September vacation to Puerto Rico

In September we took a big family vacation to Puerto Rico!  The kids were really fantastic travellers.  The only issue was when the descent started, Ainsley could not pop her ears and would not listen to the advice we tried to give her to help.  Ben did great- he ate m&ms and swallowed enough that he only had mild issues.  Ainsley - well, it was not fun. 

We stayed a few days at Celene and Angel's house!  We had not been there before and it was so beautiful!  The kids spent most of the time in their gorgeous pool and enjoyed playing with Tia and Tio.  I was sick for the first 3 days of vacation and I hardly left the bedroom, I truly felt awful.  At least there were plenty of people to play with the kids!
Pool fun!

Celene's gorgeous backyard!

 

 

After a few days, we flew to Vieques.  We were on a small plane that only seated 8 people, the smallest plane I have ever been on.  It was a fun and beautiful flight.  We flew low over the island and were able to see the gorgeous water, parts of the mainland, the rainforest and more.  We arrived in Vieques and rented a jeep- it was really fun driving a jeep.  The island is pretty primitive and jeeps are needed to get to the beaches ( dirt roads with lots of potholes).  We rented a house and were able to check in early.  Our house was right on the beach, and there was no one else around.  We had our own private beach and it was gorgeous!   Dan made a trip to the grocery store in town- an adventure as most of the people did not speak much English.  I unpacked and Ben took a nap, then we hit the beach.  Ainsley enjoyed the beach, Ben played in the sand a little bit the first day, but did not like to be dirty.  WHAT?!?!?!  My little man who is ALWAYS playing in dirt and water at home, did not like the beach.  Crazy.  After the first trip to the beach, he would not put his feet down on the sand or in the water, he would not really play in the sand.  If sand got on his hands, he would hold them up for me to wipe. 

The beach by our house was so beautiful and nice, there was a breakwater that kept the waves from hitting so the water was nice and calm, and not too deep.  There were wild mustangs all over the island and we saw a lot of horses on our beach.  Every time we were out we would see horses, they were a  very successful breed!

 horses in the road

 Our Beach.  GORGEOUS picture!

 Our beach

 Our beach

Our beach and our "Dog"

Also, I can't forget to mention the beach dogs.  When we first walked out onto the beach, a dog approached us.  I was a little nervous at first for the kids, but the dog seemed friendly.  Then 2 more arrived.  They were very sweet dogs, all intact (BOO), and they were strays.  They followed us everywhere we went on the beach and slept at our house.  You will notice they are in all our pictures.

The town of Isabelle II is where a lot of local people lived, not a very touristy town.  The island is very poor- and it was pretty notable on "our side" of the island.  It was also the off season, so there were very few tourists on the island. 

The first afternoon, we went into Isabelle and went to a bar for a pina colada. 
Then we drove around the island a little bit and got lost.  We took the top off the jeep and let the wind blow as we sped across the island!  We made it to one beach- Red Beach.  The water was beautiful, there was a fair amount of seaweed on the shore from recent tropical storms so the beach was not as beautiful as normal.  We went in the water for a few minutes, then headed home because it was getting dark. 

The second day at the beach we stayed at "our" beach.  We took down a beach chair that was where Ben stayed.  We did a few walks on the beach, we played in the sand and in the water.  Ainsley built sand castles and played with rocks.

 

 

On Wednesday- Celene and my Mom arrived.  We walked on the beach and played in the water.  We ate out in town and had a yummy dinner.

Thursday, Angel arrived.  Mom watched the kids and the four adults took the jeep out and hit the beach.  We had a fabulous time!  We went to Blue Beach- our favorite.  We had it completely to ourselves.  We set up under a palm tree, we had music, beer, food and floats.  I could have stayed all day!  We had a blast.  Mom and the kids had a good time too!

There are many beautiful beaches on Vieques.  Many are named by color.
Blue Beach- our favorite.  It was gorgeous, calm, and we had it to ourselves during the week.  We had to share it on the weekend, but overall it was ours.

 Dinner out- Banana's Thursday night

 Sun Bay- at sunset

 Dinner with the family!

Thursday night, Celene and Angel watched the kids for us.  Mom, Dan and I went to the bioluminescent bay.  It was a night trip- the water glows in the dark.  It is so hard to describe, but it was so fantastic and amazing!  It is the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world and we could easily see why.  We had a great evening and Tio and Tia had fun with the kids!




Green Beach.  Our Friday Beach.  This beach had great snorkeling just off the shore.  There were conch shells all over in the water.  We found several easily.    We discovered that each beach had it's own shells.  Even though they were fairly close together, they each had very distinct shells.  We did not see Conch shells anywhere else on the island.  our beach had sea urchin shells all over.   Blue beach had shells of all types.

 Green beach looking at the Puerto Rico- storming on the mainland.

 Dinner out at a fancy restaurant!

More blue beach pictures!

We went back to Blue Beach on Saturday with the entire family.  We got there early and had it to ourselves, but it filled up with people later in the day. 

 

 Our beach.

 

See the video for more pictures!