::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!