COSTA RICA!

Well we're back! Although we were only gone for a few days, it sure felt like a long vacation. Our trip to Costa Rica was incredible! It was everything we could have hoped for. The hotel was amazing and did not disappoint us. The service was great and the local Costa Ricans were very friendly and hospitable (although there was definitely a language barrier so who knows what they really thought?!). We experienced the awe of swinging through the jungle on the ziplines and monkey sight seeing too! 

Following are the pictures from our weekend:

The first night we didn't know what to eat so we decided to sample a variety of appetizers starting with a jalepeno sushi roll - sooo good!

It rained for the first 24 hours but cleared up nicely the 2nd day! The rain actually added to our experience so we didn't mind it!
Pics of our room..

The Four Seasons is on Costa Rica's Papagayo peninsula..here we are headed onto the peninsula..

Notice the foggy picture? It was pretty humid...which is why you will never see my hair down!

Our first monkey spotting!!! It was amazing to see the wild monkeys swinging through the trees. There were so many of them too including babies just learning how to jump and swing. It was hard to get good pictures but here is my attempt...

As soon as we decided on Costa Rica, everyone started talking about doing the canopy tour..which is literally swinging through the jungle above the trees and waterfalls on a single zip line. It was AWESOME!! There were about 10 other people with us. Here are some of the pictures..

Yes..you started from this small rope and jumped off into thin air headed down!!

Getting harnessed..

Ready to go!
See the rope??

Back safely on the hotel property..

We innocently ventured down to the beach to take some pictures and the "friendly" beach attendant pointed far down the beach and said something about 1000 stairs leading to another beach that had black sand. We kind of blew him off but decided to walk down that way just to see what he was talking about. Once we saw the stairs, it was like they were calling our name. Needless to say, about an hour and 1000 steps later, we arrived at an amazing beach that did have black sand! We certainly sweated off our dinner from the previous night!! Here are some pictures from what we now call "our hike"...

The white sand beach..
The black sand beach..

Back at the hotel..hanging poolside

Check out the plunge pool in the spa! The suggestion is to plunge yourself up to your neck 6 times starting with the cool pool and moving over to the heated pool for a spine tingling sensation...well Jim took the suggestion and plunged all the way into the cool pool only to come very close to a severe heart attack because of the temperature of the water...





All sorts of crustacians and claws framed in the lobby
feathers...


The best part of the trip was coming home and going into Kaitlyn's room the next morning where she jumped up and down and repeatedly yelled "mama! dada! mama! dada!" We sure did miss our little girl.....