There’s nothing like a family vacation to help strengthen and bring unity.

My fondest childhood memories are the times spent with my family on vacation.

It’s a time away from the everyday pressures and schedules…away from the phones…away from the television & computer.

A time to be together.

It was a little weird not being with our extended family for Thanksgiving.  We never before have vacationed {went on a trip} during Thanksgiving week as a family.  I felt ambivalent about going.  So why did we plan to go?

Several years ago my husband & I invested in a vacation club {timeshare.}  It was important to me that we vacation as a family.  This investment has been well worth the money.  Our vacation club keeps us planning and traveling.  Sometimes I think if we didn’t have it, my husband would be tempted to work all the time.  So it was because of our Hyatt Vacation Club that we chose our destination of Puerto Rico.  Without sounding like a commercial for Hyatt, {because I’m not being paid to write this} the Hacienda Del Mar is one of the 9 properties we can choose to be our home away from home.  Otherwise, honestly, I would have never thought about traveling to Puerto Rico.  Oh, but what I would have missed…

1. The Beach is breathtakingly BEAUTIFUL.  I absolutely adore the color of sand and blue hues of the water.  The water is somewhat clear and clean.

Photo taken from our balcony

I captured a Rainbow!

2. Perfect Temperature, both the weather and water.  It was in the 80’s while visiting.  The lows were in the 70’s.  I worried the water might be a little cool.  Instead, it was the perfect temperature, not too cold and not too hot.  The breeze always kept me feeling just right.  I never sat on the beach sweating.

3.  It was our first time to visit a RAIN FOREST.  We visited the La Coca Falls and a tower where you can see for miles and miles.  It is incredibly gorgeous.

4. Planned Activities for the Kids.  Our resort was good about not OVER planning activities.  There were only a couple a day, just enough to give us a little break and something different for the kids to do.  There was a hula hoop competition, relay race at their Olympic size pool, Salsa Dancing, volley ball game, penny dive, movie night, and their favorite was Bingo.

I have to highlight one other: the scavenger hunt.  The kids were given a list of things to find on the resort such as a shell, leaves, rocks, etc.  The hardest one to find was a feather.  My Son, being the competitive person he is, decided he would pluck a feather off a LIVE bird since he couldn’t find one just laying around.  He wanted to be the first to find everything, ya know.  Well, he did it alright, but the bird did not like that and it scratched his arm. LOL…I couldn’t believe he did that!  Poor bird!

5. Our Resort was fabulous!  It is right on the beach.  Not only that, it has it’s own private beach.

6. Puerto Rican food is delicious!  I don’t know why I didn’t take a photo of Puerto Rico’s Red Beans & Rice.  It is the side dish to serve and we all loved them!  DH cooked some last night and did a wonderful job. {Thanks, Honey!} The top left photo is also a favorite of mine…fried sweet plantains {kind of banana.}  I ate too many of those while we were there, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to have any when we returned home.  The avocados there are HUGE!  Too bad you can’t tell that by looking in the photo.  Oh well.  There was a bakery there we fell in love with.  I had to take a photo of one of their cakes on Thanksgiving, the Turkey.  The bread bowl was another item at the Bakery I wish I could have been able to bring home…yummy bread!  The trees on the beach had many coconuts on them.  Hubby found one that was cracked and I took a photo of it.  The outside of it was green.  Don’t worry, we didn’t eat that coconut we found right off the beach.  We bought ours at the grocery store and it was fresh and a tasty snack while sitting on the beach.

7. Made New Friends.  We were blessed to make lots of friends at the resort.  The photo below is one of my daughter’s friends from North Carolina.  I want to say “Hi!” to Luci, Tony and their kids Evan & Kelly, Joanne, Kevin & Madison and Betty & her ‘gang.’  We had so much fun getting to know them.

8. Run on the Beach. 😀  You know you are a runner when you run while you’re on vacation. lol…but what better place to run than on the beach!  A definite work out!  I have to keep up with my half marathon training.  It was fun running with the hubster on the beach too. 😉

9. Fun times in the sand & water bring our family great joy.  As a matter of fact, every time we were on the beach {except toward the end of the week} the kids got along and seemed to enjoy being around one another.  Another reason to LOVE the beach for me!  It was high tide almost the whole time we were there.  It didn’t bother the kids at all.  They enjoyed jumping into the waves and riding the tube into the beach on the water.  This beach in Dorado, Puerto Rico didn’t have many shells but we found LOTS of coral!  Make sure you look for the crab below.  It was exciting for me to be able to capture the shot of him before he scurried off into his hole. {he he}

10.  The Beach is my most favorite place on the earth.  There is a great sense of profound peace I feel as I sit on the beach and hear the crashing of the ocean waves.  On Monday morning I woke early, got up {didn’t wake the family} and went first thing to the beach.  There was not another soul there.  It was quiet and magnificent.  As I looked upon the beauty of the water and landscape I felt an overflowing amount of Love from my Heavenly Father.  Tears and gratitude come as I remember.  

Family Vacation SUCCESS!

We loved our trip to Puerto Rico so much we are planning on returning next Summer.  By the way, since Puerto Rico is a U.S. Territory, there is no need for a passport and we could use our cell phones without any additional charges.

If you have any other questions about our trip or more information about the Hyatt Vacation Club, please contact me via my email address at familybringsjoy @ gmail dot com

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