings, stray dogs, etc. but it never seemed unsafe.  We were right on the beach and had a great view from our balcony.

Looking left off the balcony.










That first day we just hung out and got some groceries for the rest of the trip.  Wednesday we woke up to more rain (????) which we waited out and then went on to Old San Juan.  First we had lunch at a cute place right next to El Morro (the bigger of the two forts in San Juan).  After lunch, Josh dropped his phone and busted it, which led to a week of trying to figure out a new phone for him!  Turns out there isn't a Verizon store on the island (and why would there be?! haha) so it was quite a chore figuring out something for him to use for the remainder of our trip.  We powered along after the phone incident, and went over to the fort to walk around.

Playing in a courtyard by the restaurant.  Also where Josh dropped his phone.

Dave with the fort in the distance.

On one of the lookout wings.

View from the fort.

Everyone was posing for pictures at this spot so we had to do it too!

Ike was not happy to be stuck in the stroller for the majority of the visit...wasn't exactly safe for a toddler!!







We went to the beach after we got back to our condo.  The beach we were at was called La Pared and was more of a surfing beach so it was kinda rough.  The kids were fine in it though and it was really cool to see the surfers out catching waves!

The little spots are all surfers.















Ike loves the beach!!!

Went down to the local place by our condo that night.  They had the Pacers game on!














Sunrise the next morning.











Thursday dawned a beautiful day and we were off to Fajardo to take a boat/snorkel tour!

Checking in from Puerto Rico

 I wanted to give a quick update to what we have been up to so far on our vacation!  We absolutely love Puerto Rico and have had some fun adventures so far.






View from our balcony (we are staying in Luquillo).













Same view from yesterday...it rained ALL day.  And there was flash flooding!

View out of the back of the condo.  That is El Yunque Rain Forest in the background.

At El Morro, a fort that is almost 500 years old!

The drive to the Pork Highway.

Getting our grub on at El Rancho Original!  Love us some pork!








So, we have walked around some of Old San Juan, bummed it at the beach, watched some surfing (there is a surf competition going on right outside where we can see it from the balcony!), driven all over a mountain to experience the pork highway, and we went on a boat excursion to an island.  I am sure there is some other stuff in there, but those are the highlights so far.  Oh, and Josh dropped his phone and killed it.  Did I mentioned there is no Verizon store or phones on the island?  That has been fun!  Oh yeah, and hardly anyone speaks English--the kids are learning lots of Spanish so far!

I will post much more when we get back, just giving some highlights so far.  Hoping for sunny weather and no more dropped phones  :)

Halloween 2014 and Airplane Rides!

We are getting ready to head off to Detroit to sleep and wake up bright and early for our flight out to San Juan!  Thought I better post Halloween stuff before we left or I would never get around to it :)







Captain America, Deadpool, and Deadpool's friend Weasel.  

Josh's parents came out to visit us during Trunk-or-Treat.

Before our 2nd Halloween which was a campus party in the gym.

Dave with Kyson.

All the kiddos (plus a few adults!).









We had a pretty good Halloween considering we were all sick throughout the week.  I think we are all feeling better, and we are hoping the nice warm air and ocean breezes help cure us completely!

Our meds.  I looked over to the counter the other day and just had to take a picture.  Ridiculous!

The boys playing with a toy from my grandma and grandpa's that I played with when I was little.

Awww!  They actually sat and played with this set for an hour!







I will leave you with a video of Ike talking about our vacation.  He is pretty much only interested in seeing animals while we are there-don't think we'll see in giraffes, but maybe some fish?  :)  Oh, and if you happen to have instagram and want to follow along on our trip, Josh set up an account and his username is josh.bowyer   Hopefully that works!