Half a Decade

What in the world would make a girl leave this? (Living just minutes from the beach)


And this? (An annual pass to the Happiest Place on Earth!)

And this? (fabulous roommates who travel to Vegas on a whim to see Celine Dion)

And this? (incredible friends and living just an hour from Sea World)

Well........ this. Dave and I got engaged 5 years ago today. I was sad to leave Huntington Beach. I loved the location, the weather, my job, my friends and my life there. But 5 years and 2 kids later..... I'd say it was worth it! Love you, babe!

My Baby Girl is 3!

Happy Birthday, Lacey girl! Lacey is obsessed with all things Dora, so it was the natural theme of this year's party. We had a Dora table cloth, Dora plates, napkins, party bags, cake, etc. And, naturally, we served Mexican food (Chipotle burritos and homemade guacamole and 7-layer dip).


And what fiesta-themed party would be complete without a pinata?

Here is Lacey with her cousins. Even Tanner, who is cheering, seems to know a rainfall of candy is in the near future!

The Cake....

And the birthday girl after eating the blue frosting on her cake!

In addition to Dave's family (who lives locally) coming to her party, we had a special treat this year. My mom flew out from Chicago. She arrived on Lacey's birthday (Friday) and will spend the next week with us. Lacey adores her "Hammy" and I am thrilled that she is here. We didn't spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with my family this year, so it has been several months since we have seen my Mom.

Hopefully all you mothers can forgive and understand my haggard appearance; this was taken right after my little Lacey was born. My water broke at 1am on Jan. 21st. It was a full 24 hours later before Lacey entered the world, in the early morning hours of Jan. 22nd. I was so tired, but so happy. They took her to the Nursery, so I could get some much needed sleep, but I remember waking up and not quite believing that I actually had a baby. It was so surreal. I was exhausted, but I just wanted to see her. So, I tip-toed out of my bed and down the hall to the Nursery and I just stared at her. My first feeling and taste of being a Mom. I feel so blessed to have my little Lacey Lu in my life! Happy Birthday, baby girl!

Ringing in the New Year

This is my final Costa Rica post. We decided to end 2009 with a bang! We went on a "Canopy" (zip-lining) in Papagayo on a 17-platform, 10-cable course. This was our first time doing this and we loved it. The entire family did it together and we had so much fun! Obviously Lacey and Tanner couldn't participate, but Dave's dad, who had zip-lined previously, said that he was fine not doing it again and volunteered to watch our kids for the hour and a half we were soaring through the rain forest. Thank you, Dad Strom! Here we are about to embark on our first cable.


So far, so good!

I absolutely love this picture of the Matriarch of this clan. You can just tell she is having a blast!

Kerry

And here's Dave. You can't tell in these photos, but we zip-lined several times over the Tempisque River, which is full of crocodiles. One crocodile came up on a log and just looked up at us as we sailed over head. Good thing no cables broke!

Mission accomplished!

Ever since we had kids, we have had VERY low-key New Year's Eves. Like we do absolutely nothing and go to bed before mid-night low-key. But here we were in Costa Rica, my first International New Years. We had to do something! So, we tucked the kids in bed (Dave's parents were at the house) and then decided to go out to a late dinner with Dave's sister and her husband. We ate outside within walking distance of the beach. It was fabulous!

After dinner, we headed to the beach. There were bonfires going every 50 feet or so all up and down the beach. It was quite a sight! Then, at midnight, fireworks erupted literally directly over our heads and everywhere all around us. It was so cool! What a way to ring in 2010!

Day #4: White Water Rafting and Leatherback Sea Turtles

Dave's sweet parents volunteered to watch our kids so that we could go White-Water rafting with the rest of the siblings. Here we are arriving at our destination, the Colorado River at Canon de la Vieja Adventure Lodge, posing by the map of the route we are about to take.


And now we're all geared up and ready to hit the rapids!



Dave going in for the kill....

Whoo- hoo!!!

We had so much fun doing this. It was a definite highlight of the trip!

Several months ago, as I was doing "Costa Rica research", I came across the fact that Las Baulas Marine National Park in Playa Grande (just an hour south of where we were staying) is a nesting ground for Leatherback turtles. Leatherback turtles are the largest of all sea turtles, ranging from 4-8 feet in length and weighing 500-2000 pounds. They are amazingly huge! Anyway, the population has drastically declined over the years mainly due to human exploitation of eggs and also due to people building houses and hotels all along the coast line. The lights disorient the baby sea turtles and they can't find their way back to the water. They only nest a few months of the year, but we just happened to be there in the heart of nesting season, so there was no way I was going to miss this! Here I am with Larry (Dave's dad) at the National Park Headquarters. Basically, this is the place where you wait, and wait, and wait some more in the hopes that you might get lucky and see a turtle.

Larry, Rita (Dave's mom), Heidi (Dave's sister) and I were the only ones that opted to go. We arrived at Las Baulas at 10:15pm. We were told that high tide was at 1:30 am and they may or may not show up, but if they did, it would be within 4 hours before or after high-tide. I wasn't excited about waiting until 5:30am, but nature is on it's own time table. Lucky for us, at 12:15, we got word that a turtle had been spotted. We quietly walked to the shore, but unfortunately, the turtle, who had just swam hundreds of miles to get to shore, was tired and couldn't find a good nesting spot. We kept our distance and observed her for about 30 minutes before watching her realize she wasn't going to be able to nest in that place and she swam back in the ocean. Rats! So, we waited and waited and waited some more. By 2:15am, I was exhausted and ready to throw in the towel when we got word that another turtle had been spotted. This time, by the time we got to it, she was already starting to build her nest, so we knew we'd be able to see this one. Yeah!

This picture, as well as the next one are downloaded from the Internet. We weren't permitted to take any pictures. We were instructed to remain quiet, not take any pictures or use light of any kind and to not get in front of her. So we quietly came up behind her and crouched down just inches away from this beautiful, massive creature. We then watched her dig her nest out of the sand, labor and deliver 75 eggs. When she was done, she covered up her nest, camouflaged it from predators and swam back to the ocean. It was an absolutely amazing experience!

This is what it looks like as she is delivering her eggs. Only this picture looks light and it is in the dark. A marine biologist is on hand holding up an infrared light so that we were able to see, but the turtle wasn't distracted. We got home at 4:30am. But it was worth the sleep deprivation. Besides, I have 2 very young children. I'm used to sleep deprivation!

Day #3: Palo Verde National Park

We started out the afternoon by going to lunch at a fabulous Costa Rican Restaurant. They had an open kitchen where you could watch them cook all this wonderful food and then they brought out as much as we wanted to our table. T wouldn't drink what they brought out to us, so Dave asked the waitress in Spanish if they had any apple juice. The waitress was gone for about 15 minutes and came back with fresh-squeezed apple juice - literally straight from the apple. Talk about service! And I found it somewhat humorous that we weren't charged any money for "the baby" since they anticipated him only eating negligible amounts of food. Are you kidding me? He ate as much as the rest of us!


Enjoying the feast with Dave's sister Heidi and family.

After lunch, we headed to Palo Verde National Park and spotted 2 Scarlet Macaws on our way to the Palo Verde. It's cool seeing them in the wild. The female Macaw is sitting on her nest.

Once we arrived in Palo Verde, we hopped on a river boat. Here's Mr. T as the captain :)

While on the boat, we saw Howler Monkeys.....

Huge Iguanas........

And Crocodiles!

This one came right up to our boat. We were close enough to the water that we could easily reach out and touch the crocodile, though we opted not to do so! So, given the fact that my 2 year old and 1 year old were not strapped in or anything and were running around the small boat, it was somewhat of a challenge to get these shots while making sure all arms and legs remained inside the boat. Luckily, we came away with some cool pictures and all of our fingers and toes!

Playa Hermosa and Tamarindo

Our first morning in CR, Dec. 26th, we woke up to this view of Playa Hermosa.


Lacey and her cousins lounged our deck and pool for most of the day.


But Tanner, Dave and I headed to the beach!

The following day, all 15 of us piled in a van and headed an hour south to Tamarindo, a great surfing beach! Despite living in Huntington Beach, the surfing capital of the country for 2 1/2 years, I have never surfed! Neither had Dave, so we signed up for surfing lessons and hit the waves! We took turns surfing while the other person watched the kids. But admittedly, Dave watched the kids a lot more than I did because I LOVED surfing!!!!! I actually got up on the board several times and caught a bunch of waves. It was fabulous! So why, do you ask, are there not any pictures to prove that I did in fact surf? Well, let's just say that something was wrong with our camera and it just couldn't quite catch me at an attractive angle :) So, that's Day 1 and 2 in a nutshell. More to follow......

Christmas in Costa Rica

We just returned from 8 fabulous days in Costa Rica, thanks to the generosity of Dave's parents who planned this trip. They rented a house in Playa Hermosa, located in the North Pacific Guanacaste region and had their 3 children and families fly out for a week of fun in the sun! I have 8 days of pictures and stories, so I will just do this one post at a time until I make it through the week. For starters, we woke up Christmas morning in the freezing cold Maryland weather.


Despite the cold, we had a lovely Christmas morning. Lacey loved her flashlight and her other gifts, including a hand-made (by her Aunt Carrie) crayon holder and her no-mess paint-set.

Santa brought Tanner a new tool set and a few other things, but wouldn't you know it.... the only thing he actually got excited about was a package of new binkies in his stocking. He walked around all morning with a "baby" (binky) in his mouth and one in each hand smiling ear to ear (although, obviously not when the camera was around!)

Here I am in all my morning glory holding one of my favorite gifts from Dave. Yes, I'm a dietitian, but I'm a dietitian with a serious sweet tooth. And one of my all-time favorite candies is cinnamon bears. But they are impossible to find! Seriously, the only place that sells cinnamon bears is the BYU bookstore. Other than that, you have to settle for Hot Tamales or Red Hots. And they are nowhere near as good as cinnamon bears! So, my husband hunted them down online and bought me a 5# bag!! Awesome! Hope he still loves me 5# heavier.....

Christmas Afternoon: spent on an airplane en route to Costa Rica!

Lacey making a fort with her cousin Jacque under the seat. Whatever passes the time!

Christmas night: Arriving in Costa Rica! We quickly traded in the gloves and coats for shorts and T-shirts. We spent the next 8 days in warmth and sunshine and having fun with family. More to follow......