Vacation

Finally, our vacation is on the blog.

We spent 8 days in Costa Rica. The first 3 were our action packed days staying at the base of Arenal Volcano, one of the world's most active volcanoes. While were were there we:

Went on a zip line over and through the jungle. When I say over, I really mean over - the first big line was approx. 1000 feet above the ground! One line was over 1/2 mile long and you got up to 45-50 mph. It was awesome! Tara says it the coolest thing she's ever done.

We also went white water rafting, which is where we got banged up. We weren't in the raft 30 seconds and went down an 8'-10' drop and we both flew out. Ryan hit his eye and then his knee on a rock and Tara landed right on her arm and then on top of Ryan. But our guide was great and he had us both right back into the boat. There were so many rapids that it was the end of the trip before we realized we were hurt. It was a beautiful trip. We even saw a sloth in a tree.

Then we hiked to the volcano and watched it spew car-size boulders. You could hear them before you could see them. The clouds covered the top at night time so we couldn't see the lava, but we did go watch the boulders at night, which was pretty cool to watch the streaks of red going down the side of the volcano.

There are hot springs there with all these fancy resorts that you could pay big bucks to get in to. But Ryan found a tip on the internet just before we left and it worked out. Just downstream from the resorts is a bridge and you can hike down and there's the hot spring, totally free. So, we went down and lay in the spring in the jungle just like the people that live there do and didn't spend a dime.

And on the way out of town we hiked to a really pretty waterfall.

After all that activity we needed some rest, so we drove to the beach on the Pacific side to a town called Tamarindo. We stayed at an awesome hotel, Capitan Suizo. We could go on and on about how much we liked this hotel, but we'll spare you. On the premises were a family of howler monkeys and two baby orphan monkeys, 4-5 iguanas, raccoons, skunks...all kinds of critters. We walked up on a skunk on our front porch one night, which kinda startled us. We spent the next 4 days relaxing by the pool and playing in the water. We did drive about 30 minutes to two other beaches that are famous for surfing and did some boogie-boarding (we were probably being laughed at by all the surfers, but we didn't care). And we kayaked out to an island one day. But other than that, just chilling. We each read two books. We would just lay around and then walk to town along the beach at night to watch the sunset and eat supper.

We would recommend this trip to anyone. It was easy and a lot of fun. And the food is great! So, that's our 8 day vacation in a nutshell. Pictures are below.

The view from the front porch of our cabin.

Ready, set...

Gooooooo!

This is at the end of our white water trip. Didn't take the digital with us on that one, so this is all the proof we have!

Our injuries. You can't see Ryan's eye here, but it turned purple and then yellow for a few days. Another picture will follow where you can see Tara's bruise a few days later. It's just now going away after two weeks.

Some of the monkeys at the beach hotel. Howler monkeys don't sound like what we think a monkey sounds like. It's almost like a bark.

We had some "friends" that would come hang out next to us by the pool. You can see the ocean in the background.

Our room.
This is actually a restaurant on the beach. Can you see the surfer in the middle of the picture.

This is the main activity of the 4 days at the beach.

We're Back...

Pictures and stories to follow...we're just not promising when! ;-)

We had a great time. We managed to come back with only a slightly black eye, badly bruised arm and a banged up knee. That ought to get a few of you to come back!

Bittersweet Vacation

In a few hours, Tara and I will get on a plane for 8 days of vacationing in Costa Rica. And boy, are we excited. But, it's also the first time that we'll both be away from Owen, and he away from us, for such an extended period. So, there's a little anxiety. We're sure that once we've landed tomorrow, picked up our car and are headed towards Arenal it'll melt away. But, for now, it's not too fun leaving out little buddy.

And no, don't call CPS. Tara's mom is staying here with him. But with a new crawler she's going to have her hands full! Hopefully when we get back she'll have everything childproofed! If you think about it, give Gale a call this week. And we'll talk to you all on the flip side.

Crawling

Well, it's not yet a perfected artform, but Mr. Owen has devised a way to get around by himself. He usually has a very red forehead, knees and left elbow from the carpet burn.

Tree Planting

Last week Ryan's office went and planted 8 trees in the park down the road from their office. While the boys acted like it was soooo hard for 15 people to plant 8 trees, the girls sat under much larger trees and talked about how cool trees are! Neither of those is exactly true, but it was a fun time to get out of the office and have everyone hanging out together.

This does nothing to try and convince everyone that Ryan doesn't design gardens and plant trees for a living, and he really is an engineer. (That's directed at you, Darren Moore!)

And yes, Ryan was the goofball that wore sandals to a tree planting. But, they were "athletic sandals"!

Who was there...

Check out the pictures we just found!


Who was there...


for Ryan and Tara's first picture together?
when this was the view for dinner?

when Ryan and Tara were this skinny? (To her credit, Tara is this skinny again! Ryan is hopeless!)when we got engaged!

When Ryan bleached his hair. Yes, that was scary. Strangely enough, Ryan met his future in-laws with hair like this. How did he ever pass the test?!

Sorry, that's kind of unfair to many of you since all of these happened when we lived in Turkey. But even if you weren't among the handful of people there with us, we figured everyone would get a kick out of this - especially Ryan's hair.

Walking Ever Make You Tired?

Walks sure do make Owen tired!

New Workout Video

Try this for 5 minutes at a time - great results.

Easter

Ryan's parents came over for Easter. We had an action-packed weekend of Eastering (beauty of English - make up your own words), going to the zoo, shopping, eating and watching basketball. Ryan and his dad have never watched more basketball in one day than on Saturday.

Owen liked his Easter basket. He really likes playing with the eggs. He got a fun hat, which he wore all weekend. He also got some fun books and toys from Anne and Papaw - and bubbles!
Reading the Easter story.

Since he can't have candy, Owen got Puffs in his eggs. That's what he's eating here. Puffs are flavored "puffs" that dissolve in your mouth that are for little ones. Owen really likes his Puffs. The fun part was keeping Tozer away from the Puffs, which you can see Ryan trying to do in the bottom of the picture.
Checking out what the Easter Bunny left at Anne & Papaw's house for Owen. Aunt Ta is helping him check it all out. If you ask Aunt Ta, Owen learned a new word - "Ta" - which we thought sounded a lot like "Da", but we'll give her credit for it.
Still working on crawling. He's started scooting around and does this funny thing where he plants his face in the carpet and bottom in the air to go about 6". But it's progress! We put all his eggs in front of him to challenge him to get them.

Chilling on the floor with Ta after church. This is the only picture we got of him in his Easter get-up, so here ya go!

Monday - Another Non-picture Post

Just a few things to talk about, but no pictures.

Last night Owen finally figured out how to say "m" and spent a lot of today saying "mamamama," much to Tara's delight.

Tara's been fighting allergies, which is no fun at all. It always stinks when you keep taking medicine and it does nothing.

The second tooth came in on Friday.

Someone from Ryan's office brought some little child chairs to the office to give away and we got three. Tonight Ryan and Owen sat on the front porch in their chairs and watched everyone in the neighborhood come home from work.

That's all for now! Looking forward to a 3-day weekend (thank you MMA for still observing Good Friday)!