Our housekeeper, Maritza, and her husband, Alexis, could possibly be the most genuine, selfless, and caring people we have met in life. Though I am excited for our new adventure in Santa Teresa, I will def. miss the friends we have made here and their whole family most of all. Words cannot describe how highly we think of them and how much they have taught us and given us. We spent one of our favorite New Year’s eve with there enormous family and got to experience the simple happiness of life and love.

They have 8 people living in one small house and will still gladly give you the shirt off their back wanting nothing in return. From our first week here we just bonded with one another and our friendship (and spanish) has only grown stronger over the past 3 months. I feel blessed to have met them and will def. try my hardest to stay in touch with them forever. They hold a dear place in our hearts and always will. Just to know them truly is a blessing.

They invited us over for lunch/dinner this saturday and we ended up staying there from 3-8pm. We hung out in the yard and then walked over to Alexis’s mom’s house where they were having a celebration called “Rosario del Niño”. It is a Costa Rican tradition to close the holiday season and give thanks for friends/family, health, etc. from the previous year. The house was full of family and friends and they had a whole church like set up in the front yard where they had rows of chairs and everyone was singing and praying for about an hour. After that, they had tons of food, coffee, tea and some eggnog tasting stuff (rum popo- not sure how u spell it) that was all getting passed around. There is something about a grandma’s kitchen that is just comforting no matter where you are in the world. Will and I were laughing b/c she had the typical grandma magnets on the fridge and the grandma housecoat on…ah, gotta love grandma’s! Anyway, it was just a great day and again just feel blessed to be in the presence of their family and able to experience their traditions with them.

Below are some pics from hanging out at Maritza/Alexis’s house. We didnt get pics at Grandma’s house b/c it was dark and we left our camera in the car.

Also notice Will’s new hottie shaven look. We finally bought a new clipper here since we forgot his in Chicago or lost it somewhere along the way.

Well our first visitor arrived in CR and Sosi just got over being sick and mommy was downright ill. Luckily I was ill upon PaPa’s arrival but felt significantly better the next morning so we were able to go take a trip to Grecia and spend the day out on my bday. Unluckily that significantly better feeling subsided a day later and I was bed ridden a full day with a headache like I have never experienced in my life! Luckily this only lasted a day so we really only missed out on one full day while Papa was in town. Some highlights and lowlights below…

Highlights:

Sosi wanted to follow Papa around and loved having him in town. She wanted to sit on his lap and he even got a front row seat to an arm fart performance.

We had one bad meal but several decent ones (this is a highlight if you know PaPa)

We had beautiful weather every single day and got to sit outside on the rocking chairs and chat and Sosi got to play in her pool and hang out a bunch outside.

We are able to devour tons of treats that Papa brought from NY and they were worth every single calorie.

Papa ate guacamole and nachos and i got to hear him say that he actually likes guacamole after 60 somewhat years of never tasting it.

We went to the farmers market and got two kick ass pineapples that were as delicious as they looked.

Will fed a squirrel (this may have been a secret lifelong dream of his)

PaPa got to taste the coffee that officially turned me into a coffee prude a few years ago.

I got a classic pic of PaPa and some bulls…in fact several classics.

PaPa didnt sweat once that i saw…this may be a first.

LOWLIGHTS:

I got doodied on by little nugget on my birthday. I had to walk around the whole afternoon with doodie down my dress (thanks nuggs)

I could have done without the violent illness that took over my body for a few days and left me with no appetite, a fever, and a pounding headache.

Our water stopped working that last day PaPa was here so they are here now trying to fix the pump and we havent showered.

Papa fed the darn cats milk in the morning so they thanked him with a lovely dead mouse on our porch.

Papa had a bit a wheezing issue and had to take a lasiks (spelling) but luckily that corrected it and he was feeling better.

All in all it was a great trip and this morning Sosi woke up and went right downstairs to Papa’s room to look for him :(. We love you and will miss you Papa! Thanks for being our first visitor. Next up Nana 🙂

Well we completed our first Visa run this week and we were granted another 90 days in Costa Rica- yippie! We took the Tica Bus to Granada, Nicaragua and had an amazing time. We met some great people, as well as, funny characters along the way. We got to sit 3 hours at the Nicaragua border on the way in (fun times) and then ride home for the last hour and 1/2 with two Jehovah’s witnesses on the way back (our bus driver decided he wasnt going to stop at our stop). It was an adventurous journey and took way longer than we expected (about 10 hours each way when you factor in border crossing, etc) but we absolutely had a blast! Sophie was such an incredible little travel partner. She didnt make a peep on any of the bus ride and really only fussed a little when waiting in the sun to go cross the border and have our bags checked. This little diva does not like waiting around. She managed to entertain herself with collecting rocks and throwing them and when all else failed the boob was a savior. She also ate prob 3 apples on the way there and 3 again on the way back. Apples are def. a great travel treat since they take a baby a long time to eat and kept lil nugget occupied for a portion of the journey. Luckily our trip each way started at about 6am so since miss thing doesnt usually wake up until around 9am she slept for about 3 hours total during our trip. Anyway, needless to say we didnt do much via car, bus, boat or anything other than foot when we stayed in Granada.

We ate at some incredible restaurants and had some of our favorite meals since living in Central America. Our hotel was my favorite that I have ever stayed in and I think Will agreed. It was absolutely beautiful, quirky and completely spotless. I typically lay a baby blanket on the beds whenever we stay at hotels (it is a weird thing i have about hotel beds) but I realized on the second night that i hadn’t even pulled it out of the suitcase. The owner Ulli was more anal than me and his place was so organized and spotless that I was in heaven. Everything was labeled (will makes fun of me b/c i like things labeled, like i like the sugar jar to say “SUGAR” etc, lol), the switch for light said “light” and fan said “fan” and so on, ugh it was my utopia.

Anyway, on to things other than mine and Ulli’s apparent share for the love of OCD. The city was so different from Costa Rica. We def. sensed a lot more poverty and it wasn’t as modern at all (people still traveled by horse), but the architecture was super cool, and there was a lot of flavor and people living there from all over the world. There were tons of restaurants of all types and every night there was some sort of party going on somewhere. The whole city was walkable minus the ginormous potholes that you had to look down for while walking on the street. We saw an acrobat routine, belly dancers, juggling, fire dancing, etc. and this was all in only 3 nights. The president was inaugurated while we were in town so they had fireworks and a projection screen showing the inauguration on the side of a delivery truck. We have videos of a bunch of the entertainment that I will post later.

I def. would love to visit Granada again and stay longer so we could see more of the sites. There are supposedly some beautiful islands that you can take a quick boat ride to visit. We will be visiting again for sure and just had such a fantastic trip. Sophie had a blast walking all around, playing in the pool, sleeping through the night (yes sleeping though the night), watching all the entertainment, talking to herself in the mirror and going absolutely bananas in the stand up shower. Visa run #1 was a giant success. We arrived home around 4pm and the house was super clean, the pups were happy and well taken care of, and Alexis even washed our car. We feel really blessed to have this opportunity and go on these adventures. We have met so many great people and hopefully continue to do so. Now enough of the rambling… slideshow below.

Daddy turned the big 3-0 today and we all headed to the beach to celebrate! We ate at an Australian restaurant (beach shack) called Outback Jacks and the food was super yummy! After we ate we headed down to the beach and walked around for a bit, then drove over to a bridge to check out some scarrrrry crocodiles. On the way home we saw the most beautiful rainbow which summed up our entire day perfectly. We picked up some cupcakes and a slice of carrot cake to have for birthday dessert later on. Unfortunately we forgot to pick up candles so we had to wrap some toilet paper around a fork and light it on fire (very classy) for daddy to blow out and make a wish. It wasn’t the prettiest, but it was resourceful and did the trick! Happy birthday to our hero and the most amazing husband/daddy around. We love you madly. You make us so proud and we are so lucky to have you in our lives everyday.