::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.