Christmas came...and went....

Well, we spent our first (ever!) Christmas away from our families this week. I only broke down one time and it was first thing in the morning. It was really an uneventful Christmas for us. On Christmas Eve Papi (Mr. Mendez) showed up around 8:00 and said, "You look bored, let's go to a party!" so we went to a party. It was at the house of a friend of his sister. It was fun. We ate good food, listened to music, played instruments to the music, and got invited to their New Year's Eve party. We met some of Papi's family, too. We met his sister, Nilsa, her husband, Papi's nephew and his girlfriend, and some other neices and nephews. We had lechon, pasteles, snacks, drinks, etc... The people were so friendly - whenever our hands were empty they brought us a beer. It was nice to get out and spend some time with other people that night. Then Christmas Day we got up, did our cooking and went to Tom's house for lunch. We had a great lunch with Tom, Tori, Tori's friend Mandy, and Tori's new puppy, Coco. Here's a few pics from Christmas Eve and Day...told you it was uneventful!

Puerto Rican Papaya anyone?



Pasteles filled with pork



Our new Puerto Rican band!




Christmas Day...is for the dogs! Here's Coco and Miller in his Christmas gift from Curtis.





Manischewitz anyone? Oh yes people, we drank it! Ew!



Let's see - after Christmas Day we went back to Utuado to the caves with some friends. Mama Pomales has family here from Indiana for a few weeks so we took them to the caves. We had 3 cars full of people. When we got to the gas station and parked our cars there was a stray dog just hanging out. He followed us to the cave opening and we thought he'd run away...nope. He went through every place we went through, probably even more graceful than us! Here's Courtney and his friend.



After the caves we went to Arecibo to the Pirate's Cove which happens to be with the lighthouse. We walked around and looked at the "pirate ships", went through the aquariam and then took in the beautiful view. It was a full but fun day!

I had to take pictures with the pirates by myself since Katie wasn't there. Here's one...





Here's a picture of our group and a few of the scenery - not to shabby, huh?!





Since then we haven't done anything. We were supposed to go Snuba diving on Saturday but it's been cancelled because of the weather. We are re-scheduled to Snuba next Friday, the 4th of January. We'll have a busy few days because we will Snuba on the 4th, Three Kings party on the 5th, and the Dills come home on the 6th. We won't be bored then! Hope you all had a great Christmas!!