Canopy Zipline

Post 9 of 10-
After we finished snorkeling, we had lunch at the resort and got ready for our canopy tour. It was about 30 mins away. And it wasn't that fantastic. We saw one monkey, some iguanas, and two vultures. We were hoping to see lots of monkeys and toucans and other such animals. Maybe they aren't around in the fall season?

There were 9 cables, and we were up there for about 2 hours I guess. They didn't have enough people to man all the platforms so when there were about 10 of us gathered on one platform someone would come from the one behind and send us to the next one.

This is the hut where we all got suited up

The one monkey was just above the hut watching us

All geared up

One of the cable operators giving us directions on how to ride the cable without smashing your hand, how to break to slow down, and how to get to the end if you stop short.

These are the stairs to the first platform. I never thought I was afraid of heights....but this made me a little woozy!

Jon and Max

Seeing that I was a little anxious up here, I didn't take very many pics. I wish I had, but I was also worried about dropping my gloves or the camera. I'd like to have thought I'd push myself out there with some momentum, but nope I just took it easy. But, still it was fun to be on the ziplines, even though we had to wait like 10 mins between each one. It was a good thing I'd been working out. Since I am short I had to do pull ups to get myself on and off the zipline at each platform!


This is what the jungle looked like

It was also sooo hot and humid here! We took like two showers a day with the heat and activities. After this we had dinner at the buffet. Then the Skullcandy videographer had a video ready of the trip. It was fun to watch.  The company also did awards, and we just hung out in the lobby visiting for the last night.

Snorkeling

Post 8 of 10-
On Saturday, we were picked up at the resort at 8:15a. She was a really nice, very pregnant woman, who's husband runs the boat. They moved to Costa Rica from Germany like 13 years ago. She was also talking about Skullcandy and asked for my towel-funny.  (Jon gave her his towel when she dropped us off at the resort when we were done.) She took us to the shore and her husband came and got us in the dinghy and took us to the cruiser.

We rode for about 15 mins to find the first place where we stopped to snorkel. I've never been snorkeling before. It was pretty nervous, but ready to try something new.

To help us stay afloat and not get too tired the captain helped us tie life jackets around our waists. It was soo strange to breathe under water. I honestly was hyperventilating a little, worrying about breathing under the water and not letting the waves push me into the jagged rocks and not touching any fish.

Our camera is not water proof so unfortunately we didn't get to take pictures of all the things we saw. The captain and his partner went out to find cool things for us to see. This was the second puffer fish. The first one felt like really coarse sand paper. This one had sharp spines. They stayed puffed the whole time even after they swam down to the bottom to get away.

We saw lots of fish, and a sting ray (scary! one of Jon's coworkers got stung the day before and it hurt a ton!) We got to hold some star fish and touch a little octopus. The octopus was amazing! I wish wish wish we had a picture! It was very silky feeling. I expected it to feel rubbery. I've never had much experience with sea animals. So it was strange to see the octopus try to jump out of the captains hands, just like a hamster or chick might.

Then we got back in the boat and went to another spot. There were jelly fish all over! They didn't sting though. They also didn't have tentacles. As you can see they look a bit like implants! But they were slimy and sticky. I really did not want to go in the water, but I couldn't just sit in the boat!

It was disgusting to swim with the jellies!! Seriously, you couldn't swim without one touching you! It sure gave me the heebee jeebees!! I had to really distract myself from jerking away everytime, otherwise I wouldn't get anywhere!

Some people were throwing the jellies, like a snowball fight- funny! We also saw pelicans close up, more star fish, and another sting ray. I don't know what else they saw because I was pretty freaked about the jellies touching me.

The water wasn't as clear as I expected, but it was a great time and I'm glad we went. It was awesome to get out on a boat! I really really love boating!

A Night on The Town

Post 7 of 10-
On Friday, we went surfing in the morning, which I mentioned before. Then we came back, had lunch and got a couple's massage at the resort. This was my first massage; I was kind of nervous. But it was relaxing and nice.  Do you talk during your massage or lay there quietly?

The room was on the second floor, white and bright. One whole wall was windows to the back of the resort so it was jungle like. When our massage was over there were 5 monkeys and a baby monkey hanging out in the trees. It was awesome to watch them.

We wanted to go on a jet skiing excursion on Saturday morning. (Jon has never been and is SOO missing out!) And I LOVE to jet ski!! The local area was too rocky. So one of the staff helped me find a place that would come pick us up at the resort and take us to the place where we could jet ski. We had that all planned with the Oleksa's, some friends and coworkers. But there were more people who wanted to come and the outfit only had 3 jet skis :( So I canceled it last minute and tried to make arrangements to go snorkeling the next day instead. But I didn't know how to get a hold of the excursion company. I was told we'd have to go into their shop in town to make arrangements and hopefully they'd still be open because the resort didn't have their phone number.

That night we planned to go to town and make arrangements for snorkeling, shop for souvenirs for the kiddos and have dinner at Seasons, another recommended restaurant. We took a taxi into town and told the driver where we wanted to go. (The taxi drivers and bus drivers are SOOO fast and crazy! They just pass cars and bicyclers so close and fast! And all the roads in town are dirt so its really bumpy. They'll often drive on the other side of the road because its smoother!) Anyway, this driver was so nice. The excursion company had just closed but he was able to catch the guy who worked there and I was able to talk to him and got him to open the shop back up and make the call so we could go snorkeling the next day!

Then we found some sweltering and lame gift shops, got some ibuprofen for Jon's pain, and found a good shop where we got the boys each a hacky sack and a little monkey with velcro hands and feet.

Then we stopped for drinks, since we were meeting some other friends for dinner in an hour. We found this nice little place on the shore.

The group: Angela, Max, Emily, Brian and Jon

We didn't know where Seasons, the restaurant was, so the guy at the place on the shore drew a little map. It was a little scary walking around the dark dirt streets, with no phone, not really knowing where we're going. There were locals here and there and apparently Jon was offered marijuana a few times just that night. Also, each restaurant has a guy out on the street with a menu to get people to come in for dinner. One guy was talking to Jon and noticed his Skullcandy hat. (Everyone in the town knew about Skullcandy and wanted gear and stuff.) He asked Jon if he could have his hat. And was a little persistent about it.

We found the place quick enough and saw that there were already like 15 other Skullcandy people there. The service was poor and VERY slow (probably because they were busy with our groups), but the food was really good. Our server wouldn't break the check into groups because, "it was too hard". Yeah...we weren't going to tip her at all, but it was included! But the food was good and filet minon for $15, not bad!

As you can see the air is hot and sticky even at night!

Biggie and Maddie joined our group for dinner. There were geckos on the ceiling here too!

Later that night, Skullcandy put on a party at the local night club, Aquadisco. Locals were invited too. After dinner we went back to the resort and chatted with friends on the pool deck. We decided that we didn't want to go to the night club. Plus, people were already getting drunk before the party even started.

We just hung out on the lounge chairs at the pool for a couple hours. It was so nice! With everyone either at the club or in their rooms, it was quiet and private and just nice. The sky was so pretty with the palm trees swaying and the occasional shooting stars. We talked about life, goals, perspective, direction, experiences, etc. Its always nice to enjoy that part of our trips.

Date Night

Post 6 of 10-
After watching the sunset, we decided to get dinner in the town. We heard there was a really great pizza place. We invited some other people to go, but they were busy or didn't have a babysitter. (Another great thing was not having to worry about the kids. There was a babysitter on staff at the resort but you had to share. So that got tricky.)

Anyway, we went to La Baula. It was just in town, so only a few miles away but we didn't know where it was. We took a taxi. It costs $5.00 to take a taxi to town.  It was a little worrysome hoping they wouldn't take you to the middle of nowhere and rob you! :) But it was just fine. It was awesome that Jon spoke spanish even though its pretty rusty. It was enough to communicate.

It was a nice little place. I loved that there were no walls, just out in the open.

 This is just to the side of our table. You can't tell, but there was lots of trees and leaves and looked like the jungle.

This is a gecko on the roof. Weird. It was a little nerve racking hoping he didn't fall in someones food!

It was such a nice and relaxing dinner just the two of us. The money in Costa Rica is colones. When you buy things in town they give you the total in colones. Jon was able to ask what the American conversion was and also ask that we get change in American dollars. At some places they give you your changes in a combination of dollars and colones, its takes some math to figure out if you got the right change!

Sunset

Post 5 of 10-
This trip was just amazing! It just the right amount of scheduled things, freedom, and options when there was down time. Although I wish, wish, wish it was a couple more days! I think the most ideal part of it was that it was with the company, therefore Jon wasn't stressed that he was way behind on work, to check emails, and that people couldn't get a hold of him. Everyone else was working at the same pace. And if someone needed something they could come find whomever they needed.

It was also so nice to not have phone and internet. We didn't want to pay international roaming so we turned our phones off. It took us back to the 90's when you had to make arrangements with your friends to meet at a future time and place with no last min changes, or just wait around until you run into them if you needed to talk to them. It was weird, but nice at the same time.

It was also the greatest to spend practically the whole time outside. It was hot, but with shade, water and drinks whenever you wanted it was very wonderful. I had forgotten how much I LOVE to be outside. Its hard to remember that when you live in a place where it's winter 8 months out of the year! (Its May 19th and we woke up to snow on the grass, flowers and roofs).

Another thing I loved was being with Jon practically the whole time. I seriously don't think we were more than 10 feet apart for more than 10 mins the during the whole trip.  It was the best to hang out with him all day. I think that was the hardest thing about coming back to reality.

Anyway, after the soccer stuff, we came back and hung out at the beach just off the resort. The water was so warm all the time. The sand was pretty coarse and mostly broken shell pieces. We stayed out there for a while to watch the sunset. It was so pretty.

There was a cloud cover from the recent storm, so it kind of create this dome effect. After the sun went down the orange light reflected off the clouds and was so pretty and felt like we were in a giant room not outside.

The orange glow made everything look orange!

Little Feet Soccer Field

Post 4 of 10-
It looks like the pictures I took at this event didn't get transfered off the SD card before they got deleted :( These are from the Skullcandy facebook page.

On Thursday afternoon, we went to the local youth center called Cepia. Skullcandy partnered up with Little Feet to make this soccer field at the youth center. It was amazing to see the video of the process. They leveled the field and poured cement and then put the field on top. The workers came to work at night after their regular day jobs to get it all done in time. The project, start to finish, was done in less than a month! Amazing!!

When we got there we picked up trash and helped put the last pieces of the snapsports field together. It was awesome to watch the kids play soccer against Skullcandy. Those kids were good! The score was zero-zero for quite a while.

There was cotton candy, churros and pepsi.

They also had a couple dance numbers. It was soo cute to see the girls smile when they got lots of cheers and attention after each dance.

So cute!

Skullcandy did some carnival type games too. What's this plinko? The kids LOVED the Skullcandy swag. There were also coloring stations. This was a big event for the town. They even canceled school!

The town put a bull riding type show on for us too! (I'm bugged that our pictures were lost!! They were more specific ...anyway) It was so so so hot!! We were sweating profusely! Skullcandy had these black body stamps and a couple of Jon's coworkers got him on the lower back. He had to hold his white shirt up til it dried so it wouldn't stain the shirt.....unfortunately, with the heat and humidity there is no way it would dry, the shirt is ruined now.

Skullcandy people got in the ring to tempt the bull-crazy stuff!

Then storm rolled in real fast and it start to pour. It was a lot cooler but we got really wet.

My favorite was watching the kids and the Skullcandy peeps play soccer.

Surfing at Witch's Rock

Post 3 of 10-
On Wednesday, we pretty much traveled, hung out at the pool, and visited with coworkers. On Thursday, we decided to try surfing. A year ago when the trip was given as an incentive, they called it a surf trip. Surfing was pretty much the deciding factor on where we were going on the trip. Supposedly this is one of the greatest surfing locations. So of course we had to try it!

Some of the California employees rented boats to go to little islands where the waves were much bigger and better than on the shore here. But these ones worked just fine for us. Also, in the mornings and evenings the waves were better, but Jon and I weren't that committed.

The company paid for lessons for who ever wanted them, but there were no more times available. So, Jon decided he just wanted to go down to see if we could squeeze in to a lesson and to check it out. The company arranged for shuttles to go back and forth all day from the resort to the surf place a few miles away.

We surfed at Witch's Rock. There was a surf shop and a bar and restaurant too.

The company also arranged for all employees and significant others, to rent boards with no cost to us. It was great!  But unfortunately, there were no more spots for lessons.  We had a couple hours to kill before the next event, so we went down to the beach to watch.

After watching for a while and Jon eavesdropping on some other lessons, he decided to get a board and make a go at it. I timidly hung out on the beach for a bit. I have a love/hate relationship with the beach. I love the smell and the breeze and the sounds and the sand pulling under my feet, but I'm afraid of the ocean. (I love Lake Powell.) I don't like waves and their apparent unpredictability. As I kid, we'd always go to the beach with family. We're from California and practically all of my extended family lives there.  I always got thrashed by the waves. Tons of salt water up my nose, scraped and dragged along the coarse sand-it sucked! It seemed like everyone else like it. Surprisingly, my fear seemed to be tempered by this once in a lifetime opportunity that lie before me. And with the presence of my amazingly supportive and patient husband.

This is Maxi. He found the board that would be best with our size and experience, waxed them and then rinsed them when we brought them back. My board on the first day was a 9 feet 2 inches and was good and wide. It was so big and heavy I had to hold it on my head to get it down to the water. But the board was perfect to help me get up easily.

Surfing seemed pretty straightforward and simple. Lay on your board, paddle hard as a wave is coming, and when it catches, push your board down and pop up.  I got up on the second try!! Unfortunately, we don't have a waterproof camera so these pics were hard to get and not the best ones either. Not to mention, our SD card was full and the battery was almost dead.

 And Jon got up on the first try, I think.

It was really fun! And so successful! I didn't get thrashed at all on Thursday and only once on the Friday.

I told you my board was big!

We also went surfing on Friday morning. But there was a bit of a mishap with a board injuring the family jewels.... after finding some pain killer and waiting for it to kick in we surfed some more. My board was more narrow so it was less stable for my lack of skills. And the waves weren't as good as the day before, but it was getting later in the afternoon too. I would catch a wave and by the time I was ready to stand up it lost its power.

But all in all, surfing was SOOOO fun! I am excited to try again someday!