Zip Line

Mandatory activity in Costa Rica!

Mom is terribly afraid of heights. She deserves an award for going along with this.

We weren't scared at all!

Once she watched her kids disappear into the green abyss, she really had no choice but to follow.

It's hard to capture how cool this was in pictures.

But our happy faces say it all!

Hanging Bridges

Costa Rica is known for friendly people and biodiversity. The hanging bridges jungle tour perfectly captured both. 

Our guide, David, showed us all the cool wildlife. 

His very first lesson: don't touch any of the trees. Because there are venomous vipers hiding on every tree. One bite can literally kill you.

You can't see them, but they can see you.

They are tiny and treacherous.

 

Another tiny killer is the adorable blue jean frog. He's the vicious red dot on the log.

We visited during the dry season, so the "waterfall" was not the most inspiring part of the hike.

The tiny bats hiding in plain site were a favorite.

And, of course the sloths were everywhere. We didn't get to see any up close, but our friends did a sloth tour and sent us these pictures.

Mom's only wish for the trip was to hug a sloth, but apparently they are covered in their own poop and bugs and smell really bad. So, she was ok with skipping it.

Spring Break Costa Rica

Costa Rica was our favorite family vacation, ever! 

We started the week in the Fortuna area, near the Arenal Volcano.

And one of our favorite friends from school was staying at the same resort!

Everything is out in the open, all the windows are open.

Our room was basically a cool camping cabin.

With a shower that was open to the rain.

And a courtyard full of beautiful birds.

And baby birds.

Giant cicadas flew through the open windows to join us for dinner.

And everything was designed to give an awesome view of the volcano.

The breakfast buffet was full of yummy beans and rice, with ridiculously fresh pineapple, papaya, and mango. Plus a shockingly hot habenero salsa verde.

Definitely a happy place.

Letters Between Friends

Deep down, we really like each other. 

We definitely make each other laugh:

• The movie, Troy, taught us that the ancient Greeks named everyone with an "-us" at the end, like Patroclus. So we giggled our way through renaming all of our friends, stopping at Deanus, because, Deanus.
• Ryan sometimes passionately breaks into song while playing with his Legos. Some of our favorites include: "Body Like A Backroad", and "Tell me something, Girl...".
• Ryan got so angry once that he asked us to give him a minute to go in the den to "calm down". But it sounded like he said, "Call me Alan!". 

We're very sweet to each other most of the time. Mom saved these notes as proof.

Golf

We all like golf now. Mom just likes riding in the cart and being with us, because she couldn't hit the ball if her life depended on it.

We got to spend a weekend at a real PGA tournament, following Snedeker and Garcia.

It was actually more fun than it sounds.

John Rahm was our favorite, because we figured he would say a curse word at some point.