Costa Rica

4 people asked Ben and me if we were on our honeymoon on this trip. I guess we should take that as a compliment right? Okay so here it is! The big post on our adventures!

FYI: I did so great without Claire, it was amazing. I missed her like crazy, but with Skyping once, calling a few times, and being so busy--I did really well!  I only teared-up twice, and had a hard time when our flight got canceled and our arrival home was pushed back 12 hours... but I know she had a blast and was in great hands. Our family loved us being gone. It was awesome for everyone!!  

So here is what went down in Central America! Thursday: Arenal Volcano Tour

After a 3-hour drive, a beeeautiful drive at that, we arrived deep in the rain forest at the Arenal Volcano. It is still an active volcano and erupted 10 months ago. When it gets close to erupting, you can see lava spewing down the sides. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we just got to see the smoke coming off the top. Totally cool.

{Yes, I do love Africa. But I love Costa Rica too}


You can see the markings of its eruption over the years. The guide said the volcano is hardly ever clear from clouds and was amazed that we had all day with a clear view.


Friday: We went to the COOLEST hot springs called Tabacon. Seriously, it was indescribably beautiful.


It was a massive place with natural hot springs spread up into the mountain-side. We basically had a bunch of pools and waterfalls to ourselves to explore and relax in.




All of these were taken by our wonderful self-timer...




After relaxing for hours at these pools, and a nice Asian dinner overlooking the volcano, we went to an viewpoint of the mountain and valley one last time:


Saturday: Floating safari and canyoning (made famous on the Bachelor)


A baby Caiman:


Howler monkeys (SO loud! And don't look tooo closely):


Sloth:


We also saw lots of cool birds, lizards (Basilisk and Iguana), fish, and cows:)

Then we went CANYONING. Definitely one of the coolest things we've ever done. Our group:




We basically hiked down a canyon and had to repel down 4 waterfalls in the process. The first was 20 feet tall, the second was 150 feet, third was 22 feet and the last was 220 feet tall! It was AWESOME.




Pictures can't even capture how beautiful this rainforest is. Here I am mid-air into the pool (went all the way under):







One of the funnest parts was when the guides had us line up in this small ravine while they blocked off the water (dammed it with their bodies), then on the count of 3, they let it flow over us and MAN did it flow. It was so powerful and lasted forever. I thought it would never stop and we'd just drown:)

Watch the picture (waterfall lasted a lot longer than in this series of pictures):



Gross:


The view from our room:




Sunday: After Arenal (which, by the way, The Springs where the Bachelor stayed while here was just up the road), we took a boat across Lake Arenal, then took a long bumpy ride to Monte Verde.




Here we did a Canopy Tour, which included 13 zip-lines and a tour of the rain forest via the Hanging Bridges.  Zip-lining was INCREDIBLE.








The pictures don't do jack-squat to how beautiful the rain forest was:)


The Tarzan swing. Totally scary, but only 10 meter free-fall instead of the 90 meter (300 feet) free-fall we did in Zimbabwe HERE.




Monday: Another long bumpy ride took us to Guanacaste, which is the west coast area. SO much hotter, but we're here to hang on the beach, by the pool and get some RandR.


The view from our room here:


Lots of pool time. Actually, we've had a bit too much sun and are hanging out in the room today letting our skin rest.


Thursday morning (6am) we went deep sea fishing! It has always been something Ben has wanted to do and it was AWESOME. SO beautiful, too. We saw dolphins, sea snakes, and lots of cool fish.  We were out for 3 1/2 hours and caught 6 big fish!


4 of which, were MINE! Just call me a pro fisherman.

It was SUCH hard work reeling them in. I am so sore and have a couple bruises on my stomach from the initial jolt of pulling them in.  I caught two Mahi-Mahis, one Barracuda, and a Jack fish.  Ben caught one Jack fish and a Rooster fish:








Video of our fishing:



{All fish caught go to feed their families}

So much fun. One last stroll on the beach before leaving:




Costa Rica is breath-taking. Reminds us a lot of parts of Africa and Asia. So lush and green. This is rainy season but so far we've had great luck! We love traveling in the low season because we have most places to ourselves. It's so quiet, beautiful, and cheap!

Now we're home! We got in at midnight and I just ran up and watched Claire sleep. {Okay, so I got her out to hold her but she woke up so I put her back:) } When we saw her this morning, she got a huge smile and reached out for me! My heart. She's so big!! She seriously isn't even a baby anymore. She's walking non-stop and never crawls anymore. Her hair is longer, she's taller, and I weighed her this morning and she's gained a pound and a half (18.5 lbs)!! She usually only gains a pound a month so I don't know what they've been feeding her! :) She looks great and is so happy and healthy.

Oh and she sprouted a tooth no one knew about! Everyone was saying how she was sticking her tongue out so much lately and she looked really slobbery so I just felt in there and she has one tooth coming!! Exciting!  Such a great trip. So happy to be home.

District of Columbia

To start off our trip to Costa Rica, we stopped in D.C. to see Jon and Jaclyn for a few days (way cheaper flights through DC than to go straight down). It was incredible!! I'm not sure you could see or do more than we did in 2.5 days.  Thanks Jaclyn for being such an awesome tour guide! We had a blast seeing you guys.

First day: Saw the sites from the old Post Office building:

The Capitol:

Washington Monument:

We didn't get pictures of the following seen on Monday:

Smithsonian Natural History Museum 

Smithsonian American History Museum

National Archives (favorite)

Holocaust Museum (favorite)

Tuesday we went to Ford's Theater, which was also a favorite. Of course, we love President Lincoln and learned some fascinating things about his life and assassination.  What an incredible man of God.

The box he was shot in:

The original gun:

Some fascinating facts learned:

1) A few nights before he was killed, Lincoln had a dream of his assassination. In his dream, he got up hearing people sobbing and wandered through the house, seeing no one. He finally came upon a room where a funeral scene was taking place surrounded by armed guards. When he demanded to know what was going on, one of the guards told him that the president had been assassinated.

2) John Booth was an actor at Ford's theater. Lincoln watched his plays the play from his box. At one point during a performance, Booth was said to have shaken his finger in Lincoln's direction as he delivered a particularly threatening line of dialogue. Lincoln's sister-in-law, sitting with him in the same presidential box where he would later be slain, turned to him and said, "Mr. Lincoln, he looks as if he meant that for you." The President replied, "He does look pretty sharp at me, doesn't he?"  He later said John was one of his favorite actors.

3) Lincoln's body guard had left his post prior to Booth sneaking in. No one knows why

4) After shooting the President, Booth jumped from the box breaking his leg as he landed on the stage (people thought it was a part of the play).  He flashed his knife at the audience, yelling "Sic semper tyrannis!" Which means, "Thus to all tyrants!" in Latin before hobbling off the stage. He proceeded to his horse and rode over 60 miles with his broken bones stabbing through his flesh.

Anyway, enough of that. Then we went to the White House:

And then to the Arlington Cemetary to see the Eternal Flame, the Lee Home, and the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier (and changing of the guard):

It was so touching to see all those graves. What a sacred, amazing place.

We also got to see where Jon teaches math (with Teach for America). What a cool school. We're so proud of all he is doing for those kids!!

Thursday evening, we went to see all the monuments. Jefferson:

Washington:

and the Lincoln:

D.C. is such a cool place. There were a few things we didn't get to see (Mount Vernon and the National Gallery of Art) but overall, we did all we wanted to! We had great warm weather and even better company.

I love this country and am so thankful for our founding fathers and their amazing standards and veneration for God.

 "God who gave us life, gave us liberty.  Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?  Indeed, I tremble for my country that I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever." ~Thomas Jefferson

Now we have made it to Costa Rica and start our adventures bright and early!! We're having a blast and actually doing pretty well without our little monkey. We miss her (and I might have cried when we passed the baby aisle at the grocery store) but we'll see her in just over a week!

Here are a couple pictures from the current babysitters at home! She already looks different to me!!

10 months

WHAT?! 10 months already??

17 pounds and about 28 inches long.

She's officially "a walker."  She now prefers walking to crawling. The only time she crawls now is when she wants to get to something REALLY fast, like when she gets out of her gate and tries to hurry to the stairs before I can get her.

Oh and the gate doesn't hold her in anymore. It was previously used as a doggy gate so it doesn't latch to the wall. She just pushes it with all her might and moves it out of the way.  The last few days have been hard to get any work done that's for sure!

Still no teeth! And I'm happy I didn't have to deal with biting while nursing. Since we leave to Costa Rica today, I'm done nursing! It's a bitter sweet thing... definitely would have gone all 12 months but pumping 3-4 times a day while on vacation doesn't sound do-able so we're just ending 2 months sooner than planned.  I loved every minute of it and look forward to next time!

13 days without Claire. I don't know if I'll be able to make it 2 DAYS. It will certainly be fun, and needed, but come on!!! I am going to miss this little munchkin like CRAZY!!

She says "dadda" and "babba," grunts "UH!" and yells.  She makes elephant noises, blows spit bubbles, and sticks her tongue out all day long.

She LOVES her pointer fingers. They are always out. It's how she waves hello--she points at you! Everyone jokes that it's the new thing, touching pointer finger to pointer finger to say hi instead of a shake, five or knucks.

By the way, this is Kraig's b-day cake. Isn't it AWESOME! We used the same lady that did Anna's zebra wedding cake. And I actually re-did her blog/website. Check her out! She's AMAZING.
Buttercream Dreams by Melody

She is going to be an acrobat. She loves doing flips or swinging upside down with daddy. 

Loves it outside and could be out all day.

Takes 2 naps a day (a one-hour and a two-hour) and still sleeps 12 hours straight at night.

She's still the happiest, smiliest, sweetest baby alive. I don't even remember the last time she fussed. She lays down to nap and bed without a peep, gets up talking or babbling, and loves people.  We are so blessed to be her parents.

Have fun with your grandma's baby! We will miss you terribly.

SPOILED

Well it was an eventful weekend for me indeed. I turned 25 on Saturday (woot woot!) and had my first Mother's Day on Sunday. Ben sure spoiled me with gifts and love. As seen in the previous post, my big gift this year was that sewing machine. He also surprised me with waffles, flowers, a babysitter, glitter toes, lunch at In-n-Out (bringing back California memories) and some sports at the park with my family.  It was the best day ever! 

Mother's Day was so great. It is beyond-words-wonderful being a mom and I am so proud to be this angel's mother. She is the perfect baby in every way and such a light in our lives. I don't know what we did to deserve such a sweet, happy spirit but boy we got one. We are so SPOILED to have her in our lives.

 

And thank you to all the mothers in my life, especially my own, for teaching me how to be a mom. I hope I can be half as good as my mom was. I love you!