Costa Rica

Way back in February Javan and I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Costa Rica on vacation. I have wanted to go to Costa Rica for a long time, I have always heard that it was an awesome vacation destination. And it was! It was one of the funnest trips we have been on. We loved it and would love to go back. This trip was sponsored by Contractor's, one of Javan's cooling/heating suppliers. Mike and Shan also went with us, along with a few other friends we have met on other trips. It was a great trip with great company.
Javan and Mike, along with our friend Ryan and his dad Cliff went on a deep sea fishing trip. The boat picked them up right at the beach of our hotel. They caught lots of fish and had a great time. Here is Javan fishing.

Javan with one of his fish, a tuna.

I thought this was so cute. It's bird on the back of a turtle out in the middle of the ocean. Pretty good of the turtle to let the bird have a rest.
Mike eating fresh, fresh, raw tuna, just caught by them. Yuck!
Our friend, Ryan, and his awesome needle nose fish.
One of the whales they saw on the trip.
Mike with his huge fish.
They guys getting home from their trip.
Javan and I also had the opportunity to go scuba diving. These were some of the coolest dives we have ever been on. The wildlife in Costa Rica is amazing, and the underwater world was no different. We swam with lots of sharks. When the dive master told us we would be seeing sharks I was sort of freaking out, wondering if I was going to be eaten. But they were really awesome to see. We would swim up on them and they would just sit on the bottom or slowly swim away, the guide said they don't like the sound of our air bubbles. They were a good size shark, bigger than me, probably the size of a couch or something. We also so some eagle rays, tons of starfish of many varieties, eels, octopus, lots of different fish. We could hear whales "singing" in the distance. We did have a little bit of a scary thing happen on the second dive, Javan ran out of air. We were just swimming along and Javan checked his air gauge and saw that he was in the red. He alerted the dive master, and we started to ascend to the surface. You have to make a safety stop a certain distance from the surface to let all the gas bubbles out of your body so you don't get the bends. So Javan kept watching his gauge, meanwhile, I was right there with him ready to hand him my secondary air supply, just in case. Just as we made our final ascension Javan ran completely ran out of air and hit the surface just in time. It was kind of scary, but also controlled so it worked out fine. And we had a great time on the dives.
We headed out on a tour to the rainforest, and it started to rain, imagine that. We wanted to stop somewhere to get some poncho's so we didn't get absolutely soaked. We saw this boy scout walking down the road and asked him where we could find a store, he was pointing us in the right direction. What a good boy scout.
This man stopped us on the way to the rainforest to show us the snake he caught and killed at his home. Our tour guide said it was a very poisonous snake. Scary.
We went on a hike through the rainforest. We had to cross several bridges like this one. Out in the middle of the bridge you are so high off the ground but the jungle is so dense and thick. We didn't see alot of wildlife, probably because it was raining, but the vegetation was beautiful, and we had a fun hike.

A view looking down from the bridge. You can't really tell how far down it was.
Glad we had the ponchos. This is Rob, Lisa, Shan, Mike, Javan, and I, trying to stay dry.

After the rainforest hike we ate a delicious lunch at a local restaurant and then visited a little wild life preserve. Then we headed to the river for a rafting trip. Our guides were so amazing. I couldn't believe how they could spot the tiniest things on the banks of the river. Then they would back-paddle us over to the side so we could get a good look. If you look close on the trunk of this tree you can see a family of bats, all in a row, sleeping on the tree.

There were soooo many iguanas along the river, of all different sizes and colors. These two green ones were pretty cool.
A momma monkey, with her baby on her back.
Some cool looking bird.
A big crocodile.
Another croc, just coming out to eat us.

Rob and Lisa, Mike and Shan in their raft.
Javan and I after the river trip.
Shan and Mike, hot off the raft.
The beach at our hotel was a turtle nesting ground. The beach was covered in these wire enclosures that were protecting turtle eggs. Most nights you could go down to the beach and catch some turtles coming up to nest. You had to be very quite and sneaky so you didn't scare them away. We went down one night to find the turtles and saw these little baby owls in the tree. They were so cute, and so little, you can't really tell how small they were in the picture.
We made friends with one of the security guards that was patrolling the beach and keeping the turtles safe. This turtle came up on the the beach and then turned around and headed back to the ocean. The security guard said there were "no eggs", so he let us take some pictures. Look at the barnacles that were growing on its back.
He even let us touch them.

We did get to actually watch (or more like listen, it was pretty dark) to a couple turtles nesting. We probably sat for an hour at this spot while the turtle flinged sand everywhere, and then moved on to a new hole. I guess it couldn't find a good spot to lay eggs. Well, who knows, maybe it did. We came back the next day to see where she was digging and found all these holes.
After we left the turtle nesting we did a little crab catching. These little hermit crabs were everywhere on the beach at night. We just gathered up a bunch for a picture, we could have gotten 10 times this many.

A video of Javan catching a crab.





The quick little varmit.

A group of us went to church. I always love going to church in foreign countires. I love seeing that the church is true all over the world. Everyone was so kind and welcoming. And the little kids are so cute, and curious.

Ahhhh, living the dream.

While we were relaxing on the beach, the sun was going down and there weren't any other people around. These little crab started coming out of their holes. They were so cool. The walk sideways, and as they move along they scoop sand into their mouths with their front claws and then spit out little balls of sand. It was so crazy, and really cool. I took a video of the little guys in action, but of course it won't upload. I uploaded it to Youtube. Here's the link if you want to view it: http://youtu.be/xY9_DwaVvBY
A view of the hotel grounds from our room. So pretty. It was the dry season in Costa Rica when we were there, so the little mountain over on the right was all brown and dead. But there were still lots of monkeys that lived in the trees. It was really cool. And still beautiful. I would love to visit Costa Rica when everything is lush and green.

The snorkeling at our hotel was some of the best we have ever seen. We saw so much sea life, it was so amazing. We would stay out for hours at a time, until our skin was so pruned and we were freezing. This is one of the eagle rays we saw. They were so cool, we just swam along beside it for quite awhile.
This is me, in my snorkel mask.
This is a sting ray hiding under the sand.
Here is another one, they are sneaky little things.
Here is Javan using my fin to uncover the sting ray. He didn't want to get stabbed.
Here is the uncovered sting ray. Aren't they awesome?

We found an old pair of sunglasses on the ocean floor. When we picked them up, this little star fish was attached to it. Pretty cool.

A creepy eel. They were everywhere.

I guess that's it. Costa Rica is amazing. We loved it. It's one of my favorite places in the world now. The people were so kind and friendly, the country was pretty clean, compared to other places we've been and scenery is absolutely beautiful. Everyone should go. And if you do, make sure you invite me.

Ethan turned 7!

Ethan was so excited for his birthday this year. As he gets older and understands better about time and days. He could hardly wait, and the countdown was killing him.

On February 18th his actual birthday we had a little party at home with just our family and opened presents. Ethan has been asking forever for his own TV in his room. So Javan and I got him this little DVD/TV. The kids were so excited the busted it out in the living room to watch a movie. They ended up all falling asleep on the floor.


The next day we took a group of Ethan's friends over to Monticello for a miniature golf birthday party. On Saturday's they do black light miniature golf so the kids thought it was pretty awesome that their golf balls and teeth and eyes were glowing.



Ryan didn't want to be left out.


I thought it would take them an hour or so to do a couple of rounds. Oh my word, it was chaotic in there, and we were done in about 30 minutes. So Javan took the boys outside for a snowball fight in the parking lot. Consequently his phone fell out of his pocket and was stolen (We know that because the perpetrators called my phone from his.)

Then we headed over to Wagon Wheel for a pizza party.


I made some cute golf cupcakes. Note to moms: most kids don't like coconut, don't put it on the cake. (My kids love it so I didn't think it would be detested.)


All in all, it was a fun party. The kids had a great time. And best of all, I didn't have to clean up the mess. Hooray!

We're so happy to have Ethan as part of our family. He can be a trial at times, but he is a good boy, and a good big brother. One thing that I've always loved about Ethan since he was little is that he gets so excited about stuff. I love to see the excitement he feels and enjoys. I love you bud!

Happy Birthday!

Cruisin' into 2011!

Oh my word. I have slacked so much on the blogging this whole year. Feels like we have been going, and going, and haven't had a minute to spare. It's been great. I've loved almost every minute of it.

In January, Javan and I started the year off with an awesome Eastern Caribbean cruise. It was an incentive trip through Mountainland, one of Javan's plumbing suppliers. There were so many really great people in our group and we had a great time. So, thanks Mountainland for the trip!


Our first port of call was Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos. It is such a beautiful island.

We went scuba diving in Grand Turk. It was our first dive after certification so we were a little bit nervous. I told the dive master to watch me and make sure I was doing everything right. No, they could have cared less. They didn't check on us one time during the dive. They didn't have our weight adjusted properly and we had a hard time staying at the right level in the water, Javan especially. He didn't feel real great the next day and was a little bit worried he had the bends, but he pulled out of it. Grand Turk has the third-largest barrier reef in the world. We saw a giant crab, a shark, a sea horse, and lots of other cool fish and sea life.

After the dive we hung out on the beach for awhile, then did a little shopping and headed back to the ship. Our ship was the Eurodam on the Holland America line. It's pretty much a cruise line for senior citizens, and I think we might have been some of the youngest people on the ship. Oh well, we didn't care.
Our next port of call was San Juan, Puerto Rico. Whoa, it was a pretty windy day.

Since Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States we had cell phone service, and so Javan called the office to check in and take care of some business. It was also Javan's birthday on this day. And without me even telling them they sang a birthday song to Javan that night at dinner.
We walked around the city, and toured the El Morro Fortress that used to guard Old San Juan. It was a really cool old castle with a lot of really great history.

Me in a little watch tower thing.
A view of the coast from the watch tower. On the other end of the island there was another castle that we didn't go see, but you can see it off in the distance there.
We walked around and did some shopping and toured the city a bit. We ate at Wendy's. Mmmm. And we got scammed but some poor guy. I still don't know if it was a scam, but Javan is pretty sure I'm a sucker. A guy came up to us looking all nasty with scabs all over his face, but he looked American, and sounded American, he was dressed in nice dress slacks and a button up shirt. Anyway he told us that he and his dad were walking around and got into a bad neighborhood and got mugged and robbed. He said his dad got pretty banged up and was taken to the hospital. He was trying to get to the hospital to see his dad but needed some money for cab fare. So I felt really sad for him and gave him some money. He told us his name and email address but we obviously didn't write it down. I don't know if it was a scam or not. But if it wasn't hopefully my money helped the guy. And Javan was glad I had some hand sanitizer with me after he shook his hand. I don't know what the scabs were about, looked like a bad sunburn or leprosy or something.

Next up was St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. There were these giant iguanas everywhere. They told us on the ship not to get too close to them or try and catch them. They said there was a special warning to the ladies, because they are attracted to bright colored finger/toe nail polish. Yikes! I stayed back.

We went to a place called Coral World Ocean Park. We always do things our kids would love to do, even though they weren't with us. I don't know why we do that, we should be doing things we can't do when we have them. Oh well. Anyway, we got to feed the sting rays.

It was pretty scary, but cool at the same time. Their mouths are on the bottom of their body so you really have to get clear in there to feed them. I thought I might get my hand sucked in.
They had a sea lion show. The trainer had an eye patch on. I wonder if training sea lions is dangerous. Apparently it could put an eye out.
After the ocean park we went to a nearby beach and swam and snorkeled for awhile. We had set our clothes and belongings on the rocks while we were in the water. When we got out and gathered up our stuff Javan noticed that the rubber grip things on his sunglasses had been chewed off, dang iguanas.
The ocean park was on the other side of the island from the port. We didn't have any trouble getting a taxi on the way there. In fact, our taxi driver was in quite a hurry. He hit a speed bump at about 40 mph. Javan and I were in the back seat of the 15 passenger van. We had no idea it was coming until we were both completely airborne, I'm serious, the WHOLE side of my body hit the ceiling of the van. Anyway, when it was time to come home we couldn't find a taxi to take us. Nobody wanted to go to the other side of the island. It was getting close to the boarding time on the ship so we were getting kind of nervous. Finally one guy let us get in, but stopped at the bus station and made us trade taxis. We saw Sandra Day O'Conner, a former U.S. Supreme Court Justice at the bus station.

This is a view of the bay from the top of the island. There were 3 other ships around the corner too.

A couple of the towel creations that our room stewards left for us. These were some high quality towel creatures, they even put out a book on how to make them. You know I bought one.

Our last port was Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. It is a private island owned by Holland America. We just had a relaxing beach day. Since it was our last day we decided we didn't need sunscreen after our swim, bad idea. We had some pretty good sunburns for the flight home. That was comfortable.We went snorkeling again. This is a cool crab we found.

Can you see that fish? It is the color of the sand. I don't even know how Javan spotted it. Sneaky little guy.
A giant crab, play toy. They had this whole water playground area. Our kids would have loved it.

And finally, our token "livin' in paradise" picture. What a great trip. And much need after having Javan live in Moab for over a year while working on the hospital.

It's funny that in every port I had some crazy story to tell, and it doesn't end there. Our flight out of Ft. Lauderdale was delayed for over 2 hours, due to mechanical problems with the plane. They ended up having to replace the whole auto pilot system in the plane. We're glad they did, waiting 2 hours is worth our lives. But since we were late leaving we missed our connecting flight in Denver. They didn't have another flight to Salt Lake until the next day so they re-routed us through Phoenix then on to Salt Lake. We were a bunch of tired and angry passengers. Everyone in our group was complaining about getting home so late, and mad about the extra time the extra flight was taking, until we reminded them that we still had to drive 5 hours after we arrived in Salt Lake. Then they didn't feel so bad.

All in all it was a great trip. I didn't even notice that all these things were happening until now, when I sat down to write about our trip. I love traveling and seeing the world and spending time with Javan.