Fort San Felipe del Morro

On our last evening of our trip to Puerto Rico, Peter and I made it over to Old San Juan. It was beautiful. The one place we really wanted to see was Fort San Felipe del Morro. Using this fort, the Spanish kept San Juan Bay safe from sea born threats. The project began in 1539, and it took about 400 years to get it to where it is today. It is amazing that they were able to construct such a building back before all of our modern technology.

Me at the entrance to the Fort.

Peter at the entrance to the fort.

Here is Peter sitting on top of a stack of cannon balls. There were a few cannons for us to see in the fort. Another thing I found interesting is that they built a ramp with the stairs to the top floor to push the cannons up and down. The stairs only had runs of about 5 steps before a little landing so the soldiers could rest as they transported these extremely heavy pieces of equipment.

Here am I next to a square box? This is actually an air vent so that the areas far below the top of the fort would have the air they needed. Such forethought. It's interesting how they had everything figured out way back then, and I get into the frame of mind that they never had anything before all this great technology came into play. People in the past were much smarter than I sometimes give them credit for.

The Port San Juan Light. A beautiful lighthouse that was added to the fort in 1843. Then it was replaced in 1908 by the US military. I believe they hit it during the Spanish-American war, which was the last time El Morro participated in an active fight.

The structure you see on top that does not fit with the rest of the structure was added during World War II by the US to protect against possible German attacks.

This is a view of part of the fort from one of the levels of the fort. You can see the ramp I was talking about earlier that they would use to move the cannons between levels. Off to the right side of the picture, there are several nooks and crannies the soldiers would go down in to fight with quite a bit of cover.

This is a view of Old San Juan from the fort.

Word Confusion

I have recently noticed that Josh has started to understand plural vs singular and how to conjugate a few verbs. He really tries to use the right form of the "be" verb... am, are, were, was, etc. What's funny, though, is his interpretation of some words that sound plural, and how he tries to make them singular.

We have a mailbock. (Singular for mailbox...)

The other day he was pulling clothes out of the closet. At one point he pulled down one shirt. So, he told me he had pulled down one "clo." (Singular for clothes, obviously.)

English is definitely not always intuitive, but he is doing great! :)

Conrad Hotel in San Juan

In June, Peter had a conference in Puerto Rico. When I found out about this possibility, I decided I would go with him. My parents were kind enough to fly out here and watch the kids so that Peter and I could go on a trip alone. Our 6th anniversary was June 20, and this trip was June 22-26. It made for a nice anniversary celebration. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Here are some pictures of our view from our room.


We got a "City View" room, but it happened to be one of about 7 rooms that had a good view of the ocean as well as the city because it was on the right corner of the hotel. Lucky us!

This view is a little more off the same direction as the previous picture.

This view was the other direction. We could still see some ocean, but that storm ravaged building added so much to the picture. :)

This is a picture of our building from the bridge up the street a bit. The walkway in the middle of the picture connected our building with the main building. Our room was on the 6th floor. You can see our window if you count down to the 5th one from the top. Like I said, these are the only rooms where you could see off the side like this. All the other corners had walls that stuck straight out so you couldn't see anything past it. We really did luck out.

Emily in June

I have no idea what was going on here, but this expression is priceless.

Building with Daddy

With another baby coming, we needed to make some space in the crib. Which means, Emily needed to get into the toddler bed, and Josh had to get a new one. Since Peter loves to do woodworking projects, we decided he'd make a bunk bed. We use the top for storage, and Josh sleeps on the bottom. Here are some pictures of the kids helping Peter with the hard work. This was actually done back in mid-June, but I've just been slacking on the blogging thing lately.


Emily helping drill some holes. Josh found the sawdust to be quite entertaining. Here he is dropping on the ground.

Josh's turn with the drill. He's got it figured out so that Daddy doesn't even have to help hold it.

Crescent Beach

On June 11, we headed over to the Atlantic Coast to a beach called Crescent Beach. You know what the sad part is? This was our first trip to the beach since we moved here 2 years ago. Wow! Have we been missing out. The sand is so pretty and soft. And the kids had a blast. Here are a few pictures of our short time there. I say "short" time because after we had been there for about an hour, it started to rain. We waited a couple minutes, but it became apparent fairly quickly that the storm wasn't going to pass. The temperature dropped a full 25 degrees, and the wind picked up, so we were off to the van as soon as we could get there. Oh well. At least we know now what we've been missing, and we already have another trip to the coast planned for my birthday weekend in a couple weeks. Yeah!

Building an "ice cream cone." Can you tell that Peter doesn't make it to the pool with us much? Talk about a farmer's tan. So much for living in Florida for him. ;)

The kids loving every minute of the beach.

Josh is off to find more sand. Can't use the stuff right next to him. Gotta get the prime stuff over there.

Close up of Emily. This isn't the shot I was going for, but I think it turned out so cute!

Just a nice shot of the ocean and beach.

New(ish) Hairdo

Peter has always wanted me to get a perm. He tried to help with an at-home perm kit several years ago. That didn't take at all. So, I decided a few weeks back to go and have it done professionally. Here are the results.

Before

Have you ever done boomerang curlers? OUCH!!! This was sooooo heavy. And it took 3 hours. So, just for future reference, this will be the only perm Peter gets to see me with. Sorry, honey. Hope you enjoy it! :)

After