It’s Friday and our summer heavy wedding season kicks in full force tomorrow!  So, I figured today is a perfect day to share some (a lot) images from our recent trip to Puerto Rico.

The reason we took a trip to Puerto Rico, Michael and I did a little scouting for one of our future m2 goals.  This “goal” will take some time, but it’s in the works…and it’s super awesome, however, I’m not going to tell you.  At least, not now ;0)

We also went because we needed a vacation. A time to unplug and spend quality time together as a family.  We love to travel with our girls.  They are not spoiled, at least not by any materialistic measure, but we will spoil them with experience any chance we get.  This was their first time out of the country.

We took a six day trip to Fajardo, Puerto Rico.  It rained a few days, but even on it’s rainiest day, the island was still beautiful.  We are not the type of people to just stay on the resort the entire time.  What fun is that?  We like to get out, see all that we can, experience the culture…(anything that is not so Americanized).  We like finding little restaurants to eat at that are not so touristy.  This gave Ava and Bella (and us too) a chance to use the little spanish they know.

Puerto Rico, like everywhere else, has it’s rough areas.  But for the most part, we found the locals to be pretty welcoming and warm.

If you’ve every seen one of our travel posts, you know that we document from beginning to end.  It’s hard not to!  I apologize in advance…we were a bit all over the place this vacation.  We shot with our phones (a lot), our camera Daryl (D700), as well as 5 rolls of film.  Ya know, to spice things up a bit.  ;0)

We entertained ourselves by having a few races while waiting 30 minutes for our booster seats to come through the belt.

Our Kia sportage rental, which was the WORST rental we’ve ever had.  Okay, it wasn’t terrible, but I’m still bitter that the usb port didn’t work and I couldn’t charge my phone, haha.

We also had to stop on the road because I got a kick out of their roadkill.  We see deer, they see iguanas.  Weird.

One perspective of our hotel,  El Conquistador.

I would not mind waking up to this view every morning.  Sunset over the rainforest was just breathtaking!

Ava and Bella kept a journal of the trip.  Every day they wrote down what they did and their favorite part of the day.  Things like this make us happy!

I’m probably the most annoying person to vacation with.  I’m a 100% do-er.  I’m usually the last one to fall asleep at night and the very first one up (this never happens in every day life).  One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to watch every sunrise.  Ava got up to watch it with me, but I’m sure Michael and Bella loved hearing my obnoxious alarm (which was on the loudest setting), at 5:40am EVERY MORNING!  I’m also the type of person that right after sunrise, we need to get ready, eat breakfast and start doing.  At least I can say by being this way, we make the most of the time ;0)

Another perspective of our resort.

The resort is a great family resort.  They have their own private island, which has the softest white sand we ever felt, amazing views, games, water sport rentals, and calm pretty blue water to swim in.  Our girls loved it!  You have to take a ferry to Palomino Island.  It’s a really fun ride when the water is a little rough, haha. I totally recommend it.

Some people do not believe in God, and that is their own choice.  I see this and all I think about is God and the beauty he created. Beauty is all around us, everywhere.

The Kioskos in Luquillo, one of the little awesome towns we explored.

On Friday we stopped at Lluvia Deli for breakfast before heading to the rainforest.  This place has seriously the best coffee we’ve ever had in our life!  Their food was delicious and the family that owns the place are incredibly friendly.

El Yunque rainforest is breathtaking! This was our first real rainforest experience!   I wasn’t expecting it to rain as much as it did.  I’m not sure what we expected, but not this!  At first, we weren’t thrilled, but after about 5 minutes in the car wondering if we wanted to buy ponchos, we thought, heck….why not?!  Let’s do this! We’re in a rainforest..in Puerto Rico!

What should have taken an average person, 90 minutes to walk, took us about 3 hours. {in pouring down rain}

Even gloomy days look pretty here!

Saturday we headed to Old San Juan.  Saturday was also my birthday (still 27…) and also our 5 year anniversary, which really feels like 25 (happily though).  We call this special day our Birthaversary.  We had the girls take some pictures of us…the middle one is my favorite.  Bella’s finger in the picture makes it so much better!  The girl has skills.

Can anyone please tell me why there are so many cats in Puerto Rico?  I’ve never seen so many!  We probably shouldn’t have been petting them, but we couldn’t help it.  The girls and I wanted to take a few of them home!

Ava wants to be a Butterfly doctor when she gets older.  Not sure if that exists, but I can see her being the first if it doesn’t!  She also wants to open a butterfly museum for kids, which I think is the coolest thing ever!  She really liked this place!

A little easter bunny surprise 🙂

Bella’s newest friend!

A little rain never hurt anyone, right?  How about a lot of rain?  Well, it didn’t keep us away.  It was nice having the island practically to ourselves.  It would rain, the sun would come out, it would rain again, the sun would come back out…I didn’t mind.

Our last sunrise!  The sun was covered by a cloud, but the sky was still amazing!

Our last day in PR 🙁

Ava took the first two 🙂

hmm…quite challenging!

They crack me up!

If you haven’t been to Puerto Rico and you get the chance, you should go.  It’s beautiful!

For our next trip, we promised the girls monkeys…lots of them.   And monkeys they shall get.  Who wants to go to Costa Rica?!!?!  🙂

Happy Friday!!

Melissa.