Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas to all of you! It was so good to hear from some of you today. Sounds like everyone enjoyed their day, we were thinking of you all, trying to imagine what you may be doing! Some of you were wondering what kind of Christmas set-up we had here... Well, here is a taste. All of the cards on the wall were from my parents who sent us 15 gifts, one to open every day since the 11th of December. It was a fun way to get us in the Christmas spirit since it was a little more difficult this December.

We had a wonderful Christmas making our own traditions and soaking in more of the Puerto Rican experience. We are thankful for each of you and wish you all of God's blessings as this year comes to a wonderful end. Feliz Navidad! PS. Happy Birthday Isaiah!

Tallest Point - 4,000 feet

After the pools, we wanted to go find the tallest peek in Puerto Rico just in time for the sunset. Of course, when we got to it, it was littered with TV towers and satilites, but still beautiful. From some points you could see both the north shore and the south shore, the Atlantic and the Caribbean. It was a little cloudy and windy, but we didn't mind. Enjoy the sunset!

Dona Juana Pools

We went for a drive yesterday, not really knowing what we would find. The road took us through Toro Negro Natural Reserve, the most "rustic" of the reserves on the island. We came across Dona Juana's pool of spring water. It was abandoned and had a "Jerrasic Park" feel to it, but we enjoyed hiking around non the less. We followed a stone path for a mile or two, not knowing where it would lead, and found ourselves at the top of the ridge. The views were amazing, but with threatening storm clouds we decided to turn back. It was nice to get out in the mountains and we found it to be a little cooler up there, making it feel a little more like Christmas! :)

Lago Patillas

Well, we decided to take our boat out for a float. There is a man-made lake near our home, about 15 minutes to the east, so we thought that would be a good way to test our boat out. It was a great escape. The sounds of cars and trucks could easily be ignored. The wind kept pushing us back towards the shore, so Jon got a good arm workout (I really prefered reading instead). So, thanks Bev and Paul for sending the boat!

Serralles Castle

On a high hill overlooking the city of Ponce is the Serralles Castle, once the estate of one of Puerto Rico's most powerful rum-producing families. There remains a Don Q rum distillery in the city of Ponce even though the founding family has long moved out of the mansion. You can probably identify with Captain Morgan, one of the types of rum they produce here. Ahhh Captain and Coke... brings back memories, not necessarily good ones. Anyway, the mansion was amazing. We went on a tour and luckily one of the women in our group was actually a descendent of the family that once lived there. She was very interesting and was there showing off her grandfather's estate to her future son-in-law's parents. The view from the top was breath-taking as you could see the entire city of Ponce as well as the beautiful coast. Enjoy.

In the library, with the video camera and tour guide Pedro. Clue.

In the dining room, with 24 quaret gold coated plates, glasses and silverware from France, ceilings hand carved from three different types of wood, and a servent that never takes her eye's off of you. Very helpful.

Courtyard decorated for the holiday season.

Happy December 21st

We went for a drive in the mountains today. And because our camera got stollen, we only have a video to show you of how beautiful it was. For all of you experiencing negative digits in temperature this week, and last week, and in the week to come... hope that this brings you some warmth and makes you start to think about your next holiday in Puerto Rico!

Christmas Paranda

It was our first paranda and now we are hooked. We traveled to Ponce last night where we met up with the ADAPRI (backpacking club) group from San Juan. They were out "parandaing" which is a holiday tradition for all Puerto Ricans all the way through the middle of January. The concept is, a group of people gather with their tambourines, whicharows, maracas, drums (we were lucky to have a great accordion player in our group) and anything else that makes noise, and they sing outside your house until you let them in. Sometimes you will be expecting a paranda, and sometimes they may just show up.

You are to invite everyone in and serve drinks, treats, etc. Songs, dancing, drinking and eating continued throughout the night until who-knows-when. We had to leave at midnight but they were still going strong when we left.

Jon practiced his salsa moves all night and eventually got into playing the whicharow pretty well! :)I think that the concept of the paranda came from Mary and Joseph searching for a place to stay. The same concept and tradition is done in Mexico. It was very fun to be a part of!

Jon really feeling the music!

Le lo le lo le lo li! Le lo le lo le lo li!

Our excelent musicians made it a fun night! Happy parandaing to all and to all a good night! You do realize that from now on, whenever there is Christmas Caroling to be had in the states, Jon and I will be there with our drums, tambourines and whicharows!

New Paintings

Here is a new set of paintings that I did awhile ago. The three of them are hanging above our bed in our bed room.



The second picture is a picture of Jon in a small plaza in Old San Juan. After school on Tuesday, we decided to make a quick trip into San Juan and do a little Christmas shopping. We were getting anxious and couldn't wait until the weekend... okay, it was mostly me getting anxious and couldn't wait, but still. It was a fun trip and beautiful to see all of the streets and buildings lit up.

Thanksgiving and Bowling!

Well, you all know that we had a great start to our Thanksgiving break in Culebra, well, the end wasn’t that bad either. Once we go back to the main land, we had to begin the preparations for our first ever hosting Thanksgiving event. Jon and I were in charge of the turkey, crab dip, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. Regardless of the many horror stories and repeated warnings, we still cooked the “giblets” in the bag, inside the turkey. I guess it was just harder to find than we thought. We figured maybe our turkey just didn’t have “giblets”. Guess not, we found them when it was too late. Ahhh, first-timers! J We had Mandi and Andrea (our neighbors), Andrea’s mom and sister from Chicago and Max (our Russian-American Postman) over for the holiday celebration. We had a nice table set up on our back porch where we could enjoy the cool breeze. And you know it, it wouldn’t be a Mudd event if there wasn’t a little Catch Phrase to wrap up the evening. We didn’t disappoint. Anyway, good times with good friends.

That next weekend, we were invited to go bowling in “Coto de Laurel” (a little piece of home every time I see that interstate sign). Anyway, we went with our Puerto Rican friends, Julio, Yesenia and of course their baby, Karla. It was a good time. Jon dominated, I think that even he was surprised at how well he did… I think that in the second game he got a 177 or something crazy like that. Ahh yes, and OF COURSE there was dancing during turns. Puerto Ricans, they will make a dance party out of anything! So, we watched Julio and Yesenia dance to the meringue and salsa while they waited for their turn. Fun stuff!!

Here is a shout out to Braden and Uncle Jim! Happy BIRTHDAY to you both! We love you and miss you! Have a great, special day! J

Culebra Island

Culebra used to be a military bomb site, and therefore there are still some remnants of the military there. Here is one, a tank, on the beach. It has grown to be beautiful, covered with algae and color. There were also military personel on the beach every morning doing "bomb sweeps". They actually did end up finding a "detonating devise" and had to evacuate people out a little distance so that they could light it off. Interesting...

Happy Thanksgiving! Jon and I realized these last couple of days that we have A LOT to be thankful for. We have always thought that, but sitting on a white sand beach, exploring through an underwater world that you never imagined existed, and camping under the stars... we'll, that just kind of makes you even more thankful I suppose.

We had a WONDERFUL time in Culebra. We took the ferry over on Sunday morning from Fajardo (Mom/Dad/Troy - the picture of the tall building with the rainbow - I am pretty sure that is where your condo is going to be when you come in January. Right on the coast) and headed off the east coast of Puerto Rico - about 12 miles. Culebra is part of the "Spanish Virgin Islands" and has remained very underdeveloped with no high-rise hotels or big resorts to speak of. We didn't mind as we had brought our tent (and air mattress - of course) for the 3 nights that we planned to be there.

Our first day there we did a lot of loungin' around. We hung up the hammock, laid on the beach, hiked to a couple different beaches and went into "town" that night for dinner at the "Dingy Dock" on that water. Day two and day three, Jon and I arrived at our scuba boat at 9:30 each morning and would do one dive before lunch and one dive at a different site in the afternoon, after lunch. Taz (not his "real" name - just a nickname he got from winning a bar fight) was our divemaster. He was a character! A nice, friendly man, unless one happened to be "farting around" on the service too scared to go down 40ft and have to remove my mask without drowning. (Yeah, that was me) He doesn't have a whole lot of sympatheticness in him. I guess that is what makes him a good divemaster. It was a great time on the boat.

We made some good Puerto Rican diving friends - Luis and Lisa - they live in San Juan and had us over for dinner that night after the dive. They are both doctors and were staying in the "villas" on our same beach - we were in our tent taking showers out of gallon jugs, they flew to Culebra in a small plane - we took the ferry in which they hand out souvenir barf bags, they rent a car to explore the island - we walk, until they happen to drive by and then we hop in with them! Anyway, you get the point. But they were very nice and hopefully we will be able to keep in touch with them despite our different lives.

Underwater was amazing! Now that we have all of our testing done, I know that I am going to enjoy it even more. We saw amazing things. Just that water itself was beautiful. Imagine swimming in a fish tank of blue/green gelatin. We saw a lot of sting rays sleeping on the ocean floor. We saw a turtle weaving in and out of the coral. We saw amazing plants and colorful coral life. The fish were a rainbow of neon colors. We saw a HUGE lobster hidden back in a little coral cave, explored a sunken sailboat and saw the eyes of an octopus - he was too lazy to come out. The underwater camera that we bought was not made to go as deep as we went - so I don't have any pictures for you. Sorry. But in reality, they probably wouldn't do justice. We will go again though with a better camera, so look forward to that.

Anyway, if you are thinking about visiting. You definitely need to think about making a day-trip (at least) to Culebra. The ferry is only $2.50 to the island, and by far the best time we have had here so far.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to all! We are thankful and I hope that you are too!

My Painting

Here is a picture of my painting that we hung in the living room. I did it last sunday off of a picture that I found on-line. We may have to get a frame for it down the road... but for now we are enjoying it without one. Hope you like it! :)

Guavate and Luquillo

What do sunglasses, pork on a stick, wana-be cowboys, picturesque hotel settings and a man in a palm tree have in common? Well....

Stay tuned for the answer!

Here was our weekend. Lunch in Guavate - a small, touristy town in the mountains known for its great lechon (pork). Beach lounging in Luquillo - on the east side of the island. We did some snorkeling and some sleeping and watched a very interesting man hunting for coconuts. Good weekend.

Hiking with Barbara

The Guamani river. Bush-whacking. Rock-whacking. Muddy shoes. Waterfall slides. Good company. Hiking with Barbara is always an adventure. She doesn't believe in "trails" so we just make our own. She would have gone all the way to the top of the mountain... but we convinced her to save that adventure for another day - we were beat!

Lighthouse beach

It has been awhile since I have shared our adventures... probably because we haven't been too adventurous lately. Here are some pictures from "lighthouse beach". It isn't that far away from our house. The lighthouse is "Punta Tuna" and the beach is awesome. Nice sand, good waves and big lizzards. Jon's new favorite beach game is botchyball with coconuts. So that was his mission in the pictures - getting coconuts from the palms and challenging me on the sand. Not as easy as it may seem.

English Buddies

Here are some great pictures of some of my kids and thier reading buddies from the elementary side. They love to get together and share books.... anything to get out of a grammar lesson!

Random Fun

Here are some random pictures from the last week. Last weekend, we made a stop at Plaza de Las Americas in San Juan. It is the biggest mall in the Caribbean and it is huge...3 Floors, lavishly decorated and hundreds of stores. Here are a couple pictures of live models in a store window. I thought it was fun, they probably didn't.

Last Friday, our school sponsored a volleyball tournament. Here, volleyball is a pretty big sport and they have both boys and girls teams. The girls went on to win first place and the boys got second. It was fun to watch them out of the classroom. That is our school's gym.

Last night we were invited over to a teacher's house for dinner. They have an adorable 4 month old baby, Karla. Jon was trying to make her smile, we wasn't impressed. I think she might have been scared because he looked so pale! :)

To Ponce for some dancing

Another video of some native dances in Ponce. Enjoy.

Ponce Video

A video so that you can see the dancing.

Ponce

Last weekend, Mandi's mom and mom's friend were in town. On Friday night we all hopped in our cars and drove to Ponce. (I was keeping an eye out Maria's sister...but didn't see her) We went there to an amphitheater to see the Afropuertoricanos dance. It was a native folk dance that had a lot of African influence. It was nice. We got coco icecream from a vender on the street. Got a great picture of Barb by the "don't piss on grandma" sign (really, "don't walk on the grass" :) But we thought it was a good joke!) There is a great, old, preserved firestation in Ponce. Jon and I just happened to be wearing shirts that matched the backdrop. Cute.

It was a great evening. We had plans to go to the bioluminesant bay in Fajardo the next day, however, at that time "Omar" (who wan't really Omar yet) was in the area and we decided not to go because of the threat of rain.