July 11 was our last full day in Puerto Rico. Daddy, Carter, and I started the day with a quick trip to the water park.

Daddy tried and tried to convince (bribe) Carter to go down this slide, but he just wouldn’t do it. Daddy was the only one brave enough.

Once we got dressed, we drove back into San Juan. The boys went fishing out in the bay — Carter requested to go fishing for his birthday.

40 lb

30 lb

60 lb

25 lb

Raine and I stopped for lunch and then drove into the old town to look around real quick before we had to head back out to pick up the boys.

After dinner, Carter wanted to play chess.

July 12 we packed up, drove back into San Juan, and flew home. Poor Carter had to travel on his birthday, but we had all his presents ready when we got home. (And Tucker had left us a big circle of “presents” all over the carpet upstairs. Yuck!)

July 10 we headed back to El Yunque National Forest, this time with a reservation. First stop was La Coca Waterfall.

Next was a short hike to the Juan Diego Creek Waterfalls

We took the trail up to the upper falls too.

Apparently, this waterfall was a lot more painful to stand under than the last one!

After lunch we walked around El Baño Grande

Once we left the National Forest, we headed out to find Las Paylas natural water slides. We started out on the lower, slower slide.

Then Carter and Daddy took a few jumps from the rock. Raine and Daddy went off hiking while Carter tried to catch a fish with his bare hands.

Eventually, we worked our way up to the big slide.

That evening we went on a kayak tour to the bio bay, with its bioluminescent algae. It was the coolest thing to see it glow as you ran your hand or paddle through the water. My photos didn’t turn out, but this is enough to remember it.

July 9 we went back out to Palomino Island for some relaxation and snorkeling.

There were thunderstorms rolling through, mainly to the north of us, so we had to stay out of the water at some points. The kids went and “rented” a volleyball so that we could play while we waited.

We saw some really cool coral with some huge fish while we were out snorkeling. Of course my camera battery was dead when we saw it though!

The view from our balcony was fantastic and every evening the restaurant would have live music so we could sit outside and enjoy the view.

July 8 we drove out to El Yunque National Forest and looked around the visitor center because we didn’t have a reservation to drive into the park.

After the visitor’s center, we drove out to Yunque Ziplining for a few hours of adventure.

Trying the wild passion fruit

We got rained on for a brief minute

We had dinner on the rooftop at Bungalu

You can tell which meal is Raine’s!

July 6, we caught a 6:00 a.m. flight from DFW to San Juan then drove about an hour out to El Conquistador Resort.

July 7, after breakfast on the patio, we took the resort shuttle-boat out to Palomino Island for some snorkeling.

June 23-24 we met up with Aunt Sarah’s family in New Braunfels and hung out for a couple days.

The first day, Carter and Daddy went with the Jolley’s to Schlitterbahn water park while Raine and Mom went shopping at the outlet malls. We all met up for dinner that evening.

Saturday, we floated the Comal river.

Afterwards, we had lunch, then drove home.

Saturday we took Daddy to the Go Ape ropes course in Arlington. It was hot, but we toughed it out.

After the ropes course, Daddy and I did a scuba refresher course, but I don’t have any photos of that.

Sunday, Raine made dinner while I made a cake. Then we gave him some presents.

May 6

Highlight video:

Back: Fernanda, Cadia, Coach Grant, Ava Henesy, Grace, Jordan, Shinali, Kaitlyn, Katherine, Raine
Front: Olivia, Emma, Anna, Maya, Lilly

May 17 – Awards Ceremony

Raine received 2 academic awards at the awards ceremony. The first for AB Honor Roll (she got an 89% in Drama, her first college class; that was her lowest grade). The second was an award from her English teacher for her perseverance.

May 13 – Raine’s last game of the season was a 5-0 win

Highlights video from the game. Raine called me from school Friday afternoon super sick — fever, chills, sore throat. I took her straight to the urgent care to get all the tests run — strep, flu, COVID. Everything was negative, so they diagnosed her with an upper respiratory infection. I wasn’t sure she was going to be able to play on Saturday, but she pulled it together. You can tell she wasn’t in top form though.

May 20 – Anna Petchesky’s Bat Mitzvah at Congregation Beth Israel and Paradise Cove

May 29 Memorial Day

May 30 while Raine was attending to her leadership duties at Camp Collegiate, Carter, Daddy, and I went to Benny’s Cafe.

April 1

April 6

April 10

April 11 – Soccer banquet. Raine received a certificate for being on varsity as well as one for being nominated first team all district!

April 15

April 22

Raine took her first corner kick and she dropped it perfectly in front of the far side of the goal. Unfortunately, her teammate didn’t connect to put it in the goal.

April 29

Lane, Eli, Hayden, Luke, Weston, Aaron, Will (squatting), Benji, Jack, Blake, Carter, William

Highlight video of Raine’s kicks during the game.
I forgot to take my camera bag to her game on 4/27 and she scored a goal off a corner kick– it was beautiful! So on 4/29 she made sure that DJ had the camcorder so that he could film her corners. Unfortunately, she was kicking into a stiff wind (26 mph with gusts of 38 mph) so they didn’t go as far as usual.

And just for fun, here’s a link to a post with a video of Raine’s first corner kick.