Fun, Flowers and Friends
Celebrating our friend Heidi’s Birthday by exploring Lares and a variety of Haciendas!
Hacienda Lealtad
Hacienda Los Eucaliptos
Hacienda Pons
Mirador Mariana Bracetti
Lares from above
Hacienda Pons
Festival de la China Dulce -Las Marias
Festival de la China
More around the farm and our area
The holidays are in full swing here in Puerto Rico this year. The festivities are on fire and it seems that every other day we have one party or another to attend. It has been so much fun! Thanksgiving with our neighbors, birthday parties, cookie exchanges, encendidos, parrandas, school parties and more. It has been non-stop. It is so true that Puerto Rico knows how to party and the winter Christmas season is the best for that!
When we haven’t been out having fun, we’ve been trying to take advantage of the extra time we have with Aeden in daycare and the fact that it has been so much cooler in order to expand the gardens. We recently planted over 35 new cultivars of heliconias and are so excited to see them grow! The cabana has been steadily booked with guests and so that keeps us busy with maintenance, tours and turnover. It’s been a very fufiling time in our lives. I’ve been trying to make more videos in order to capture the essence of life these days, sort of “vlog” style if you’d like to watch some other things that we’ve been up to. Here’s our channel: LIFETRANSPLANET YOUTUBE
Christmas Fun
Primer Cumpleanos for friend Nico’s Birthday Party
Holiday fun. At the beach, with a Norfolk pine (a tropical Christmas tree!) and surfer statue has been Santa-fied
Winter is the best time for a swim!
Or just visit the beach
There was a fun party at the lighthouse
We went out to the encendido in the Rincon Plaza – the best orchestra in Puerto Rico (Orquesta Sinfónica)!
Cows and geckos- normal sights
Had a fun stop at Tres Sirenas Inn
And an awesome farm called “Finca Brutal”
Thanksgiving with our neighbors was a lot of fun!
The beauty of this place still astounds me
More fun out and about
Some new additions to the garden and harvests
Preparing for a flower delivery and working outside in December!
Check out this GIANT heliconia called “Beefsteak” or Mariae. With our new friend Carlos
It’s been an active period of growth, literally, while we enjoy the holidays as well. We hope yours are going well also! Felicidades.
Halloween with a baby has already made it a much different holiday than without kids. Though I did miss the wild late night parties of Rincon this year, we had a lot of fun just keeping it low-key. I have always loved dressing up, especially in costumes, so I couldn’t wait to think of a new “disfraz” (costume).
A monkey in the jungle with his bananas!
When we found this cute little monkey costume, I set out to think about what would go well with a monkey? A big banana? Other jungle creatures? Then I had it. One of my favorite artists. Frida Kahlo. Frida inspired me in school because I learned the often sad ties between heartache, pain and artistic expression. When I traveled throughout Mexico, her image was iconic. When Salma Hayek played Frida in a Hollywood movie, she gained even more fame and is now fairly well known. Some of her best-known artworks are self portraits, especially with her pets. Most notably, monkeys. And that was where this costume was born.
Frida and her monkey
From there Britton became either Diego Rivera, Frida’s husband, or maybe a jungle tamer or Indiana Jones or Curious George’s dad or Steve Irwin. Funny that a hat or wig can totally make a costume!
Family costume!
This Frida and her monkey
We went out to our good friend Missy’s house for some spooky good food and even I (often not really into cooking) got into the spirit making Halloween themed pasta salad and a childhood favorite of dirt pudding!
Fun times with friends!
Halloween pasta salad and graveyard dirt
Fun trick-or-treating
What a ghoulish group!
Then we went out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Aeden was getting a little fussy so we headed home, but before we got there, we stopped and did a lap or two around Art Walk since Halloween fell on a Thursday this year. It was fun to see so many friends out and about dressed up. Halloween just isn’t a big holiday in Puerto Rico, but we celebrated it very well. Overall, it was a lovely and mellow Halloween this year!
With Aeden’s adoptive abuela, Maribel and a random Mariachi-dressed guy at Artwalk
Here’s a little how-to video on my Frida costume (and remember to subscribe to our Youtube channel and ring the bell to see the newest videos before anyone else!):
We had always wanted to see a show at Red Rocks Amphitheater on the 4th of July, and so with this vacation we made it happen. Blues Traveler has been playing there on Independence Day for about a decade now and we had always heard great things about it. Our show lived up to the hype even though you could tell they were a little used to playing there and had a lot of the opening bands play with them. Blues Traveler put on a decent show, but the real star of course is the location itself. Nestled between two huge triangular red boulders, Red Rocks is a natural wonder. I am generally not into concerts because they tend to be really expensive and indoor venues just never do justice to the music. But Red Rocks is special even to musicians. You just aren’t a “true” star until you’ve played there and been listed on their museum wall.
The rock formations are out of this world!
We took advantage of our family’s offers of free babysitting to go out to this concert. We were expecting a great show, but what we didn’t expect was a lightning show, rainbows and all the fireworks shows that lit up the whole Denver area. It starting raining in the middle of the show, but it cleared out half the crowd which made the rest of the performance all-the-better. The firework show put on by Bandimere Speedway was the best and it was so interesting to watch the displays from above instead of below. We loved our time at Red Rocks and encourage anyone who loves the outdoors and music to go (hint: pack some snacks and expect some outrageous prices at the concession stands). Here’s a little from our time with our niece and her boyfriend at Red Rocks.
With Summer in the summer of Colorado
Britton and his niece with an impressive rock formation
You could see Denver in the distance
And rainbows forming over it
We took the long way to the amphitheater and saw deer on the hike
And a bear (haha)
Our group at the concert
Fireworks going off as Blues Traveler played
Such beautiful countryside!
Here’s a little video of our time at Red Rocks: