Jen McKen Photography

Ohhhhh Earl!!!!  

 Hurricane Earl battered tiny islands across Puerto Rico with heavy rain and roof-ripping winds today, rapidly intensifying into a major Category 4 storm on a path projected towards the States.  The winds reached upwards of135 mph (215 kph), Earl is expected to gain more strength before potentially brushing the U.S. East Coast this week and bringing deadly rip currents. For today, we were stuck in our rooms with an occasional walk out to the beach when the rain halted. We stayed safe and I’ll admit it is quite the experience being in a hurricane. I know that Earl is not the worste that this island has ever seen but to say that our family survived a hurricane is kinda a cool thing for Mallory to tell her friends. Tee he he.

The hotel took extra precautions today and have been handling everything rather smoothly. We just recieved a letter under our hotel door from the general manager that says that the hotel does have a back up generater in the case of a power outage and refrain from opening any windows or doors in our rooms or going outside during the storm. They have also removed ALL of the lawn chairs, hammocks, daybeds and garbage cans from the beach area, the pool area and even went as far as evacuating all of the rubberneckers (that would include us) from outside and locked us inside the building. We were also asked to remove the furniture from off of our balcony’s so ensure nothing blew away from the high winds.  Since we are in an ocean front room and on the highest floor-we had the most optimal view to watch the storm move in and see the ocean from our beds. Maybe most people would be bummed that we couldn’t use the beach or that the sun wasn’t shining, but I don’t see it that way. Number one, it presented us with an opportunity to spend some quality time together and we ordered food to be delivered, we played games and laughed at the Spanish cartoons… AND shhhh, we let Mallory jump on the beds!!! While others may learn about hurricanes in the class room or reading it out of a book, Mallory got to see one first hand and lastly, because we were stuck inside the hotel, we met so many of the locals by hanging out in the lobby area and got to share a little of each other’s culture. So  as you can see, it’s only as good as YOU make it…..and well, we had quite a great time!!

The only thing that made it difficult to take photographs was the fact that my lense kept fogging up. Inside the hotel it’s primarily air conditioned so as soon as we walked outside, the hot air would fog up my lense. I did manage to take a few photographs before the rain and wind picked up and they evacuated us from around the water area. We’re told by some of the locals that the day after a hurricane it is one of the most beautiful days of the year. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we get a good day so that we can journey up to Old San Juan. We’ll see how the weather pans out.

Day Dos…….was perfect-in everyway!!! We slept for 12 hours straight—WHAT?? That NEVER happens, but I guess when you’ve had a long day of travel (with a 5 year old) it catches up to you rather quickly.

We spent all day at the beach and the pool area. You could tell that the staff was starting to prepare for the hurricane that was about to hit because they began to slowly remove the unused chairs off of the beach. The tide began to get a little more aggressive but nothing that kept us out of the water. Mallory met a few new friends, we buried her in the sand, Greg hid coins in the sand and Mallory genuinely thought she was finding Pirate treasures and we worked on our tans for most of the day.

Later we decided to switch rooms to get a closer view of the beach area. I’m sooo glad we did-not that the last view wasn’t A-MAZING but this one was a bit closer to the beach and now we had an even better view to watch the hurricane that was on it’s way towards us.

I think our sunburns marked the end of a GREAT day. We knew that the next day wasn’t going to be an ideal beach day but we fell asleep to the sound of the ocean…..after a few Pina Coladas of course…and rum, maybe just a wee bit of rum!!!!!

I think day one can be pretty much described as a travel day. From the time we got up to the time we stepped foot into our resort room it was approximately 12 hours. Now keep in mind, that includes the trip to the airport, waiting thru security, waiting in the terminal, the actual flight, then waiting on the runway…blah blah blah. 

For us, it was exciting. It was Mallory’s first time for flying so everything was new and exciting for her. Hours later we found ourselves in the PR airport at the baggage claim and before we know it we were in our taxi on the way to the resort. Our taxi driver Alberno, was freakin awesome-a crazy driver-but he was awesome. He told us about all the hot spots and some “must do” things while we were visiting.

When we arrived at the resort we immediately were given our room and began to explore. First of all, our view was amazing! It was overlooking San Geronimo Fort with breathtaking views of the ocean and just like in Costa Rica, Mexico and Punta Cana, the water was sooo blue!

Even with all of the travel time, Mallory was full of energy to get down to the beach. So off with the travel clothes, on with the swim suits and we were beach bound. This also was Mallory’s 1st time to the ocean so all she wanted to do -and all she KEPT talking about-was building sandcastles. We checked that off of our list and headed off to explore.

We walked around exploring the town near the resort and found a Subway-yes I know, not authentic PR food, BUT it would do in a rush. While inside waiting for our food (which was an experience in it’s self-good thing we could just point to what we wanted) there was a couple inside the restaurant who were clearly “involved” with each other. I snapped a photo while Greg was waiting at the counter, I love it. They had no idea I was taking it (and I felt sort of like a stalker ninja) but I just love the body language.

Anyways……… on the way back we stopped at a small “hole in the wall” convenient store and inside 12-15 people were just hanging out. I mean, chairs in the aisles of the store, beer in hand, cigarettes in the other and music cranking…this is when I realized we were FAR FAR from home!We grabbed our snacks and back to the beach we went.

So that’s it (in a nutshell). I’m still in Puerto Rico as I write this post but since we can’t go out to the beach due to the hurricane (that will be a whole other post) I thought I’d hop on and share a few photos with Y’allWe are having a GREAT time despite the 75 MPH winds….tee he he! I’m not sure when I’ll be online to post Day Dos. Until then, know that we are safe and having a great time. This vacation was much more than the beach, it was more about spending lots of quality family time….and I promise, that is being accomplishedAlso, until I have enough  time to add more photographs…enjoy!!

Adiós

As my clients already know, I am heading off to Puerto Rico with Greg and Mallory!! As a result I will be out of the office between August 28th and September 7th… During that time I will be unavailable by phone and email. I will, however, respond to all of my emails and phone calls as soon as possible after the 7th!

This will be our first official “out of the country” family vacation where Greg and I will be taking Mallory. Up until now, when we traveled she stayed at Grandma’s. We were unsure how she would do with long waits and long flights but she’s certainly old enough now to experience a bit more of the world. So this time around instead of her watching us pack, she is helping us pack….or I should say, she’s been “packing” the past few days. And I thought I over packed-this girl has an obsession with shoes! I guess it just parallels my obsession with cameras!

  So why Puerto Rico? Well it wasn’t exactly our first choice. Actually we were planning to go to a few other places outside of the county but it boiled down to us not being able to get her passport in time. I lost Mallory’s birth certificate (I know I know-what kind of mother am I) so that, coupled with being a procrastinator, we just couldn’t make it happen.  Since you do not need a passport to travel to the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico, we decided that Puerto Rico had both sun and sand AND culture. After doing plenty of research, we are VERY excited to get down there. Yes we will be staying at a  resort (Caribe Hilton) but we will be traveling off the resort so that we can experience the REAL Puerto Rico.….AND I’ll be collecting photographs along the way to share when we get back to the real world.

Whats on our agenda-besides soaking up the Caribbean sun at the beach? Well, we have a game plan but we are going to be flexible. I love talking with the locals and finding out the best places to visit. But from doing  a little bit of research we do have a few placed already in mind:  the El Yunque Rainforest, walking around the historical streets of San Juan and eating at an authentic restaurant, drinking their signature Pina Colada’s, visiting El Morro, possibly visiting the cave park….ohhh building sandcastles just to name a few!If you’ve been to PR and have any suggestions, please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you

Mallory is in charge of the “Kid-VideoCam” and she’s taking her own digital camera. So I’m excited to see her images from our trip. Seeing the world thru the eyes of a 5 (almost 6 year old) is going to be unique. If I can get regular internet access I will post a “photo of the day”…..that is of course if I feel like working with technology. I mean it is vacation after all! Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I go work on my Caribbean tan!! Tee he he  :-)