Puerto Rico Episode 1

 

I’m going to post a lot of pictures and information about what we did because I want to have this when I print my blog so just skim if you are not interested!

We left for Puerto Rico on Friday evening and it was A LOT of traveling! We flew to L.A. for some weird reason, then took the red eye to Atlanta and then flew to San Juan. We were pretty exhausted but super excited to finally be there and feeling the humidity as soon as we stepped off the plane was pretty weird!

We picked up our rental car and I was pretty furious to find out that we had to pay $20 extra PER DAY because we didn’t have a credit card for them tohold! I still cannot believe it and I tried everything, but they made us pay the extra fees as extra insurance because we didn’t have a credit card to use. Wow. I’m glad we have chosen a debt free, no credit card lifestyle, but that ticked me off. Next time I will ask about those things! So that was an annoying way to start the trip, but we got sweet little 2 door Toyota Yaris and got on our way!

We borrowed my parents’ GPS and made our way to our hotel (Hotel Yunque Mar) in Luquillo. It was about an hour drive from the airport and it took a little while to find it since the GPS didn’t have the exact address, but we made it! The hotel had an amazing view and was literally on the ocean. The waves were coming right up to the hotel and we could hear them from our room. The room was simple and clean, but not fancy and we loved that it was a little off the main path and not a big touristy resort. It was perfect for us and a great deal with free hot breakfast!

The pool on the left was our hotel and the house on the right was a private residence that we wanted to buy…for real! It was awesome!

The view from the steps on the hotel that led to the top floor where our room was.

We immediately changed into our swimming suits and walked along the beach to Luquillo Beach which was about 1 1/2 miles away. It was absolutely beautiful and we were loving it. The rainforest is on the right side of me which is the same direction as our hotel. I’m realizing how white I was after looking at this picture! We got a ton of sun and I’m not quite as pasty now as I was when we first arrived!

One thing that totally shocked us was how dirty some parts of the beach were. The beach around our hotel was gorgeous, and Luquillo beach (below) was awesome, but in between those beaches, it was filthy. There was trash all over right behind the sand and we just couldn’t believe that people let a place that beautiful get trashed like that. It was really sad.

The beach was almost empty and we just walked around and enjoyed it. Most of the beaches we went to were very uncrowded and we were even alone on multiple beaches! Puerto Rico is not super touristy and we were the only non PR people at a lot of places that we went! We really liked it though and I’m not a big fan of touristy places anyway.

We ate some kind of nasty fried food at the beach and then walked back to the hotel. We changed and drove to the Kiosks for dinner. The Kiosks are about a mile long strip of tons of different restaurants right on the beach. Some are more expensive than others and they offer all different kinds of food. There were tons of people there just hanging out, eating, drinking and listening to their LOUD music. It was a really fun atmosphere and dinner was good too! The below picture is during the day when a lot of them are closed. When we went for dinner, all the doors were open and there were cars and people everywhere. We realized that the dirty/trashed parts of the beach that I mentioned earlier were right behind these kiosks. It was really unfortunate that it was so dirty in that area.

On Sunday we slept in a bit and then drove to a branch for Sacrament meeting. It was only a few minutes away from our hotel and we had no idea what to expect. It was amazing. The church was really nice, but small and there were only about 18 people there! Luckily Dan speaks Spanish but people were so welcoming and kind and all the women gave me a big hug. The Sacrament meeting was in a small room with chairs set up and they used a CD for the songs (I would have volunteered to play the keyboard they had, but I just got there and felt a little uncomfortable!). It was testimony meeting and almost every person bore their testimony. Dan translated for me pretty well and I am pretty good at following the basics if people don’t speak too fast.

I was so touched by the meeting and the whole experience there. To see the people sacrificing to be at church when it’s such a small branch was amazing. It’s so much easier here where most people you know are LDS and you have a huge congregation. It would be really hard to go when there are only 20 people or so in your entire branch! There was one time where a woman was bearing her testimony and Dan got distracted by listening and he wasn’t translating for me very much, but I got really emotional and I could just feel her spirit and how strong she was. It was an amazing experience that I will definitely never forget.

The people were so welcoming and loving and were so happy to have us there. I’m so glad we chose to go and my testimony grew so much just by being around those wonderful people and feeling the spirit they brought to their Sacrament meeting. It was amazing.

The room we had Sacrament meeting in didn’t really have windows, just big wide shutters that were open to allow a breeze. It was pretty steamy and humid in there but they had about 10 fans on the ceiling in just that small room! It was awesome to look outside and see all the palm trees and greenery everywhere too.

After church we went home and changed clothes and headed to Seven Seas Beach in Fajardo. It was about a 20-30 minute drive from our hotel and it was gorgeous. We walked in with another couple and their college age daughter and we ended up sitting by them and going to another beach with them later. They were really nice and the only other non PR people we saw the entire day!

The water was so blue and warm and there were no waves so we were able to do some snorkeling and it was great. I love how relaxing it is to snorkel and just float around in the water and listen to yourself breathing. It was great. We didn’t really see many fish or anything interesting here but we did later at the next beach we went to.

We had read in a guidebook and online that there were some other really secluded beaches about a mile or two walk from Seven Seas and so we decided to check that out after a few hours. We walked through a jungley type forest and it was so neat! It was super dense and there were HUGE termite nests everywhere.

We got to the beach (Escondido and a litle further down was Convento) and it was stunning. We were literally the only people around and it was gorgeous. The jungle was right behind us and the ocean was in front of us. It was a nature reserve and we heard there are turtles there sometimes. We didn’t see any, but there were tons of reefs with awesome snorkeling and we saw a lot of cool fish too.

Dan was pretty wary of sharks so I had to keep dragging him further out but it was still less than 8 feet deep in most places and only a few inches some places where the reef was.

I got my toes in the water, toes in the sand, not a worry in the world…haha I love that song from Zach Brown Band and I just kept thinking about it the whole time!

So beautiful!!

Dan was being Tarzan on one of the Jumanji vines that were everywhere when we walked back through the jungle to the car. We had such a great time and got lots of sun even though we kept slathering ourselves with sunscreen! We did learn that the spray sunscreen is good for face and head, but not so good for everything else if the sun is super strong. The coverage was really splotchy and we had random splotches where we got burned. The spray sunscreen also ran out in about 2 days and we went through another full bottle of sunscreen and a full bottle of aloe vera during our whole trip!

One other helpful tip that I wanted to share is that we brought a bunch of nuts and seeds that I bought at Winco in the bulk section (they have a huge selection for cheap) and they were a perfect snack. They didn’t melt or get messy in the heat and they were a great snack when we didn’t want to go search for food or spend money on something.

Return from paradise

 

Holy bananas, we are back!!! We got back from our ridiculously awesome trip to Puerto Rico last night and we are back at work today. Barf. But the trip was incredible and I will be posting a ton of pictures and information about our adventures as soon as I get some time to download and edit the pictures. We haven’t even unpacked yet because we were traveling for 16 hours yesterday and got home at 9:30 last night and went straight to bed!

Here are some of the highlights of the trip:

• Staying in a hotel on the beach and hearing the waves crashing all night
• Below is the view from our hotel where we ate breakfast every morning! Amazing

• All day snorkel trip to the most beautiful islands I have ever seen
• We went to Palominito (below) and it was incredible! They used it to film the last scene of Pirates of the Caribbean where he gets stuck on the island. It was amazing.

 

• Ziplining in El Yunque rain forest
• Hike and swim to La Mina falls waterfall in the rain forest
• Driving our tiny blue 2 door Toyota Yaris all over Puerto Rico (seriously an adventure)
• Enjoying the view from our condo in Rincon looking out at the ocean
• Wandering around Old San Juan
• Bio Bay Tour in Vieques-this still seems like it was magic or fake; it was incredible!
• Being completely alone on several different beaches
• Going to church at a branch in Luquillo-the most amazing and humbling experience ever
• Surfing lessons
• Dan constantly worrying about sharks (he is both totally interested and terrified of sharks!)
• Hearing the coqui frogs at night everywhere we went
• Watching surfers in Rincon and then realizing there were whales out behind the surfers and watching the whales breach several times
• A lot of sunshine, salt, and sunburns

A few pounds

 

I have been debating about if I wanted to write about this or not, but then I realized this is my blog and I want to write about it, so I will! Haha but I don’t want to sound braggy, I just want to share what I have learned and some success I have had losing some weight lately! In about two months, I have lost 12 pounds! I have also lost several inches (haven’t measured for a few weeks) and I have gone down one full pant size!

I have always been active and even after graduating high school and college, I always worked out pretty regularly. But my body has changed and my lifestyle is not super active (sitting at a computer all day-boo!), and I have gained some weight over the past few years. It has not been a huge deal to me and I’ve always felt pretty comfortable with my body and even with a few pounds, I wasn’t usually too upset about it. But I kept working out and nothing really changed. I even ran a lot last year with the Ragnar and Half Marathon, and even though I was healthy and felt good, I didn’t really lose any weight.

So finally I just decided I wanted to try something different and change my eating as well (novel idea right?!). I always knew my diet has the most affect on my weight, and even though I didn’t eat tons of junk or terrible food, I was just eating too much and still having a lot of treats! So right before Christmas I decided to buy the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred and I started tracking every single thing I ate at Livestrong.com. First of all, Jillian’s work out is awesome. And by awesome, I mean really really hard. I am literally dripping with sweat after I do it, but I love it! Dan has done it with me and he couldn’t believe how hard the “girl workout” is! I also love that it’s only 20 minutes because I think I can do just about anything for 20 minutes and it’s over really quickly. The moves are awesome and I absolutely love doing this workout.

So I started doing Jillian and tracking my calories and I quickly realized how many calories I was eating. I love that Livestrong will automatically adjust your daily calorie goals based on your weight and you can get more calories if you burn more calories! I have used Livestrong to track my calories, workouts, and weight. It is really easy to look up calories and if I go to a restaurant, I have been able to find the nutritional information online most of the time. Since becoming aware of the calories in the foods that I eat, I have really changed my eating habits for the better. I have spread out snacks and eating throughout the day and I don’t usually eat sweets during the week. I still have had plenty of treats, just a lot less at a time and only once a week or so. And it has gotten so much easier to say no to a treat than it used to be! Now I’m eating tons of fruits and vegetables and a lot of fish. I’m amazed at how few calories fruits and especially vegetables have! A huge helping of zucchini has somewhere around 15 calories! I usually add some extra virgin olive oil, garlic and a little salt and cook up the veggies and it’s awesome. We are going to plant a small garden this Spring and we may join a local CSA (where you get local food from farms near you for a good price). I have become really aware of everything that I’m eating and I think twice about if it’s worth the calories before I eat it!

I have really noticed drastic changes since I have started changing my eating and doing some new work outs. I have noticed that I have firmed up a lot, my stomach is flatter and my legs and arms are much stronger and more toned. I also feel great and I look forward to working out after work. We have a little home gym in our basement and we have used it so much. Dan has a weight set, we have a treadmill, elliptical and some weights. I have been doing the 30 day shred for 20 minutes, then usually running or doing the elliptical for 15 or 20 minutes. I have also started doing the ab ripper section of the P90x workout (holy hard). I’ve come to realize that it’s so true that diet is 80% and exercise is 20% if you want to lose weight. I probably would have lost most of the weight without exercise, but it is so important for your health and your well being to exercise every day. I feel awesome and I love that I’m getting stronger.

One other thing I have done is to try to spread out what I eat throughout the day so I don’t stuff my face when it’s time for a meal. Here is what I would eat during a typical work day:

• 6am breakfast: english muffin with 1% milk (I also eat my fave cereal-Frosted Flakes or Honey Bunches sometimes)
• 8am at work: hard boiled egg or banana
• 10am: light yogurt, goldfish, crackers, etc
• 12 lunch: lean cuisine, smart ones, great value lean cuisine meals, progresso soup, or subway sandwich
• 3pm: bowl of fruit, can of peaches
• 5pm: work out
• 6ish dinner: grilled salmon, with tons of asparagus/other veggie and a small portion of herb and butter rice with 1% milk

I have been drinking a lot of water but I still have milk even though it has calories, I think it’s important to keep drinking milk for all the benefits it provides. And of course I’m still drinking my Diet Coke! But drinking tons of water has helped me feel really good.

Sorry for the hugely long post, but I wanted to share some things I’ve learned lately and maybe it will help someone else! I still have a few more pounds to get to my goal weight/pant size, but I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made and more importantly, I’m happy with how I feel. I’m actually looking forward to wearing my swim suit in Puerto Rico!

A few more days…

 

Only a few more days and we are heading to the warm waters of the Caribbean! We are going to Puerto Rico and spending 8 nights/9 days relaxing and soaking up some sun. I. cannot. wait. Honestly, I am beyond excited and I have done most of the planning for the trip so I think I’m even more excited because of that. And seeing Puerto Rico on The Bachelor just about put me over the edge with excitement. We will be going to the island they stayed on (Vieques).The beaches look amazing and I know we will have a blast.

We are renting a car while we are there so hopefully we can get around okay but here are some of the fun things we have planned so far:

Full day snorkeling trip to the island of Culebra and other small islands. We will take a catamaran and go to several different snorkel spots. We also get lunch on the boat and free alcohol! I’m crossing my fingers  they will have some virgin options and Diet Coke!

We are going to try to go to church somewhere near San Juan so hopefully that will be fun. Luckily Dan speaks Spanish so that will be a huge help as well!

I also got this adorable swimsuit that I love! I’m so excited to wear it and it fits really great. I was nervous ordering it online, but I’m really happy with it! And side note-that is not me in the picture…I know I look exactly like that in a bathing suit and I always awkwardly put my arm on my neck like that, but it’s not me. :)

We also have surf lessons planned for a few hours and Dan is going to be in heaven. He loves surfing and just playing in the ocean so hopefully we can get some good practice and we’ll be surfing pros by the time we get back!

I had mentioned that there is this amazing Bioluminescent Bay with flagellates that glow in the water and apparently it is really amazing. Turns out, you can’t go during a full moon or the days before a full moon so the entire week we are there is the time that you can’t do this! I was so bummed about it. Then a few weeks ago I was reviewing our flight information and I realized that I had booked our flight for one day later than we had planned! Luckily we won’t have to miss work, but we’re coming back later now and I had to scramble to get another hotel room. BUT we can now do the Bio Bay tour on our last night there! I’m so stoked about it and who doesn’t want to spend an extra day in Puerto Rico?! Bio Bay picture below.

 

We also plan on spending some time in Old San Juan, eating a lot of good food, playing at the beach and hitting up the El Yunque Rainforest. Hopefully we will find some good adventures and I know we will have a great time together! We always have so much fun when we do vacations like this and I just love doing fun things like this with Dan. We are always talking about or planning our next trip and it’s something we just really love to do together.

On a completely unrelated note, raise your hand if you have been to Marshalls/TJ Maxx/Homegoods? Whoa. Wow. Love it. I live relatively close to the new Station Park in Farmington and they have Marshalls, Homegoods and Ross as well as some other cool stores (I’m excited about Gordmanns too). Marshalls/TJ Maxx/Homegoods are all part of the same chain so all the sweet Homegoods gift cards I got for Christmas/bday can be used at all those stores! Dream come true!

Honestly, I just love the amazing deals you can get at these stores. All this awesome name brand stuff for a fraction of the price! From home decor awesomeness-rugs, lamps, furniture, pillows, and mirrors to kitchen supplies-Le Creuset cookware, pots and pans, and really nice kitchen stuff, to clothes, shoes, baby stuff, coats, scarves, purses, and sunglasses! I got so much great stuff for such amazing deals! There are TONS of awesome shoes at Marshalls and they were all brands like Jessica Simpson, BCBG, Steve Madden, Jimmy Choos, Chinese Laundry, and Calvin Klein. I got an adorable Coral colored maxi dress by Calvin Klein for $25 and brown BCBG wedges for $15! There are tons of cute baby and kids clothes, work out clothes, and baby items like a Boppy and a Skip Hop Duo diaper bag (for more than half off!). I love that place! So go check them out and you won’t be disappointed!

Between Ross, Homegoods and Marshalls, I made out like a bandit and got a bunch of cute stuff for my trip and some pillows and things for my house! Sweet!

A whole new world…

Right after I got my surgery, Dan kept singing the Aladdin song to me (in a Jasmine voice). So I thought it would make a good title… anyway, it has been two weeks since I had Lasik so I thought I would give a quick update.

The surgery and everything went well and it was pretty dang quick. They were really good about telling me exactly what to expect so there were no surprises. It didn’t hurt, but the worst part was when there was something holding my eye open while the suction cup thing was put on my eye. I had to stare at a bright light and it was really uncomfortable because I wanted to look away and blink really badly but I couldn’t. It was over in about a minute though. The actual laser part took 17 seconds for one eye and 20 seconds for the other eye so it was really fast and didn’t hurt.

Afterwards, we went home and I slept on the way home and for about 1 hour when we got home. When I woke up, my eyes were really sensitive to light so I just stared at the wall in the dark for awhile and then put on my sunglasses and watched TV later on. For about 2 days afterward, it felt like I had sand in my eyes but it wasn’t bad at all. And I could see right away! It just got better every day.

Here are the top 10 things that I have noticed and that I love about having Lasik:

10. Wearing headbands. I don’t wear tons of headbands but because of my dumb glasses, I really couldn’t wear headbands. It’s nice to wear the stretchy ones when I’m working out too.

9. I don’t have to deal with glasses and a towel on my head. Wrapping my hair in a towel and then putting on glasses doesn’t really work.

8. I can tell which bottle is shampoo and which is conditioner in the shower. Seeing in the shower in general is awesome. I could never tell which was shampoo and which was conditioner until I held it next to my nose. Being able to see my shampoo, face wash and see to shave my legs is great! We have a glass shower door and it’s also nice to be able to see Dan while he’s getting ready or whatever. He usually is flexing for me and being able to see that totally rocks. Scandalous I know…

7. Camping will be easy. It’s not like we camp every weekend, but we do like to camp and be outside in the summer a lot and not dealing with contacts will be GREAT. I don’t have to worry about having clean hands and a dirty contacts and blah blah…contact stuff.

6. Working out is not as annoying. My glasses would constantly slide down my nose or fall off my face if I was doing push ups or something. They would even fog up sometimes if I was really working hard. Side note: Jillian Michaels 30 day shred is AWESOME. I seriously love it and Dan loves it too! It’s freakishly hard though but a great quick workout.

5. My glasses don’t fog up when I open the oven. This was a surprisingly annoying problem and I cook and bake relatively often so suddenly going blind from fogged glasses when I opened the oven was a small problem that I don’t have anymore.

4. I can rub my eyes. (well soon I can…I’m waiting another month or two before rubbing them just to be safe!) This is such a weirdly wonderful feeling. Rubbing my eyes can be really satisfying in a strange way but it’s awesome to not worry about contacts.

3. I can wear make up. I could wear make up before I got LASIK, but once I started wearing glasses for the past year, I haven’t been able to see well enough to actually do my eye makeup without it taking 30 minutes. It was nearly impossible to put on eyeliner and all that so I would just wear mascara. Now I can do my eyes again and I got a bunch of new makeup from Ulta that I LOVE!

2. No more contacts or glasses. For at least 20 more years until I’m old. For those of you wondering, 45 and up=old. Actually 35 is old too but hopefully I won’t need reading glasses for a long time! So mom and dad-that means you are ultra old.

1. Wake up from sleeping and see. This is the most wonderful, unexplainable part of getting Lasik. This is something I can never remember doing before. I never slept in my contacts and if I napped in them, they would get dry and blurry so this is totally new to me. I was reaching for my glasses out of habit for a week or so but then I would remember I didn’t need them and it was amazing. I still want to die when my alarm goes off (even though I go to bed at 9 most of the time), but at least I can SEE!

I love being able to see and like I said, my vision has gotten better every day. They say it can take a few months or up to a year for everything to get completely sharp and for halos at night to go away. My right eye is still a little blurrier than my left because it had to be corrected more and the suction cup made it swell more than my left eye. But even that isn’t noticeable or bothersome at all. Getting Lasik was one of the best things I have ever done and I don’t regret it for a second! I’m so glad I had the opportunity to do this and I’m so grateful for Dan’s total support and sacrifice (his paychecks are less now because we used Flex Spending money to pay for it).

And a side note-we used our Perkstreet debit card to pay for Lasik and then we got reimbursed from our Flex Spending account. We got 2% cash back for paying for the surgery, which was awesome! We saved up our “perks” and got $400 deposited into our account about a month ago and we used that money to pay for some our vacation to Puerto Rico in March! I love Perkstreet!

If anyone has questions about Lasik or Hoopes or whatever, just ask me in the comments and I would love to give you any information that I can about it.

Eagles and the Great Salt Lake

First of all-I CAN SEE! I’m a new woman and I can actually see without glasses or contacts! I can’t believe how amazing and wonderful it is and everything went really well. I just have some dryness in my right eye and it’s a little more blurry than the left because of that. But I can still see really well and the dryness should go away. Being able to see is such a blessing and I’m so grateful that I could have Lasik! More on that later…

My little niece Emily got baptized a few weeks ago and it was the same day as my nephew Brigham. Emmy lives in South Jordan and Brig lives in Idaho so Dan went North and I went South. It was great and I got to speak at her baptism! I loved it and being part of it was awesome. Sarah is loving on her baby brother Matt (below).

We came across an amazing discovery in our very own neighborhood a few weeks ago. Dan was taking down the Christmas lights and saw an eagle fly right over our house! He watched it and came and got me and we followed it and realized that there is an “eagle tree” less than half a mile from our house where tons of eagles hang out!

The above pic is the best one we had with the most we have seen at one time in the tree (9 I believe). They just chill on the tree and then fly around our neighborhood and out over the Great Salt Lake! Apparently they come here during winter and you can see a lot of them around Farmington Bay. We’re not too far from there and apparently they like this tree! It is just across a corn field on the edge of our neighborhood where Dan and I spent many hours running. It’s pretty crazy to see these huge eagles in the wild and at our house and not Yellowstone!

Mike and Hailey came over on Saturday and we walked across the field to get a better look. Some of them flew away, but it was pretty awesome to watch them and get a few pictures. The weather was gorgeous too! I thought Dan was going to lost his mind because he was so excited. He loves animals…

After the eagle adventure, we decided to drive about 2 miles north-west of our house and hike out around the ponds surrounding the Great Salt Lake. I was a bit skeptical about an adventure, but I should have known that with Mike and Dan together, we would definitely find an adventure.

It was so beautiful and not too cold at all! There were huge cattails and the ponds were frozen and white and the sky was bright blue.

Dan was totally ready to find an adventure.

We discovered the cattails were awesome and exploded if you squeezed them or hit each other with them. We had tons of fun with them and of course the boys beat each other with them and got covered in the seeds.

You can see the seeds that explode from the cattails on the bottom right of the picture below. We had that stuff all over us.

We cautiously walked out on one of the frozen ponds and soon found that it was completely frozen several inches thick. It was amazing and I couldn’t believe how beautiful and remote it was just a few miles from our house (I guess I can-we live in the boonies!).

We made some snow angels.

Mike and Hailey made some backwards snow angels.

We managed to entertain ourselves out there for a long time.

We made a long slide and the more we ran and slid on the ice, the slicker it got! It was awesome how far we slid. Mike said they used to do this on the streets in Russia.

Amazingly, no one slipped although it was close a few times.

We had a blast and it ended up being a great adventure for sure! We even got some sunshine on our white, pasty faces! Hurray!