Costa Rica>>Day Six

This is the last Costa Rica blog post....FINALLY!  I need to get through these posts because I have about 5 million other posts I need to write.  So, let's do this.

This was our last full day in Costa Rica.  We were flying out way too early the next morning from San Jose, so we had to make that really short 6 hour drive from Playa Hermosa back to the airport area.  We decided to leave early early in the morning and take a little detour to Monteverde, an amazing little mountain town unlike anything you've ever see, including a settlement of Quakers.  The drive up to this town was incredible. The dirt road the whole way was not so incredible.

 Scenes from our drive...

 When we got to Monteverde, we explored a bit, then went on the longest zipline in Latin America.  The course took 2 hours to get through.  There were different ziplines at different heights and lengths for us to cross, including one that is a mile long.

For the two really long stretches of the zipline, we went across Superman style.

Nick took this picture from the zipline, as he was coming across it.  Then he fumbled with the camera as he was coming in.  And now my sister is having a heart attack seeing what could have happened to her camera. Don't worry Kim! It was around his neck and hooked through his helmet strap.

 The grand finale of the course was this Tarzan swing.  It was a free fall from this platform and then swinging back and forth once the rope finally catches you.  It was my favorite part.

 And then a storm rolled in as we were driving down the mountain and back to San Jose, where there are no addresses AT ALL.  That's fun when you have no idea where you are going.

So that's it.  We left early the next morning to come home.  We were wishing we had stayed longer, but that would have meant more blog posts, so lucky for you, we didn't.  But we will go back someday.  We LOVED it!

And now begins wedding week!  My sister gets married in 6 days!! I don't know how much I'll be able to blog this week because there are a million wedding things to do and my whole family is here, but I will be back to blog about the wedding shower, the bachelorette party, and the amazing fundraising dinner that we had where we raised SO MUCH MONEY for our adoption.  Wait until you see the update for what we have raised in the sidebar!!

Tweet

Costa Rica>>Day Four and Five

We spent most of the day at Playa Danta, where Nick strung up the hammock and we had the whole beach to ourselves.  How was there no one else here?

When Nick got restless....because I could have stayed there all day....we headed to Brasilito Beach, where we ate lunch.  We ate fresh fish at every meal in Costa Rica. It was AMAZING! And I don't even like fish.

We spent the morning of day five back at Playa Grande, where Nick did some more surfing.  I didn't take any pictures this time...so unlike me.  We weren't there long anyways, because the surf was not that great.  So, we decided to head up to Rincon de la Vieja again, because we loved it.  We were planning on doing another hike, but when we got there, it was pouring rain.  So, instead, we had a spa day at another set of hot springs they have there. It was rough.

More mud and more pools.

We definitely preferred the first hot springs over these, but it was still nice.

There are animals EVERYWHERE in Costa Rica, just wandering the streets.

Tweet

Some Blog Business

As most of you probably know, as of July 1st, Google Reader will be no more. Sad, but true. So that means that you might want to make sure you're subscribed to this blog in other ways, like with Bloglovin', Facebook, or email subscription. And of course, you can always follow me on Instagram too.

It's really easy to move your Google Reader subscriptions over to Bloglovin'.  I just did it the other day.  Here's the tutorial I used, but it's really self explanatory.  I highly recommend Bloglovin'.  It makes reading blogs very easy and convenient.

Tweet

Dinner and an Auction

Nick and I are going to be hosting a dinner and silent auction at our house next weekend to raise some more money for our adoption!  We are busy planning away and collecting items to auction off.  Since we are officially "active" with our agency, our baby could be here anytime.  So, we want to make sure we have the funds to be able to say yes to that baby.  That's where the dinner comes in.  We are going to have a suggested donation at the door. The amount is still to be determined, depending on whether we can get the food donated or not.  Then, everyone will be welcome to enjoy dinner (we do know it will be good), dessert, and a fun evening of dancing and hanging out.  Our friend Wes is a DJ and offered to DJ for the evening, so there will be plenty of entertainment.  We will have a silent auction that people can participate in if they would like to.

Some of our friends and family have been so generous to donate items for us to auction.  Here are some of the items that we will be auctioning off:

>> One Month Crossfit Membership

>> Customized Cake from Caramel Cup

>> Some Aidie's Hideaway goodies

>> A Beach Themed Basket

>> A Trader Joe's Basket

>> Some Twirpy Woods Items

>> A Basket of Children's Chapter Books

>> A Basket of Picture Books

>> A Baby Themed Basket

>> Rip Curl Clothing and Hats

>> Stella and Dot Necklace

>> Some iKnit2 Goodies

>> Trader Joe's Basket

>> A Pair of Adirondack Chairs made by Nick

We have a couple other themed baskets that have been started, but still need more items to be added to them.  The different themes are gardening, baby, coffee, juicing, and kid's baking stuff. If you are interested in adding items to these baskets (big or small), or if you would like to put together a basket of your own, or if you have something else you'd like to donate, we would be so appreciative.  Just let me know, and we can coordinate everything. Thank you to everyone who has already given so generously to us and to this event.  We are so excited to see what God does on this night!

If you need more info about the night, just let me know, and I will be happy to email you!

To see how our adoption auction went, see here. 
It was enormously successful!

Tweet

Costa Rica>>Day Three

Our third day in Costa Rica was quite busy.  I grabbed a brochure for the different tours that were offered through the hotel, and we just decided to drive ourselves to a couple of the places that were offered, because we're smart like that (and cheap).  This was a huge benefit of having our own car.  It saved us a whole lotta money.  So, on this day, we visited a waterfall, a national park....where we saw 2 more waterfalls, and some hot springs.

This waterfall was amazing.  It was the perfect location to swim, swing, and picnic.  It's also not super popular, so there were not a ton of people there, which was nice.  We swam out and walked behind the waterfall and sat underneath it.

And Nick got himself some coconut water.

When we were done at Llano de Cortes, we drove to Rincon de le Vieja National Park.  Here we found a waterfall, some hot springs, and another waterfall.

This one was my favorite!  While we were there, it started pouring down rain (it is the wet season in Costa Rica, after all.)  That meant that when I got in the water and froze my butt off just so that I could have a picture of me with the waterfall, the picture did not get taken.  I was slightly perturbed. Just ask Nick.  It was all HIS fault...duh.

Of course there is a picture of him though.

After the rainy waterfall, we decided to check out some hot springs to warm up.  This place was so cool.

There were 7 pools like this, all at different temperatures.  And if you got too hot, you could always cool off in the stream that ran through the hot springs.  I did not get too hot...Nick did.

They also had hot volcanic mud to take a mud bath in.  And now, we are working on getting the mud out of our bathing suits.

When we were done at the hot springs, we decided to hike to one more waterfall, because why not?

We ended the day with dinner at Papagayo in Playa Coco.  We loved this place so much, we ate there twice.

Tweet