Puerto Rico- El Yunque and San Juan

On our drive to El Yunque we saw some more cool sights.  This was a town we passed with bright colored houses all over the hill.  It was so cool!

This was as we were nearing the rain forest

We quickly realized that we went up the mountain on the wrong side, but figured we would get out and check it out anyways.  This was my fist time in a rainforest or anything like it so I was blown away!

Here's a leaf Rich found

We walked up this pretty road and it was just crazy!  Plants on top of plants on top of plants!

These huge leaves!

Pretty trees

So gorgeous

We went back down and had to drive around to the other side, and it was so worth it.  It was even crazier!  We went up this tower and looked out over the amazing views!  I taught them how to use their "deer ears" to amplify the sounds!  I'm telling you it works!  haha

Then we went on a hike.  It went downhill for a long time and we were a little worried because we knew we would have to go back up!  When we got to the bottom there was this gorgeous water fall!

Then we had to hike back up!  We counted something like 800 stairs, and lots more uphill hiking.  It was hard, but good!  Good thing I was in pretty good shape when we did this!

Next we headed to our hotel in San Juan called La Concha.  It was a gorgeous hotel with pretty pools.  Of course we had to go swimming right away.  We were feeling pretty gross!  We swam for a long time playing games and having so much fun!  Some of my best memories from our trip were playing games in the pool!  Nonstop laughing!  I stole this pic from the website since we spent so much time here.  We hung out in this upper pool that had a water fall into another pool down below.   It was so cool to hear all the Coqui frogs whistling while we swam!

 For dinner we went to this awesome restaurant called di Parma Tratorria.  We had the most amazing Bruschetta, and then an amazing veggie pizza for dinner.  I can't even tell you how good it was.  It was an amazing mother's day dinner!  It was kind of sad to be away from my kids for mother's day, but I was able to talk to them for a while, and we were having so much fun so it was fine.  :)  I mean can I really complain??

We grabbed some ice cream and went to the hotel and ate it on some loungers on a patio over the beach.  So relaxing.

The next morning we woke up to this... seriously amazing.  

 Here's the view with the window open.  It was so cool!

the view down the beach

Here's the lobby.  It was pretty cool and modern.  They had a candy bowl sitting out so we would always grab some as we went by :)

We grabbed breakfast at dunkin donuts (so fancy!) and then headed into Old San Juan.  We started out at a fort called Castillo de San Cristobal.  Learning about the forts was fascinating.  We found an awesome ranger that really brought everything to life and it was awesome.

View from the top

Then we took a trolley over to the large fort called Castillo San Felipe del Morro.  We flew kites on the grass there, and Scott got out the hacky sack!

Scott in front of the fort pulling a Rich pose

 The boys flying kites.  Such a beautiful day

 my husband is cooler than your husband

We went to check out the fort next.  Just hanging out while the girls took too long in the bathroom...

The view from the lighthouse

looking pretty cool

 A fort lizard

We hopped on another trolley and got off near a path called Paseo de la Princesa.  We grabbed some sandwiches and then walked along the path

Then we went through the San Juan gate and walked along the cutest streets with the cutest houses

Sorry I'm a little obsessed!  We stopped in this cute courtyard called Plaza de Armas to hang out for a while.  How can you resist a bunch of pigeons?? 

There was a cute old lady sitting in the courtyard by this statue.  It was rather adorable.

We did some shopping and I got something for everyone I needed to get souvenirs for!  We got some yummy coconut candy called dulce de coco that was so yummy!

We went back to the hotel and went to the beach for a little while, and then hung out in the pool and jacuzzi for a couple hours!  It felt so good after all the walking!  We finished the day by going to eat at this restaurant where we thought we could get some authentic Puerto Rican food for our last meal!  It was ok, but the beans and rice were awesome!  Katie's fish was an actual fish with eyeballs!  hahaha

We packed up and went to bed early for our early flight out the next morning!  Such a dreamy day!

On our flights back Scott and the Chavez' worked on some lame religious math puzzle (I'm not even going to explain this one- you'll have to ask them) and I read my book.  We had a layover in Florida and got some pizza.  The flights were not as exciting as the time before, but I did get a lot of my book read!  

It was so good to get home to the kids!  I forgot how much I missed them haha  They made us a cute poster on the garage door!

It was the best trip ever!!  I seriously don't know if we can ever top it!  We did so many things and such a variety of things, especially in one week!  We feel so lucky that we got to go with the Chavez' and had such a blast with them! 

 Thanks again mom for watching the kids!

The End!