10 Year Anniversary Trip!

Charlie and I just returned from an amazing 10 year anniversary trip to Puerto Rico! Hats off to our families for taking great care of our kiddos while we were gone. We were only able to fully enjoy ourselves because we knew our kids were in good hands. I have a lot of pictures to post and I plan to comment on most of the pictures. I want to remember this vacation for many years to come, so hopefully commenting on each chunk of pictures will help me remember where they were taken etc. We had a great itinerary for our trip. We spent 4 nights at a resort on the main island of Puerto Rico and then 2 nights on a nearby island called Vieques. Enjoy the pics! This first set of pictures is from our time in the rainforest. The rainforest, el Yunque, was basically right across the street from our resort. We visited it our first full day in Puerto Rico.

more views from the rainforest...there were lots of observation points you could view by pulling your car off the road and hopping out

Our resort, though right across from the rainforest, was also on beach. We stayed at the Wyndam Resort in Rio Grande. I highly recommend it. The grounds of the resort were beautiful, with views of the rainforest and views of the ocean. The resort also has a bunch of iguanas that like to hang out by the pool. The resort workers will feed them and they simply are not afraid of people. A few minutes after we took this picture (after I had gotten out of the pool), our iguana friend decided to jump into the pool to swim to the other side. I was first made aware of his decision, not by hearing his little splash but rather by hearing a woman screaming to get out of the pool! Ha!

Our second full day, we visited Old San Juan. While there were certainly some run down parts (Puerto Rico has lots of very poor areas), the best way I would describe it would be to say its like an older, spanish version of Charleston. There is a lot of old architecture and even some colorful houses like Charleston's Rainbow Row. We toured two different forts in San Juan, one being el castillo del Morrow. The forts were really neat to see and tour. They looked like giant castles by the sea. At one point San Juan was completely surrounded by a stone wall. Part of the city wall remains today, and you can walk along the outside of it. You walk right along the ocean and enter through the original city gates (look like big red doors).

After 3 full days on the main island, we headed to Vieques. I could talk for hours about this beautiful, quirky little island. The island is 7 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. We took a tiny plane and were literally in the air for 8 minutes tops. We had arranged accommodations on the island through Air BNB. Upon our arrival, Valle, a native to the island, met us at the tiny airport. He escorted us to the car rental place where we picked up our Jeep, and then he took us to the home we were staying in. The Jeep rental was awesome. The island is known for its gorgeous, off the beaten path, beaches, and so having an off road vehicle was a great way to see the sights. Our only full day that we had there, we simply beach hopped all day long. We explored the island and most of its beautiful beaches.

Horses roam much of the island, but they are not wild. The horses are branded and have owners. The owners simply let them roam free. It's kinda cool because you will run into horses everywhere, the beach included. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the island, we were unable to capture in pictures. Our first night there, we went on a kayak tour of Mosquito Bay. Mosquito Bay is the brightest, most brilliant bioluminescent bay in the world. What that means is that in the dark of night, when you agitate the bay waters with a kayak, or an oar, or simply your hand, the water sparkles. Tiny microorganisms, called dinoflaggelates give off light as a defense mechanism. Charlie and I expected this to be neat, but it far surpassed our expectations. The light was more brilliant than we could imagine. A few years ago, the bay was named "brightest" in the world and there were approximately 250,000 dinoflaggelates per gallon of water. Now, there are over 1 million dinoflaggelates per gallon. You can literally scoop the water up with your hand and dribble it on your leg and your hands and legs will sparkle. It was a once in a lifetime experience!

One of the best parts of our trip was coming back home to these 3! Note their Puerto Rico shirts.