Puerto Rico: the red eye

One of the reasons we went to PR is because of the super affordable flights I found. The two downsides of said super affordable flight were that we flew out of KCI and the trip home was on a red eye. The terminal we flew out of had no AC. Ryan and Soren left to find nice restrooms for showers/clean up and reported that they found a terminal with working AC. Hallelujah. 

One memorable thing that happened in the airport was in the bathroom, a young and tired mother traveling alone with her tiny baby got very overwhelmed and asked for my help.  It took me back to the years of traveling alone to California with 3 little ones. Anyway, this cute young mom was panicking about not having a place to set her baby down and was obviously sleep deprived. It was nice to be able to give her a hand. It also gave me perspective of how much easier it is to travel now than when I had babies in diapers and an escape artist runaway toddler. Everyone did really well. I loved the baby and toddler phase but I am particularly thankful to be in this stage of life. 

We made it home, everyone showered and napped, and then surprisingly, no one rushed outta here. We still spent the whole day together, and stayed up late into the night talking as if we hadn’t just been together every minute for a week. 

I’m so happy they are friends.

 

Puerto Rico: Old San Juan

We set out for 3 beaches but the surf on the north shore was too rough. We hit up roadside Grexican food (gyros and churros? Winning!) for lunch, drove on to another beach that was fun to walk around, even if the water was too rough. Explored some trails, and eventually found ourselves on a self guided art installation tour courtesy of a reel aaron watched. We walked the cobblestone and tiled streets, played on the old fortress grounds, watched people fly kites, and ate the best shrimp and carnitas tacos on the beach for dinner. The highlights of old San Juan were the colorful buildings, watching the 100s of feral cats (we watched one hunt a pigeon. Wild stuff! Cats are gross.) and everyone’s final favorite: the local TJMaxx/Marshalls where the little kids picked out novelty snacks for the trip home, and the big boys found matching “team shirts”. 

We learned we are not an Instagram family. You know, like those bucket list influencers who get paid to travel and post what they do? We spent 20 minutes passing around an aggressive hermit crab and counting who could hold it longest without getting pinched, and Corbin boosted Ryan up on a fortress wall to see inside a pigeon nest and then Ryan got flogged by the pigeon. Enjoy a few outtakes of our unpolished and dreamy-for-us island adventure. 

One of these two does believe we are an Instagram family. I’ll let you guess. 

And one of these two is selectively prickly now. That’s ok. We all feel out touched sometimes. I’m still going to hug you. 

Predator 

Reese was loaded on cough meds and very loopy. She is so funny and had us cracking up. I love the way she captures beauty everywhere. Just know that any photos from this trip that look good were probably taken by her. Her content actually IS worthy of being an Instagram family. 

Hi bestie! 

 

Puerto Rico: Gozalandia

 

Pretty much all my grey hair came from watching the boys jump from the waterfall at gozalandia. Haha you can hear me protest and even groan anxiously in the 2nd video 😂. The waterfall is 50 feet, and a local told us the jumping spot had eroded significantly at the top in the past year, so you have to jump out pretty far to clear the rocks now. Bless. 

All of us did the rope swing at the upper falls. Super super fun. I think my white girl scream could be heard for miles haha. 

I climbed up under that waterfall with Esme and Sloane. SO cool! No photos because as soon as we made it up, bear had some lady go off the rope swing without looking below and land directly on him, so I jumped in and pulled him out. Ryan sliced a toe open on a rock at the same time, and we all decided we were done with gozalandia. Rough ending, but great day! We got takeout and just watched a movie and swam at the rental house that night. Gozalandia was beautiful beyond description though. The locals were all so friendly, too. My boys made friends with a kid named Jose and the girls played with his little sister.  

Puerto Rico: Good Eats and Laughs

One night, the Littles ate early at the house, and Aaron sent me with the big people on a Dons run. 

Dons in another country?! Peak. The boys were so happy to have nuggies and Big Macs that they joked they were going to blitz Aaron and smooch him right on the face when they got home. It was so funny. Ryan couldn’t do it and left brogan hanging. There were so many laughs like this all week. Younger kids, too. I sometimes don’t realize how funny my kids are until we are on vacation and only have each other for entertainment. They feed off each other well. We had so many epic moments that kept things light and joyful. 

Another night, we were out swimming in the house pool.  I was just doing laps and Reese was throwing a few pairs of goggles into the deep end while the boys had their backs turned toward the house and then when I said, “go!” they raced over and dove around to find them. This game went on for a solid hour and quickly got competitive. Reese and I eventually realized she could throw the goggles while I was in the deep end, and I could gather them up, hide them behind the back of my suit, and I could swim right in front of the kids, and shout Go without them having a clue I had taken all the goggles. 

So they dove around forever on the dark, frustrated and unable to find them. Reese and I continued our laps and I would pass the goggles to Soren so he “won” every time. 

We hustled those older boys for a solid 30 minutes. 😂😂 they were baffled by their inability to dive and Soren’s increased skill and techniques. 

When we came clean and told them we’d been cheating, Reese and I were dunked and slimed out. 

We found some horses next to a beach we checked out on the north shore. 

During a lunch stop, I turned to aaron and said “did you see that giant pink swirly roof?” Aaron responded with: “yes and I don’t know what they sell in there, but it’s our next stop.”  Naturally. 

We had to do the coconut milk at least once right? Bear and Soren later cracked it open with their hulk strength and ate the coconut flesh. 

We found a restaurant for mofongo and pinchos and left stick figure us on a wall 

What the what? China flavor? Logan’s car had just left or we would have taken a pic of both our Chinese boys with this 😂  Not cool, Puerto Rico! 

Homemade choco tacos?! Nutella ice cream inside, Nutella chocolate. Peanuts and almonds outside. 

Mickey cones 

Soren really wanted to buy local produce. We found a guy selling pineapples and HUGE mangoes from the back of a pickup truck. I only had $4 in cash on me but pulled over anyway and negotiated the whole transaction in Spanish. Very proud of my efforts! 

Nutella stuffed pistachio and mixed nuts chocolate dipped popsicles because all things with nuts 

I mean come on 😍 

There was a coconut ice cream place just 2 min walk from our house in Rincón 

One of our favorite things about Ryan is the way he matches our food energy and understands concepts like “emergency donuts.” Which is the same thing as “donuts”. Always a yes. Always a necessity. We found these on the way back from crash boat beach. Two other times, we stumbled upon Gaby’s hot fresh tiny donuts that were the best thing we ate all week. So good, one of my kids better name their first born child Gaby as a tribute to their greatness. 

Tiny pancakes and ice cream. Yes. 

Pizza with fried chicken and Mac n cheese on it? 

God bless America. 

Soren loved all the produce. These avocados were giant! Reviews of the papaya were mixed.

 

Puerto Rico: Crash Boat Beach

We spent an entire day at Crash Boat Beach 

The cutest newlyweds everrrrrrr

There were food vendors with $5 pinchos (grilled meat on kebab sticks-so good!) and gigantic virgin piña coladas topped with fruit and cream that we drank 3 of, a huge roped area for swimming and snorkeling, the saltiest sea water I’ve ever been in—we were so buoyant and the water was clear enough to see 15 feet to the bottom. We swam for hours and hours. There was a sketchy pier for cliff jumping that everyone-especially Sloane and Esme loved (probably because they had royal treatment of big brothers who swam them back to shore like princesses). The water was the perfect temp and I spent a solid hour in the shallows teaching the twins how to wrestle properly. It was the best place to take a pin without getting hurt, and the buoyancy helped them learn to dig their feet in the sand and not be lifted. Great sparring and physical play for everyone, but especially my tweens. Aaron researched TikTok and stood in lines to get us the BEST food, Reese and boys explored a cave, Ryan put himself on lifeguard duty and took the littles out snorkeling for an hour so I could nap on the beach under the umbrella. I dove for shells with the girls. The newlyweds took a walk, Corbin and I found more beverages and shade and turtles. Everyone swam and danced and boogie boarded and sunbaked and played in the sand. The beach has my heart. I love that Aaron appreciates it as much as I do. What a fun day. We do beach. Our job is beach. 

“Ritaaaaa! It’s time for more sunscreen Rita!” 

And then there are the brown family members who need zero sunscreen and get to gloat at the end of the day that they are even more bronze. At bedtime, Esme announced that she went from milk to dark chocolate in one day at the beach. Meanwhile, Sloane was pink even after 3 times reapplying SPF 1zillion on her body head to toe. 😂

Logan’s perm is perming!