Puerto Rico, Part 1

~Saturday (September 28)

As I mentioned yesterday, our family recently returned from a vacation to Puerto Rico! We went with my Mom’s side of the family: her parents, and her brother and his family. Our purpose in going was to visit my maternal grandfather’s mother (our great grandmother.) She is 98 years old, and despite the fact that she’s in great health for her age, we wanted to make sure we saw her one more time before she dies.

The day we left found most of us up fairly early. Our flight was around 9 a.m., so we had to leave the house around 6 a.m.

We made it safely through security and enjoyed a light breakfast before our flight.

Photo Credit: Roma.

Our flight was fairly uneventful. The scenery was quite pretty as we flew over the Caribbean. We even saw a rainbow (picture above!)

Photo Credit: Roma.

We arrived in Puerto Rico in the late afternoon. Our driver met us at the airport and we headed over to our hotel in Dorado. The rest of the family had flown in from Ohio earlier in the day. Once we arrived, we settled into our room and met up with them. This was the view from our balcony!

Photo Credit: Betsy.

Our family was quite hungry after having a light breakfast and no lunch. The others had already eaten dinner, but still joined us at the hotel restaurant while we ate.

I think one of the best meals of the week was what I had the first night: mofongo made with yuca, chicken, and plenty of garlic. It was *so* good!

After eating, we walked around outside. We were quite excited to fully enjoy the beach the next day!

Photo Credit: Betsy.

We all showered up and crashed in bed after our long day of travel. We were looking forward to some time to relax as a family on Sunday!

~Sunday (September 29)

Sunday morning we all enjoyed sleeping in. We ate a leisurely breakfast, and then met up in our hotel room.

We had a mini church service as a family! We read Proverbs 29 and discussed it together. We sang a song, prayed, and then headed down to the pool and beach where we spent our entire day.

We cleaned up in the late afternoon and then met downstairs for Happy Hour. We enjoyed some snacks and drinks while waiting for our dinner reservation at 6:30 p.m.

For an appetizer that night, we had jibaritos. It’s a fried plantain topped with guava pulled pork and pico de gallo. Quite tasty!

For my main course, I had arroz con pollo with guacamole and tostones. I only ate about half of it, but it was true Puerto Rican comfort food!

We were all quite excited for the next day: Tita (our great grandmother) would be arriving!

To be continued . . .