Puerto Rico

or as Oscar says, Puerto Rrrrrrrrico.

Miguel had a 5 day flight to Puerto Rico and orginally, we had contracted his mother to take care of the kids. Due to unfortunate circumstances, she couldn´t take the buggers, so we had two options. Take the kids or Miguel goes by himself. I wasn´t going to allow Miguel to have 3 full days of pool and beach without me, so we packed up his suitcase (we fit everything in one, unbelievable) and decided to take the whole family. We didn´t tell Oscar anything because our plan was to "say goodbye" to Papa at the airport and if there was room in the plane, we would go with him. So, at the end, there was room and the Codes Bodien family flew with Papa to Puerto rrrrico.

The flight was interesting. Dani is not a good traveller. He screams when things don´t go his way and gets bored easily. Oscar is a champ. Plug him in to the TV and he could be there for hours. He had a couple books that he read and a puzzle, so he was happy as a clam. Dani, on the other hand, wasn´t. Oh well, it was only 8 hours....

We arrived all in one piece. The hotel was in the Isle Verde, which is outside of San Juan. It had a wonderful pool and of course, right on the beach. We arrived around 9pm so it was bedtime for all of us. The kids woke up around 4am but then went back to sleep until around 6am. Needless to say, we were one of the first people down for breakfast.

Our days consisted of beach and pool. The kids loved the pool.

Dani wasn´t a fan of the beach. At first he was afraid of the waves and didn´t like the texture of the sand. After a couple days, we convinced him that it wasn´t so bad and he finally went down to the surf. Oscar loves the beach. We made sandcastles, airports and just had a great time with hotwheel cars.

One day we took the bus down to Old San Juan. The buses were free so everyone and their grandmothers were on the bus. It was crowded but the kids were great. We got to the city and walked around the wall for a while, and then went to the Pigeon Park. Dani fell down admist all the bird gunk so we had to find a store to buy him new shorts (notice: he started out with blue ones and ended up with tan).

The El Moro Fortress was neat. We decided not to go into it because we were coming back with my family in November and it wasn´t too stroller friendly. The kids loved the trolley that we took back to the bus station. I think it was the highlight of their trip. Such simple pleasures.

The flight back was uneventful. Dani and Oscar both slept and I actually got to eat a meal and sleep myself. The crew was very nice and it was the last flight for one of the flight attendents. He had worked for Iberia over 35 years. There is talk that Iberia is going to get rid of this line/trip. I certainly hope not. I would love to do it again, but maybe, without kids.......