Warm thoughts

As we face yet another ice and/or snow storm, let's go back, back, back to Puerto Rico and revisit a fun little nugget from our trip...

...a visit to the Bacardi factory!

We visited the "Cathedral of Rum" and learned about the history of the Bacardi family. Cuba, and Puerto Rico...

  

The Bacardi bat symbol - Sean thought this was super-cool:

The factory was all dressed up for Christmas, too: 

 

The tour, which included a visit to the distillery, a little museum dedicated to the history of the Bacardi family, and a gift store, concluded at an outdoor bar area.  At the bar, we were enjoyed our free Bacardi drink - Thom John chose a Cuba Libre and I chose a Mojito.

The kids enjoyed unlimited fruit punch - yum!

Beachcombing

One morning of our Puerto Rico vacation, we woke up early (well, we always wake up early) and went out to the beach right after breakfast to go beachcombing!  On the way to the beach, a small rainstorm kicked up and the kids really wanted to go back to the apartment - but luckily I brought their towels, so I wrapped them up and we marched on to the beach.  

As soon as we got to the beach, the rain stopped and we got busy looking for shells.  We found a whole bunch of shells including urchin shells, limpet shells, cantharus shells, and several pieces of coral.

The "storm" blowing away:

We found this excellent hunk of brain coral - I wish I'd gotten someone's foot in the picture to show how BIG this piece of coral was - it was HUGE!  The kids wanted to bring it home but luckily I was able to distract them and they forgot about it for awhile.

We also found a really neat, beat-up, weathered log:

And then we spotted a rainbow!  A huge rainbow that started at the beach and ended in the ocean!  But our discoveries didn't end there...

Two rainbows!  A double rainbow!  Wow!

After the excitement of the double rainbow, we collected more shells and when we'd had enough (and were ready for a morning snack), we headed back to the apartment...

and a nice, sunny day :-)

When we got back to the apartment, we set to work to clean our shells.  And later that afternoon, the kids worked on examining and sorting them.

Urchin shell snowman :-)

"Cheese!"

Beach days

When we were in Puerto Rico, we definitely made time to go to the beach - our beach babies were really missing the sand and waves!  We spent a day at Crashboat Beach in Aguadilla.  There used to be a military port nearby and this is where the boats would rescue downed aircraft from Ramey Air Force Base.  Now it seems to be a very popular spot for snorkeling and jumping off of the remains of the piers that were part of the port.  There are also nice stretches of beaches for swimming and playing in the sand!

The kids had a blast playing in the sand and in the water.  We did, too - at least I did when I wasn't fretting about the kids' skin - the sun was super hot and so strong!

Luckily, Clare could be enticed to stay in the shade for a few minutes to eat some pinchos (barbecued chicken on a stick)...

Crashboat Beach was very lively - there was lots of music and cooking, and even a couple were practicing their dance moves together nearby.  After a few hours in the sun, we watched a storm roll in, but it seemed to stay away from the beach.  But we'd had enough swimming for one day, anyway or so we thought...

But the kids wanted to hit the pool as soon as we got back, of course! There was a very friendly Rottweiler strolling around the pool that day - he was blind in one eye and we heard shouts of "ojo blanco" from the other young pool guests when the dog would come around.

Another day we went to a beach called Shack's Beach.  This one was so nice - the atmosphere was quieter and the kids had ample space to play in the sand and help Auntie Rachel build a sand snowman:

Sean spent a lot of time in the water battling the surf while kite surfers rode the waves further offshore.

We finally got Clare to take a proper nap - she dozed on the beach for a very long time while Sean kept playing playing playing in the sand.

Our background noise was music coming from the beach bar at a resort nearby and the constant chatter of the little green parrots flying to and from this big tree:

When we'd had enough sun and swimming, we headed back to the car - and almost immediately went to the pool, of course :-)