Big Boy Stroller

Upon our return to San Juan we checked into our hotel and then walked around Condado (the neighborhood with most of San Juan's touristy hotels, including ours) for a bit to find a place to eat dinner. This isn't so remarkable in and of itself, but Evan sat in the stroller without his car seat (which clicks into the stroller) big-boy style! Steph has actually been walking him around the park on the evening dog walk this way for the last week or so, but there's no photographic evidence to corroborate her claims. Now we have proof! Here are Evan and I in front of La Casa Ashford (a historical landmark in Condado):

And here are Evan and Steph at a playground next to the beach:

Neither of these pictures show it, but Evan doesn't always just sit nicely in the stroller. He sometimes likes to kick a leg up on the food tray at the front of the stroller so he can spread out and really relax. We haven't caught it on camera yet, but when we do I'll be sure to pass it along.

Beach Nap

After having lunch at Happy Belly's, which is on Jobos Beach, we went a little further down the road to Montones Beach for the afternoon. Montones is a relatively quiet beach (more people than on Shacks Beach back at our condo, but not nearly as many as Jobos) with a neat sheltered pool on one end where the water is shallow and protected from the waves - it seemed like the perfect place to give Evan a little more ocean time.

Before we could worry about that he needed to take his afternoon nap, though (that's what you do on the beach after lunch, right?). I don't normally write blog posts about Evan's naps, but this was his first one ever on the beach! Exciting, huh? Plus, he got to sleep in a tent - kids love tents!

As you might be able to tell from the picture, this was no ordinary tent - it was Kelly & Josh's Instent! It has a rather clever frame mechanism that sets up super-quick... I thought it was cool, but Evan didn't seem that impressed.

We don't have any pictures from Evan's time in the water, partly because Steph and I both wanted to be in the water too and we didn't want to risk getting the camera wet, but mostly because Evan didn't enjoy it very much. It was extremely windy when we were there (as it is most afternoons on the northern shore of Puerto Rico), and Evan seemed like he'd had enough excitement for the day by then. This was probably because of the tent.

The Morning After

The morning after the wedding we woke up bright and early (a vacation with an infant is only partially a vacation), like normal. We went to Hilary and Brian's villa on our morning walk to help them pack up and see them off on their honeymoon. Luckily they had most of the things that were going home with my parents ready - Evan is not that good at packing, so he wasn't going to be much help. He is good at being held, though, which he demonstrated with Hilary:

Hilary and Brian left Sunday morning for their honeymoon in Antigua, but the rest of the family was staying until Monday at least. That afternoon we decided to take a short trip down the coast to try out a new beach, and we stopped at a place on the side of the road, Happy Belly's Bar & Grill (a name like Happy Belly's just begs to be remembered), to get some lunch. Despite the name I don't think anyone was blown away by the food, but we did all have a good time watching Evan and his cousin Lauren entertain the crowd:

Hilary's Wedding

Because Stephanie and I were both in the wedding party we didn't get any pictures of the ceremony. And because we left our camera in the diaper bag the whole night we didn't get any pictures of the reception. Fortunately, it being a wedding and all there were plenty of cameras about. All of these pictures are courtesy of my aunt and uncle, who have long been documenting the goings on of our family... thanks Buck & Ginny!

The ceremony and reception were both held on the beach (well, technically not on the beach, but close enough) at Villa Montaña. The picture on the left shows the ceremony setting, and on the right the reception layout in the beach front restaurant (which was reserved for us for the night):


Here's Brian waiting at the altar for his bride-to-be:

My mom took care of Evan during the ceremony, so he had a front row seat for the proceedings (she turned him around once the show started):

You may notice that Evan is wearing the closest outfit my mom could find to the groomsman's attire, just for good measure. He got to go barefoot, though, unlike the rest of us.

After the ceremony (which went off without a hitch) there was a cocktail hour, although we didn't get to participate (i.e. eat and drink) that much since we were busy taking pictures. At least we did have time to get a snapshot of our little family with my parents:

Finally, it was time for the best part of any wedding, the reception! We put Evan to bed in Hilary and Brian's villa, which was on the other side of the gazebo from the restaurant, and joined in the revelry. Here are all the cousins of my generation who could make the trip later in the evening at the bar (which was wonderfully close to the dance floor):

And here are the newlyweds, taking a short break after their opening dance (which was very nicely choreographed, by the way):

It was a pretty great wedding... definitely worth making the trip to Puerto Rico for.

Sandman

One of the best parts about taking a beach vacation is that we got to introduce Evan to sand. He has seen sand before at the playground, but since he's not mobile yet the playground is more of a visual rather than tactile experience for him. Going swimming at the beach means digging your toes into the sand, though, and squishing it between your fingers. Evan was more than willing to give it a try:

Picking up sand also requires one to eat a little sand, which I didn't catch on camera but did certainly happen. Not as much as we expected, though.

Of course, if you're going to play in the sand and the salt water you have to get cleaned off before you can come back inside. Fortunately Evan is a big fan of the concept of bathing, even if it is in a cold shower outside:

Aquatic Adventures

If you go on vacation to a Caribbean island you're going to spend some time in the water. We certainly did. Evan had done a little bit of swimming before, but he'd never been to the ocean. He seemed pretty eager to give it a shot:

Evan had a great time standing in the wet sand where the waves could gently lap at his feet (you can't see his face that well, but he was definitely enjoying it):

When we tried to take him in a bit deeper he wasn't so sure anymore. I think the water was a little cooler than he was expecting (the bulk of his swimming experience having come in the bath), and at times the waves came in kind of fast. Besides, when you're only two feet tall the difference between water splashing around your legs and water splashing around your ears isn't that much. I think he'll be up for more trips to the beach when we get back home, though.

Swimming in the ocean is only part of the story... there's also swimming in the pool. We didn't have a pool at our condo but the resort had two, so we took it upon ourselves to visit them on several of our trips down there. Here we are at the beginning of one such session, getting used to the water:

I think I took this picture of Evan, Steph, and my mom just after Evan started experimenting with the concept of splashing:

And finally, here is Evan's best approximation of actually swimming:

Puerto Rico

My youngest sister Hilary chose to have a destination wedding in Isabela, Puerto Rico, as I've mentioned briefly before. Seeing as how Puerto Rico is a nine-hour trip for us, minimum, we decided to make a full week-long vacation out of it.

The flights to Puerto Rico, while long, were relatively painless. Most importantly, Evan demonstrated once again that he's an excellent travelin' baby. Here he and I are having some fun in the food court during our 4-hour layover in Houston:

We spent a night in San Juan, the capitol, at the beginning of the trip, then met up with my parents as well as my sister Hallie and her fiancé Mark the next day to drive across the island to Isabela (a two-hour drive). Isabela is a small, largely undeveloped community in the northwest corner of Puerto Rico with one quiet, beautiful beach after another. The wedding took place at a very nice beach front resort, Villa Montaña, where most of the guests stayed, but because there were so many of us from my Dad's side of the family in attendance we rented a few condos just a 5-minute walk up the beach from the resort. This basically meant we could hang out there most of the day without having to pay to stay there at night, although we did have to suffer the indignity of bringing money with us to buy food and drinks. We learned to cope, though.

This is a picture of our back yard at the condo:

While we were in Isabela we spent most of our time doing beach things... swimming, snorkeling, playing in the sand, reading in the sun, and other general forms of laying around. Here Evan and I are getting ready to go swimming down in front of the resort:

Also while we were in Isabela, of course, my sister got married... we think. They won't know for sure if it took until they get their marriage license in the mail, which could be quite a wait given how dedicated Puertoriqueños are to getting things done in a timely matter.

At the end of the weekend the rest of my family had to fly home, so we drove them back across the island and spent the last few days of our trip back in San Juan. While we were there we spent a day in El Yunque, the only tropical rain forest in the United States:

We also spent a fair amount of time walking around Old San Juan, the exceedingly picturesque part of town where the Spanish first built their settlement:


As you might expect, we had a great time. So much so that I won't stop talking about it for the next 8 or 9 posts!

Chaiya

Our friend Chaiya was out here on vacation for a few days, and we were able to get together with him twice over the weekend. We saw Chaiya and his wife Amy in New York when we were there just after Thanksgiving, but somehow we managed to not take any pictures (which is not really that unusual for us, unfortunately). We made sure to remedy that at lunch after we got a bunch of the old gang together at the climbing gym:

It's not the best picture of Evan ever, but it is a good one of Chaiya.

Portrait

We spent some time this weekend trying to take a nice portrait of Evan as part of a birthday present for my mom. I think we got a few pretty good shots, both with:

and without clothes:

We eventually went with one of the diaper-only poses -- the facial expressions he made while on his tummy were just too cute to pass up.

Color Coordination

Evan is such a stylish baby he even plans for the effects of redeye when choosing his outfits:

I don't think you could match the blue and red of his eyes to the stripes on his shirt any better if you tried!