Adventures in Puerto Rico: El Yunque Rain Forest Part 1

Our Puerto Rican adventure continues to the El Yunque Rain Forest, one of the greenest, most beautiful places I've seen in a long time.  It was amazing, hiking around, seeing all the beautiful trees and flowers and waterfalls.  It reminded me a lot of the Lead Jungle in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.  :-)  The humidity did wonders for Lyssa, turning her hair curly, and it opened up my sinuses in a much needed way. Fabulous!

The parents wanted a picture of the two of them for once, and I was happy to oblige.  

It's hard to tell just how tall this lovely waterfall was, but it was pretty high and very beautiful.

Robert was a wonderful help with the kiddos.  I wasn't in the right car to hear it, but apparently he changed the words to a  Jurassic Park song talking all about going to the rain forest.  Funny guy!  He had a point though... parts of it looks like something right out of Jurassic Park. *On a side note, do you remember that movie?  I saw it with Robert when I was in 4th grade (meaning he was probably in 1st or 2nd grade) and we spent the majority of the time hiding on the floor under my dad's blue jacket.*

While we were at the Rain Forest we met up with my Aunt Tarla, Uncle Mark, cousin Nils, his wife Shannon, and their adorable daughter, Gwen.  Gweny is awesome.  She is one of the cutest kids I know and she plays so well with Alec, always so patient and so fun!

Again, you'd never guess that Alan was having a good time by looking at his facial expressions, but I guess that's classic Alan!

My cousin, Caitlin, and Erin's friend/wedding photographer, Brienne, decided to climb up the rocks to check out the waterfall up close and read the sign about flash floods.

Alec and Gwen warmed right up to each other and immediately started plotting their quest down the rocks below the waterfalls.  Unfortunately their plans were foiled as they were being closely watched by adults.  

Being a rain forest and all, it started raining!  Everyone got out of their cars and danced around in the streets and climbed coconut trees... everyone except me and the babies that is.  Oh well.  It looked like fun!

We took a nice hike through the rain forest to see a really really big beautiful waterfall.  Along the trail there were clumps of bamboo that reminded me of LOST (the TV show... next season starts in a few weeks!) and  I simply had to take a picture!  

Though Lyssa enjoyed the constant holding and attention, once we were back from the hike she appreciated Grandma giving her some freedom.  

At this point you may be asking yourself why there aren't any pictures of the big beautiful waterfall!  I was hiking a bit slower with the babies so we were about 5 minutes behind the rest of the group.  Right as we came into the waterfall clearing I watched (to my utmost horror) my brother in law, Ryan (The GROOM) slip on a rock and smash his face.  Frankly, I thought he broke his neck and I totally panicked.  Luckily he did not break his neck, but he did hit his head really hard, giving himself a rather nasty gash across the check and on his forehead.  We were all a little rattled, and when Ryan was ready to get up we all headed back to the cars.

Though we were all a little worried about Ryan, he seemed to be in good spirits so we made another stop at a lookout tower.  Unfortunately the tower was closed.  That wasn't about to stop Brienne.  She's an athlete through and through.

Alec was getting tired and felt a little jealous that some of the girls had flowers behind their ears but he didn't, so Grandma decided to help him out with that. 

Mike, my monkey brother, scaled the wall with ease, not wanting to be outdone by Brienne.

And this is a glazed, tired tiger.  He was just staring out at the ocean, ready to fall asleep.  

Fortunately Alec stayed awake long enough for us to stop for dinner (yummy beans and rice) and get him ready for bed.  We still had a long 3 hour drive across the Island to get to our Sunset Villa in Rincon. Oh but that three hour drive was totally worth it... More on that coming soon. For now...

 We wish you and yours a Merry Christmas Eve!