::day one Costa Rica::

Day one!  Of course the kids were up early so we weren't late for breakfast.
Our routine was pretty much the same every day on this trip which made it easy.
Here we are on our way to breakfast.  We had breakfast at the hotel every morning--a small one, basically just fruit and toast.



We came to breakfast early and ready to go to the beach.  Right after breakfast we would go over to the board locker, or the "board room" which is what Kris liked to call it and get things together so we could walk over to the beach.  It was maybe a 10 minute walk down a bumpy rutted dirt road to a jungle path, past a little weird cemetery.



Kids sure do love getting sunscreen applied, they're usually so cooperative too.



Oh boy, Lucy was ready and raring to go.  She was excited to wear the little swim outfit that the Surf Diva ladies picked out for her.

Below is the whole group.  On the far left is Izzy, she's one of the owners of the surf shop in La Jolla that runs the camp, and she was in charge of everything.  Her daughter Annabelle is standing in front of her.  Annabell LOVED Lucy and spent lots and lots of time playing with her which was nice.


Next to Izzy is Eki.  She's a native Costa Rican and was there to teach the kids.  She was very kind and gentle with the kids and they had a great time with her.  Halfway behind Kris is Todd, Izzy's husband.  He was only able to be there for a couple of days.  The guy with the HAIR there is Steve, he was Kris's and my surf coach, and he was great.  Super kind, really unintimidating and a good teacher.  We had a lot of fun with him, and Sandy loved him more than words could say.


And there we are.  Kris and I traded off taking lessons.  We had a two hour session in the morning and a two hour session in the afternoon.  Theoretically if there weren't littles to watch we would've had a two hour group lesson for every session. But since we DID (and do) have the littles, we decided to just switch off.  And becuase of the amazing fact that we were the only family there, we each got to have privates for half the session.

I had a great first surf session and got to stand up which I hadn't accomplished yet.  I was so excited!  It was pretty thrilling to pull it off.

After the surf session we went back to the hotel and rinsed off and had a bigger breakfast/brunch.  Eggs, rice and beans, plantains.  Oh yum it was good.  Especially after all of that physical activity.



Since this was the first day, after breakfast we took a little tour of the town (town is a strong word--village maybe?)  The kids got some ice cream and I got dropped off at my yoga class--yoga was another thing that was included on the daily schedule.  Kris and I decided to switch off on that too.

By the time I got to yoga I had an insane heat headache and I thought maybe I wouldn't survive.  But I drank a lot of water and powered through.  It was a great class but it really made me tired.  When I went back to the hotel Lucy fell asleep on me and I got a little nap, again something that feels so incredible after working so hard!

Luckily the hotel room did have a cooler, so that kept me going that first day.


After the break we got all ready again and headed back down to the beach for the afternoon surf session--usually around 3 or 3:30.

The kids somehow both squeezed into the stroller.  Amazingly because they're both big, but also amazingly because they can't be in the same space without trying to push each other out usually.

This fisheye photo is the cutest ever of Lucy.  She's such a good sport.  Evidently life was just a little too bright for Mr Sand.



And pretty bright for Ms Lu too I guess.



Fashion plate:


Sandy was vehemently against doing any surf lessons. I knew he would eventually give in, so I didn't push him.  He just played in the water the first day and really enjoyed himself.



Lucy was a little better in the afternoon, but she spent the whole morning of the first day scaring the living daylights out of me and trying to join the mermaids at the bottom of the ocean.  Being a two year old, she naturally thinks she's invincible.  And she's a super brave little girl.  Nothing slows her down.  So I just had to follow her and pull her back out of the water when she got too deep, pick her up quickly before a wave took her out and try to talk her into staying closer to the edge of the water.  It was impossible.



Luckily she settled down some in the afternoon though, and we were able to have a better (less stressful for me) time.



Sandy HATED the beach at this age.  He was afraid of the water, he hated the feeling of the sand.  Everything was scary--and sorry, I can't help but insert a illustrative photo here:
Oh man he was so cute!  And he hated the beach so much!!

But the point of this story is that I'm proud of us!  We worked him through his issues and he loves the beach now.  He's comfortable in the water and he's happy to be there.  It makes me feel good.



The baby footprints!!


Another good surf session!  We are back at the board room here. We were supposed to hurry and get cleaned up so we could head out for dinner at a local place.



But look at these guys.  Think we wore them out?????  Holy cow these kids look tired.
I also think this may have been the day that Kris tipped them both out of the stroller on a little sand hill.  They weren't too happy about that.







We did make it to dinner, and it was delicious.  They also had photos of the beach from a local photographer running as a slideshow up on a monitor.  We were in a few of the photos which was really fun for the kids.

This huge bug came to visit a neighboring table and Max ran over to get a picture.



After dinner we all collapsed into bed as quickly as possible--I was soooooo tired!  In a good way though.

::heading out to Costa Rica::

Saturday morning we ran around finishing up the last few things, running errands, cleaning up and finishing up the packing. Then around lunchtime we took of down to the airport. We flew to Houston Saturday afternoon, got there evening time, took a taxi to a nearby Marriot and spent the night. 

Hauling all of our piles and piles of junk from the airport to the hotel and back to the airport wasn't super fun, but it was nice to get a good night's sleep. Kris took the boys to Denny's while we waited for Lucy to fall asleep.




Waiting for the airport shuttle early in the morning. See that super full luggage caddy? It's a lot of stuff. Plus the crazy kids.



And me.

The international check in line for Southwest was very short--they're just starting their international flights. And we were off. It was about a 3.5 hr flight to Costa Rica. The plane wasn't too full. The boys sat together in one row and Kris and I got to sit with Lucy.

 

Lucy is a good traveler. We actually didn't have trouble with any of the kids on the way there.

When we arrived it was a little stressful. The airport is really small, which helped, but the lines for customs were confusing, and getting our luggage was slightly complex. There were free luggage carts, but we weren't supposed to take them out of the airport, so as soon as we stepped outside we were supposed to pay some guy to load up our stuff and push it a few feet.

Our shuttle driver was waiting for us, and with just a few words of english, we were off, stuffed into a tiny van with all our junk in the stifling 90 degree weather! It's a 2.5 hr drive.











There was a lot of interesting scenery. Not a lot of jungley scenery though, it was "dry season", their version of winter I guess. Lots of trees looked dead and brown but I think they were just dormant.
We drove through some little towns and past some hills and mountains.

When we finally got there the driver ran over a big rock in the hotel parking lot, and so it was a pretty dramatic arrival. The camp organizer and the surf coaches were there waiting to greet us, and the guy at the check in desk gave us all cups of maracuja juice.

It was dinner time (Where we were in Costa Rica is central time). But the kids HAD to get in the pool before we could head over for dinner. Of course. So while I tried to get us organized for a few minutes, Kris let the kids go crazy.



After that we quickly got dry and headed over to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We met everyone officially and got an idea of our schedule for the next week.

At that point it was pretty much bedtime and everybody did a good job going to sleep. Sandy had his own little cot that we brought, Max got the second bed and Lucy had a pack & play. I was happy because the room had an air conditioner that could be used. Makes a difference!

::trip prep::

Getting ready to go to Costa Rica for our surf camp trip took some serious preparation. Not only did we need to go and buy gallons of bug spray and zillions of tubes of sunscreen, but I also needed to make sure everybody had the clothes they needed for 90 degree weather.

The boys only needed a few things to complete what they needed, but Lucy needed just about everything. Being the only girl, there are no hand-me-downs, or very little. So we had to start from scrach. Anyway, it took some thinking as it has definitely not been shorts and short sleeve weather here at our house lately. And Lucy had no swimming suits. So we had to take care of that. And we had to have a little try on/show off party.



 Lucy was in heaven. She loves clothes, and she loves swimming and she was just so happy to get to try on swimming clothes. She was ready to go swim RIGHT THEN.

 







And here's another cute little suit:

 

And here's Sandy in a new swim ensemble--he couldn't be left out of the fun.

 

 He's showing us all a lego guy of course. And lastly, a cute regular outfit. Of course I tried to change her out of her swimming suit and into this oufit and she lost it, so she has the swimming suit on underneath.

 



And there you go--your pre-packing fashion show. This was the fun part. The actual packing part was stressful as always. Except maybe more because we really didn't know what to expect when we got there.

::hearty doughnuts::

After ski lessons today I had to rush Sandy down to school for the Valentines party. We stopped at Dunkin D. to get a bunch of treats for the party.

 

Sandy got his own special personal doughnut all covered with hearts because he's cute and adorable. He was pretty happy about that.

 

He's been doing great at ski lessons and has been making tons of progress. It's been worth the extra trouble to take him up with me. I'm glad he's getting more comfortable and less scared. It will be so fun when he gets to the point that we can actually ski together!