Disneyland, Part Two!

Our second day, we went to California Adventure park, and all the new Cars land stuff was so cool!



Here are all the boys standing awkwardly in front of Mater:



This is the new Carthay Circle Theater restaurant, which we did not eat at because it is super expensive. But it was beautiful with the fountain and the bougainvillea trees in front.



Another new guy we had never met before is Dug from UP.





Possibly my new favorite ride was Luigi's flying tires, which I rode with my best buddy Ethan. He loves me, I can tell by his face.





Another awkward picture in front of Red.



I found this cool display of costumes from my for-the-time-being favorite show, Once Upon A Time.





Family shot!

Disneyland Picture Overload!!!

We decided to take a quick trip to Disneyland before Eric starts his new job and doesn't have any more time off. So we tacked on a few days to our already planned trip to Vegas, and flew to California.

Before we even went into the park, the boys were SOOO excited to be there.





We spent the first half day in downtown Disney. Then on our first real day, we went to the Disneyland Park.



It was not crowded at all, and we loved not being packed in or rushed.





We met Merida, who the boys call "Brave," and she showed them how to shoot a bow. They will still tell you all the right steps if you ask them.





In Tomorrowland, Will and Luke both virtually got to be Ironman...



...and we met Thor.



Here is a super awful picture of me and the boys in front of the castle. I really need a haircut.



Luke and Dylan were little best buds in the park, and held hands in a lot of the lines.





We sent the boys with their Aunt and Uncle on the teacups ride, because neither Eric or I like to be dizzy. Thanks guys!



And we sat and watched the show in the Golden Horseshoe, with a giant ice cream sunday, which I have always wanted from there.

Vegas, baby!

When we first got to Vegas, we found a limo driver who didn't have anyone to drive, and got the fanciest ried I've ever had from the airport to the hotel. I let the boys have my camera to take pictures.







Here is the wedding party, with all my cousins:



This is what my boys did pretty much the whole time we were there after the wedding:



And those are all the pictures I took in Vegas! We did walk up the strip to see the M&M store, the Bellagio fountains, Venetian gondolas, and Mirage volcano, but I only got some pics of that with my phone. There are a couple more pics in my instagram feed here.

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!