Max & Rebecca: Costa Rica part 1-Nicoya, Playa Samara

After staying up really late (Max went to bed at 4:15 and we needed to get up at 4:30am) we were packed and ready to go to Costa Rica. Auntie Elizabeth arrived the night before ready to brave a week of 7 kids! My dad arrived at 5am to take us to the airport. Part the blessed nature of our trip was that we were gifted standby tickets by an airport employee. This meant that we got to be surprised if we were getting on the flight or not, and we didn't even really care, we had great plans if we got stuck in Portland or LA. (Harry Potter world!! oh yeah, and visiting my brother in LA, haha) Anyway, we were drowsy but felt so wild and spontaneous! It was strange and exciting to begin the first of 11 days without our kids! They were being lovingly cared for by auntie Elizabeth and Grandma Sharolee and they couldn't wait for us to leave!

Anyway, we got there with the perfect amount of time before our flight and we made it onto the flight just fine!

Then we had the layover in LA. The flight from LA to Costa Rica was supposedly more full and there's only one flight per day! But we made it on just fine and had a whole row to ourselves!

Also, we got in premium class on both flights and they get fancy snacks.

Anyway, I don't sleep on planes so I read a whole book (The Alchemist) and that was super exciting for me because I don't feel like I ever have time to read at home! We got to the Liberia airport and as we were getting off the airplane we could feel the humidity! Then we got to the luggage retrieval area where there wasn't any AC and we could REALLY feel the humidity!

And this is the first picture I took when we arrived in the country! he was on the phone with the car rental company that was deciding to charge us a whole lot more than we agreed to. Ha, we switched companies and it was all good.

Anyway, after signing our life away to get a car, we finally were ready to drive the hour to Nicoya. For our first couple of nights we planned to stay at a house in Nicoya that was partly owned by a long time family friend and my past young womens's leader, Lori Mann. Her father had built the property years ago. They call in the farm! It was so fun to stay at a private home in the jungle with screens instead of windows. Even the sounds of the laser frogs were exciting (their croaks were like lasers, that's not actually what the frog is called) Also, we found out while en route that the pool was up and running which was a fun surprise! We slept well, woke up slowly, and enjoyed a day with nothing planned. (We purposely did this in case we didn't get on the first flight) Once we were dressed and ready for the day we set out to the local town.

Nicoya was probably one of the least touristy places we would stay so we enjoyed that. We walked around town and found a place to eat breakfast, While our breakfast was cooking we went to the cell phone store and got SD cards for our phones so we'd have data and Costa Rican numbers (way cheaper than using our same numbers through AT&T) we went back to the restaurant to eat our traditional Costa Rican food. Which is basically rice and beans often mixed with some kid of meat or protein! And some fresh juice. I did discover, on this trip, that I don't really like Papaya, a little too melony for me! But we did enjoy lots of fresh juices!

It was too humid to put makeup on or try to dry my hair, so that was fun. Plus we were in water for the majority of this vacation, so I didn't even bother!

and some horchata!

The majority of restaurants were open like this! I liked it!

Found a big old lizard at the bank! We kept taking pictures of all the creatures to show our boys.

After late morning exploring, we went back to the house and played in the pool. It was pretty magical. Costa Rica is so humid and warm that a good swim felt great and we were alone in the jungle and had no timeline or place to be!

So we took some awkward pictures of ourselves in the pool!

We got some "waterproof" cell phone covers which weren't completely water proof and didn't really take great underwater photos but it was nice to have around when we were in the rain and during rafting.

After a good swim we decided to make our way to the beach! And we found another fun creature to send to the boys. Also, we saw a whole bunch of farm animals and scrawny little chickens!

When we got to the beach it was pouring rain. We had a brief moment of wondering if we should get out of the car. But then we remembered how warm it was and rain didn't bother us. And we were not disappointed! We had the whole beach to ourselves And then we touched the ocean!! Oh My Goodness! The warmest ocean we had ever felt was in southern California which is slightly warmer than Oregon. But this ocean (yes I'm aware it is all the same ocean) was like a comfortable bathtub!! I mean, I heard this existed, but it shocked us both. It was still raining and there was lightning in the distance. (We learned later that we probably shouldn't go in the water during a lightning storm. Ha!) It wasn't long before we were completely swimming in the ocean, diving in the waves and just enjoying the warmth. We called it a delight for the senses, with the rain, ocean sounds, warm water and just feeling so free having the beach to ourselves! This was the only time we could leave our stuff on the beach and go in the water without worrying that someone would steal our stuff!

Anyway, we left the beach completely soaked from the rain and ocean. and decided it was time for dinner. We learned that the sun sets pretty early in Costa Rica, around 6pm. As we were leaving we looked for a good place to eat dinner. We saw a restaurant with a sign that said they had live Jazz music starting in the next 20 minutes. We decided to go there and the ambiance of the restaurant was amazing. It was partially open to the beach but fully roofed so We could still hear the rain and see the lightning but we could stay dry undercover!

Anyway, We had a lovely dinner, then we made the drive back to the house. We stopped at a little family owned store to purchase some supplies for breakfast so that was fun. I loved hearing Max speak in Spanish! When we got back to the house we decided to go for a night swim and take videos of the laser toads for the boys. You can't see much but LISTEN, they sound crazy!