Quepos & Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

We have spent the last three nights in the funky surf town of Quepos, Costa Rica.  I will admit to a small amount of anxiety the first day as we were walking around and we were the only tourist family I saw.  The next day on the public bus to the beach, on a twisty and hilly road, I again questioned our decision to vacation here.  Then we arrived at the beach... and my fears were erased.  We saw a family with a tiny baby and an older child and another with a baby in an Ergo.  Granted, these families all seemed to be speacking French or Dutch, but either way... we were not the only family! 

 Digging at Manuel Antonio beach.

 Adeline drinking coconut water straight from the coconut.  watching the guy with the huge machete chop the coconut open was worth the price - drinking the water inside a bonus!

 Mac has spent hours digging holes in the sand.  Sometimes they are sand chairs, sometimes jumping spots, sometimes feet washes, sometimes.... just holes.

 First day on the beach:  adeline got tired, came up to the chairs, got her green blankey and immediately fell asleep.  She wouldn't let us put the chair down flat, so eventually she sort of slid into a more laying down postion.  Pretty cute.

 McKinley and his favorite meal:  gallo pinto (black beans and rice).  apparently, only a breakfast food.  The juice he has is starfruit juice, another favorite.

 The kids enjoying juice after going to a funky festival where we watched a Costa Rican game show/dance contest being filmed in the bull riding arena.  Then, we came back to town to try and see the horse parade.  The signs said "2 pm",  the girl at the desk of our hotel told us it would be "on Tico Time(Costa Rican time), and it would be at least 3pm.  By 3:30 we still had not seen the start of the parade and since there were still big trucks of horses being brought in, we figured it would be awhile.  We went back to the hotel, swam, showered, and went back out for dinner.  At that point, the parade was still going on!!

 More beach holes...

 Mac and Curt jumping in the waves.

We won't let them touch any of the stray dogs running around - very hard for them to understand!  This little doggy was hanging around all day, so we snapped their picture by it. 

 Sunset on the first night.  This is when we discovered "one block from the ocean" does not mean "one block from the beach".  Live and learn.  We are one black from the ocean, however the beach is actually a 20 minute bus ride away.  Totally worth it, and the kids are now bus riding pros.

Tomorrow we head to Dominical to the animal reserve.  We hear we can feed the monkeys! Hopefully, the road is flat and straight, but we're all taking drugs just in case.  Costa Rica is not really for people who get car sick easily.  Windy's trick of taking a tiny piece of those pink allergy pills from Costco is brilliant - I don't get nauseous, but I stay awake.  Claritin for the kids seems to be doing the trick too. 



Here's a bit of our January:

I've commited to doing a Project Life Album again this year.  I started in the middle of 2010, so I'm still finishing that one up, but it's a fabulous process.  I'll go into more as 2011 unfolds, but it's based on a Picture of the Day.  I don't take a picture every day, but it's close.  I go more for "about 28 pictures a month".  Then there's little slots for journaling, sticking meaningful pieces of paper etc.  It's a look at our daily life.  There's a couple of blogs that I read that give prompts for taking pictures of our everyday life.  I'm enjoying the perspective and the kids LOVE the Project Life books.

Adeline created this little nest for herself when we used to have a rocking chair in front of the bookcase.  I thought it was brilliant!  I've been helping her foster her 'nest building' ever since.  She loves it.  Her babies are there and she can 'escape' whenever she needs to.  (although currently big brother has a little to much access to it.)  There was one night in December that Matt, Windy, Kolby and Kaya came to visit and in our toy-filled downstairs, they all thought they simply MUST play behind the rocking chair in Adeline's nest.  Pretty cute.  And she was willing to have the company, thank goodness!

Mac, forever curious and 'helpful', investigating the source of a chronic drip under our sink.

We do A LOT of playdough.  I am the master snake roller and Adeline cuts them all to pieces.  Mac gets into mixing all the colors.  Good thing we always have a lot of playdough. 

I love this mug.  Use it every day. Love!

The kids with the new Project Life box.  I intended to submit the photo to the woman's blog who created Project Life (http://www.beckyhiggins.com/) but both the kids look a little goofy, so I didn't.  They love sitting here in the morning working on stuff while I putz in the kitchen.

YMCA basketball.  Mac had so much fun!  The trophy he got when it was done is a prized possession!  He's in the red shirt and green shorts with his back to us, shooting the basket.

Almost every night is game night.  UNO and Sorry are the current favorites. Our friend Sara Stiles has been coming down and hanging out on the weekends.  She goes to college in Portland.  Mac is learning a lot about being a good winner and a good loser.  He hates to lose.

Goof balls.

Homemade coconut-raspberry ice cream (dairy free, made with coconut milk).  That's Sara hanging with the kids again.  Adeline's favorite milk is "coco milk" (coconut milk).  She'll tolerate almond milk and rice milk but refuses to drink cow's milk.  She calls it "goat milk" because once I gave her goat's milk to see if she'd like it and she didn't.  That's the only referance she has.  Mac has begun drinking lactose free milk.  We'll see how that goes for him.  So far, so good.  Perhaps he's outgrown his dairy allergy?  I really miss cheese.  We recently discovered a vegan cheese called Daiya, which Curt and I liked, but the kids boycotted.  Maybe we'll just rotate foods, so we fall back into the habit of eating so much wheat a dairy.  We'll see.



McKinley's Birthday!!!

McKinley's 5th Birthday Party

He's not quite five, but he's celebrated a LOT the past four days!

Today was his swimming party at the YMCA.  He told me "it was exactly what I wanted!"

 The kids and I decorated his cake this morning.  It was certainly a group effort with lots of baths for the scuba divers since the kids kept playing with them and I wanted them to be clean before putting them on the cake.  It turned out cute.  Mac's tradition is to always have a "mountain" as part of his cake.  So here's his underwater mountain.

 Swimming at the YMCA.  We did the slide 100 times.  It's fun for the kids because they can go down the slide on our laps.

 Hotdogs in the party room after swimming.

 Opening presents.

 Blowing out the candles.  Thankfully, the YMCA had a bag of candles - I forgot to bring some!

 Happy Birthday McKinley!

 The crew... (from left to right)  Adeline, Kolby, Norah, Kaya, Lucy, Josie, Mac, Liam, Garen.

Cousins pic:  Adeline (2), Norah (6), Josie (4), Mac (5)

McKinley had his first basketball practice this morning!  A few weeks ago, out of the blue, he told Becky and I he really wanted to play basketball.  I have never really played, or watched basketball with him so we were both surprised. We later found out the reson he did is because he gets a free ticket to a Trailblazer game.

With all that said, I was impressed that he did so well.  He doesn't have the genes for ballin' at all, but if you're in Sherwood and four years old....look out!  The Raptors are comin'!

If you remeber, MJ also scratched his butt after scoring.

Here is Mac during open shoot-around.  Notice the one-handed dribbling, the boy's got skills eh?

Happy Halloween!

We've had a seriously good Halloween:

Trick or Treating in the neighborhood.

Trunk or Treat at the YMCA.

Our little purple cat and red robot...

Freeze dance to "Thriller" at school.

Swinging at Stella Olsen after school on a beautiful fall day.

Kids checking out Mac's robot costume.  They all loved it!

Waiting for a game at Lucy's Halloween party.

A little costume swap.

Halloween jammies from Grandma Mary were the perfect thing for them to wear under their costumes!

Trick or Treating at Aimee and Lucy's during playgroup.

At Lucy's.

Until next year...

Texas "boy trip"

The boys headed to Texas to visit Great Grandma, Paula, Shelley, Kim, Trey, Blue, Porkchop, Chubsie and Mia. Mia is still not thrilled to have kids come visit, but apparently Blue and Chubsie were fine. Porkchop didn't mind but didn't really come around much. Anyway. Bet you can guess who was behind the camera of the dog pic - MAC! That kids loves animals. I'm surprised he didn't bring home a dog in his suitcase. They had a fun trip, depsite lots of travel. Chubsie, Kim's new dog. He's maybe five pounds!
Wading in the lake

Learning from Trey. There's Blue.

Seeing the longhorns.

Is this awesome or what?

Addie and Daddy

Adeline and I snuck downtown a few weeks ago while Mac was at school and met Curt for lunch. She was so delighted! She kept hugging him, kissing him and saying "Daddy! Lunch!" I love these two...