Well I am back from Costa Rica. What an amazing trip!!! Instead of emailing out all of the pictures, I decided to post them on the blog so I could give a re-cap with the pictures. So I arrived in San Jose on Friday night. Instead of driving back to La Tigra, the small town where Mac lives, we stayed in San Jose for the night in this cute little studio apartment:
It was so cute! I gave Mac some presents I brought for him including new white t-shirts and a few books and candy. He gave me this AWESOME shirt that is blue and says in Spanish "as serious as a donkey in a boat" because apparently that is a popular saying and it has a picture of a donkey in a little dingy, so cute! Here is Mac drinking his coffee in the morning in his very cute plaid shorts. 
We woke up at like 5am and started the beautiful drive in to La Tigra. We drove though the mountains and went through clouds and it was just soo pretty! 
We first stopped and had breakfast at this little soda on the way and had a delicious breakfast of rice, beans, cheese, eggs and sausage. And my favorite part, a nice cold glass bottle of Coke! I love Coke outside of the US when they make it without high fructose corn syrup - YUM! When we got to La Tigra, it was just beautiful. We stopped by at Mac's best friends house to meet them as they were going out of town. Otto and Mari live in La Tigra and have this amazing house, one of the most beautiful homes I have ever seen. Hugo, who is Mac's age and works at Northwoods with him, also lives in the house with Dina, his wife, who is Otto and Mari's daughter. Met everyone and then headed to la groceria to pick up a few snacks to have around. Very cute little store where everyone knows Mac. Then headed up to the cabina! The driveway/road is SO crazy and bumpy and steep! There are gorgeous views the entire way up and trees with sloths! This is the small house where Mac lived all of last year and stays every now and then. It just up the dirt driveway/road about 1/2 mile from the big house, which I will show later...
We pretty much dropped our stuff and headed out to the little pond that you can see through some of the first pictures of the cabina. It has a cute waterfall and then is a big pond where you can swim around. The weather was gorgeous and warm, SO different from Sandpoint! (PS I missed a snowstorm where we got 5 feet. YUCK!) So the water felt great and it was so fun to just see Mac and be able to play around with him.
So after swimming around and cooling off we came back to the cabena and read out on the porch on the rocking chairs. Then it started raining so we watched the rain and looked for birds and sloths and then went inside to play Cribbage, one of our favorite games. He won the first game but then I won the second in the last minute with 4 10's and the card on top of the pile was a 5, which is pretty unbeatable. But he is very good at Cribbage and I am not so he is always stealing my points. He first taught me on our trip to Glacier back in the Fall. 
Here is a toucan! We saw some really colorful birds right after the rain, colors that seem unreal for animals, like neon green and yellow.
After my cribbage victory, we went to hang out in the hammock and listen to all of the birds. 
Back inside I found a stick bug on the floor!
Here are the flowers that Mac brought for me at the airport! Dina had arranged them and they are all from her yard, so pretty!!
So after lounging, we watched part of Say Anything, which I brought for Mac because it is one of his favorite movies and I had never seen it. It was very cute. Then we realized it was only like 1pm. We had done SO much but it was becuse we had been up since 5am. We went down and looked at the big house and then went to town to order a couple of chickens and pizza to take over to Hugo and Dina's for dinner. Stopped by a local bar and had a Costa Rican beer - not bad! It was actually quite good. Pilsen is one and Imperial is another. So we were sitting there, the only Caucasians in the entire town, and a very nice Costa Rican local comes up to us with two shots of Johnny Walker Red and sets them down and says something very quickly and walks away. We were like uhhh thank you! But then I look at Mac and I'm like I CAN NOT drink this! He was like TRY, I can't take both! So I had a mini sip and almost gagged. But we had to drink it and could not be rude, so he had to take both of them. Then we left to go to Hugo's. When we arrived, Mac was pretty out of it, as demonstrated in these verrry cute photos: 
We played pool and hung out in the very cool house. I can really understand a lot of Spanish, but by the time I think of how to respond, the time has passed in the converstation. But I definitely did get better as the trip progressed! So it was a very fun night!! Got home and went right to sleep as we were both exhausted.Woke up the next morning at 7am and Mac made a big breakfast while I read out on the porch. It was delicious! Another variation of rice and beans, but very tasty :) Stopped by the big house on the way to Hugo's soccer game. So this is the house where the kids live and have school every day. It is very big, and has beautiful views! The cabina is right IN the jungle, and the big house is on a ledge sort of so you can see everything. Right now, there are only 4 kids in CR and they are all in host families, so there are no kids staying at the big house. But they are there all day every day for school and work around the property. (The big house is on 90 acres and it borders the Childrens National Rainforest, which is very cool!).
So the kids do all of the yard work and landscaping and make trails all along the land and signs of what everything is, etc.
The kids have Spanish lessons every day and Mac is desperately trying to get better and better too. He is already really good and seems totally fluent to me. Now I want to get even better so I can speak more too!
So then off we were to Hugo's soccer game! It was the semi-finals for a very competitive league in CR. Hugo is one of the nicest people I have ever met and speaks great English and was extremely nice to me and was just a great guy. So I was happy to cheer for him and his team! It was a great game and came down to a goal by the other team in the last 10 seconds of the game. Sad ending, but great game!
Here is a very pretty tree where sloths like to hang out:
So after the game, we had already brought out swim suits so we drove back up the big driveway and parked somewhere on the land and hopped out to go for a quick hike. Mac had told me we would absolutely not be hiking with my hurt knee (if you didnt know I tore my meniscus tendon snowboarding and have to wear a big ugly brace BOO). But I convinced him to let me do an easy one on their property that leads to a gorgeous swimming hole area. So of course I only brought flip flops so off we headed!
I took my brace off for most pictures but then Mac made me keep it on when we were walking through the water. So protective that one!
We got to the water after like 45 minutes of hobbling. It was soo pretty!!
The water was crystal clear and cool but not too cold. So this above is the swimming hole and if you go around the corner it leads to the waterfall...
This is looking out from inside the hallway thing
It started raining while we were swimming and then by the time we walked out, it was all muddy and our flip flops couldnt even stay on so we hiked out barefoot! Through a Costa Rican rainforest. In the rain. It was awesome!!
After our hike we went back to the cabina and showered and changed and started the drive back to San Jose since I had an early flight on Monday. Short trip I know, but worth every minute!!!! But not before I gave Mac a haircut :) He had told me he had shaved his head and it was a great surprise when he had his curly blonde hair still!!! But the back was too long. So I jsut took a lil off the back and now it looks perfect!
So the drive should take about 1 hour 30 mins, but took us well over 3 hours because there was a festival going on with 800.000 Costa Ricans. CRAZY traffic. Made it to San Jose at like 730pm and the place we stayed in last time was full but we found this cute motel down the street and stayed there. Walked around and found a soda and had some yummy dinner then went back to the room. 
Caught the end of the Packers - Giants game (boo Giants) in Spanish and then low and behold the Wedding Crashers was on in English. Fell asleep during the movie. Woke up at 5am to start my long trip home. And I mean LONG. 5am in CR is 3am in Sandpoint. I had a long layover (which I was fine with) in Phoenix so I got to see John and meet Beth!
I saw their place and where they are moving to. We had lunch and got a drink and it was very nice. Then back to the airport for more waiting. Plane was late. Landed in Spokane at like... 12? Drove home and got home around 130am but not before seeing a massive moose on the side of the road. Stopped to take a picture, but I always get really scared of big animals when they are really close to me so I was taking it but got scared and drove away really quickly. Got home, said hi to Sophs, dropped the bags and went to bed. It had snowed about 5 feet while I was gone and I was so lucky to have Patrick who shoveled the driveway and mailbox - so nice!!! Then back to work the next day... I was only in the country of Costa Rica for about 81 hours and traveling took about 37, but it was worth every single second. I was sooo happy to see Mac and we had such a great trip together. Can't wait to go back for 8 days in February!!!!!!!!
Here is a very pretty tree where sloths like to hang out:
So after the game, we had already brought out swim suits so we drove back up the big driveway and parked somewhere on the land and hopped out to go for a quick hike. Mac had told me we would absolutely not be hiking with my hurt knee (if you didnt know I tore my meniscus tendon snowboarding and have to wear a big ugly brace BOO). But I convinced him to let me do an easy one on their property that leads to a gorgeous swimming hole area. So of course I only brought flip flops so off we headed! 
I took my brace off for most pictures but then Mac made me keep it on when we were walking through the water. So protective that one!
We got to the water after like 45 minutes of hobbling. It was soo pretty!! 
The water was crystal clear and cool but not too cold. So this above is the swimming hole and if you go around the corner it leads to the waterfall...
This is looking out from inside the hallway thing
It started raining while we were swimming and then by the time we walked out, it was all muddy and our flip flops couldnt even stay on so we hiked out barefoot! Through a Costa Rican rainforest. In the rain. It was awesome!!
After our hike we went back to the cabina and showered and changed and started the drive back to San Jose since I had an early flight on Monday. Short trip I know, but worth every minute!!!! But not before I gave Mac a haircut :) He had told me he had shaved his head and it was a great surprise when he had his curly blonde hair still!!! But the back was too long. So I jsut took a lil off the back and now it looks perfect!
So the drive should take about 1 hour 30 mins, but took us well over 3 hours because there was a festival going on with 800.000 Costa Ricans. CRAZY traffic. Made it to San Jose at like 730pm and the place we stayed in last time was full but we found this cute motel down the street and stayed there. Walked around and found a soda and had some yummy dinner then went back to the room. Caught the end of the Packers - Giants game (boo Giants) in Spanish and then low and behold the Wedding Crashers was on in English. Fell asleep during the movie. Woke up at 5am to start my long trip home. And I mean LONG. 5am in CR is 3am in Sandpoint. I had a long layover (which I was fine with) in Phoenix so I got to see John and meet Beth! I saw their place and where they are moving to. We had lunch and got a drink and it was very nice. Then back to the airport for more waiting. Plane was late. Landed in Spokane at like... 12? Drove home and got home around 130am but not before seeing a massive moose on the side of the road. Stopped to take a picture, but I always get really scared of big animals when they are really close to me so I was taking it but got scared and drove away really quickly. Got home, said hi to Sophs, dropped the bags and went to bed. It had snowed about 5 feet while I was gone and I was so lucky to have Patrick who shoveled the driveway and mailbox - so nice!!! Then back to work the next day... I was only in the country of Costa Rica for about 81 hours and traveling took about 37, but it was worth every single second. I was sooo happy to see Mac and we had such a great trip together. Can't wait to go back for 8 days in February!!!!!!!! So now I am back at work. It has taken me 4 days to get this post written because I have been so busy at work! I'm sure I have forgotten parts of the trip, but I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it was. As for work, Bonnie is out for the week on a cruise so I've been holding down the fort. Time has been flying by which is nice, but pretty much I just go to work and then come home, eat, read, go to bed. This weekend should be fairly relaxing. Tonight Kim is coming over to watch License to Wed. Tomorrow is cleaning day and then going to a hockey game in Spokane. Sunday is all about relaxing! Then one more week of work and then I head to Ixtapa for a whole week! Then work for 2 more weeks and then back to Costa Rica! So keep your eyes peeled for more updates in the next month!!!
