costa rice: days 4 & 5 (a little rainforest, please)

On our 4th day in Costa Rica we set out early (really, it was around 5:00 AM) to make the 4 hour drive up to the town of Monteverde to spend a couple of days in the rain and cloud forests there. Our kids were so tired and I expected them both to sleep for a good portion of the drive. George met those expectations. His sister, however, decided she'd rather read science books and enjoy the views the entire time. She finally fell asleep for about the last hour of the ride. Just in time to ruin her afternoon nap :).


But with the incredible sights to see I guess I can't really blame her for not wanting to miss it. We couldn't get over how beautiful it all was. We drove on a highway for a little bit at first, but then the rest was little winding roads up mountainsides through rainforest. The roads started out paved (but still very narrow) like this (that is my parents' rental car in front of us):


After about an hour on that road we graduated to a dirt road with many, MANY potholes. It was an adventure. We had been warned not to attempt this route without a 4-wheel drive vehicle, and we were glad we had heeded the warnings and gone with bigger SUVs.


This was such a lovely way to see more of this remarkably beautiful country, and the 4 hours went by quickly because the drive was so pleasant (and bumpy-- it was like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland :)). I kept snapping photos out of the window as we drove because I wanted to remember those sights. Here are a few:

See all those lovely houses down there in that little valley? Can you even imagine living somewhere like that? So beautiful.


The rows of plants off in the distance we decided were coffee plants, I believe.


Here's a closer look at those pretty rows of coffee.


We drove through a few really lovely, tiny towns like this one. It was fun to see the schoolchildren out playing soccer during their recess.


I have a strange affinity for laundry that is hung out to dry and we passed dozens of lines like this one. I look at this and wonder about the people who wear those clothes-- what their lives are like, what they do for work, if they have children. John and I kept commenting about what it would be like to relocate to a home like the ones we drove past. I am certain we'd be in for some culture shock, and I'm certain we'd miss many of the conveniences that we're used to (like dryers), but in so many ways it is a lifestyle to be envious of. Hard work, hard play, not a lot of distractions. I understand that I am totally generalizing (and perhaps romanticizing) here, but the point is just that I found a lot of beauty in the simplicity of the homes and the lack of excess, and actually felt some yearning to find a way for my children to experience their youth in a place that allows for those things (hard work, hard play, few distractions). It seems so hard to come by where we are at right now.


After we arrived in Monteverde and checked into our little hotel, we headed out for some adventures in the rain/cloud forests. We started off with some ziplining (since George and Pearl were too little for this John stayed with them and didn't come on this part).

Here is my mom getting ready to take off while my little sisters watch from the stairs.


Ben looks slightly miserable, but I'm pretty sure that's just because it would be far too much work to actually look like he was enjoying something for a camera, and not because it wasn't actually fun.


See? Here we all are happily smiling for the camera as we walked through the rainforest to the next set of ziplines and there is Ben back there looking like a serial killer. He's not. Pretty sure. (I'm making this sound like he is always angry which is pretty much the opposite of the truth. He is always laughing and teasing. He just refuses to be a normal person in a picture.)


Another walk to the next set of zips.


The one and only picture of me ziplining from the day.


There were a couple of ziplines that were super long and you could choose to ride with someone. This was so great because you were zipping along forever and you could have someone up there to enjoy it with. Here are my dad and Rachel coming down.


Here are Adam and Madeline. We were chuckling as they came zipping in about Mady's long giraffe (draf) legs hanging straight down for miles. It's just because we're all jealous, Mad.


You weren't supposed to take photos while actually ziplining, but this one was so long and I was with Hannah (I always feel more rebellious when someone is around to witness it), so I snapped this shot. You can really get a feel for what it was like to float along above the canopy of trees in the rainforest. It was so much fun.


After ziplining (which spellcheck keeps telling me isn't a word), we went back to rescue John from our rowdy and tired children. Pearl pretty much fell asleep instantly when I put her in the baby carrier and nursed her. See her little legs dangling down there? We donned our rain gear and got ready to go walk along the bridges through the rain/cloud forest.


One of the many bridges we walked across. It was pretty dreamy.


I love this picture. My dad was pointing out in the distance to where you could see one of the ziplines that we had just been on way above the trees, and I just think the clouds above us and the rainforest below us look so beautiful.


George thought this was pretty exciting. He was a trooper, too. When we set out on this little adventure we had NO idea how long it was going to take. Let's just say that by about the 10th bridge (with good hiking distance between them) we were all ready to call it a day :).


Our little family. Pearl is in there asleep under my poncho.


We walked for so long that eventually Pearl woke up...


...and George really needed to go potty. Pretty sure this will be the coolest place he's ever peed for his entire life. This picture makes me laugh so hard. I added a modesty patch to keep things PG-13. That's a pretty impressive little stream, if I do say so myself :).


That night we stayed at a very quaint hotel in the rainforest that was first built by Quaker families who had settled in Costa Rica to avoid persecution. We had cozy rooms with windows that looked out into the rainforest for miles. There weren't any portable cribs to rent from the front desk like at most hotels, so we got a little creative in making Pearl somewhere to sleep. Happily our hotel room had three big beds in it (it was almost like a cabin or something), so we had plenty of space to get her all set up. We re-arranged some of the furniture, pushed the bed against the wall, and added our suitcases around as a border to keep her from falling, and voila, who needs a crib? See her slumbering over there in the corner?


The next morning we set out for a bit more of an adrenaline rush. My mom wasn't interested in huge freefalls, so she stayed at the hotel with my kids while the rest of us went to a different place for some higher adventure ziplining and freefalling. I decided not to bring my camera along this time, so these pictures were from Hannah's (much smaller and therefore more zipline-friendly) camera. There was one zipline that you could clip in so that you flew down like Superman. It was super fun and only a little bit alarming to come flying down headfirst at lightning speed towards trees and trust that they would stop you before you crashed into the large tree at the end. From top left to right, the pictures are of me, Mady, Dad, Adam, Ben, and Hannah. John did this too, but he went first with the camera to take these pictures. And Rachel was too small to fly like Superman so she just zipped down normally.


After doing about a thousand speedy ziplines, the finale was a gigantic Tarzan swing that boasted a 150 ft. free fall. It was seriously intense. So much fun. Here is my dad walking the plank. You got to the end of that platform, some guys quickly hooked you up to a couple of ropes, and then they push you off. It was crazy.


Here are the rest of us swinging back down to earth after we had jumped. (John did this too, but for some reason he ended up going at the beginning to take photos again. Why didn't that occur to me at the time?)


We loved the two days we spend in Monteverde. It was such a perfect way to break up our days at the beach and do something different. John was loving all of the insects of course, and only wished he had some vials and alcohol to bring them home in :). Here are a few pictures he took of the bugs. (There are dozens more, but I figured most people who read my blog aren't here to see pictures of insects.)


I hate spiders, but these were kinda cool guys. Like a Daddy Longlegs on steroids.


We headed home (i.e.: back to our hotel on the beach) in a ferocious downpour which caused caused some of us a little concern about the safety of the dirt roads we'd be driving down, but we were fine.


And this time the kids slept almost the whole way :).


Back to the beach next!

return on our investment

I am interrupting my s l o w Costa Rican recap to bring you a chicken update. We have eggs! We actually have for about 3 weeks now, and it is so exciting. One of our most favorite things to do in the evening is go out and collect the eggs-- even though we can pretty much guarantee a few eggs a day (usually around 5 to 7), it is still pretty thrilling every day to go out and actually have a bundle of eggs to bring in. Our kids love it, too, and we cannot walk out the door without Pearl asking "Chicken? Egg?" and lunging out of my arms toward the backyard to go see for herself. George shed some tears on the first day that we got eggs once he realized that these eggs were going to be eaten rather than hatched-- he had been thinking all along that we would be getting eggs that had baby chicks in them to hatch like we did last time. He was pretty disappointed, poor little kid. I felt bad that we hadn't thought to make that clear to him and had broken his heart like that-- he really was so sad about it. He still sometimes says that he wishes our eggs had baby chicks in them, but he's not sad about it anymore, and he loves going out to get the eggs and bringing them in to be washed and put away (both chores that he completes happily).

By the way, we absolutely LOVE having our chickens. They come running to us when we walk in the backyard and they kind of hunch down when we reach out for them so we can pick them up. They are seriously the best pet in the history of earth: they live outside, they are so low maintenance, they let us hold them when we want to, but we don't have to attend to them like other kinds of pets, and hello, they give us food! I'd like to see your dog do that :).

Here are the kids on the morning that we found our first eggs.


And here is a shot of a carton that we filled up just today. We hadn't gotten the eggs yesterday, so when we went out this evening there were 14! We were laughing as John just kept pulling egg after egg out of their little nest. I love the different eggs from the different breeds (the brown/tan ones are from our Plymouth Barred Rocks (Luigi and Blue), Rhode Island Reds (Maude and Spot) , and Sexlinks (Leapy and Colorful), the white ones are from our Leghorns (Strongfluff and Willa), and the blueish green ones are from our Americana (Bevisa)). I'm telling you, go build yourself a coop and get some chickens-- you'll love it!

costa rica: day 3 (happy b-day to me)

Our third day in Costa Rica also happened to be my 27th birthday (how lucky am I?), and it was such a happy day.

You know the day is going to be awesome when it starts out with your two brothers smuggling large numbers of towels out of the hotel :).


We spent the morning at Flamingo Beach and we were pretty much the only people there (except for that one guy off in the corner having a solo yoga session; he left once we got there, I'm sure because our rowdy crew started throwing his chakras all off balance). It really was so picturesque and serene. Here is a wide angle shot of various family members spread out doing their thing on the beach and in the water.

I basically never held or took care of my children on this trip (except for at night when Pearl decided to be a newborn again). I adored having my kids there experiencing and seeing all these new things alongside us, but it was also so glorious to be able to really r e l a x (in a way that isn't possible when you are chasing around two active children) because my family members just jumped in and took care of my babies so often. Traveling with extended family is seriously underrated. Best of both worlds, for sure. Here is Rach taking Pea out for a stroll in the pretty water.


Ben and I were so! happy! to! be! there! (Rachel holding Pearl, and George and Madeline in the background.)

Pearl must've learned a few moves from the yoga man before he left. Here she is with some fine down dog form.

I like this baby and her unruly, wispy, flippy hair. Lots and lots.


John caught another crab. This one was bigger and more threatening than the tiny one that pinched Pearl, and she knew better than to pet him. I was actually surprised she wanted to get this close after how mad she had been the day before.


I married a pirate. A very sweaty pirate.


Remember when I said that we took lots of pictures of our toes? Yes, well, here are two more.



Pearl helped herself to a little personal ocean-bath, so we decided to get her out of her salt-water filled diaper and let her play.



Her little squished bottom makes me laugh.


After a couple of hours on the beach we had to head into town to catch a sunset sailboat cruise thing that my dad had planned for us. Once we boarded the sailboat my first order of business was to get a certain little girl to sleep. She was happy to oblige. Tired baby.


We were riding out to a beautiful little cove with a reef for snorkeling which was about an hour away. While Pea slept everyone else enjoyed the ride.


It was such a fun thing to see some of Costa Rica from the water-- it is so beautiful!


Once we got out to the cove we ate a traditional Costa Rican dinner and then had a couple of hours to explore-- we swam, snorkeled, and kayaked.

Mom and Rach lookin' fine in their masks.


My dad offered to stay on the boat with my kids while John and I (and everyone else) went out snorkeling. When we got back George was chomping at the bit to get out into the water, so my dad took him out in the kayak.


Pearl had happily watched everyone out playing in the water...

...Until she saw George out in the kayak. Then she wanted in on the action. I rounded up a miniature lifejacket and sent her on her way. By this time George had decided the kayak wasn't as much fun as swimming, so he had jumped into the water, and I had to get John to snorkel on over to keep an eye on him.


There they all are, a little closer.


My happy, water-loving boys.


We loaded back onto the boat and began the ride home. For some reason things got a little crazy on the boat ride back. Mostly with my kids. They were being so wild. (Also with Hannah who decided to recklessly flirt with some Canadian college boys :).) Thankfully we had many people to help corral my children.



We tried to get a picture of our family, but as you can see, the kids were most uncooperative. I am blaming the Costa Rican food we had eaten for dinner.


This was the best we could do :).


We frequently made fun of Adam for bringing a book with him EVERYWHERE we went and reading it at pretty much any free second he could. We were laughing because John took this photo of all of us hanging out together at the front of the boat...


...and then he turned around and took this picture of Adam, book in hand, giving us a dirty look for laughing at him and his book-loving ways.


A couple of the calmer moments-- one of me with George (I love that he loves me):


And one of Daddy and his girl looking at the ocean.


And then one of Pearlie giving me a kiss. Oh, wait. Scratch that. This wasn't calm-- look at her! She was attacking me. We are serious about our kisses in this family.


Have I mentioned before that George is not shy? Well, he's not. Not at all. In fact, sometimes John and I cringe a little at the comfort level he has with complete strangers. He and one of the Costa Rican boat drivers became buddies. They turned the music up and had a serious dance party. We were all thoroughly entertained.


Then G's new buddy asked for him help driving the boat. George took his job seriously, and had to be redirected from time to time because he really wanted to turn that boat around.


Pearl got to help for a bit, too. I love her little hands all ready to go on that steering wheel.


This was billed as a "Sunset Cruise," but it was a pretty cloudy day so we didn't know if we'd really end up getting a sunset. The clouds parted just enough for a decent show as we were sailing back to shore, and though it wasn't the most spectacular sunset ever, it was still beautiful.



John took this one after we had walked back to shore.


It was such a full, fun day that most of the time I didn't even remember that it was my birthday. On our drive back to the hotel we decided to stop at Super Compro (our BFF-- we were there almost daily) and pick up a birthday cake to make it a legit birthday celebration. We chose some kind of concoction that was sort of like a giant tres leches, and I was officially declared 27 once my family sang "Happy Birthday" to me in the most horrific (seriously, my brothers were singing like injured cows) tune you can imagine. Just the way I like it :).


Rainforest is next. If I can find the motivation...