CR Day 7: San Jose

For the record, I had fully given up finishing the Costa Rica story.  There wasn't much left anyway, and when I logged onto the blog right now, I actually had another short and sweet story to share with you.  But alas, I quickly scrolled through the Costa Rica adventure, relived the pictures in a matter of seconds, and realized that some of my favorite pictures were missing.  And that would be because they were taken on our last full day in CR.  So...my tales of being married to a farmer will just have to wait until next time.  (Which turns out to be ok, because maybe by then I'll have the pictures finally uploaded as proof to share anyway.)

Back to CR.  Which is maybe, possibly, where I wish I were right now.  Except then I would be missing some of the small people in my house.  But then, maybe if I were in CR I would be distracted and not missing them so much?  Anyway, back to the story.

Our last day in CR was maybe one of our most relaxing days there.  After a leisurely breakfast, we all split up for a bit for the morning to just do what we needed/wanted to do.  For Sweetest P, that was probably to take the best, most complete nap she had in CR.  For Tim, that was to meet with our host to go over some of their discipleship training materials.  For me, that was to take my Bible, my journal, my iPod, and kick back on the deck basking in the sun, or should I say Son?

Afterwards, we headed in to San Jose, the nation's capital city.  We browsed an outdoor market looking for last souvenirs, had lunch at the Chinese restaurant across the street, and then wandered the town just enough to get a taste of the culture.

They had these trees everywhere.  This one happened to be outside of the theater building right in the middle of San Jose.

Never mind that it was the middle of January.  This giant Christmas tree made of lights seemed pretty cool.  I would have loved to have seen it lit up at nighttime.

Street performers?

The line of phone booths just drew my eye, for some reason.  Maybe because I haven't seen anything like it since circa the 20th century?

Also loved the row of motorcycle parking.

Apparently they let 15 year olds be a part of the police force in CR.

After we had had our fill of sight seeing (which really probably wasn't much more than an hour), we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some goods that we had depleted in the time we were staying with our gracious missionary hosts.  However, I never saw what the inside of the store was like.  I stayed in the car to nurse Sweetest P.  (TMI alert.)  She wasn't done by the time they finished their shopping, so we embarked on our craziest ride yet.  We stayed in the back of the 4Runner, through the alleys, potholes, hairpin curves, roads with no names, and amazingly arrived home with the babe fast a sleep and only a few bruises as "battle wounds" for me! 

Then, me and my traveling companion Rexann, and our Costa Rican hostess, Karen, headed down the road for a mani/pedi.  Which makes me laugh because it was only the 3rd time I've done that in my lifetime.  The first two were just before siblings weddings, and were gifts to me from family members.  So technically, this was the first time I paid for the experience.  If you can call $8.00 (including tip) paying for it!!!  Not a bad way to end the trip, I'd say!

And there you have it; that pretty much sums up our last day in CR.  After dinner, we said good bye to a few of the new friends we met, stayed up WAY too late playing "Loaded Questions" with our friends, and then headed back to our accommodations to figure out how we were going to cram in all the knick-knacks and coffee we had acquired.  All before we left for  the airport at 0'dark hundred, which was now just a few hours away!  Oy!

CR Day 6: Along for the Ride

As much as we wanted to drag it out, today was our last day at the beach.  We savored every last second of it by heading to the beach first thing after breakfast, strolling along the shore while Phoebe napped in the stroller.  We took our time, examining and exploring as I attempted to masquerade as a photographer.  After Phoebe woke up, we took her to the pool (which she clearly preferred over the ocean), had our friends watch her for a few minutes so we could go play in the ocean, and essentially soaked up the sun along the ocean until the very last minute.  We headed back to our room with just barely enough time to pack up and get out by checkout time.

There were several of these "shelters" along the beach.

That was the easy part of the day.  The rest of the day consisted of making our way back to "home base" in San Isidro.  Which involved, well, a lot of riding.  The "plan" (now remember, we were on vacation and attempting to refrain from planning, per se) was to stop just outside of the resort property to get lunch and hit the road until we made it home.

We loaded up the cars and headed out.  And drove.  For awhile.  Longer than we all thought before we finally stopped for lunch.  We made it to this quaint, local mom and pop seafood place for lunch.  Best food I had in Costa Rica.

Just to clarify, the drinks were made with just fruit, water and milk.  And SO good.

Not sure what's going on with that tongue.  Love the wooden high chair!

Fish, "salad" and plantain.  Don't miss the lime that was orange inside.

As it turned out, we happened to be in a town that was in the middle of a "fair".  Complete with roads closed, lots of people and a Costa Rican rodeo.  We'd heard about Costa Rican rodeos and how the bull is let lose in the ring to chase around the all the men crazy enough to let this happen.  At first we were intrigued, but by this point, we were really more interested in just getting home.  But then, we were just along for the ride, so we decided to savor the moment and soak in the culture.

We ate.  We got back in the cars.  We drove.  We parked the car.  We got out.  We walked several blocks to the rodeo.  Our free seats had a view that looked something like this.

We waited for the bull to be released.  We watched.  We left.  We bought churros.  We bought water.  We walked.  We (finally) headed back to the cars.  Poor Sweet P was EXHAUSTED at this point.  But she was hanging in there, along for the ride.

Three hours after we checked out of the hotel, we finally re-reloaded the cars and headed out of town.  Maybe this would be a good time to talk about what Tim had read about driving in Costa Rica.  You can look at a map and figure it shouldn't take any time at all to get to where you want to go, but the rule of thumb is that you can never plan on traveling more than 20-30 miles an hour.  Our experience was, well, just exactly that.

We drove.  For hours.  Just as we hit the edge of town, we went through a toll and saw our "tour guide" pull over in front of us.  We pull up behind him, and you know it's going to be good when he starts with, "Well, you see, the thing is..."  The thing was that traffic was bad so we were going to U turn and head back the other direction.  (U turn on 5-6 lane interstate road just on the other side of a toll booth, mind you.  While trying to keep track of the car in front of us.  Sure, no problem.)

We did it and survived to tell about it.  Along for the ride.  We get into town and then we stopped at our "tour guide's" house.  I think for a potty break and for them to switch cars.  Or maybe just to make the trip a little bit longer.  Phoebe, who for 6 days had endured our travels as a trouper who was along for the ride, was not so happy just to be along for the ride at this point.  Thankfully, it was a brief pit stop, and we were on our way once again.  Briefly.  Until we had to stop yet again at an ATM.

Tim and I were beginning to wonder if we were ever going to get home at this point.  The trip that was expected to take about 3 1/2 hours was bordering on 7 hours at this point.  Talk about Costa Rican time.  But what could we say?  We were, after all, just along for the ride!

We did eventually make our final destination, of course, and were able to laugh about the whole experience.  We were with the sweetest Costa Rican couple you can imagine, and they were doing their very best to make sure we had got as much exposure to Costa Rican culture as we could.  Without them, we would have never got to witness the rodeo that Tim had talked so much about.  And I hate to even try to imagine how on earth we would have found our way back to where we started from.  (Have I explained yet that the streets in Costa Rica are not labeled w/ street signs?  They can't be because the roads don't even have NAMES!)

How often is life like our road trip through Costa Rica?  God is our native tour guide, with so many things to show us and experiences to allow us, and instead of being along for the ride, we are so impatient and rushed and stressed that we miss out on all He has for us?  Let this be a reminder to me to let Him be my tour guide and that I just need to go along for the ride!!!

Day 5: Going with the Flow

For most of Phoebe's life, I have repeatedly proclaimed that she is so chill.  She's almost always willing to put up with whatever the rest of us are doing and very happily "go with the flow."  We've constantly debated how much of that can be attributed to her personality, how much of it is simply because she's the third kid, and how much of it is actually because we are so much more relaxed and confident in our own parenting abilities.  In answers to our own wonderings, we've been content to agree that it must be some sort of combination of all of the above.

In any case, Phoebe handles it all very well.  Including an entire day spent traipsing around the northwestern coast of Costa Rica.  The actual hotel portion of the resort we stayed at was actually a few short miles from the actual coastline of the property.  This meant that from our hotel room, we had a short drive to the beach.  Also, the natives that we were with had a few different ideas of where to hang out on the beach and where the best surfing could be found.

So day number 5 in Costa Rica began with breakfast, and a general layout of the game plan for the day.  Tim and I felt bad because we were with two other couples, and we were the ones with the baby, so we were always the one to complicate plans.  Phoeb's may be chill, but having a baby on this kind of trip always changes your flexiblity somewhat.  Even with a chill baby.  Everyone else was on vacation and were attempting from making plans of any kind, but because we were trying to maintain optimal baby happiness, we were attempting to have SOME kind of naptimes!

The "plan" we came up with for the day: go to a different beach a short distance away at the neighboring resort, get some lunch, maybe check out another beach and come back to the hotel for Phoebe's afternoon nap.  Pretty simple, loose plan.  When asked, we did say that in an ideal situation, we would have Phoebe back for an afternoon nap around 1:00ish.

Here's how the day actually played out.  We left around 9:30ish for the beach by the Marriott resort.  It was AMAZING.  I don't think I took a single picture at that beach.  I was too busy enjoying it.  So you'll just have to take my word for it.  We put Phoebs in the stroller and strolled the beach for a bit, and she napped like a champ. 

Shortly after she woke up, we loaded back up in the cars and headed to a second beach.  This one was a bit busier than the resort beaches, but we got a much better taste of local culture.  It was everything you expect in beach culture, but it was Costa Rica instead of San Diego or Cocoa Beach.

The craziest part was that we parked in the parking lot and couldn't see a drop of water anywhere.  To get to the actual beachfront, we had to walk almost a quarter of a mile along this rickety, wooden plank boardwalk through the mangroves to get to the water.  If we hadn't been with people who had been there before, we would have never found the water.  

Phoebe wasn't so in love with this beach.

But at least Tim got a taste of surfing.

We hung out at this beach until long past baby lunch time, while Tim and I frantically fed Phoebe everything we had stashed in the diaper bag for a "just in case" situation.  And she survived with hardly a protest.  Once we left the beach around 1:30, we stopped at a restaurant that was just at the edge of the parking lot.  We ventured back through the mangroves, and Phoebe almost fell asleep in the stroller.  Once again, "going with the flow."  The restaurant was this perfectly "thatched roof" nearly outdoor beach lunch stop.  I ordered a fruit salad (in Spanish, thank you very much), and to my surprise, it came with ice cream on top!

Restaurants in Costa Rica are a totally different experience.  In the sense that you are on Costa Rica time.  You wait to order.  You wait for your food.  You wait for your bill.  A simple meal can take hours.  And usually does.  

This one was no exception.  Poor Phoebe was absolutely exhausted, but she was hanging in there like a champ.  And once lunch was finished, we decided to part ways with our friends.  They took us back to the hotel, and the rest of the crew went shopping in nearby Tamarindo, and we finally laid Phoebe down for a nap and chilled out at the pool right outside our door while she slept.  

After her nap, we met the rest of our group down at the resort's pool/beachfront and bar for sunset on our beach along with a little bit of pool time and dinner.  After dinner, we headed back to our room just before everyone else to get Phoebe back to bed.  Incidentally, she unquestionably prefers the pool over the ocean.

Looking back on the day almost makes me laugh.  I spent a good portion of the day trying to balance enjoying our surroundings, not being the difficult people with the baby, and worrying that Phoebe was not going to be able to handle all that was going on.  But really, was she phased by it all?  Not hardly in the least.  As I've boasted hundreds of times, "she just goes with the flow."  

And I'm beginning to learn that I should should take some lessons from her.  Relax.  Go with the flow, Aim.  It's all gonna work out just fine!

Day 4: The Beach

After a full day of traveling on "Tico Time," we finally arrived at our hotel at about 4:30.  We got checked in and where headed to the beach within minutes.  This resort was unlike any other I have ever staying in, in that the rooms where not right near the beach.  We actually had to get back in the car and drive a couple of miles to where the beach front was. 

It was well worth the drive.  Once you checked into the beach club, there was an infinity pool (which I saw for the first time here).  For the uneducated like me, an infinity pool is a pool that is built up a bit from the ocean, so that the edge of it looks out to the horizon and it literally looks as if the pool goes on forever.  It's pretty amazing. 

Past the inifinity pool was the ocean.  We've been told that this particular spot on this particular beach is one of the top 5 places to surf in the entire world.  For as much as I know about surfing, I have no idea if that's true or not.  I do know the waves, the beach, and the surfers we watched were absolutely unbelievable. 

We got to the beach just before sunset, and so we were able to watch the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, along the northwestern shores of Costa Rica.  Standing here at the water's edge was one of the scariest, intense, spiritual moments of my life.  Even though I like to pretend that I am a writer, I think I have absolutely no words great enough to explain what I was feeling in those moments. 

But since I like to pretend that I am a writer, I have to at least try!

The waves that evening were unlike any I have ever seen.  They were beautiful.  The beach was absolutely spotless.  Nothing like the dirty, overpopulated Californian beaches that I am used to.  There were no picnic remains, cigarette butts, or people for that matter anywhere in sight.  The sand was soft, clean, and full of shells.  The water was not vibrant turquoise like you see on some beaches, but rather clear as could be with whiter than white swells. 

I have never felt as small and insignificant as I did with those waves washing over my feet.  Sometimes, especially as Americans, we get so caught up in our own worlds and our lives.  We think and act as if the world revolves around us.  Living in the United States breeds in us this mentality that "It's all about me."  Even if we try and deny it, fight it, it's always there.  It's our culture and how we live. 

But man, it takes one or two of those massive, powerful waves washing over you to remember, you could be caught up in one of those and be gone in an instant.  In the blink of an eye. 

And what's even more amazing than that is that those waves are normal life.  They are not a natural disaster or a freak occurance, or a one in a million event.  It happens all day long, every day, 24/7/365.  That power, that majesty, that beauty, that intensity.  It's always there. 

And in the scheme of it all, how do I fit in?  Those waves will continue, with or without me.  Wowsers.  Pretty amazing stuff to give you perspective.

CR Day 3: La Paz Waterfall Gardens

They don't call it the "rainforest" for no reason.  Holy smokes; it's amazing my camera is functional in any way at this point.  If I had a dollar for every time I've heard "I've never seen it rain so much here," I might have been able to pay for our entire trip.

The day brought us to La Paz Waterfall Gardens, and the key word here would be WATER.  We left San Isidro, and drove through the cat hair rain, into the sunshine, through the mountains, under the clouds, over the potholes, and the weather would change every ten minutes.

Until we got to where the Waterfall Gardens were.  The cat hair rain had turned into definite mist.  But we are, after all, in Costa Rica, and I had been warned to bring an umbrella.  Being I didn't have an umbrella, I decided now would be as good a time as any to get one.  I was glad I had brought it to the waterfalls.  And, since we were, as mentioned, in Costa Rica, I was not about to start complaining.  (Even when Tim conveniently offered to carry Phoebe in the front carrier, meaning he weasled his way into using the umbrella I had purchased for the occassion.)  Rain or no rain, I was going to experience this rainforest!

La Paz Waterfall Gardens were explained to us as the owner's "own personal Jurassic Park."  We couldn't wait to see what this meant.  It was kinda like the zoo meets the butterfly gardens meets waterfalls meets Jurassic Park.  There was a bird area where we got to feed the toucans, there was a butterfly section where the chrysallis were not behind glass like at the Butterfly Pavallion, there was a snake and frog area, an orchid area, a monkey area, and a large cat area where you could play tug of war with the leopards on the other side of the glass.  No joke.

There were also some pretty amazing waterfalls.

And some rain.  Okay, more than some.  Lots.  I think I wrang out a waterfalls worth of water out of my fleece hoodie by the time we stopped for lunch.

And for those of you who are keeping track, yes, Phoebe was with us the entire time.  She endured the rain like you absolutely wouldn't believe.  Not a complaint out of her the entire day!

Seems to me she had the right attitude.  We may have been wet, but we were wet in the rainforest in Costa Rica.  WOW!!!

In the bird hut

In the butterfly "pavalion"

checking out the butterflies

the orchids

poison dart frogs

waterfalls- i don't think the picture does justice for how wet we were

lot of good that umbrella was doing...

Day 2: COSTA RICA!!!!

"May the Lord bless you and keep you.  May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.  May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace."

For the last year, Tim and I have prayed this blessing (taken out of Numbers 6) upon our kids every night.  But after having experienced my first full day in Costa Rica, I couldn't help falling asleep on Thursday night feeling as if the Lord were making His face to shine upon Tim and I as well.

Phoebe breezed through the 5 hour overnight flight like she was an experienced world traveler.  I normally get a little uptight in situations like the customs experience, but I managed to get both Sweetest P and I, the stroller, the carseat, our two suitcases and our two carry-ons through as if I had spent my whole life practicing.  It couldn't have gone more smoothly.  Tim told me that he expected to meet me immediately on the other side of customs and "rescue" me from an over tired Phoebe, and do whatever he could to get me some sleep.  STAT.  He was totally unprepared to see me breeze through the doors, calm, cool and totally together.

The rest of the day is a little bit of a blur (because even though it did all go super smoothly, between holding a baby and an uncomfortable airplane ride, I didn't get much sleep between Denver and San Jose).

I can tell you that I spent the ride from the airport to our lodging totally soaking it all in.  The sun, the air, the architecture, the people, the traffic, the landscape, the insanity of it all.  We got to where we were staying, and it was nothing that I had imagined.  The sun was shining, it was greener than I've seen since I left Minnesota, but everything was WET.  And I learned a new phrase.  "Cat hair rain."  Most of us would call it mist, but it's slightly more than mist.  Somewhere between mist and very light rain.  And here in Costa Rica, I guess they call it "cat hair rain."

Our activity for that first day was a tour of Cafe Britt, where they make coffee.  We learned all about the coffee process- from the picking of the beans to the packages on the shelf in the store.  And we found out that the adults in Costa Rican coffee store are the same as kids in a candy shop.  And why wouldn't I be, after I had just survived an overnight, international flight with myself and a baby?

That night, as I lay in bed, I feel like I spent hours jabbering to Tim about how I really felt the Lord's blessing upon our trip and our time in Costa Rica.  So thankful to be here.   


*PS- pardon the quality of these pictures.  We have Tim's work computer with us, rather than our own, so I have edited all the pictures in our online albums, rather than on the computer, as I eventually intend to transfer them to our computer at home.  As a result, you are seeing the unedited versions.

Posing with these crazy statues outside Cafe Britt- waiting for the tour to start.  Man, do I look old.

They had all these crazy trash cans around the yard.  I wanted to take pictures of more of them, but they all kinda represent evil spirits, so something told me it just wasn't all that appropriate.  I guess they put on masks like these and chase little kids through the streets to chase the evil out of them before Christmas.

We were told that we would get all kinds of good prizes if we volunteered when they asked, so Tim jumped at the chance.  He's getting ready for a professional coffee tasting experience.

Stirring the coffee before he tasted it.

Tim showing off his "great" prize.

Costa Rica Day 1: Leaving Home

Maybe that title is a misnomer, seeing as how the first day technically didn't get me any farther than the airport, but it was the beginning of the journey, and I feel like it was significant enough that I need to document it.

As the days got closer and closer to departure, I was beginning to not just realize, but also acknowledge that I was having a little bit of anxiety over our trip.  In fact, it wasn't until the first week in January when I knew for sure where Sophia and Noah were going that I even began to get excited about Costa Rica.  We had talked about the possibility of me accompanying Tim for almost 6 months, but it was just the very beginning of January, when I finally felt the details coming together and found myself smiling at the thought of our trip.  That's when I realized that yes, I had been a little stressed about the details, but now it was time to think about the fun!

But then Tim left Sunday night, in the middle of a snowstorm, leaving me with the kids, a couple of days of work ahead for me, single parenting, and the daunting task of organizing details for 3 kids going in 3 separate directions; 2 of them without me, and the youngest going on a international flight, overnight, with me.  Many would call me crazy; I like to think of myself as adventurous!

In any case, by Monday morning, I was beginning to realize that I was more than a little apprehensive about the upcoming flight with Sweetest P.  By Wednesday, although I had prayed about it some, I decided that it was time to quit praying half-heartedly and to truly "cast my cares" upon the Lord.  I earnestly prayed for traveling mercies and begged the Lord to show favor upon me and Phoebe for 6 hours while in the air.  And I pleaded for more faith to believe that the Lord would answer such a "trivial" request.

Wednesday flew by in a blur of preparation.  I braced myself for an emotionally ugly good-bye scene with the two older kids, and continued packing what seemed like endless bags.  (Except they weren't really endless because I was trying to avoid paying for excessive checked baggage.)  Bedtime came around, and I laid Phoebe down as usual, and took the older two over to the neighbors, where they would be staying for the first part of our trip.  They were so excited to have a "sleep-over" with their surrogate CO grandparents that they barely noticed I was leaving!  Thank God for for distraction; we'll call that blessing number one!

About 9:00, just as I was expecting my ride to show up, I got Phoebe out of bed, packed her in her carseat (why not, I had, after all, been packing endless bags all day long), and loaded up the van.  I was so grateful for a great friend to not only drive me to the airport at this ridiculous hour, but that she was also willing to accompany me to the ticket counter with aforementioned endless bags (plus now a stroller, carseat and baby!).  We'll maybe call this blessing #2!  I should have taken a picture for the record, but I think I was too distracted trying to remember all the important things (you know, passports and whatnot).

I hit the ticket counter just before 10, and let me tell you about the two Frontier agents at the counter.  That's right- two.  This night shift at the airport is a whole different ballgame than I've ever experienced.  It was such a laid back, relaxed atmosphere that really seemed to set the tone for the rest of the night. 

My next stop was a newstand store that happened to still be open (truly!) for ridiculously expensive airport priced earphones, since I hadn't managed to find mine ANYWHERE in my house before I left.  (Any guesses where they might have turned up?)  Miracle of all miracles (minor blessing, perhaps?), there was a store open and I was able to obtain some before even going through security. 

Ah, security.  Who doesn't dread the TSA experience?  Would you believe it was nothing?  A breeze.  Me, the babe, the stroller, the carseat, the diaper bag, the purse, the two 3+ oz. bottles of milk, and all.  We made it through like a cake walk.

I endured over an hour at the gate, waiting to board, although the time seemed to fly.  (Pun fully intended.)  I kept pusing the stroller back and forth, hoping Sweetest P would go back to sleep, but she never did.  We finally  boarded, and I know everyone around me was silently cursing their terrible misfortune of a seat so near a baby.  Overnight.  But would you believe my Sweetest P was so sweet that all those same people totally forgot she was there until we got off the plane?  That's right- she was perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  But that would be getting ahead of the story, since the actual flight didn't really happen until Day 2.

So, as the beginning of Day 1 of the Great Adventure drew to a close, I found myself stepping from the familiarity of DIA to the aircraft that would carry me into the unknown.  All the while praying in extreme gratitude for the peace that had engulfed me throughout the day, and in faith that Phoebe and I would have a great flight.