Traveling is one of my favorite things in the world to do. Every winter I take a break from being a Rhode Island family and children's photographer and go somewhere warm. One of my most favorite "somewhere warm" places is the west coast of Puerto Rico, and this January we went there again. I was excited to get back there, go surfing, drink some Puerto Rican coffee, and enjoy tropical weather.

You know what they say about the best laid plans. I got very sick when we first got to Puerto Rico (although I improved greatly while we were there!) and I never got to surf. I spent a lot of time just resting. Nevertheless, I still did get to go on adventures collecting sea glass, watching and photographing other people surfing, swimming, gecko-chasing (that's a thing!) and other such adventures.

Photographing a place you're visiting for the sixth time can be challenging; how many different ways can you photograph a place? For this trip I decided to make things exciting by bringing along my Lensbaby for a different point of view, and I also brought my film camera and several rolls of film. Being sick meant I spent a lot of time relaxing in our little home, taking photos of the pink house and the hills behind us, the kitchen (and apparently my coffee cup) an awful lot. The first day I was able to take surfing photos, it was literally dark out so I just embraced the dark and went for slow shutter speed surf photos. It wasn't the trip I'd initially imagined but it was fun.

Here's the first set of photos from the trip (all digital). Have you ever had a trip that didn't go as planned? Let me know about it in the comments!