San Juan, Puerto Rico

Dallin & I decided that we wanted to take a little, last-minute summer vacation since we hadn't really done a trip in awhile. We decided that a cruise might be the best thing to do last minute since it doesn't require too much planning and we could kind of wing it. While we both had never been on a cruise before, we knew that we wanted to do the one that had the most stops (we'd go crazy on a ship for too long!). It turned out that there was only one cruise we found that had 5 stops, and it was a southern caribbean cruise that left from Puerto Rico. So, we went to Puerto Rico a few days in advance to do some cool things before boarding our ship.

We spent the first day walking the streets of Old San Juan and seeing the pirate forts.

I love walking the downtown area, it's just so charming and quaint. There's really pretty doors everywhere like these..

and such cute buildings painted bright colors

and the cobblestone road that paves the streets is just so pretty, old and blue!

While walking downtown, we stopped at this place called Casa Cortes ChocoBar and had the most delicious hot chocolate. Puerto Rico is known for it's cocoa which was perfect because Dallin and I are obsessed with hot chocolate! The only weird thing is that they like to put cheese in their hot chocolate :0

And we bought a ton of chocolate to bring home- these were the most delicious!

Even though I don't have pictures of it, one of the best things we did in Puerto Rico was the bio bay. It's seriously magical. We took a kayak tour through some mangroves trees to get to this big open bay. Once there, when you touch the water it literally starts glowing. We learned that there are tiny things in the water that have the same things in them as fireflies, and when they move, they glow. It's so crazy. I would throw the water on Dallin and he would be glowing. It was so fun to see since I've never seen anything like it before!

Being in Puerto Rico for the short weekend reminded me of all the good memories from my last trip here. I'm Puerto Rican and still have lot's of family that live on the island. It was only a few years ago that we were able to fly out and meet them all for the first time. You see, my Grandpa is from Puerto Rico and he was the only member of his family to ever move away from the island. Sadly, my grandpa passed when I was a little girl, but it was so fun for me to finally meet his Brothers pictured below, Eddy and Pedro.

They live in this house, deep in the hills of the small town Guayanilla. 

And there's a pretty road that leads to their house

and their backyard has gorgeous views.

We loved meeting our Puerto Rican cousins for the first time a few years ago...

...so much so that they even flew out to Utah to visit us after. Here's Julianna, Rosa and Luigi. We sure miss them!

PS- while in San Juan, don't feed the pigeons even though they sell bird seed everywhere... It's all fun and games until two of your siblings get pneumonia... ah!