We're Still Here!

Yes, believe it or not, we're still in Costa Rica.  And having so much unplugged fun that it's hard to pull out the laptop to check in with you people.  But here's a brief update on our last week.

When I last left you Kevin had just arrived.  We headed out of town the next day to spend the weekend up at the Arenal Volcano.  We hiked around the rainforest and across hanging bridges, some as high as 45 meters off the ground.  We saw more monkeys, poison dart frogs, bats, exotic birds, sloths, butterflies the size of my hand, a viper snake and even a tarantula!  While the country only takes up 0.03% of the earth's surface, it contains 6% of the world's biodiversity.

Before we came to Costa Rica, Holden memorized his entire Wildlife Costa Rica guidebook and the kids have been marking the date and location of each animal sighting in what has become our family Bible.

While there we also got to spend time at the natural volcanic hot springs at a resort at the base of the volcano.  They had some insane water slides that I'm sure would be illegal in the U.S.  Ella was thrown out of one about 6 feet off the surface of the swimming pool looking a little shell shocked.

While it was nice to get some relief from the heat, we were antsy to get back "home" to Tamarindo.  We all missed the beach and our friends and our big apartment.

On Monday while the kids were back in camp Kevin and I spent the day down the road at the Langosta Beach Club.  For $25/couple we were allowed to use their facilities for the day, enjoy their pools, lounge chairs next to the pool bar, order drinks and lunch and Kevin even took out a surf board.

This week at camp the kids took more surf lessons (they're both completely hooked on the sport), took a field trip on a Pirate's Ship (80 foot sailboat), made some more art projects, and had a BBQ on the beach.  Unfortunately, there wasn't room for parents on the sailboat so I'm hoping to get some photos to share from the teachers.

Their classroom

After pick-up at 2pm each day we either hang out at the pool with the other kids, head down to the beach as a family, have sunset cocktails, or Kevin has taken the kids out for more surfing time.  Last night was Movie Night for the kids so Kevin and I turned down the invitation by the other couples to join them at a big dinner on the beach in favor of a real date night, just the two of us.  Probably (likely) our only one all summer.

Man, are we all going to be sad to leave on Monday.