Finish Friday 6/11/21

Good morning!

I have yet another mini building block set to finish but this time it's my daughter's that I helped her with! I honestly completely forgot that we even bought this in Puerto Rico for her until she asked when we were going to put it together. So instead of working on her cross stitch while her brother took his nap the other day, we worked on her 153 piece coqui set!

Coquí Frog Mini Building Blocks FINISHED!

A coqui (pronounced co-kee) is a very tiny tree frog that is found all over the island of Puerto Rico. They are named after the loud sound of the male's mating song at night! They can vary in colors from brown, green, yellow, and gray (or a mix of the four colors) on top and either yellow or white on their bellies. Another fascinating tidbit about coqui is that if you remove one from the island, it will completely stop singing.

This set was a little hard for my daughter to put together but with my help it took about an hour and she had a lot of fun doing it! Here are the progress pics of us working on it:

trying to sort out the pieces for the first step

my daughter said he was trying to eat the leaf while we were making it

Photo bombed by Tinker Bell 

photo bombed again by Tinker Bell!

my daughter very happy and proud to have finished the coqui!

p.s. I couldn't figure out what was bothering me about this last picture until I realized about an hour later that my daughter had put her dress on backwards 🙈

Happy Friday from my daughter and me!

Finish Friday 6/4/21

Good morning! 

This Finish Friday will feature another mini building block set! It is a model of another Puerto Rican historical and national park site: the Yokahú Observation Tower in El Yunque Rainforest! This set was a total of 506 pieces, believe it or not!

Yohakú Tower Mini Building Blocks FINISHED!

As with El Morro, this set was pretty accurate to the real thing! Here is the photo I took of the tower while we were there:

This one was way easier to put together and only took me about 2 hours to finish. I'm glad that I went looking for the Morro set online to show someone at work what I had bought (before I had put it together) and stumbled upon the website that had several national sites as mini block sets and this was one! I immediately ordered it and am glad I did! 

Here are some other photos of the different layers that make up the whole tower:

One of my goals in life is to visit all 50 states and see various national monuments. I now have a new, coinciding goal that if I visit somewhere that has a model replica set available, I want to build it when I get home! I think that would be something fun to do!

Happy Friday everyone and have a great day!

Finish Friday 5/28/21

 Happy Friday everyone! 

I have a finish to share with you all but not a cross stitching finish 😝

While visiting the two forts in Puerto Rico, I found a mini building blocks replica of El Morro and just had to have it! It was a total of 637 extremely tiny lego-like pieces that made my fingers hurt but it was pretty fun to put together.

               Castillos San Felipe del Morro Mini Building Blocks FINISHED!

I thought the replica was pretty accurate! Here is an aerial view of the real thing:

It took me about 6.5 hours total over 2 days to put together during down time at work last Saturday and Sunday. Of course it was my luck that the very last piece to go on was the flag which was supposed to use stickers for the design and I couldn't find the stickers anywhere. So I have managed to lose those but I will make a replacement at some point and get it on there!

Here are some photos of the various layers that make up the whole model set.

I really enjoyed putting this together and plan on putting another one together next week of another Puerto Rican historical site that we visited! 

Have a great day!

Sunday Funday #8 - May Puerto Rico Trip

 Hello my friends! 

I'm surprised that a month has already gone by! It's been a little busy with my Spring classes ending and my Summer classes starting, my work schedule changing, and with a little week long trip to Puerto Rico for my cousin's wedding. Needless to say, there has been virtually no stitching that has happened in the last month...which I hope is not the case for the next month!

I was a little hesitant to travel to P.R. with the pandemic still obviously in play but I have to say that I was very impressed with how the island is handling it and honestly feel like they are doing a much better job than here in the mainland. 

Ready to go!

While we were there, the weather was absolutely perfect and the food was even better! It was my husband and kids' first time visiting and meeting all of my family on my Dad's side. I could also tell that my Dad was very excited to drive all around and point out various landmarks or places he lived to my husband! The first 4 days of our vacation was spent seeing family and attending the wedding. The ceremony was held outdoors and was small, simple, and beautiful and the reception was so much fun!

My cousin with his beautiful bride

From left to right: me, son, husband, Dad, daughter, Dad's husband

my handsome son

my beautiful daughter

my family that was at the wedding

the loves of my life

The last 3 days were spent doing a few touristy things. We visited Old San Juan and went to both forts, El Morro and San Cristobal, drove to a nice but very windy beach, went to the Yunque rainforest where we did a tiny bit of hiking, and then walked to the beach by our hotel and saw the sunset. Here are just a few of the pics I took while exploring.

Castillo San Cristobal

Castillo San Cristobal

Castillo San Cristobal

Looking from Castillo San Cristobal to El Morro

La Perla

The lighthouse at El Morro

being silly at El Morro

being cute at El Morro

The 3 flags always flown at the forts: The Cross of Burgundy, Puerto Rico, and United States

Where the Pina Colada was created

Old San Juan

El Morro

Old San Juan

My daughter flying a kite at Saldinera beach

The hubby in awe of the rainforest

Yokahu Observation Tower in the Yunque

waiting for lunch in the rainforest

starting our little hike on the easy trail

my son's "cheese" face

My hubby and Dad climbed a bunch of rocks to get closer to the waterfall

Watching the sunset at the beach by the hotel

The kids were more interested in playing in the sand!

Overall, it was a good week where my husband and kids finally got to meet the rest of my family and we got to relax and enjoy the nice island weather. My husband must've liked it because he's talking about the things he'd like to see the next time we are there!

I hope everyone has been staying well during the past month and will continue to be well into the next! Hopefully I'll be back to posting a little more regularly soon!

Happy Sunday!