The Lee Family: Puerto Rico- Boqueron

Our airplane to Puerto Rico was the tiniest one I have ever been on! I was pretty freaked out about it, but once we got up in the air, and I saw the amazing views (notice the HUGE windows), it ended up being a highlight of our trip. We flew over the most beautiful islands.

Katie is in the back seat and is taking this picture... that's how small it was... and you could see right into the cockpit!

an awesome island we passed over... it looked amazing

Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico

When we got to San Juan, we rented a rental car and then got in the car to drive 3 hours to Boqueron on the other side of the island. The drive was so beautiful! I saw the most beautiful places right outside my window. So green the whole time too. When we got there we had to wait for a girl to give us the key to her condo. When she finally got there we got settled and went to dinner at Katie's friends' house. Katie served her mission in Boqueron, so it was really cool to be able to go to someone's house and eat authentic Puerto Rican food. The mom had one of the tiniest kitchens I have ever seen and made us a HUGE dinner. We had stuffed plantains which were bomb, Puerto Rican beans and rice which are SO good, yummy meat, bread, and salad topped with mayo! The salad was not my favorite, haha, but it was funny to see how much they love mayonnaise in Puerto Rico enough to use it as a salad dressing! (PS one of the restaurants we went to had mayonnaise on the table to use as a condiment :) Another funny thing I learned about Puerto Ricans is that a lot of them have ties to New York city since there are a TON of Puerto Ricans there. Because of that when they speak english they sound like New Yorkers! Think Robert De Niro. Carlos, whose house we went to, speaks like a New Yorker and it's really cute! They were such a sweet family. So humble and kind. For dessert we had Flan- yum! When we were getting ready to leave we were hanging out outside and you could hear the craziest sounds! Tons of frogs called Coquis and lots of other animals and insects. It was so loud and so cool!

We got back to the condo and then went for a walk in Boqueron. It is so interesting because people gather in the towns at night and have a party! There are people everywhere including families. They hang out and socialize. It was so fun. Here's a pic I took as I was leaving which you can't see very well, but you get the idea.

The condo we were staying at was pretty cool but in the strangest location. The building we were in was nice, but then right across from our building were the bones of a building just like ours that was never finished. It was a little creepy, but our place was so nice so we didn't care. We each had our own room and bathroom.

The next morning we drove to what Katie described to us as "the most beautiful place I have ever seen." Of course we were excited. We walked up to see this...

So beautiful

Then we went for a little hike, and saw this...

ummm are you even kidding me?! So gorg!

We hiked down to one of the coolest beaches I've ever been to! So many treasures all over the place! We went back in this cave and found huge conch shells! Here we are going back to the cave

Scott's battle wound!

Some of the loot! If you can't tell I was in heaven! Finding shells is one of my favorite things ever!

These shells are way bigger than they look here in the pic! I found a sea fan (on the right), lots of brain rocks (not sure what they're called!), and sea sponges along with all these pretty shells.

Then we hiked back up near the lighthouse

Katie had one more surprise in store for us. We walked on a path to the right of the lighthouse and saw this beautiful beach!

It was so pretty and the water was so nice! The boys played catch and frisbee while Katie and I bobbed around in the water. Poor Katie got stung by a jellyfish but not too bad.

We also laid out of course! We got birthday pedicures together a week before... :)

They have all these man-made shelters on the beach in the trees where the Puerto Ricans set up their camps for the day. I swear they bring enough stuff for the whole day and they blast music too. I loved it! Scott decided he'd had enough sun...

We went back to the town of Boqueron and ate at this yummy restaurant. I got Puerto Rican beans and rice with Chicken and it was too die for! My goal is to learn how they make their beans. They are so yummy.

We saw this cool bird as we were eating

Then we walked around the little shops a little and the boys bought the racketball set that Scott is holding. The boys played with it while Katie and I bobbed in the water again! I'm sensing a trend... haha it was so nice that they boys could do all the active stuff they wanted to do and we could just relax in the water and on the beach! While the boys were playing I guess Scott ran right in front of a guy on his bike who yelled "Hermano!!" and then crashed! He was ok so it was so funny and we joked about it the whole trip!

Check out this sweet ride!

That night we went to a town called La Paquera. We wanted to try to take a boat out to see a bio-luminescent microorganism that glows in the water when you touch it. While we waited we went in the coolest little shell shop! I was so tempted to buy some shells but we decided that it's way cooler to find shells than to buy them!

So we took this little boat out with about 20 people on it... As we were going along it was really quiet and it looked exactly like it was from Pirates of the Caribbean; the sights, the sounds, the humidity. It was so cool. When we got to the place where the microorganisms were, a guy got out to show us what it looked like when you swim in it. I didn't get a pic, but it looked just like this...

It was so cool. We reached down and ran our hands through it too. It was like a bunch of tiny stars twinkling when you touched it. It was fun to catch some in your hand and move it around too. It was such a cool experience!

When we got back to boqueron, we got some yummy sandwiches at a little shop in town and while we were waiting I did some major people watching. It was so different from anything I had ever seen and was a lot more alive than it had been the night before too. There were teenagers all over the place trying to pick up on each other, families hanging out and talking, little kids playing (it was really late too!), music blasting, and basically just a big party going on! Katie said every town has a gathering place like that where they party every night. I think we need to implement that here in the states personally...

The next morning we got ready to leave Boqueron and our cute little condo. We cracked up about this sign that said "let's do sunset."

We went to church at the building Katie went to on her mission. She still knew a lot of people which was fun. When we walked in, every sister there came up to us and gave us a hug and kiss on the cheek. It was so sweet and we really felt welcome! Another thing we need to do here in the states :) They had Relief Society first, and they had something like a social minute, where all the sisters get up and say hi to each other and kiss on the cheeks again! I couldn't understand the lesson but that's ok, the spirit was still there. I love that the church is always the same everywhere you go.