Many Hands Make Easy Work. Or Not. It Depends on the Size of the Hand.

M "helped" me paint this weekend.

Outcome : We both survived, the walls are painted, most of the paint is off of us. I learned that M likes to play Tag but thinks that when she tags you, she is "It". She was "it" at lot.

Between Rain Drops

We've been having some "weather" here lately. That's not something we can normally say here in Nor Cal...
But between days of pouring rain and hail we've had some beautiful days. This weekend we decided to take advantage of the warm weather and visited our park. Naturally it was well populated and M had a great time.

Spinning with Dad

Making friends....

She's doing so well.... making things that used to be so hard (if not impossible) for her look easy now. It's amazing to us how fast she is growing and how strong she is getting.

We can't wait to see what the next year has in store for her and what kind of big sister she'll be!

There's no App for that.

Lies. All Lies.

Easter!

It's that time again... the time in spring where parents walk the fine line between scarring their children for life and you know, celebrating a holiday.  In the past we've kept Easter pretty low key, but we had some aspirations this year. To be honest I wasn't really sure how this year would turn out, but the answer came out to be: AWESOME. 

On Saturday we participated in our gym's annual egg hunt. The grounds of the gym are divided into about 5 roped off areas, one for each age group. Last year M sandbagged the 1-4 year old category - it was just the tennis courts with eggs everywhere so it was pretty easy.

 This year she moved into the 5-6 year old category which was the play structure and surrounding grass with less obvious eggs (and more aggressive kids). 

The hardest part was waiting for the signal to go. 

During the excruciating (..10 minute) wait, M spotted the Easter Bunny making the rounds. She was sooo excited we couldn't believe it. She asked if she could hug him....

Evidently she's not traumatized by huge anthropomorphized animals.
 Unintentional Crisis averted.

M was able to find just enough eggs to make it fun, 

but not so many that we risked an OD on candy (second 

crisis overted). 

The morning was rounded out with some old fashioned monkey business.

 

 On Sunday the real festivities began. Instead of just having the "Easter Bunny" leave a basket, we wanted to set up a scavenger hunt where M could follow clues and eventually find her basket. We didn't really know how it would go over... would she understand the clues? Would she get through all of them or would she give up?  

It was time to toe that fine line...

We met M in her room and I told her that the Easter Bunny had stopped by and left something for her, and I handed her a little Dora the Explorer pail which had a plastic egg in it. She immediately turned to her dad (sitting right next to her) and said "The Easter Bunny stopped by and left this for me!", like he hadn't just heard it. She was so happy it felt like we just gave her a pony...

 We told her to look at what was inside the egg and she told us it was a picture of a refrigerator (our refrigerator, and her first stop on the hunt). Each clue led to a another another egg with a clue inside and a treat, but after the first one she didn't care too much for the treats, she just wanted to find the clues! We had to encourage her to go find the fridge, but when she got going she was on a rampage! I caught video of clues 3-5 with my phone, sorry for the sound - it gets really quiet a few times. 

It went about as wonderfully as we could have hoped and it was a great way to start the morning.

A little while later Grandma Nancy and Papa Donny came over, then the Buffington Clan. With the beautiful weather we had an egg hunt outside.

That is M's "OH MY GOSH!" face, at the sight of a "hidden" egg

Looking near and far ....

Even Baby Reno (er..Emmett) was on the hunt!
M might have some competition next year!

 Then it was back inside for an excellent brunch!

Easter Baskets and bellies full we asked M if she wanted to watch her new movie (Tangled, the Disney Rapunzel move). It's the first movie we've ever bought her, or attempted to watch with her at home, but the day was going so well we thought we might actually get through a movie. 

And we did. 

Later that day, after her nap, she asked me if we could "play Tangled?", like it was a game. 

"How do you play Tangled?", I asked her.

"We brush hair!" she answered. 

I said yes, absolutely we could "play Tangled".

Disney couldn't have written a better ending!  

Start the New Year Off Right....right?

The last leg of our trip landed us inland, near the Arenal Volcano in the town of La Fortuna. 

The most we ever saw of the volcano

As for activities, we all had some ideas of what we wanted to do. On the first day we all planned to visit a nearby waterfall....

It looks so... accessible from this angle, doesn't it?
Like there might be a nice shady path leading down to it or something pleasant.
DO NOT BE FOOLED.

All of us started down the path, a few of us (Mom and Don) got wise pretty quickly and headed back up. The rest of us could not be stopped... slippery path, humidity, elevation, approaching dusk, the presence of a 5 year old that you totally know will not climb her way back up, and common sense be damned.

Survivors - happy because the walk up hasn't occurred  to them yet.
I'm not pictured because  it wasn't pretty.

Anyways... the hike down and up was totally worth it because there was a very nice swimming hole at the bottom. Not too cold, sparkly clear and beautiful.

Grandma Linda and M cooling off their feet

M watching the swimmers

Looking downstream

After such an adventure, we thought that we'd all take it easy the next day and visit one of the hot springs. Everyone recommended that we make reservations because they only allow so many quests in the facility at a time. The weather looked like it was going to turn a bit cooler with possible rains, so we reserved spots for the first session of the day to avoid the crowd as much as possible. What better than to spend a cool day at the hot springs?

The next morning we arrived at the springs and were shown to the changing houses.... just as it started to sprinkle. It didn't look like there were many people, but we were early. 

The path leading to the pools - decidedly less hiking involved than yesterday.

Walking down the path we could hear howler monkeys roaring in the trees.

When we got down to the pools we found all the people... exactly two of them. Our only company was a couple who preferred to sip drinks and watch the rain - so we had all the pools to ourselves for a couple of hours.

Grandma Linda's sentiment was felt by all.

Everyone can thank me later for using only long distance pictures
of them in their bathing suits (even thought you totally know I had my
telephoto lens...Merry X-mas)

It rained off and on, but who cares about a little rain when you are sitting in a giant hot tub?

The biggest pool was just deep enough so that M could walk in it with her head and shoulders still out of the water, it was really the perfect situation for us. We even had a bar to ourselves!

It turned out even better than expected and was a nice relaxing day for all of us. 

I guess we all figured that we should do something the next day. I mean besides lounging around....

Grandma Nancy and Papa Donny wanted to do some bird watching, and Grandma Linda had a great idea - She, BZ, M and I would all take a rafting trip and see some wild life. 

M - all ready to go!
"Which oar is mine?!"

The four of us had a boat and guide to ourselves, and had a really nice time. The water was calm and we were able to see some interesting plants and animals. Our guide was really good and knew a lot about the area.

On our last night we all agreed to find dinner on our own... but ended up all in the same restaurant! Brilliant minds think alike, right?! Then we all enjoyed some social time in one of our hotel rooms, reading and talking.

M and Grandma Nancy pouring over new books.

M enjoying her new Legos and all the attention.

The next day was filled with traveling to the airport and traveling home.... On the drive we finally found a fruit stand with the much regaled "manzana de agua", which we had been looking for our whole trip. We (I) made the driver stop and turn around just to get my hands on one. Mine wasn't quite ripe, but I could tell why they would be so popular. It was like a firm red pear that was super juicy and tasted like roses, worth the stop!

Everything went fine - M slept a lot on the plane rides home.

M's sleep on the plane position - Head on stuffed "Sleepy Owl", leg  out. 

After a lot of annoying little problems with TSA and Spirit Airlines (my tip to you - do not fly with Spirit!), and once we were on our United flight home, it was one of the easier trips home we'd had. We were actually able to WATCH THE IN FLIGHT MOVIE. What?! I know. 

It was almost too good to be true. I appreciated it all the more because I realized it's probably the last time we'll get any quiet for a long time. Oh...

Another little one on the way to fill some big prints!

That's right... I should mention that we took all this family time to tell our folks that we'll be +1 next year. It went over pretty well, as you can imagine.

Happy New Year. 

Ice Cream and Turkeys and Sloths, Oh My!

     The second leg of our trip has brought us inland to the town of St. Elena which is up against the Monte Verde Cloudforest Reserve (oh, and also the St. Elena Reserve). The road here was...bumpy, and narrow, but mostly bumpy. Like cobblestones for miles and miles. Our driver was experienced and did his best. I can't count how many times we said "gosh, I'm glad we didn't try to drive this ourselves". As we got closer to town we noticed the wind had really picked up. Our driver told us it's always really windy in December.

 The town of St. Elena is quite a bit bigger than we expected and the house we rented was very nice with a great view.

Main Room

Front Porch -designed so you can enjoy the hammock sheltered from the wind. 

View from Front Porch - All the way out to the Nicoya Peninsula (about 55 miles) 

Side Porch

 Unfortunately the awesome house is about a half hour walk from the town. A very hilly, very windy walk to town. For those who have been to the cabin in Jenner, think the hill up to the house over and over again for about a mile. So we've been walking off all the guacamole and chips we've been eating. Or at least that's what I am telling myself. That reminds me, I should go make some more guacamole...
 Our first day was filled with exploring the grounds - a small farm with chickens, turkeys and a couple horses. "Bitey" horses my mom calls them. Even buying carrots just for them at the market ended with them charging, and her throwing the carrots at their heads and running.

The path to the hiking trail... this is about as far as we got on that hiking trail. 

One of many sets of chickens, all complete with a loud rooster.
 The kind of roosters that wake up at 3:30am and make you hungry for fried chicken.
THOSE KIND OF ROOSTERS.

Resident Turkey - always willing to show his stuff

   We eventually made plans to visit the St. Elena Reserve for a day, where there was something for everyone. Grandma Linda and Nancy and M walked the hanging bridges while Grandpa Donny, BZ and I tried our hands at some zip lining.

Hanging Bridges

As for the zip lining, there were 13 platforms linked together - BZ took video of most of them. Here is his video of the longest and highest, the only one we had to do in tandem.

Just finishing zip lining - Safety first!

After meeting up again we visited the hummingbird and butterfly gardens.

Purple Throated Mountain-gem Hummingbird

Violet Sabrewing Hummingbird

P.S. I love my new camera.

Green Crowned Brilliant Hummingbird

Blue Morpho Butterfly

Some other butterfly... I can't remember all the names, OK?!

Viceroy (Monarch Lookalike) Chrysalis

The next couple days kinda blurred together, that wonderful section of vacation where you can't exactly remember what you did, but you are sure it was fun, and relaxing. I know we went to the cheese factory, which was pretty blah except that there was ice cream too. So I guess it wasn't totally bust. Oh, and we obviously ate a lot... I'm reminded of that because most of my pictures were taken while we were waiting to eat, eating, or sitting around because we were too full.

It was right about the time that we started lamenting that we really weren't seeing much wildlife and  made reservations for a night hike that everything started popping up.

Baby Howler Monkey

Blue Crested Mot Mot.
Who's got the Mot's? The answer is Costa Rica.

Walking home from dinner, the night before the night hike, we saw not only one, but two different three toed sloths hanging from power lines above the street.  We also saw one in a tree, swinging wildly in the wind. They were like slow, furry ghosts with bear faces. I wish I could have gotten pics but I wasn't planning on needing a camera while walking home in the dark.
It made us realize that we really had seen most things we'd see on a night hike, but we went the next night anyways. Our house was not far from the private reserve used for the night hikes, so of course we walked. It turned out that we were glad we did (oh, except my mom..) because BZ spotted this on our walk:

A Boa Constrictor... on our walk. Just hanging out like he's no big deal.

A BOA CONSTRICTOR. 4 or 5 feet of BOA CONSTRICTOR.

Mother was not pleased...

So we were pretty much done with the night hike before it even started, but with our guide we did manage to see an awesome tarantula, some leaf cutter ants, many agouti, a sleeping toucan and a kinkaju from afar. I didn't get any pics of the aforementioned animals because it was too dark, but I managed to snap this before we went into the forest.

One of many sunsets enjoyed so far

Let's see... besides crazy animal spottings....oh wait! I almost forgot! 

We changed hotels for our last night in St. Elena and found ourselves on the other side of the town with a fresh view. OF MORE ANIMALS.

Within a couple hours of being at the new place we had a visit from a Coati that tried to come in our open front door:

Ok, I think that is the official end of crazy animal spottings- enough with fauna, let's do flora. We were also able to visit a small private orchid garden. They showed us a ton of orchids, mostly natives to the cloud forest which tend to be miniature.

Our last night in St. Elena was New Years Eve and we celebrated by going out to a popular local pizzeria. The food was good, the company better. A great way to end the year.