Stephen's Costa Rica Highlights

Note to self---No more red eye flights.  That one to Houston was brutal.  Honestly, the Houston airport now has taken 1st place as my least favorite airport, leaving Newark in 2nd place.

When the 2 major airports in Costa Rica are nicer and cleaner than yours, you know you have work to do.  It was just dirty and the cart drivers reminded me of the Mexican bus drivers from my mission--get out of my way or I will run you over going 20 MPH inside the airport.  And if you have a 4 hour layover, don't choose Houston, because they only have seats with arm rests, which means you can't lay down and get comfortable, like most other airports.

So after a 4 hour flight to Houston, a 4 hour layover, and a 4 hour bumpy ride to San Jose, Costa Rica, we settled in to the nicest Holiday Inn EVER!  Seriously, 18 stories high, a swanky 17th floor restaurant where I had sea bass with a passion fruit sauce and "pejibaye" soup with chuncks of Costa Rican cheese.  (Pejibaye is the fruit of one of the local varieties of palms.)  It was delicious.  I chose well :).

The next day April 6th we took off in this bus with my friend Walter.  We were the first of 3 families to get picked up and Walter found out Julianne and I spoke Spanish, which was great because Walter didn't speak much English.  After a few hours hours of translating to the American and British tourists from Orange County and Leeds Walter joked that they should pay me for being their tour guide.  Walter took us to Sarchi where they had a factory that made most of the tourist gifts, but sold them cheaper than most the hotel and tourist destinations.  SCORE!  He then asked us if we wanted a sorpresa that would take us 15 minutes out of our way.  The rest of the tourists agreed and Walter took us to a town called Zarcero with a beautiful church and amazing topiary bushes.

We then passed Dos Pinos--the major dairy co-op that helps the local farmers get their cows milked, then they receive some of the profit and can then purchase more cows. 

And then we passed Steven Segal's estate although I took a very blurry photo from the bus:

When we arrived at our destination we found there was a problem with the building at Casa Luna, but we got upgraded to what I called luxury cabins at Lomas del Volcan. 

Not a bad view for our 2 day stay.

We took a fun nature hike up the base of the Arenal volcano with our tour guide Roy who showed us the power of the leaf cutter ants when he grabbed one and had it bite down on a stick:

After the walk we enjoyed the Tabacon hot springs and then had dinner:

On Sun Apr 7th we went on a hike through the over-run Lomas del Volcan trail.  But Julianne did spy a couple "blue jean frogs".  Tiny little things. And we saw some of the "shrinking ferns from our volcano hike:

And we saw some spider monkeys and a howler monkey on some hanging bridges.  We were then offered free massages to make up for the hotel mix up.  Yes please!

The next day was another travel day to Monteverde--the cloud forest--where we stayed at Fonda Vela.  We hung out at the pool, used the jacuzzi and played some ping pong. We tried to watch the March Madness final, but that wasn't a huge priority in soccer crazy Costa Rica.  What was I thinking?? 

On Tuesday it was time for the thrill rides.  You should know the zip lines were at the top of Julianne's to-do list.  After the 2 minute Superman ride where I was only hooked up from my back I told Julianne that was a once in a lifetime experience--translation:  I will never do that again.  I'm not a big fan of heights.  You get and idea from this video:

That night we did a night hike and saw some local animals.  My favorites were the click beetles with the two orange glowing headlights.  The tarantulas were cool too, although Julianne was pestering the tour guide to move on.  Can we go now???  Apparently she wasn't a huge fan of getting "that close" to nature :). 

Wednesday we then took a 4 hour trip to the Tamarindo Diria Beach Resort.  We stopped midway and switched buses.  I had fig ice cream and we adjusted to even more hot and humid weather.  We did get to see a beautiful red parrot in the trees.  Julianne's mission from the second we arrived at the resort was to get some beach time.  After getting hassled every 10 minutes from street vendors and fishing tour captains I said "no mas" and went back to our room. 

Thursday was another chill day that included virgin pina coladas at the wet bar.  Best thing we ate or drank there.  We checked out the tide pools and saw some cool stuff like sea slugs and a baby squid.

Friday we got out in the waves and went to the local "tienda" for snacks.  The tienda totally reminded me of the local neighborhood stores from my mission in Mexico.  Then I saw this big old iguana sunning itself on a tree stump outside our hotel room.  I tried to get a closer shot, but from 12 feet it start running away.  Still got this shot:

Saturday morning we took our last walk on the beach and took a lot more photos:

Of course we had to leave paradise, but we couldn't have picked a better way to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  Love ya, my besty.

A special thank you to our sponsors

Our anniversary trip wouldn't have happened without these fantastic people:

Aunt Kristi, babysitter extraordinaire

Grandpa Geddes

Grandma and Grandpa

They sacrificed their time, their energy (good grief, our kids require a lot), their sleep, and even their health to help take care of our crew.  With Benito playing over ten hours of soccer a week, getting him to games and practices is a part-time job in and of itself, so to think they took that and the rest of the kids' schedules on for ten full days still amazes us.  Grateful are we for such supportive family who love our kids the way they do.

p.s. A big thank you to all our friends who helped out, too!  We appreciate your willingness to serve.

Ten things I hate

about being home from our ten-day vacation:

 

 

 

1. No more morning walks on the beach.

2. No more beans & rice, fresh papaya, mango, and pineapple for breakfast every day.

3. No more naps at 9am or 1pm or 4pm or anytime we wanted.

4. No more homemade corn tortillas with super yummy black beans and cheese.

5. No more adventures of zip-lining, hanging bridges, and hiking tropical rainforests.

6. No more fresh mahi mahi, sea bass, tuna, calamari, and jumbo shrimp.

7. No more walking barefoot all day.

8. No more spotting iguanas, poisonous dart tree frogs, monkeys, and toucans.

9. No more sleeping to the sound of ocean waves.

10. No more limitless talking and laughing with my favorite person in the world.

So when do you stop an April Fool's tradition?

The answer:  When life starts playing its own cruel April Fool's joke on you!





Many of you are familiar with my annual April Fool's blog entries.  They have elicited some great responses like when I posted a fake ultrasound of twins and my Mother in Law Paula just read the intro and called my wife with a flurry of excitement.  Keep in mind that my wife had no idea I was going to post it, so it took a while for both to connect the dots.  Ohhh...good times :). 

Or when I posted that I accepted a new job as the Director of Stanford's international Bing Overseas Studies Program in Spain.  My manager Charles was furious, because of course, he just read the intro and did not read all the way down to see the glorious April Fool's line.  I have never seen him so red!  He really thought I was leaving without telling him.  Good thing he was a good sport about that one--could have been career limiting.

But this year, I really needed to take a break from tradition.  Why?  Because life was playing its own cruel April Fool's joke on me.  Here goes:

For many years I promised Julianne that we would leave the country for our big 10 year anniversary.  And for about a year we hemmed and hawed over where to go:  Fiji, St. Maarten, Mexico, New Zealand or Costa Rica.  We did research, we asked friends for advice, we scoured the internet for the best deal and then finally we found one--a great 9 day vacation package in Costa Rica that would allow us to see the capital San Jose, visit the Arenal Volcano, the Monteverde Cloud Forest and hang out with the surfers at Tamarindo Beach. 

The problem--our passports were both expired and we kept delaying the inevitably important process of renewing them.  As some of you know our anniversary isn't until June, but we couldn't pass up this deal in April along with the opportunity for my sister Kristi to help watch our kids while her school was out on Spring Break. 

So off we go to drop in at our local post office in Sunnyvale only to find out that we need to make an appointment.  The following week we finally get an appointment date for Feb 15th.  We thought all was well since at most it would take 6 weeks to process according to the official government website.  We go in and find out we completed the forms in blue instead of black ink and had to complete the forms a 2nd time.  Then the passport agent takes a look at our drivers licenses and notices that mine was expired by a few months (which is weird because I had changed addresses about 5 years ago when we last moved and thought it was unusual that I never got a reminder notice from the DMV).  The agent told me it was okay, so we went ahead with the cheaper 4-6 week processing time.  I then went into panic mode to get my license renewed, since technically I was driving on an expired licence. 

On March 1st I got my new licence (pretty quick processing time for an online DMV renewal--right?)  And then on March 15th my wife got her passport (Sweet right?--well within 4 weeks).  But mine did not show up.  And then the next day Sat Mar 16th I get a letter in the mail from the U.S. Dept of State in South Carolina stating "the identification you presented to the Acceptance Agent was not properly recorded on your application".  At this point I went into true panic mode.  I mailed a copy of my new license that same day and then called the toll free National Passport Information Center on Mon Mar 18th to let them know I had mailed it and then again on Fri Mar 22nd to make sure they received it, which they did on Mar 22nd.  Both times the reps said they could process the passport well within the 6 week timeline before our April 5th departure date.  At this point I didn't even think to expedite the processing since I got the vote of confidence from 2 of our nation's finest customer service reps. 

But a week later I was getting very nervous.  At this point I called almost every day.  Starting on Fri Mar 29th I called and the rep said it was still being processed, but he couldn't confirm where it was in the process or if I would get it in time.  He said to call back on Mon and possibly pay for next day shipping.  So I called back on Mon April 1st and the rep I spoke with still could not verify where my passport was in the processing queue.  At this point I was questioning why my passport was still in South Carolina and why it was sent there when there are 26 different processing locations across the country, many of which were closer to us in California.  And then finally I relented--I paid the $77 expedited processing fee and the rep said to call back end of day Apr 3rd if I still didn't receive the passport.  I then started researching how to get a one day passport in San Francisco for another $100+ just in case I didn't get mine by Thu Apr 4th.  And I called the Sunnyvale post office rep back to tell her there was a problem because of my expired license.  She then asked if it was sent to South Carolina.  I asked her why that mattered.  She said that normally it is okay to send in an expired driver's licence even if it was expired up to 5 years, but that South Carolina was very strict in how they process passports.  So why in the world was mine sent all the way across the United States???

And then Tue Apr 2nd rolled around.  I had just started a weekly Project Management course here at Stanford and my intro to the group of 20 something co workers was that I was leaving for Costa Rica on Friday if I ended up getting my passport.  Of course I got many offers to take my place and all I could do was laugh it off, when really I was worried sick and had to hide my "tears of a clown".   Just an hour passed when I got a text from Julianne that my passport had finally arrived.  A ginormous weight was lifted off of me and I could finally breathe normally and smile again.  Now I could focus on getting ready for our trip and perhaps try to gain back some of the 7 pounds I lost because I lost my appetite just worrying about that stupid passport. 

Now that I can look back on the experience I really wonder if I would have received my passport without paying the $77 expedited fee or if it was all some part of the government's game to squeeze a little more money out of me.  Hmmm. 

I realized that my chance to play an April Fool's joke on the world had passed, but how could I play a joke when the ultimate joke this year was really on me.  So I am breaking with tradition this year.  Maybe for good.  You'll just have to tune in to our blog next year to find out :).

On a side note--now that we returned from Costa Rica yesterday Apr 13th, I can truly be thankful for Costa Rica's "Pura Vida".  And yes, I have gained some of that weight back.  But it's pure muscle from all that hiking and walking :)

Stephen

And we're off!

Despite a miserable five days of sickness, passport panic, and laundromat overload (curse you, broken washer), we are bound and determined to enjoy our ten-year anniversary trip.  So pack up our meds, our swimsuits, and our bug spray we shall as we fly out tonight for San Jose.  San Jose to San Jose.  Funny, right?

Costa Rica, here we come!

Back to the Present

The retro posts have come to an end,

which means you get to hear about today.

 

Ready for a whine-fest?

I hope so, because today was pretty lame.

Woke up feeling crummy after a long night

of feverish, achy, tossing and turning.

Yuck.

Not my idea of an ideal Easter morning.

 

I didn't even get out of bed until after Stephen and the kids got home from church.

At 12:30pm.

I swear there was a gravitational pull between my head and my pillow.

No kidding.

 

What this meant for the kids:

No Easter baskets,

no egg hunt,

no candy,

no presents,

no special Easter breakfast,

not even Easter dinner with family.

Nothing.

 

I had some stuff bought, just no energy to put any of it together

when I could barely sit up and walk around.

 

The highlight of our day = cleaning our house enough

to not kill ourselves on toys every time we walk into a room.

Pretty pathetic, I know.

 

Some days are just like that, I suppose, even if they happen to land on Easter Sunday. :(

Last Game of the Season

8/17/10

Early June marked the end of Bennett's spring soccer season. He truly transformed over the course of his three-month season: not necessarily in ability, but rather in interest on the field. He started out surprisingly aggressive on offense, unafraid to attack the ball--and his opponents who had the ball--and dribble as far and fast as he could.  So fun to watch!  Who'd have thought that our shy, nervous, ultra-cautious, first child could be so completely the opposite on a soccer field?  Give him a ball and he's suddenly courageous.  To our complete and utter shock, he scored five goals in the first game.

Then came a mid-season game where the opposing team, a French team named Le Petite Blue, ran circles around our boys: they could pass, they could dribble, they could move the ball up field.  As the points racked up for his opponents, Bennett realized somebody had to stop those balls from going in the goal.  Our natural forward turned sweeper, realized the power of defense and the thrill of stopping an offender from scoring, never to look back at offense again.  Again, so fun to watch, just in a different way.

Victor, Benito, and Luis

Gettin' scrappy

Daddy the ref

Flushed cheeks, soccer medal, bag of chips. Must be the end of a soccer game!

Team photo