Puerto Rico Day 7 (Christmas) - Church, San Juan Temple, and Beach Time

We had a wonderful Christmas. I love the way the day played out!

I was not in a headspace to plan Christmas decorations to pack for our trip, so I improvised
on the spot. In place of a Christmas tree, I used a piece of fan coral we found in Vieques,
decorated with drink umbrellas from the grocery store, and wrapped in a red t-shirt.

We told the kids it would be a small Christmas, since we were on this trip.
Each child had 2 gifts to open (except for Jack who had 3, one of which was
a pair of socks) and the stockings were filled with Puerto Rican treats.

Liza has coconut meringues in her lap, one of the treats we picked up
for Santa. She ate almost the entire package over the course of a few days.

Gummy Pizza!

A new Kindle!

(that time Mom put the wrong names on the gift bags for Liza's and
Cat's coordinated but different gifts)

Star Wars books!

Airpods!

Surprise! Ben hid my gift in a bag of trash.

Since the gift-opening was so efficient, we had plenty of time to make
French toast and bacon for breakfast.

We found an 11:00 Sacrament Meeting to attend, which was actually the "Metro" ward, all conducted in English. It was a very nice program, with short talks and lots of music.

Ben suggested we check out the brand new San Juan Temple after church. Our trip to Puerto Rico began just 2 days after the conclusion of the Open House, which was disappointing, but we thought it would be cool to at least go see it and take some pictures.

We parked on the street and walked around on the sidewalk outside of the fence for a few minutes, then saw that the gate was opening up for a few cars to park in the parking lot. We sheepishly walked to the gate and asked if we could come in to get a better look. Before we knew it, we were ushered into the temple annex building with a group of about 20 people, some of whom we recognized from Church.

It turned out that two of the people in the 11:00 Metro ward were the Senior Missionaries assigned to get the temple up and running. They were given special permission to take friends and family in town for Christmas through the temple for a private tour. They kindly included us in their group, and I was giddy at the thought of getting to walk through this special building. I felt the Spirit as we took a brief tour of the smallest temple I've ever seen, and thought about what a blessing it would be to the Saints in Puerto Rico who would no longer have to go to Florida or the Dominican Republic to receive the blessings of the temple.

When we were finished at the San Juan Temple, we went back to the house for a late lunch and a little down time. Then we walked across the street from our rental condo neighborhood to a little beach. We spent about an hour and a half there exploring, playing, and relaxing. It was lovely.

Ben spotted this octopus about 10 feet from the shore in less than 2 feet of water!

Close-up of the octopus head.

After some debate, and seeing the long line at one of our options, we decided to have dinner at Chili's. It was great - the food was tasty, the service was lovely, and everyone was happy!

Bonus Scenic Pic: