First Day of School

Summer 2023 flew by and before we knew it the kids were off to school!  I can't believe I now have middle schoolers and my baby is in 4th grade!!!  

My summer crew enjoyed our annual back to school breakfast at Big Biscuit.  I sure love having them home for the summer with no routine, BUT it was time for this summer to come to and end :)  

 Jackson and Harper enjoyed joining Mason at meet the teacher!  Their 7 years of elementary school flew by!

Jackson has been ready for middle school for 2 years when he was split from a majority of his good friends.  Most remained at Centennial while we moved to Redbud.  The boys re-united with a back to school pool party!  It's going to be a fun year for Jackson!  

The girls also had their own back to school pool party!  This is such a great group of friends/girls.  Thankful for a great group of girlfriends for Harper!

First early day of middle school  . . . so many emotions but most importantly so excited for these two!  They have such bright futures ahead and Tyler and I are excited to see what middle school has in store for them!   Now here's to adjusting to the way earlier wake up call every morning!

Feels like I have a full on teenager when I look at Harps!  She is so beautiful inside and out!

Jackson may not be as tall as his sis but his time will come!  Sure love this kid!  He's definitely got it all going for him.

Both Jackson and Harper met up with their friends in the church parking lot across from the school on their first morning.  Moms wanted some pictures and then they all headed into those middle school doors together!  Great first morning!

2 hours later it was Mason's turn!  The difference in start times makes for a super long morning but it's nice I get some one on one time with Mase now.  This kid sure is cool and showed off his style on the first day of 4th grade!

I have no doubt all three will have a great year!

Costa Rica

Costa Rica was a DREAM vacation and it's going to be extremely hard to beat!!!  Costa Rica had it ALL . . . adventures, beaches, great people, good food, relaxation and so much more.  It made for the best family trip to date and one of the few places that I would instantly re-visit before marking off the rest of my bucket list trips!

We flew into Liberia airport, rented an 11 passenger van and made the trek to the rain forest in La Fortuna.  It's approximately 80 miles but takes over 2.5 hrs.  The drive is insane!  The entire trip is one lane windy roads and can absolutely not be driven in the dark!  Tyler drove it like a champ and successfully tuned me out screaming in the passenger seat.  And no one got car sick . . .  winning!  

*funny note . . . you have to be over 5 ft tall in Costa Rica to not ride in a booster seat so both boys had to rock a booster seat all week.  Not sure why I didn't get a pic of that for the memory books!

We made it to our resort just as the sun was setting, Hotel Arenal Springs Resort and Spa.  Celebratory drinks were a must after our day of travel!

And relaxing in the bath was a must as well!

Our first morning we did some thrill seeking at Sky Adventures Arenal Zipline Park!  We were all a little nervous (some of us more than others) but we all did it and finished the course!

The views of Arenal Lake were beautiful, even on a cloudy day!

All geared up and ready to zip!

The tram ride to the top could have been enough adventure for me

I'm not going to lie, the ziplines were awesome but holy moly I was scared!  They were LONG, FAST and SO HIGH!!!  There were 7 cables that were up to 656 ft high and 2,640 ft long!!!  They said we could go as fast as 44 mph!!!  It was such a great experience conquering these fears as a family and it felt like a huge accomplishment at the end.  We all had a blast!

You can see the nerves in Mason's face before the first zip as he watched Tyler go down . . .

but all smiles as the boys were off!

I screamed the entire time!!!!

After ziplining we did the Bogarin trail and spotted our first sloth!  I could have watched the sloths all day long . . . they really do move so incredibly slow!

The poison dart frog was another rare and cool find on the Bogarin Trail

On our second full day in La Fortuna we headed to the Arenal Hanging Bridges Park.  It was a cloudy/rainy start but the rainforest canopy kept us fairly dry!  The clouds were hovering around the Arenal Volcano but we didn't let the rain and clouds ruin our rainforest fun!  Besides you can't go the "rain" forest without a little rain!

The bridges were long, extremely high and definitely did their fair share of swaying!

After the hanging bridges we re-fueled with lunch in town!  We loved exploring La Fortuna!  It's such a friendly and safe little town!

Tyler made a quick stop at a local bank to get some smaller bills.  It was a fortress getting into the bank!

We wrapped up the afternoon with a chocolate tour on a family plantation.  They not only harvested cocoa beans but they also grew just about every fruit and veggie you could imagine!   They let us taste everything they were growing and it was the freshest, juiciest and most amazing fruit we've ever tasted.  I would definitely be much healthier if I had all that fruit growing in my yard!

Look at this avacado!!!  This wasn't just the "one" big one, they were all this big or bigger!  That would cost us at least $5 in the states!

We loved searching for and meeting the resident sloth Mariah!

Our last morning in La Fortuna we went river tubing with Arenal River Tubing and it was an absolute blast!  By far my favorite adventure of the trip!!!  We've been rafting in Colorado and Idaho but this river tubing was on the next level!  It was non-stop rapids the entire float!  I, of course, screamed the entire trip!  Harper flipped out of her tube and Mason got stuck behind some rocks . . . but no injuries and ALL smiles!  

Our guides were the absolute best!!!  Not only did they keep us all together and safe but they also made the trip an absolute blast.  They knew our boys loved fishing so at any stops they would pull out some string put some fruit on it and the boys were catching fish in no time!

After tubing we visited the La Fortuna waterfall.  It was 550 steps down and a much harder 550 steps back up.  So beautiful!

Mase perfected the "drinking waterfall" pic in Yellowstone last summer and requested to re-create it!

Mase tried some spear fishing . . .

I ran into my friend Janna while at the waterfall!  Crazy, we started working at Devon on the same day back in 2006 and 17 years later we see each other in Costa Rica!

After a busy few days exploring La Fortuna a little relaxing on our balcony hammocks felt amazing!  The clouds were clearing and the views of Arenal volcano were amazing!!!

At breakfast our last morning the clouds completely cleared and we had the most amazing view of the volcano!  It was the PERFECT end to our time in La Fortuna!  

After a few days of adventure we were off to the coast to enjoy some relaxation at the beach!   The kids were so excited for endless virgin Strawberry daquiris and mudslides :)  We checked into the Dreams and immediately hit the beach!

There was a wedding on our first night and they celebrated with fireworks!  So magical!

The water slide was a huge hit!  The kids found that going on your knees was the fastest way down!

Tyler took the boys on their first deep sea fishing trip . . . they caught fish and no one got seasick!  

Harper and I went horseback riding while the boys were fishing . . .

When on vacation everyone deserves a little pampering, even the kids!  Massages are always amazing but massages on the beach are hard to beat!

The monkeys around the resort were the highlight of our trip!  They would come out to play/eat every morning until 10ish and would return around 4ish in the afternoon!  Thank goodness the monkeys weren't around all day because if they were my kids would never have left our rooms!  The first morning we abided by the rules and did not feed the monkeys but by day 2 the kids were bringing plates of food back to our rooms to feed to the monkeys!  It was hard narrowing down the monkey pictures to post because they are all so dang cute but I literally had 100s of pictures and videos.

The monkeys would eat right out of our hands . . .

I was nervous the momma monkeys would be extra protective of their babies but they were sweet and still came right up to us!

It really was nuts watching all these monkeys jump from balcony to balcony and back to the jungle!

We had two conneting rooms and the kids accidently left the balcony door to mine and Tyler's room open as they went back and forth between to the two rooms.  This mischievous monkey went into our room and took Tyler's birthday cupcake from the table!

Late at night the racoons would rummage around the hallways!  They weren't as entertaining as the monkeys but still pretty cool to watch!

Love exploring new places with my crew!!!

We had the best week with our family of 5!!!!  So many memories made, laughs shared, stories told, adventures had . . . a little break from reality is definitely needed with our busy lives!