Barcelo Langosta Beach Resort

Post 2 of 10-
We stayed at Barcelo Langosta Beach Resort in the little town of Tamarindo. It was all inclusive, so all food and drinks were free. It was awesome!! But I seriously had to pee like every hour, because I was drinking water or soda all the time. Skullcandy also arranged for free shuttles during the day to the town.

These are just random pics from around the resort over the course of the trip.

Outside from our back balcony.

The path to the pool and lobby.

This is from the lobby looking toward the beach. It was soooo soooo sooo hot when we got to the resort. Unbelieveable! Under the lobby was the buffet that was open for 3 meals a day. The food wasn't too bad either. And the fresh pineapple was to die for!

They only had internet access in the lobby so a couple times during the trip we video chatted with the boys and that was fun and comforting to know they were good and having fun.

This is the left side of the pool, which by the way was like warm bath water. Honestly not very refreshing! But it was nice when you got out.

This is the right side of the pool. Back between the straw canopies and the a-line roofs is the walk way to the beach. On the back right was a snack bar that was open pretty much all day. We got a few virgin pina coladas, ate nachos, and pastries too!  Personally, I think I enjoyed coke more than the pina colada (I don't drink much soda here at home.) And honestly, I didn't know what else to order in a virgin drink.

 

On the Thursday, there was a down pour. It was pretty to see everything wet and soooo nice to cool down a bit!

Pretty flowers in our room every day

There were also iguanas just hanging out at the resort in the midst of everyone's comings and goings. These are the stairs up to the lobby, and in front of the restaurant.

Raccoons came by every night to eat whatever they could find. It was a little scary how not scared they were of us!

This is outside the front balcony of our building 

Getting to Tamarindo, Costa Rica

Warning: Information overload. Costa Rica post 1 of 10....

We woke up Wednesday at 2:15a (yes, in the morning). We went to bed around 11:30p and slept pretty lightly, fearing we may miss the flight. Skullcandy chartered a flight for most of the company. Our international flight left at 6a so we had to be at the airport at 4a. We left our house about 3a. I was pretty emotional about leaving the boys, hoping we'd all return safely to each other.

It was so nice to come in to SLC and see the lights before 3a. It made me wish I lived in a bigger city. Driving back and forth to Utah county is really annoying.

This pic was take on my phone as we ascended to cruising altitude. The moon was very pretty.

 I've probably only been on a plane a handful of time, so its still kind of facinating to me to be up there.

The sun rising over the clouds

The cabin noise was pretty loud seeing that everyone knew each other.  I also heard in the back of the plane they were playing loud music and getting a little tipsy. The flight attendant had to ask several times for people to sit down and get out of isles so they could start the drink service. It was pretty comical. It was pretty impossible to get comfortable enough to sleep on the plane.

We landed around 11:00a. The time zone was the same so that was nice. There were about 5 other planes landing within the same 15 mins period. We had to wait on the tarmac for a little bit before we could get off. I had to go to the bathroom and was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic.

I loved the warm air! But then as we waited in line at customs it started to get sticky fast! I'd never been in a humid climate before.

There were 3-4 charter busses to take us to the resort.

Leaving the airport.

It was fall in Costa Rica, perhaps that's why it wasn't as green and jungly as I expected. The bus ride to the resort was about an hour. This is what we saw along the way...

 (cemetery)

 (skinny cows)

 (mowing the golf course-I feel like this mowing our yard!)

Bangs

PS: I got a new hair cut before the trip and accidentally got bangs cut....I meant to get some shortish side bangs, but I was in a hurry as was my hair dresser and I accidentally said, "shorter"! Anyway, there were a few tears shed after I left. Getting rid of my bangs in the first place was a challenge. I did it after I graduated high school (I didn't know they were way out of style). I actually wrote my BYU, English 115 personal narrative about the experience of getting rid of them. Having bangs reminded me of my pitiful, depressing high school life. It took a few days but they started to grow on me, (pun intended). Jon really likes them and I think I do too. Its been about a month and I am continuing to maintaining them.

Family Fun

Jon's mom had a great idea of what to do to help the boys know when we'll be back from our Costa Rica trip and hopefully not miss us too much. This is the longest we'd gone on a trip with out them. She suggested I take some pictures and she'd make an advent calendar type thing and each night would look at pics and read a message from Jon and it would be one night closer to when we get home. So one evening before the trip we were just playing and I took these pics.

Jon is such a goofball sometimes! He purposefully posed like this for the pic

Another pose, one of his favorite expressions when I want to take a pic

all of us

Funny faces

This is a reguarly held activity at our house, wrestling with dad.

Then we made blueberry scones with fruit for dinner-SOOOO good! (recipe here we also make them with chocolate chips!)

I thought this was soo cute. This is what Maryanne made with the boys. There is a little frog for each boy and they hop to a new lily pad each night.

They can look at different pictures of us and read a message.

Easter

 This year we had a nice FHE lesson on the resurrection and it was great to see how much Zac remembered and understood about the resurrection. Church was amazing and uplifting. I'm so grateful for The Plan of Salvation.

Ideally, it would be great to have Easter not be commercial at all, but that would be quite a feat. Jon didn't want to do any gifts, just candy. But I grew up with getting tons of knick knacks in my basket. I think we found a good medium this year. As the boys get older I'd love to shift the focus more fully to be on the Savior.

They boys needed new church clothes and they loved the suits.

Max tired and dazed :)

Playing with their bionicles.

My sweet handsome boys!