Mike Tyson-- Costa Rica Part III

ZIPLINING!! 

It rained the day we went ziplining. It seemed like it just rained without any notice every single day in this foresty area. People would be out walking to their jobs or school and it would just start pouring on them. I guess the locals are used to it, but I hate that stinky, sticky wet feeling and could not deal with that as my everyday life. I suppose if that's all you've ever known you just become used to it.

Our ziplining guides were way cool, most of them [and most everybody everywhere we went] spoke English. Jordan and I had been practicing our Spanish before the trip and I really think it helped us. There was one older couple on the same hotels circuit as we were and they were total Americans. Really nice older couple, but they just did not make any attempts to assimilate[and they said they had lived in Mexico for a season before.] We saw some other "Ugly Americans" on our trip, just totally being nasty and speaking LOUDER and SLOWER English, as though that helps people understand a language, right?

I think the locals appreciated us because we at least made an effort and they could see [/hear] that. Our ziplining guides sure seemed to like us for it... or it might have been the fact that I was wearing white shorts and a tank top in the rain! In my defense, I didn't know it was going to rain and my shorts quickly became see through. I was wearing my bathing suit underneath it all anyway, so what's the difference. We're in Costa Rica-- La Pura Vida, mis amigos!! 

 Even with the rain we were still able to see the beauty below and around us. I was afraid of losing my contacts once when the rain was coming down really fast on my face, so I had to close my eyes for a minute and just hope I could hear the guides signaling me when to stop. Generally stopping and going was really easily controlled, even an 11 year old on our tour did it! I would love to do this again somewhere only much much higher. Like over a really big canyon or something. 

Our guides were great and asked us if we wanted to do the "Superman"
and of course we were down for anything!

One guy on our tour asked why we got to do it an he didn't, he said he's even a local... hmmm... think my clear pants helped any? Jordan thinks they did! But I think our great attitudes, even in the rain, and adventurous spirits mixed well with our guides. The one who only spoke Spanish asked if I was cold and I just said, "La Pura Vida, si amigo? Solo vivo un tiempo!" so I think they liked us! Jordan was making great conversation too.. Overall his Spanish was even better than mine, he is more patient to listen slowly and understand. I just like talking! [Can you tell!?]

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Our ziplining tour was a part of a hot springs hotel and included a day pass for all outside hotel amenities. We stuck around all day for the aquariums and terrariums.

Thankfully it had stopped raining so we changed into some dry clothes 

to check out the insects and amphibains. 

 This was just the baby.
"Mike Tyson" was about 9 feet long and was located with two other large crocs in a larger habitat caged only by chain link fence. I don't mean chain link fence on the other side of a 6 foot dug out trench like in American zoos, I mean we were just as close to "Mike" as we are now to this baby croc but the chain fence went up 8 or 9 feet. No barbed wire at the top-- I guess if you're dumb enough to climb the fence or stick your hand in it, Costa Rica is gonna let you! I like it... much more accountability on the individuals. Just don't do anything dumb and the chain link fence is all the protection you need.

After our visit with the creepy crawlies and crocodiles we went for a swim in the hot springs tub. It was amazing! They'd built a pool to gather the springs and they even had a HOT water slide! The hotel also had 2 other water slides for the cold pools. Jordan and I stuck to the warm slide though. We got daiquiris at the swim up bar. 

Stick around for more... Only two more episodes, I promise!!

Devilish Lizards-- Costa Rica Part II

Costa Rica: Part II

Our first adventure was a river guided "boat trip." The brochure really should have read "river rafting" as I would hardly call this a boat! No complaints though, I rather enjoy rafting. We were with just one other couple so it was a very nice and relaxing afternoon. 

We were able to see the Blue Jean Frog, many lizards, sloths, bats, a billion monkeys and even an alligator [pretty close up too!] 

On our search for monkeys and sloths, we initially had not seen too much movement in the trees so our tour guide was really great to pull us over to a little island in search of monkeys... which we found right away due to his monkey calls. These monkeys were so small but as you can hear below-- they has such deep howls! 

I ventured up this path alone at first and I swear I was going to get 

killed CONGO style! 

When we got out at the bottom of the river our guides had fresh fruits for 

us to snack on and bottled water.. Jordan and I both drank plenty of tap water 

while we were there and neither one of us got sick... hopefully Baby is not born 

with any extra extremities! 

On our way back up to our hotel, the shuttle stopped at a roadside cafe that was LITTERED with iguanas! I guess the story is that the iguanas were there first, right? So the owners of the little restaurante started feeding them left over vegetables and the giant prehistoric lizards kept around looking for an easy meal. And of course it brings lots of tourism to their little spot as well! 

 These pictures don't even begin to do justice of how many of these creepy giant lizards there were here. I am surprised this picture turned out at all because as soon as I sat down they all started flocking  me like little 'compies,' as though I was going to hand feed them or something, and I was freaking out! I knew Jurassic Park really existed somewhere and we found it! My ultimate nightmares were coming true! 

Jordan was so at ease, I am smiling through the fear. 

Jordan The Brave! 

 ...and not so much smiling here at all. 

There was a small yippity dog that was much braver than I and it would chase the iguanas around just to mess with them. Well, while trying to pet GODZILLA here the dog came out and freaked us both out, so then our tour guides started messing with me and barking everytime I got near the iguana! They got a good laugh out of it, but at least I pet them, the two other girls in our group wouldn't go near any of them and just shopped in the souvineer shoppe attached to the cafe. These brave pics are the real souvineers!  

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After the ride back to our hotel we went out for our own adventure to a waterfall park [no good pictures of that particular waterfall, but some waterfall pictures to come.] Our brochure said there would be lots of "hanging bridges" to cross... okay, I was expecting what you are probably expecting based on that description, right? ...I'm thinking like Indiana Jones death style rope hanging bridges. I was really anticipating overcoming a fear of heights and staring death in the face on some rickety old hanging bride 1,000 miles over a tremulous-rock studded river bed.

This is what we got. 

Everywhere we went the bridges were a structural engineers dream! 

Hence Jordan's total excitement.

I was less than impressed with the safety of these bridges. 

And by that I mean, they were perfectly safe dammit! 

So we found our Tarzan Adventure elsewhere... 

This is literally a hanging branch from a tree, we didn't know if it would hold our weight without snapping, but gosh darnit we didn't care!! 

 Take that death! 

 My handsome boo in the parks of CR. 

 Now we're talking Jurassic Park status, isn't that beautiful!! 

This swingset may have been more dangerous than the bridges.  

We'll be back with more stories after the break! 

Welcome to Costa Rica! Part I

Our Costa Rican Adventure... finally! 

Jordan and I had thinking we'd better plan something big for our 2nd anniversary since we had hoped to begin trying to start a family soon. I'm not saying you can't travel with children, but we wanted to get one BIG trip in before our "lives got flipped, turned upside down." Jord perused the internet and found a sweet deal for a 7 day Costa Rican getaway! Lucky for us we went about 2 weeks before the big earthquake! 

Good thing we planned as we did because we found out about our pregnancy the day we got back to the states! So no international traveling for a while... :(  Thankfully my morning sickness did not start until our last day of vacation.

However, I felt physically unable to even look at the pictures we had taken from our trip because even the thought of Costa Rica made me nauseous  I know it was all in my head, since Costa Rica did not MAKE me sick, but, oh CR-- I will always have fond tainted memories of you!

The whole trip was booked with adventures, but we left a few days for exploring local hot spots as well. The scenery was AMAZING, the locals were really nice. The only downside... the food was pretty much terrible. I did not know it was possible to make rice and beans taste bad, but the Costa Ricans found a way! 

So here is our post about our wonderful trip... 3 months later! 

 The beautiful outdoors! 

Personal porch in our own little cabanna at hotel #1!

The view from our room near the Arenal Volcano. 

LOVED the gorgeous street art! 

ONE MILLION DOLLARS!! Muahahaha.
Not really though, their money [colones] is so silly, such a high number for such little value.

Every store used these Victoria's Secret bags, so I felt sexy even when getting my groceries and souvineers! 

We finally used something we learned in highschool.. 

...our Spanish skills!

And saw lots of animals of all varieties! 

Jordan is definitely more of the 'animal whisperer' in our family! 

We stayed at three different hotels in three different ciudades. We had a rental to get ourselves around the country and Jordan can tell you the driving was an adventure in itself! Locals drive like maniacs. I would imagine if you took the drivers of New York and made them all 15 year olds with distracting iphones along with 90 year olds with expired licences, then narrowed the roads by about 4 feet it still wouldn't be as scary as CR was! Pretty much nobody yields the right of way and there is also foot/bike traffic everywhere as well. 

The first hotel was in the forest area near the Arenal Volcano, second was literally ON TOP of the beach in Flamingo Beach near Tamarindo and the last was a sweet little cottage [no tv!] near the top of the Poas Volcano. SO we got to see a good variety of the country. 

I could definitely have used some more beach time though! 

PIG got the royal treatment! 

Everywhere we went the maids placed him like a mint on our freshly made beds. 

Personal JACUZZI TUB in our suite! 

We still have several pictures to share, 

so I'm splitting our story into a few posts.

Please check back for more!  

Stranded in SLC

My car had been acting a little funny lately, like the battery was dying, but it wasn't the battery. I know a little about cars, not a lot, but some-- so it's strange behavior confused me. When it randomly died, one day a few months ago while getting onto the on ramp, I pulled over to the side, prayed it would start again, called Jordan, told him what had happened, waited a minute and started it up again. All was fine. I kept in the slow lane all the way home in case anything happened. I got home safe and nothing of the sort happened again...
UNTIL...
A few nights ago when I was driving home from work [commuting to and from SLC now] my car started acting up again. The radio goes off, all the inner lights dim and the a/c & heating unit fails. I moved to the slow lane and planned to get off at the exit near a friends house so in case the car wouldn't start back up when it died I would be close for a rescue. I only made it to the exit before the one I'd wanted. I called Jordan and he came to get me. [I was closer to SLC than home. Ugh.] Jord thought that my alternator had probably kicked and was something he could fix, but not on the side of the road in the middle of the night and I was still miles from our friends house, so getting a tow would have been very pricey! We called our friends, Ryan and Amber to assist in the rescue!! Ryan borrowed his brothers truck and tied my car up behind his, Jordan steered the broken car as Ryan drove him to Jordans office [the closest place] while Amber and I followed behind in Jordan's car.
The rope broke once and thankfully we were at a stop light so the boys just had to jerry-rig it up again and we got safely to Jord's office and back on the road home before midnight! Yay!

Jordan was able to fix my car on Saturday-- it was the alternator, just as he suspected.

Sometimes bad things happen because they just have to [and because you ignore signs your car previously gave you.] And sometimes things happen to help us-- see, just before I left work that night, my mom had been texting me and asked me to call her after work. My phone had been dying and in the red for about the last hour of work, but I hadn't had a chance to charge it in my office. Since my mom wanted to talk, I decided to charge my phone even for 10 minutes even though I was ready to lock the doors and head home already. Had I not taken even 10 minutes to charge, my phone would have had only 10 or so minutes of battery left; just enough to talk to my mom, but not enough to call for my rescue!! I almost ignored the prompting to charge my phone because I knew it would last long enough for a quick conversation and I wouldn't need it after that, but good thing I did!

I am very grateful to have a husband who is so knowledgeable and able to fix things with his own hands. He saved us a lot of money! I'm grateful for good friends who will come to my rescue in their pajamas in the very late and very cold evening! I am most especially grateful that it was an easy/cheap fix for the car, as I need this old hunker to live at least til the baby comes. We already have our money arranged for hopefully purchasing a house and welcoming Baby, so any unforseen expenses are not welcome!! And I am grateful to the young man who pulled over only a few minutes after I'd been stranded and offered help! Even though help was already on the way, I guess God had already created a back up plan in case I had been negligent to charge my phone. HE must know how dumb and in a hurry I can be sometimes!

Almost halfway!

Oh hey there!    

Time for an 18 week update...

My morning sickness has just about passed, but has been unfortunately replaced with horrible gas pains!

I am recently starting to show and everyone says, "You're so small." Most often that happens at work-- where I wear a chefs coat and that pretty much makes me look like a shapeless brick, so not like anyone could see my bump anyway. 

I don't feel SMALL! 

As I have recently started to show a little. 

...not much, not enough for people who don't know I'm pregnant to assume I were pregnant. I basically just look like I ate a big Thanksgiving dinner. 

I have a permanent "food baby." 

I'm having a hard time dressing this 'chubby phase' because if I wear form fitting clothes people will just look at me like, 'Why is that chubby girl dressing like Lizzie McGuire?' Jordan says no one will think this, but I know the cruel world of girls! 

When I dress loosey gosey I just feel frumpy. Like I'm not pulling off the cover up. 

Here is a pic from church earlier. 

Baby Bump is definitely present, so don't know how anyone can say I'm small. I guess for 5 months, but I thought I was actually a little on the chubbier side in the past few weeks, so maybe now I'm just growing into myself. 

Pregnancy Complaints...

I have to pee all the time!

ALL THE TIME. 

Sometimes I use the bathroom and minutes later I have to go again, it's usually just uncomfortable pressure on my bladder because half the time only a tinkle comes out. Oh the joy of pregnancy, enjoy it with me now in detail. Just kidding. I'll spare you. However, I am a very lazy person, so running to the bathroom just for a tinkle seems a horrible waste of my time. I would never get out of bed to use the restroom before pregnancy and now is no different. I will complain and complain and complain [and then whine a little] before I get up and just go.

 I have told Jordan I am going to get DEPENDS for night time so I wont have to be bothered by getting up. [I told you... L-A-Z-Y-!]

And as far as training myself to become an early riser [because it's going to be a whole new life when Baby comes around.] Well, My body is already preparing me for that because my bladder wont let me sleep in past 9. 

And man that is too early for me when I work late nights! 

Things I miss... 

 I do miss sushi. I've been wanting some of that lately, but not really a craving. 

Mostly just the yumminess of the seaweed and rice with wasabi. I could always get veggie rolls or even cooked rolls of approved seafood would be okay. [This aint yo' mamma's pregnancy no mo' and so certain seafoods which are considered to have a low mercury count are allowed.] However, cross contamination is a fear and I don't think I'll risk it. 

I was thinking of getting some wasabi peas on my next visit to the grocery store in hopes that that might tide me over for... 4 more months plus breastfeeding... a while.

I miss sandwiches. There's been a recent outbreak of something unpronounceable and so deli meats are not pregnancy safe. I have to thoroghly cook the meat before eating it and I've just never been a fan of toasted subs. 

And I especially miss TUNA sandwiches! 

YUM! 

Okay, well that's me and Baby. 

Next appointment is Wednesday where Baby will hopefully reveal it's gender to us! 

I'm really feeling it's a girl. 

Okay, buh-bye now.