A big priority for us on vacation is scuba diving and we were extremely disappointed to put it mildly when Jon started calling around to find out that it was going to be way too expensive or other companies just weren't going out on the days we had available. (We couldn't book ahead of time since we had to do the timeshare presentation and didn't know when we'd have to do it). We were overjoyed the next day when one of the dive shops called us to say they had enough people to go out. We went out to a place called the Catalina Islands (we didn't have our nice camera with us). I snapped these next two pictures out of a book from the airport to show you what we saw. There were tons of these flying devil rays leaping out of the water! It was unbelievable. They were so many of them and they'd get 5 - 10 feet in the air. I imagine it was a fraction of the excitement you'd feel whale watching.
It was a fantastic dive. The coral wasn't much to look at since there wasn't a reef there, just the volcanic rock. But there were tons of moray eels and spotted eels. We saw our first wild lobster. The fish were beautiful. There were so many puffer fish around, some were about 1 1/2 feet long! We even saw our first legit shark! (we've gotten up close to a nurse shark before but they don't even have sharp teeth)We saw one white tipped reef shark down in a crevice that swam away. Then we came upon a mom and baby a while later. They swam away before we could get too close. But as we were looking for them, the baby came and swam back and sat right in front of us! It was awesome. I was about two arm lengths away from it. This little guy was probably about 4 feet long. I know the mom was nearly twice it's size when we saw it in the distance!! It was a very very cool experience.
This area is known for the manta rays--a sting ray that grows up to 18 feet wide. On our first dive, Jon ran out of air first so we went back up with one of the dive masters. The other two people who stayed down a little longer got to see two swimming all around, right over their heads. On the second dive, I got to see one swim over our heads that was somewhere around 10-15 feet wide. It was spectacular. But Jon was further back in the group and didn't get to see it since the visibility wasn't great down there.
It was a fantastic diving experience. They cut open a fresh pineapple and watermelon when we got back on the boat that was so perfectly sweet and juicy. When we got back to the resort, I said, "I just love diving days". If I could choose anything in the world to spend a day doing, I would choose to be in a boat on the water. I love seeing new things. There's something so amazing and indescribable about sharing that otherworldly experience together. Frankly, there's not a whole lot that Jon and I get to do together when we're at home. I hate sports and he hates books :) So its just so fun to share something like this, something we both love.
These Carara birds were the little thieves around the resort. There were always a few around the pool and the open dining room. On the last morning, Jon and I fed one out of our hands! They were big- nearly the size of a parrot:
View from our resort:
On our last day, we drove about an hour to the Rincon de la Vieja National Park, where one of the large volcanoes is. This was the road into the park. (You actually cross through someone's land and pay him a toll on the way there!)
We read about one waterfall that wasn't in the actual park (again, we paid who-knows-who to go see it). We went on a beautiful walk through a sunny field and then entered the woods (jungle?) and hiked down into a gorge. When the trees opened up to this river it took our breath away. These pictures don't do this spot justice in the least. Again...the trees....just spectacular:
The river itself was spectacular enough to hike around but then we get to this breathtaking waterfall. The best part was we were the only ones around. It looked like a little slice of paradise.
I can't even describe the beauty--bright lime green moss, those shiny smooth rocks and the turquoise crystal clear water with the sun pouring through the trees intermittently, lighting the whole canyon up. It just didn't even look real:
And of course we had to jump in. (Don't worry Mom, Jon looked under the water with his mask first to make sure it was deep enough). I actually wasn't planning on going in the water since it was freezing, but Jon convinced me to. Didn't take much.
Next we headed into the actual National Park. Did I mention the trees were amazing?? These trees were as spectacular to look at as the giant Sequoias in California.
We saw two of these little rodents- they looked like a giant squirrel without a tail. About the size of a large rabbit:
Look how the tree in front is being swallowed up by the other tree. Just amazing:
We also came across two little white-faced Capuchin monkeys way up in the trees but it was too hard to get a picture. We heard the howler monkeys going crazy at one point, so loud. But we never did see them. This area of the park is called "Little Yellowstone" because of all the bubbling mud volcanoes. Not much to look at in a picture but pretty cool to see in person.
Next we went to the natural hot springs. Not something we would have paid for on it's own but the first guy at the waterfall threw it in with our admission. So...why not? Jon realized the whole mud bath thing is overrated. (I realized that with my best friend at a spa in California about 8 years ago :) Fun to do once:
This was actually really nice to sit and relax after all the hiking we'd done that morning. It was wonderful in the hot water with rain lightly sprinkling down on us, having conversations with one family from Italy and the lady in the white bikini who was local and couldn't speak much English but was quite good at communicating with us despite the language barrier. Looking down on it from a suspended bridge:
So that was it! We both agreed it was our favorite trip we'd ever done. There was just so much cool stuff to do! We would totally go back and stay in a completely different part of the country. We didn't get to hike up the volcano because we didn't have time and we didn't even see the biggest waterfall in the country because it was several hours away from where we stayed. I think the thing I miss most is the huge buffet three times a day. We've never been to an all-inclusive besides our honeymoon cruise and always eat as cheaply as possible on vacation, choosing to spend our money on activities and excursions instead. I'm always hungry and I love to eat. Since we've been home, it seems I'm always starving and wish I could just walk down to the dining room and load my plate :) The food was actually not at all catered to Americans. It was almost all typical Costa Rican food (which is similar to Mexican so I loved it). Thank goodness we're not picky eaters, because it would have been difficult, otherwise! It was fun to try new things risk free that I'd never order off of a menu. The only disappointing thing all week were the desserts. The best part of the meal and they were all totally weird cakes and gelatin or mousses in strange flavors. I think there were literally only two all week that I said, "Yum, this is good". Jon was dying all week for some homemade cookies and I just wanted some dang chocolate.
I'm so grateful we had that week together. I'm so passionate about traveling and love to see more of this world and experience new cultures. Not to mention with three kids, Jon and I don't get to have much fun together these days. Its so refreshing to remember how much we laugh together when it's just the two of us. I think it's the most important thing you can do for your marriage. It immediately brings the spark back and helps you remember what life was like before the stress of raising children. We both look forward to the day it's just us again. Does that sound harsh? Probably. I love raising my boys and it's definitely my life's calling. But quoting what our pediatrician told my mom when we were really little, in reference to how important early bedtimes are, "you got married to be with each other. Not to have kids." True dat.
That ended up being our slogan for the week. We said it jokingly to each other all week, whenever we did something fun or cool or weird or crazy. And there was a lot of all of the above. We've been to so many timeshare presentations that Jon's on all sorts of call lists. We got a call with an offer to come stay at an all-inclusive resort in Costa Rica for pretty cheap, as long as we listened to the presentation while we were there. (please don't ask me how we got it. We've been going to at least 6 timeshare presentations a year for about 9 years). We gratefully traded the snow for the sun on Saturday, January 12th. The boys stayed with Jon's parents the whole week and did just fine. We flew into the airport in Liberia and stayed within about a 45 min radius of that. Our resort was on the Pacific coast directly to the West (about 30 min from the airport).
We got there in the afternoon on Saturday and checked into a hotel the first night. We were going to our resort the next day. So after we settled in, got something to eat, got our rental car and figured out what our first excursion would be, it was nearly 4:00pm or so. We heard about a waterfall nearby so we set out down that main highway you see on the map in red, towards the SE. That main highway across the whole country is only two lanes!! We weren't seeing any signs so we stopped to ask someone who didn't speak a lick of English (turns out not many people did there!). So after some hand motions and pointing at the map, he figured out what the heck we were talking about and told us we were close. We got a little further down the road and saw a rough wooden hand-painted sign. We turned off the main road onto a very rough rocky dirt road. After a couple miles of getting jerked around on that road, we see a big rock painted with "waterfall" and an arrow. We didn't realize it, but got there right as they were going to lock up a wooden gate for the night. So after some more hand signals and one word sentences, the guy let us run down to see the falls and snap a quick picture. I literally said as we were scrambling down the rocky path, "do you think this thing is going to be more than a trickle down a rock?" That's what we expected because of the lack of signs and paved roads. Then a minute later we start to hear the roar of water and about died when the view opened up to this:
It took our breath away. It looked like a scene right out of LOST or Jurassic Park. We snapped these pictures and then ran back up the steep path to the car and decided we'd come back the next morning since we couldn't check into our resort til later in the afternoon anyway.
A cheap breakfast the next day since we'd be eating good the rest of the week at the resort. I wish our McDonalds had this option! So delicious (except the fried plantains in the middle. Those were gross.)
We always had a view of these volcanoes driving across the country:
I couldn't get enough of all the beautiful trees around:
Well, the next day was Sunday and the place ended up being packed out with locals and a few other tourists. It was really cool to see it deserted the night before.
Jon climbed in and behind the falls. I didn't go all the way in since the water was freezing and I'm not keen on water pounding down on my head.
We wanted to hike down the river away from the falls for a little exploring and adventure. It was beautiful with green jungle on either side of us:
As we were hiking back up the river to the falls, we all of a sudden started hearing some whoops and hollers and big splashes. No discussion needed. We were determined to figure out who and where people were jumping. We followed the sound and saw a group of locals jumping in this beautiful little water hole. We had to climb over/under two sets of barbed wire to get to them. Nobody spoke English and eyed us a bit while we walked up but we just acted like we knew what we were doing and smiled a lot and cheered for the other people jumping in and pretty soon they were cheering for us too.
The water pouring in over the rocks was warm. It was awesome.
I kind of look like a wuss since it doesn't look that high but it definitely feels higher when you're looking over the edge!
We had to take a shuttle from our resort down to the beach since it was on a pretty steep mountain side. It was beautiful and rugged with all the lava rock along the shore. That was the first black sand beach we'd ever been on. The sand was smooth and soft and the water was comfortable.
Looking back towards the main beach:
We did a zipline canopy tour which was really fun:
There was a tree full of howler monkeys. I kept having to remind myself in my head that these were wild and that we weren't at the zoo!
I think I'll leave it at that for now and post the rest tomorrow since my house is about five steps beyond "disaster", we're all still in our pajamas and I've been working on this almost all day. More to come...
He's reached the double digits! My goodness, what a blur it's been. (and I'm about 2 weeks late on this post, by the way. I can't even believe that because that means he's nearly eleven months! I would say I'd like to freeze time but his birthday brings spring soon after so I don't really mind if we fast-forward to that part.)
The cutest, you say? Who me??
Not pulling himself up yet. Purely staged.
My sick little man, over Christmas:
At ten months, he is such a joy. Now that we got those two months of sickies out of the way, he's quite easy and happy again. Although the nap situation has been frustrating lately. I lamented on facebook yesterday that he was boycotting his second nap of the day. Both my other two boys followed the Babywise book to a T and didn't drop their second nap til 15 months. So Channing's really been throwing this self-proclaimed Schedule Nazi for a loop. Honestly, he's been pretty unpredictable since our trip to Florida when his schedule was thrown out the window. I have a hard time not stressing about it. Today went much better though, when we switched it up a bit. So I think I will figure out what suits his needs here pretty soon.
He's army crawling all over the place but thankfully he doesn't go very far or very fast. He's still my laid back little boy. He's still on all baby food and chokes on anything with too much texture (much like Bennett did). He eats Puffs and Cheerios and finally did bread today (seriously...crazy gag reflex). We switched over to formula a couple weeks ago as my deep freezer full of frozen milk was finally depleted. He seems fine on that, although he does spit up a little more. Not too much else to report!
Jon and I leave first thing in the morning for Costa Rica (he wheeled and dealed with some timeshare agency and got us an all-inclusive week for just a few hundred dollars). So the boys will be staying with Nana and Pop the whole time (bless them!!!). What a strange feeling to leave them there tonight, knowing I won't see their faces for six days. Its all kinds of nervousness and sadness and anxiety and relief and joy and giddiness all shaken up together. I'm thrilled to spend a week alone with my best friend, since its sometimes hard to remember you're best friends when you're parenting three wild boys who deplete every ounce of my energy every. single. day. So at that, I sign off. By some miracle, I didn't procrastinate this time and I can actually go to bed now (instead of at 1 am which is my usual bedtime the night before a trip). That 3am wake up call is gonna be nasty. But oh so worth it.
