costa rica christmas

Definitely a Christmas, Birthday, and New Year's Eve to remember! 

There is no way I can cover every part of the trip (I took 800 pictures & 130 videos to be exact) but I'll just hit the good stories and pictures for posterity's sake (#notpregnant if you are wondering).

But I can't talk about this trip without first thanking my Costa Rica Crew:

@mamabucks3: (MVP) because she made this whole trip possible! 

Grandma Lola aka abuela: (#trooper) because she put up with our craziness & hiked all over Costa Rica like a champ!

Samuel: (Designated Driver & Spanish Rookie) drove us approx. 690 kilometers and practiced his Spanish phrases along the way, it was highly entertaining.  

Megan: (New Zealand Tour Guide) after watching "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" (great movie btw) practiced her New Zealand accent as we went through the cloud forest, also highly entertaining.

Sara: (Back-Back Seat Rider) baby girl was so nice and sat in the very back seat with the luggage for most of the car rides, she had to enter and exit the car through the trunk lol.
Erin: (Itinerary Planner & Navigator) definitely got us lost a few times and only lost my cool a couple times.

Liberia 

The first night I was in the bathroom of our quaint but struggling hotel room in Liberia and the biggest lizard ran across the wall and I lost it. Reptiles are my weakness-they scare me to death. But soon creepy crawly things became a normal occurrence and they didn't bother us as much. We still sprayed bug spray like no tomorrow because Zika is scary and no one wants that.

Monteverde

We started out in Monteverde home of the Cloud Forest, so named because you are in the jungley mountains literally in the middle of the clouds. We stayed at this cute Airbnb with the best windows overlooking the forest and complete with a hammock.  

At the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve we took a hike to a waterfall, the famous suspension bridge, and even walked through the clouds. And of course we all wore our Tevas, best things ever! I am forever converted. We also went zip lining above the jungle which was amazing! I didn't get any photos because they wouldn't let us take our phones but I did sneak some video so that will be in my video coming shortly.

Jaco

We spent the majority of the time in Jaco. Our Airbnb was right on the beach and we had the best ocean view! It was dreamy watching the sunset every night or eating breakfast on the balcony. We went surfing, hit up the pool, laid on the beach, played tons of card games, and ate lots of food.

Meg and I celebrated our 24th birthday in Jaco as well. We had a chill day on the beach and also went to a waterfall. This waterfall was just a little ways from where we were staying but it was an adventure to find. Usually you have to pay $70 per person for a waterfall tour but we found it all on our own thanks to a couple of directions from the locals. The only problem was we didn't know how to say waterfall in Spanish so that made it interesting. It's "cascada" if you were wondering... 

Tortuga Island
One morning we took a boat tour to Tortuga Island complete with snorkeling, tubing, and the new sport subwing-ing, it's all the rage. We failed miserably but most of us survived. Mom almost drowned but that's another story. Basically you are being dragged behind a boat and have to hold on for dear life. The ad made it look so easy and carefree, definitely not the case.  

Also can't forget when Sam tried to pee on us...true story you can even see for your own eyes. We had been on the boat all day and the island didn't have a bathroom so that's what the ocean is for right? 

Manuel Antonio National Park
Manuel Antonio is a National Park famous for wildlife and white sand beaches. We saw some monkeys, sloths and even ran into some missionaries!

We enjoyed New Year's Eve watching a grand firework show on the beach but poor Sammy rang in the new year with food poisoning. It was awful! So proud of Samuel for putting up with us for 10 days! I don't think he will ever do it again hahah. 

Overall everything was amazing and I'm so thankful for my family and the opportunity to travel with them! 

LANY & life lately

 Wednesday night we pretended like we were in high school and went to the LANY concert downtown at the House of Blues. But seriously, we were probably the oldest ones there beside the parents who brought their teenage daughters...And Sam was one of the tallest people at the concert because all the boys had not yet hit puberty, so yeah definitely an interesting time. But we had a fun time taking the trolley downtown and making fun of the kids in front of us making out during the concert. 

Thanks Sam for going to the concert with me, even though you find it ridiculous that I like a random high school boy band!  

photo evidence of said teenagers ^^

As for life lately....

we've hit up the beach a few more times of course,

watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with my girls Luna Lovegood and Cho Chang,

and had a baby shower for my friend Jaime!

an extraterrestrial halloween

I love Halloween!! 

Ok I really just love dressing up. Any chance I have to dress up, I'll take it. Throughout the years for our Halloween costume inspiration we've stuck with classic, quotable movies. See our previous years' costumes here and here. As you can see, we've set a pretty high standard for our costumes. And every year I think there is no way we can top last year's costume. This year we were cutting it extremely close and totally found the perfect costume idea just a few days prior to Halloween. I'm just thankful turtlenecks are back in style because that saved my life.

And here you have it, Halloween 2016 inspired by ET 

featuring Elliot, Gertie, and ET!

(Also can we take a minute to appreciate the realness of this ET! #winning) 

Funny story, Samuel (and his whole family) have NEVER seen ET! What?? I thought a Star Wars loving family would be all about a movie with an alien from space. But a few months ago when ET came to Netflix I finally convinced Sam to watch it with me....I basically just wanted him to know the reference for all the random quotes I say from the movie. 

Also I'm a big fan of not spending a ton of money on a one time costume. I already had black overalls so that saved a lot of money but the rest of the stuff we needed was fairly inexpensive:

1. red hoodie- Amazon Prime $14

2. striped turtleneck- H&M $5

3. basket- The Container Store $9 (but I had a gift card so FREE!)

4. flowers- Michaels $2 

5. ET- this was a little trickier but we spent a total of $1!!!

For ET we searched everywhere online--there were some stuffed ET toys for $15 but they were a tiny 8 inches tall and the all the nice ones were $50+ and there was no way it would ship to us in time. 

So we went to FedEx and printed out a picture of ET's head and wrapped it around a blanket to make it look more 3D and then wrapped a sheet around him to recreate the scene from the movie. 

A grand total of $22!! Not bad at all! 

Not that you wanted to know all of that, but just v proud of myself. 

For being last minute, I'd say we pulled it off!

Now off to plan our costume for next year...jk but really. It's serious business.

sports, surfing & sunsets

SPORTS:

Fun fact--The dental office I work at (the top rated dental office in La Jolla!) asked me to be the spokesperson for our new video ad on the yelp page. They caught me by surprise, totally spur of the moment, after an 8 hour work day so don't judge my appearance and awkwardness. You can take a look here if you'd like...Anyway, they gave me 2 free tickets to a Padres game for being such a good sport. So Tuesday night I took Sam on a date night for some baseball! Sam was super sick but knew I had been looking forward to going that night so we rode the trolley over to Petco Park, ate some yummy sandwiches, watched the Padres get a home run, and then went home. The final score was 7 to 1 with the Padres getting the W! Thanks Sammy for going with me!

SURFING:

Even though it is technically fall, we've been stuck in a major heat wave over here and can only escape the heat by hitting up Tourmaline Surf Park morning and night. The water is definitely cooling down but it is still warm enough outside for me to wear my new spring suit that I am in love it. It makes surfing so much more fun. I'm going to be sad when I can't whip on this bad boy everyday and have to go back to my boring old black wetsuit. 

SUNSETS:

Yes we are the noobs out here with a go pro but how can you not capture the beautiful sunsets every night. I die! Last night I just sat and watched the sunset as Sam and his friend surfed and it was magical!