Costa Rica - Manuel Antonio

We have arrived at our first destination!! Yah!! It was a long smooth 2 day flight here, with no snags which made us very happy and relieved.  Travel days are always stressful for me regardless of how much I plan, which is a lot, never quite sure if I have forgotten anything until we are face to face with the airline!
We spent some amazing last few days with family and friends which was wonderful! We are so excited for this trip but it is still hard to say goodbye to those close to us. We will miss you all!!
Not "good bye, but see you later!!" Maybe those words make it easier???

We landed in San Jose Costa Rica Monday at 11:55 a.m. After spending 45min in the line up to get through immigration and customs we were finally out of the airport and greeted by Rolando, our personal driver that we had hired to get us to our place.  Our house in Manuel Antonio was a 2hr 45min drive from the airport and we were not interested in driving there ourselves. Too nervous to do that, well I was, Doug was gung-ho of course!! Best money spent ever and so nice to sit back and enjoy the sights as we made our way to the house.  Rolando stopped at a Walmart for us, yes Walmart!! Not the place I thought I would see first in a new country but it was a good stop.  Food and life necessities are quite pricey here and we are a family of 5! We go through a lot in a day!! He also stopped at a roadside fruit stand, AMAZING, and the famous Crocodile Bridge. He was so patient and kind to us!! Thank you!!

Travelling throughout the country side was absolutely beautiful!! It is so green and lush here! You see mountains one minute and then the ocean in the next. We passed by many rice, sugar cane, and palm fields along the way. So surprised by the amount of palm oil factories here!!

Finally, after being in CR for about 6hrs we arrived at our private house in the jungle! Kids were in the pool within minutes, haha! Sure felt good to settle in to our house, go for a dip in the pool and sit back with a beer! The sounds of the jungle lulled us to sleep last night, so incredible to hear the all of the sounds of nature through our window.  People pay big money for Cd's with these sounds on them and here we are enjoying them first hand!  Can't believe it!! lol

Tuesday - Woke up to the kids "oohs" and "aahs" as they ran out onto our deck to check out all of the birds, butterflies and lizards.  It was like Christmas morning here!! Their excitement was so cute! Nate was disappointed because he set a trap using bananas last night hoping to catch a monkey and it was still empty! lol Funny kid!!

Spent the morning drinking amazing coffee from CR, nothing like buying local, kids swam in the rain and then did school work. Temperature was around +27 even in the rain and very humid. My hair is out of control!! Haha  Rain let up after lunch and the sun came out so we headed out to explore!  Hopped on the local bus, 60 cents per person to ride, so we just rode!! Love to sit back and watch the world go by. So much to see here!  There is basically one hi way that runs along the ocean from one town to the next and all hotels, restaurants and shops are off that hi way. The business of the streets and the crazy driving can be overwhelming at times but if you truly look around so many people are just sitting back and relaxing. Pretty low key lifestyle, definitely a big change from the busy life we live back home. Nice change I have to say!

An incredible day here!! Our plan was to relax today, seeing we are all still pretty tired from our travel days, but it was so hard to stay put! Nothing beats the joy we see in the kids faces when we start exploring and seeing new things for the first time. Things here are not fancy and they are not the same so life as we know it is out the window! All of these differences make this

experience so worth it. In just one day here, I believe we have already accomplished our goal of exposing our children to new places, new cultures, new foods and to make them understand that there is more to life than how we have been living.

Feeling extremely blessed and happy!!

PURA VIDA!!!