Berry Pie Disaster

We had Thanksgiving with Jon's family this year and gathered at his aunt's house. I was in charge of 3 banana cream pies and 2 berry pies. My friends in my exercise group said berry pies from scratch are hard because they often don't set up and are runny AND the berries are super expensive this time of year. They all agreed that Marie Callendar's razzleberry pie was super good and was only $3.99, so I ended up buying those two and doing the banana from scratch. I had never made a pie crust before--yes, I'm a loser--and did NOT know that they shrink when they are cooked, so the crust was pretty puny. But who likes tons of pie crust when you could have more filling??? I baked the berry pies on Wednesday night and then after a bit, put them in the fridge. Just before I went to bed, I opened the fridge to get some water and noticed one of the pies had tipped over. Yikes!! It had plastic wrap over the top, so I figured that it was fine, just not pretty. I kept that one and went out on Thanksgiving morning to buy another pie and quickly baked that one up. A few days later, yes--days!!, I noticed that there was some berry filling down the back of the fridge. As I removed drawers, I realized that there was more damage than I thought. Ugh. This picture shows the pie mess AFTER I scooped out all the gunk on the bottom. No wonder that messy pie was pretty dry...

Santa's Coming to Town!!

The lights outside the city building--that is Jarren and Jenna.

A miniature Christmas horse.

Being silly while waiting in line.

Jarren getting tired of waiting in line.

Jenna--a little tired and nervous

Sitting on Santa's lap

Santa and Mrs Claus

Jarren, telling Santa that mom said he could only ask for one thing (hence the one finger)

I believe I posted something similar to this about this time last year. Every year, Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive to our town on a big, red fire engine on the Monday after Thanksgiving. About 1 billion people come to see the big event. Well, maybe not quite that many... It's a totally free event that the city puts on--scones, marshmallow roasting, hot chocolate, hayride caroling, crafts, cookie decorating, a visit with Santa, along with a treat and coloring book and crayons. So yeah, we went. Jon was out of town and Kendall had basketball practice and had hurt his leg, so he and Kristen stayed home and I took the younger two. We only waited in line for about 1.5 hours, more than half of that time was outside. Anyway...it's fun and great memories for the kids. I took all the pictures with my iPod, so they're not the best quality.

Decorating a sugar cookie

Puerto Rico Part III

View from our Inn.

A lizard on the wall outside our Inn's door. We even found a lizard in our room on the floor.

View from the other side of our Inn.

A big leaf in the rain forest--compared to Kristen's foot.

Jon and Kristen in the rain forest.

Waterfall in the rain forest.

Stream in the rain forest.

Looking up in the rain forest.

Kristen on a hike in the rain forest.

At the top of that tower.

At the top of a tower at the top of the rain forest--a lot of mist.

Jon in the tower.

What the humidity does to Kristen's hair--ringlets.

Luquillo Beach--beautiful and soft, but no shells or crabs.

Having fun in the ocean

Knocked over by a wave (Kristen)

We heard a big thump behind us--it was a coconut falling. Yikes!!

Seven Seas beach on the last morning

Jon finally had a day off to explore with us. We went to the rain forest and let me tell you, it really does rain. Pretty much all the time. Like 230+ inches of rain a year. I wanted to pack ponchos, but we decided that two umbrellas would be fine. Yeah, if there are only two people because the hiking trails were so narrow that someone was always out in the rain. It was gorgeous and green though!!! After spending the morning there and then having lunch, Jon dropped Kristen and I off to the beach we really wanted to go to the day before. It was just a few minutes from our Inn, versus that all day bus ride. We spent a few hours there. The sand was so so so soft--it was amazing. The waves were pretty good too, but...there were no shells. Or crabs. Jon went back to the rain forest to hunt for birds and we went back to the Inn for an early night--we were all exhausted! The next morning, we went to another beach--kind of out of the way and very hard to find. There were some kind of trees there that reminded me a little of pine trees (messy) and there was a lot of sea life--cool fish and stuff--and shells. We spent an hour or so there before we had to head back to the airport. It was soooo nice and relaxing. It took my brain about a week to kick back into gear. I love the beach so much--it's so calming and soothing to me. Puerto Rico in general wasn't quite what I was expecting. In the city, pretty much everyone speaks English. Out in the country, they don't. I'm sure they know a little, but aren't used to using it. I had to stop at a small store and we did the entire exchange in Spanish--well, with me guessing about how much money to give them. Ha! The houses are interesting too. Most seem really run down. Everything has bars around it. Instead of having a walled-in garage, it has a roof and bars around it with a gate you have to unlock and open each time. The windows and porches and yards are all gated and barred too. I guess with all the weather situations they have, you don't want to spend a ton of money on your house. No yards either. Yet, most people had really, really nice cars. It didn't smell all that great either, unless you were in the rain forest or some beaches. I was expecting florally Hawaii, but no. All in all, I'm so glad we got the chance to go!!!

Puerto Rico Part II

Beautiful, but no beach (I mean, sand)

Cool view of the city through this little trail

Great ocean view, but not much for sitting and relaxing

Dragon cloud

The next day, Jon was once again working, so Kristen and I decided to go to another beach. There was one we wanted to go to, but the guidebook said it would take all day to get there by bus. We opted to try another beach not too far from the hotel. We got there and it was beautiful, but there wasn't a beach. And it was in a pretty trashy area. Kristen didn't want to keep walking to find the actual sand, so we headed back and spent the day at the hotel beach, even though we had to check out. It was still a public beach. We changed in the bathrooms and Kristen left her ipod there and it was stolen. Ugh. Jon came to get us and we headed to the northeast end of the island, stopping for some real traditional food (it made Jon sick and Kristen could hardly eat any because it all had meat). We ended up getting to our Inn kind of late and it was amazing--soooooooooo noisy with frogs and toads. Especially coqui frogs. They are these teeny little things but are soooo super loud. It was kind of hard to sleep. :)

Puerto Rico Part I

Old Town (San Juan)

View from the south end of Old Town. Haha--I thought it was the north end when we were there. :)

Old Town--wondering which street to take.

Ah---FOOD!!! Ben & Jerry's sure was good.

View off the balcony of our hotel room. Very nice.

Kristen in the ocean at the hotel beach. It was almost like a little bay.

View of the ocean from the hotel beach. Those rocks kept the waves from being too big.

Little tiny crab--Kristen's pointing to it.

Another crab.

The sunset almost looked like a fire. My camera didn't do it any justice.

 Jon had to go on business to Puerto Rico back in August. It just happened to be the first week of school and there was no way we could make it work for me to go along. So...when he had to go back about 6 weeks later, we made it happen, as hard as it was. We took Kristen with us, since Kendall's going to be going on a big trip in about 15 months. It was a long day of flying to get there and we got there late. The next day, Kristen and I tried to find our way around Old Town (San Juan) and then spent the rest of the day at the beach by the hotel. I have never felt so lost in all of my life!! There are few street signs and the roads are cobblestone and narrow. We took a bus and got off and I had no idea which was was north and which way was south. I would look at the map and have no idea how to hold it or where to go. We wandered around and around, looking for somewhere to eat breakfast. We were actually looking for a specific place, but couldn't find it. Finally, way past lunch time, we found a Ben & Jerry's. Haha. Luckily, they sold food as well. I didn't realize you had to push this yellow strip on the bus to signal the driver to stop. At our stop, I stood up and started walking to the front, but he didn't stop. We had to ride the whole route. I finally asked him to tell me when our stop was coming up and he yelled at me for not telling him to stop sooner. Oops. The beach was amazing!! Tons of sea shells; warm water; tons of itty bitty hermit crabs; warm water; soft sand and a sea breeze. And did I mention warm water?? :) Jon took us back to Old Town for dinner and luckily, he knew right where he was going.