Puerto Rico

Josh had a business trip to Puerto Rico this past week, and he very graciously (and wisely) bought me a ticket so I could join in on the fun. And that's all we had to pay for, besides the souvenir magnet I found on the last day. The company paid for the hotel room and the food, so it was a pretty cheap vacation. But, you get what you pay for ;). Don't get me wrong, we had a good time, but it wasn't a real vacation, you know? I mean, Josh worked during the day, so when they finished up, most tours would be done for the day, and then it would start to get dark, so seeing the sights was minimal. We did get to enjoy some things about the island, but if it was a real vacation, meaning we had whole days to do stuff, it would have been a lot more fun. We also think we got a bum deal on something, but I'll explain that later. Let's begin with the beginning of our journey.

The first part is embarrassing, but Josh gave me permission to tell the world. We missed our flights! We set the alarm, I promise! And it was on, I promise! It was scheduled to go off at 4:50 am, only it was set for 4:50 pm (oops!). Needless to say, we woke up at 8:30 wondering why it was light out. Yeah, we freaked out. I kept my cool though ;). No, not really. I was just more reserved in my concern. Josh was louder, but he got it all out, and then he got online and on the phone, and we were able to get flights for the afternoon. Instead of arriving in Puerto Rico by lunchtime, we landed at 10:30 pm. But hey, we got there, we were all in one piece, so it's cool. It's kinda funny thinking back on it, but I don't know if Josh thinks it's quite funny yet. I'll have to ask him.

Oh, on the plane ride there, we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I'm not into the Harry Potter movies or books, so I probably didn't catch everything, but I guess it was good. It was something to do. And on the plane ride back, they showed Evan Almighty, and that was pretty funny. Steve Carroll is quite hilarious, though I don't get the humor of The Office. Maybe I would if I worked in an office.

Ok, funny story while we were in the airport. In Atlanta, they have these subway systems that take you to the different concourses so you don't have to walk, and we were packed in there like a bunch of sardines, literally. Anyway, a recorded voice tells you to hold on cause the train is going to move. There was no pole around me or anything to lean on, so I grabbed the leather strap that was hanging from the ceiling. Well, a couple ladies next to me did not hold on, and when the train lurched forward, one lady stumbled and fell on the other one. Then she fell on me and I swayed back. There was nowhere to move my feet, so all I could do was hope my arm was strong enough to hold us all. We looked hilarious, cause they couldn't get their balance, so for a couple seconds I'm bearing the weight of two ladies and holding on with one arm. Josh came to the rescue and helped them up. I'm just glad I was holding on, cause who knows how far human dominoes would have gone?

Puerto Rico is a beautiful island, and it's also an American commonwealth, so we technically never left US soil, but it sure felt like it. All the signs were in Spanish, but some had English on them, only it was below the Spanish words. I've never felt like a minority before, and it can be a little overwhelming. But the guy Josh was going down there to see is a native, so having him around helped a lot. And we finally got the hang of some stuff, like asking for an English-speaking waiter, and we even picked up a little Spanish. "Salida" is a popular word on the highway... it means "exit." :)

They have a lot of the same restaurants that we have. We ate at Taco Bell, Macaroni Grill, Chilis, and Juan (the local) took us to a more local restaurant so we could try new foods. That day I was picky with my food, so I ordered rice and french fries. But I did learn something about their cuisine. They eat a lot of fish and pork, and they can prepare a plantain a dozen different ways. A plantain is like a banana, only sweeter. It can be fried, dried, fresh, mashed, made into a soup, and the list goes on.

Our hotel was inland, but they had a nice pool that I sat out by one day. I took a couple books with me to keep me busy, and the room had HBO and TBS stations, so I could watch familiar shows or movies. I watched a chick flick, In Her Shoes, and I saw part of one of the newer Star Wars movies. One day I was particularly tired, so I napped for that afternoon.

The guys (Josh, Juan, and Michael, who is Josh's traveling buddy) took an afternoon off, and we drove to one of the highest points on the island. We took these narrow and very bumpy back roads, but we got to see a lot of countryside and how the people lived. Once we started going up the mountain, I thought I was going to be sick. It felt like we were going in circles, and the turns were very sharp, so I was glad when we reached our destination. There was a lookout tower, which you'll see pictured below. The mountain does go higher, but it's like a couple hour hike to the top. Not a good idea for a pregnant woman :).












Pretty, huh? There was a waterfall on the way down the mountain, so we stopped to take some pictures there. Oh yeah, Josh likes to take pictures of flowers, in case you are wondering :).











Word of advice, don't ever leave planning to two guys. This was what a lot of conversations sounded like:

Where do you want to eat?

I don't know, where do you want to eat?

Doesn't matter to me, what are you in the mood for?

I don't know, we could just drive around and find something.

And then it would happen all over again when we were deciding what to do. It's a good thing I was there. Not that I was much help. I had a tour book, but a lot of the cool things were an hour or two away, or already closed, and supposedly the town we were in (Caguas) had a whole list of things to see, but we never were able to locate them. San Juan had forts and ports and the old part of the city, but that was by the airport, and by the time we ate dinner, it just didn't make sense to trek up there. We ended up just doing a lot of driving around and taking in the scenery.

On the last day, we headed to San Juan so we'd be near the airport, and also cause we wanted to see the beach. Well, it was beautiful. And get this, here's the bum deal part. In the pics below you will see a lovely hotel right by the water. This was our original reservation! Juan had us change to a hotel nearer to him (inland) so he wouldn't have to drive as far. So yeah, all these beach pictures you see, that could've been me sitting out there every day. I think it would have felt more like a real vacation if we stayed here.

Ok, Here It Is

The official three month belly picture! I had Josh take it this weekend, and I had him do it up close, cause I didn't want the rest of my body showing. Anyway, I think this picture makes me look bigger than I actually am, but whatever, I'll be getting bigger, so it doesn't really matter. And I don't normally wear clothes this tight, so my belly still stays pretty hidden to people at church and stuff. It depends what I'm wearing sometimes too. Sometimes my pants kind of hold it in, and my shirts are usually loose, so I'm not bursting at the seams yet :). I'll try to post a belly picture each month so you can watch me grow! Well, technically you're watching my baby grow, but you get the idea. The baby's three inches long right now and about the size of a peach. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, and get this, I haven't gained any weight yet! I lost about three pounds in the first trimester, and I've just been hovering around those numbers for many weeks. I guess it's better than gaining too much too fast, right?

Let's see, any other baby news? Sometimes my belly feels heavy, so I can only imagine what it'll be like in five or six months. And the other night I had trouble sleeping, so I rolled over onto my tummy to get me relaxed, but it was a bad idea. It hurt! It felt like there was this huge uncomfortable lump in the bed. So no more tummy sleeping for me for a while. Bummer :(

And the Beat is On!

I had a check-up today with my doctor, and the coolest thing happened. I heard my baby's heartbeat! I'm 12 weeks along, and my sister was just telling me that they may not be able to hear the heart because it's a little on the early side for that. So when they told me they were going to check for it, I didn't think they'd find it. The nurse told me it was a little early, but they like to check anyway. And sure enough, we heard it! It was this faint "thump thump" sound. And by faint I don't mean weak. It's just cause the baby's still so small. It was so awesome to hear :)

I called Josh to tell him about it, and I got all emotional on him. I wasn't that way in the office, but once I started telling him, I got choked up and started to cry. I didn't get that way over my first ultrasound last month, so it was probably the combo of missing Josh and pregnancy hormones.

Overall I'm feeling pretty good. I actually feel less pregnant lately in some respects. I don't feel the need to munch on crackers between meals as much as before, and I don't feel as tired. My doctor told me that now I'm getting into my second trimester, and this is the feel good part of being pregnant. Yay!

I've had to wear more maternity clothes lately. Not so much tops, but definitely pants and skirts. I'll have Josh take a belly picture this weekend, so ya'll can see my pooch!

Two more months until we find out if it's a boy or a girl!! Predictions, anyone?

Baby Dreams

Ok, so I'm in my 12th week, which means I'm about 3 months along. I can't believe it! It seems like just yesterday we were finding out we were pregnant, and now in 6 months we have to be ready for an addition to our family. Yikes! There's so much to do between now and then. But hey, we've got 6 months, so as long as we don't procrastinate, we should be fine ;).

I do plan on posting some belly pictures soon. Don't worry, it won't be my naked belly. But I figured that three months was a good time to start, seeing as now I have a little something to show. It's funny, cause yesterday I felt like I was sticking out so much, but today my belly seems flatter to me. Whatever. I know Fishy's growing, no matter how it feels to me. The other day I hugged Josh, and he told me that my belly reached him before the rest of me did! And that phenomenon will only become more prominent as the days go by.

Ok, so the reason for my title. I've been having some strange baby dreams. I do remember one nightmare I had earlier on, but I don't exactly want to describe it and relive it in my mind, nor do I want to scare you all with my imagination, so we'll just leave that one alone. But the first baby dream that I had was that I was wearing a diaper. Not sure what brand though, didn't pay attention to that detail. The next one I had, I really wish I could remember what happened, but all I know is that I woke up ticked off at Josh. Apparently he didn't do something I wanted him to in the dream, so when the alarm went off for church the next day, the first thing I thought was, Man, he's so annoying! But, realizing I was in real life and he hadn't done anything wrong, I shook it off and told him about it later. At that time I remembered the dream, but neither of us can recall what it was about.

Then I had another dream where I was ticked off at Josh (poor guy!). We were coming back from a trip, and he sat down while I had to stand and wait for the luggage to come around. Boy, I woke up annoyed about that too! But it's totally the opposite of what happened in real life. When we got back from Disney, I sat down while he waited for the luggage!

Well, upon re-reading my last two dreams, I see that they have no "baby" stuff in them, but I still label them baby dreams, cause I've never had dreams where I've gotten annoyed at Josh before, so I blame it on the pregnancy hormones. He really has been wonderful so far, I promise :).

So the dream I had last night was kinda scary at the time, but thinking back on it, I shouldn't have been scared at all. I dreamed that a baby-sized intruder came into my old room in my parent's house and was stealing all the baby socks I had for my baby. Ruthless, huh? And baby-sized too! I shoulda been able to clobber him!

Any psychologists out there care to analyze my brain?

Day 4: MGM (More Great Moments)

Ok, so we're finally at the last day of vacation. This day was spent back at MGM, cause there were quite a few things there that we wanted to do. We didn't get up as early this day. We were both tired and a little sore, so we took our time in the morning. Josh did both of the thrill rides, Aerosmith's roller coaster and the Tower of Terror, and I looked around in the shops. After a while, the stores start to have all the same things, but there is a lot of variety. Photo albums, Disney scrapbooks and supplies, snow globes, pins, kitchen items, aentenna balls, hats, plush toys, t-shirts, picture frames, and the list goes on. I'll have to show you guys the souvenir I got later.




The next event we attended was a 30-minute stage performance of Beauty and the Beast. Ok, so I've seen this movie a zillion times and I've seen it on Broadway, but I still had to watch it again. And besides, I was curious to see how they'd abbreviate it and still get the whole story in. They did a great job, by the way. But I think the most entertaining part was what happened before the show began. This guy set up some microphones and spoke into each one of them to do a sound check. When he was done the audience clapped, like he was so great for saying "check." He liked the attention, so he came back to the mic and started doing this beat. Then two other crew members came out and started singing, and before long, we were listening to this great quartet! They did so good-- I think I liked it so much because it looked unplanned, so you weren't expecting them to be any good, but they were. So here's a video of them. And keep in mind, they had no music playing in the background. It's all their voices doing the sounds.

So yeah, they were awesome. And then of course I had to take some pictures of the actual show. They didn't do every song, just the major ones. And they had a narrator telling the story, so that helped when they were skipping parts to keep it moving.












Ok, this was probably one of Josh's favorite things to see. I liked it a lot too. Apparently they started this stunt show at the Disney World in Paris, and it was so popular that they have it in the US now, which I'm glad about, cause it was awesome. Boy, where do it begin? It was so loud! They put motorcyle engines in the cars, and it was probably echoing off the stands we sat in. They also made a lot of smoke with their sharp turns and such. They demonstrated different car chases, and some of them (or all) have been in movies. So the red car is the hero, and the four black vans are the bad guys. They showed us some of the tricks they do. For instance, the red car starts driving backwards and goes behind a building. He comes out still driving backwards, but he's going so fast and he's driving so accurately. The trick is that another red car replaced him, and inside this car the driver is facing the direction he's driving in. We just can't see, cause the windows are blacked out. So from the outside, it looks like he's maneuvering backwards, but in reality, he's got total control of the car. Josh took some good pictures of this thing. This first one shows the vans chasing the red car and all the smoke they gave off. The second one looks like the red car is just taking off from the ramp, but actually he's just landing. That's the backwards car I was telling you about. Pretty cool, huh?






Here's the one stunt driver on the left who drove the forward car. The car on the right is the backward one, and the driver's still in there, I believe.



And of course they had to connect this to Disney somehow, so they brought out Herbie! They played his theme song and showed some of his best moments from his movies on the screen, and then they had him drive away and we hear him "crash." And he comes out split down the middle, but still able to drive, of course. Classic Herbie--what a show off ;).



These next two shots just show the kind of stunts they pulled off. The first one has the red car jumping from one truck to the next (very cool), and the second one has the vans driving on two wheels. They did it for quite a while too--it was very impressive.





This last picture is really cool. They implemented a motorcycle chase, and if you can see there's a motorcycle on its side about to slide through this wall of fire. Right behind it is his rider, wearing a white helmet. He too slides through the fire and catches on fire. At first I thought, whoa, is that supposed to happen? But they had guys right there with fire extinguishers. It was so much fun to watch.



We were really looking forward to taking the MGM Studios Backlot Tour that would take us by tram to see how they make movie magic, but we only got one picture on the tour, and it was this.



Why just one picture, you may ask? Well, see the clouds in the picture, all dark and ominous? Well, it started to rain, so a 35-minute tour was shortened to a 5-minute tour. It was such a bummer too, cause I'm sure we would've seen some cool things. It was only sprinkling, so we walked casually to our next destination. Suddenly, the rain fell harder (as Florida rain is famous for) and we found shelter at a nearby table and chairs under an overhang. This kid walks by and looks at all of us hiding from the rain and says, "It's no big deal, it's just a little rain." Then it falls even harder and this kid got drenched! He deserved it :). So it wasn't just rain. There was thunder and lightning, but we had chairs, so we comfortably waited out the storm. The temperature dropped a lot, so it felt really nice. The sun came back out after 20 minutes or so, and we made our way to the next tour on our list. We wanted to go back and try the backlot tour again, but we ran out of time. This one was called The Magic of Disney Animation, and we watched a short presentation of a guy on stage interact with Mushu (from Mulan) on a screen. It was cute, and then we were dismissed to look at some storyboards that showed the progression of drawing some of the characters, like the Beast and Woody. We tried to get in another line, where we would be taught how to draw a Disney character, but we waited too long, and there wasn't enough room for us :(. Oh well, I'm not an artist anyway. We also took a tour of Walt Disney's life, from childhood to his future visions, and there was a video with real footage of him too. It was cool. Josh went through it quicker than me, but that's because I kept stopping to read all the signs.


Our final event at Disney was Fantasmic! a "nighttime spectacular with lasers, lights, dancing fountains, and special effects." We started waiting early for it, so we were some of the first ones they let in. As the time drew closer, they would unrope a section, and we would walk to the next roped off section. We did this a couple times until we finally reached the ampitheatre. We found seats front and center, so I was excited. I knew we'd have a good view of everything. While we were waiting, we saw dark clouds looming closer and coming fast. They kept announcing that due to weather the show might be delayed or cancelled, so we all kept waiting. It finally did pour, and Josh and I were glad we remembered to pack the ponchos. I tried to arrange my poncho so me and my seat would stay dry, but my shorts still managed to soak up a bunch of rainwater. It was kinda fun being with all the other poncho-wearers and waiting through the rain. It sure helped the time go by fast. The workers who were selling those light-up toys packed up their stations, but then others came around selling ponchos to those who didn't have them. Some people had umbrellas, but those weren't allowed, cause it could cause injury in the large crowd. Eventually the rain stopped. We meant to get a picture of us in our orange ponchos, but we forgot. We looked cute though, I promise ;). Here's a picture of the stage, before it got dark.



And here's Mickey Mouse! He started the show (naturally) and he brought up the colored fountains and lights shot out from his fingers. There was awesome music going on too, so it added to the exciting atmosphere.





Remember the picture of the rocks I showed you? Well, they did a scene from Pocahontas on them. First canoes with Indians floated by us on the water, and then Radcliffe and his men were singing and digging, and John Smith was there, and of course Pocahontas made an appearance. That part was cool, but I wasn't quite sure how it fit with the rest of the story. Yes, there was a plot to this whole show. It was really cool. They sprayed a huge wall of water and displayed images on it from Fantasia, the cartoon with Mickey and the sorcerer's hat. So the whole idea is that Mickey has this dream, but then the villains from all the other stories decide to get into his dream and destroy him once and for all. They showed images of Ursula, Jafar, Scar, and others. Then they dropped the wall of water and the evil queen from Snow White was on stage, where she turned into the ugly witch!



The special effects were so neat, and I liked how they used that plus the stage for the performance. Oh, these next pictures are cool. This first shot is the dragon from Sleeping Beauty. It was huge, and in the picture you can only see its bright eyes in the darkness. They put flames on the water, and you can see the mist in the air--it was so awesome!



Here's Mickey about to fight the dragon. He's kind of distorted from the heat of the flames. I thought it was a cool effect.



And here he has pulled the Sword from the Stone to kill the dragon. See the fireworks coming from the sword? It was so awesome! I got really into it :)



Once he killed the dragon, they put up the wall of water and showed all the villains dying by electrocution. For most of the images, they just added lightning to it, but for Ursula, they didn't have to. Cause if you remember in The Little Mermaid, when she died she already had lightning on her. Anyway, we all cheered of course, and then a steamboat came out with all the characters aboard, and guess who was driving? Steamboat Willie!!





It was a fun-filled vacation, and we both had an awesome time. I think if we'd have brought kids, I still would've had more fun than them! Josh and I have already talked about going down there again when we have a family. I want to make sure we go when all our kids are old enough to remember it. So it may be a while until I get to go back, but I'm not complaining! I'm so happy that I got to go in the first place. And thus ends the Disney saga. I hope you've had fun reading and looking at the pictures :)