Fun With Lunch

How many grapes can you fit in your mouth at once?

William can fit four.

Poor Wills

Wills has a black eye.

He hit himself in the eye with his knee while he was jumping on the trampoline.

Happy Memorial Day!

Since we live near the Hill Air Force Base, we thought it would be fun to see the air show they do every couple of years. We tried walking there on Saturday, but it was kinda drizzly on the walk there, and pretty much as soon as we sat down it started to pour. The hanger we found for shelter was really crowded and we just weren't having any fun, so we walked home in the rain, and we were soaked to the bone by the time we got home.

We tried again on Sunday and planned our walk better, so that we actually saw some of the show instead of being rained on again.

These pictures are what I took from my garden of the planes practicing on Friday. I didn't dare take the camera out in the rain while we were on base.

Luke figured out how to spray everything by putting his hand over the hose. Great.

At Least It Is Healthy

We went grocery shopping yesterday and I had some of the fruit sitting on the counter, and they boys got hungry while I was downstairs.

Painting Cookies

We painted sugar cookies today! I thought this would be less messy to decorate (and to eat) than using frosting. Wills wanted to put Batman on everything.







What we painted was not really recognizable after they cooked, but they still tasted great!



The recipe for the cookies and the paint is from Betty Crocker's basic cookbook.

Helping Dad

Eric replaced the burlap on the top of our deck arbor this year. Wills got so excited he had a reason to wear his work apron to help Dad.





Luke just wanted to watch, but he is a cute watcher.



Like their new summer jammies? They are from Old Navy.

Luke's Haircut

Luke thought his hair was getting a little too long, so he decided he needed to cut it to keep it out of his eyes. And then Wills very helpfully cut a chunk out of the back too.



You can kinda see the back too in this picture, but the front is very noticeable. Those scissors are well hidden now.

Dinosaurs in the Shade

Wills and Luke made themselves some "shade", which is their fort behind the recliner. They were playing with dinosaur puzzles back there and Wills made up new names for some of them.

My Mother's Day Present to Myself

We got our pictures taken right after we got back from our trip to Costa Rica by Brody Dezember Photography Studio. I thought they did a great job and I 'm so happy with how they turned out!











These are the five that I chose to get the file of. There were actually tons that I would have loved to get, but had to narrow it down somehow.

They boys also got me some lilies to plant around the fire pit for Mother's Day.

Mater Operation

We sometimes like to buy new games when Eric goes out of town as a treat for being left at home. We bought this Operation game that is Mater from Cars, and the boys totally don't get the concept of the "surgery", but they think it is hilarious to buzz him.

Costa Rica Part III

Sunday took a swim in the awesome pool, and then we said goodbye to the JW Marriott and headed to see some other beaches before we left the region.

Playa Negra was not black sand, but it did have a lot of black rock, and a lot of surfers.

We drove to Volcan Arenal because that is the volcano everyone said to see. It was supposed to be very predictable, where you can see lava flowing every night. Well we found out that the volcano stopped erupting about a year ago. We still got a lot of pretty views of the volcano and the lake right by it, but no lava.

On the (very long) drive around Lake Arenal, we saw this Howler Monkey just walking along on the power lines.

The Lava Flow trail from 1968

So since there was no reason to stay at the volcano at night and we had a long drive ahead of us the next day, we drove back to San Jose to stay the night. Then the next day we got up early and headed to Manuel Antonio, which is a national park with lots of trails and tons of wildlife. But that ended up being another disappointment, because the park is closed on Mondays. So we walked around and explored Quepos, the town right outside.

We had lunch at El Gran Escape, and it was excellent.

Traditional Costa Rican rice and beans

On the drive back we passed this bridge with a crocodile crossing sign and a couple of policemen standing at the end of the bridge to stop people from climbing down to the river. We walked across the bridge and saw about 20 crocodiles there in the water.

The last two nights we stayed at the Doubletree in San Jose, and on Tuesday we caught our flight back to Florida. We spent a couple very relaxing days in Florida where I forgot to take any pictures of my two cute nieces, and then flew back home on Thursday. We had so much fun on our vacation but we were really missing our boys by the end of it, so it was good to be home.

Costa Rica Part II

Friday we left pretty early from Liberia to get to the beach. We were staying the next two nights at the JW Marriott in Guanacaste, which turns out is the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at. It is in Hacienda Pinilla, which is a gated community with some other resorts and some super fancy houses.

Biggest pool in Central America

There were hammocks hanging all around in these courtyards at the resort.

We had lunch at the hotel, with a guy playing music right there in the restaurant. Then we drove to Tamarindo Beach to sign up for surf lessons for the next day.

Tamarindo was a really cool little town where the main road is right off the beach, and everything is about surfing there. We saw a lot of old FJ Cruisers, which made Eric's obsession with them even worse.

There are tons of cows in that region, and they have funny flappy ears.

The next morning we went to Playa Flamingo and played in the water. The water was so perfect, just cool enough to feel refreshing but not cold, and when I got out it was warm enough that I didn't have to use my towel. I just stood there for a couple minutes and then I was dry.

We took our surf lesson at the Banana Surf Club and our instructor was Marice. We both fell a bunch of times and I got bonked on the nose with by board, but we stood up a bunch of times too. I thought it was so fun and I want to surf again.

These two days on the beach were my favorite part of our vacation. Next we head to a volcano!