J and M + j + s: Costa Rica!!

Better late than never on this blog post! Last summer we took our first family international trip to Costa Rica! This was a family reunion style trip, so we were lucky enough to be traveling with family and stayed in a large house with everyone. Overall we all had a great time on the trip!

Flights....both kids were pretty good on both flights! We flew Southwest and were able to get a free extra seat for Sam both ways :) Josh is at a great age for flying because he is able to sit quietly in his seat, and when he gets bored he can watch the iPad. Sam was a little more difficult to entertain, and was crabby on the flight home. But overall, they were very good.

We arrived San Jose and rented a car for the 2-3 hr drive to Manuel Antonio. Sadly, the car rental places really cheat you...so after much yelling....we over paid for our rental car and were on our way. We stopped quickly at a grocery store so that we would have snacks for the car ride, and fortunately both kids slept for most of the drive.

Hanging out at our awesome pool

When we finally arrived at the house, it was AMAZING! It was a beautiful open house with an awesome pool. I thought that Costa Rica would be deathly humid and hot, but it was actually very nice weather--similar to the DC area. We settled into our rooms, and the kids went right into the pool :-) The house was a bit of a death trap for a 15 month old (lots of places to fall), but thankfully there were enough sets of adults watching out at all times to keep Sam safe.

We spent a lot of time hanging out around the house. We had a chef that would make breakfast and dinner, and the kids absolutely loved the pool. There were monkeys and other wildlife in the trees right outside the house which we could see from our living room. The only downside to the house was that it was not very walkable. We were at the bottom of a very big hill, which proved challenging to drive up. Both Josh and Sam enjoyed playing with the other kids on the trip. And we really enjoyed being able to relax and hang out with everyone after bedtime :-)

We took a snorkel boat out for a trip, and I didn't realize that it was humpback whale season in Costa Rica. We saw tons of dolphins and WHALES!! We even saw a Mom and baby practicing their breaches!! I have never been so close to some whales, nor have I ever seen one breach! We got to get off the boat to swim and "snorkel." Josh was very brave and swam in the ocean a little bit :) Overall a very memorable boat trip!

"Snorkeling"

I had really wanted to go hiking at the national park in Manuel Antonio. The odds were not in my favor, and the one day we went there it was very hot and humid, and everyone (including me) was grumpy. We stayed just long enough to see a sloth (!) and then left to go to the beach. I wish we had left more time to spend at the park and to hire a guide to show us more--but oh well. We all had more fun at the beach, so I don't have too many regrets.

The beach we went to was a black sand beach, and it was great. The water was very warm, so both kids loved playing in the sand and water. We even got Josh to do some splashing! The only problem with black sand, is that it looks like dirt....It took us a few days to get all the sand out of everything....

Julian and I hired a babysitter to help watch the kids one morning so that we could go on an adventure tour. We got to do a bit of hiking, zip-lining and waterfall repelling, which was really fun. The kids hung out at the house with Grandma Bobby and the babysitter, and were both very good. It was our first time hiring a babysitter on a trip, and I'm glad we did. It was good "practice" for Julian and I to hire a babysitter we don't know well, but it felt safe because we knew there was plenty of family around to keep an eye on the kids.

This is old news now to our loyal blog readers...but while on the trip I got a job offer! I knew it was supposed to be coming soon, so I had my phone turned on so that I wouldn't miss it. I had to fill out some paperwork and send it to HR to accept the job while we were still away. We were lucky that a local hotel let us print out the paperwork, and I was able to fill it out, and turn it into a PDF to email. Technology is pretty awesome sometime.

If we were traveling with young kids to Costa Rica again, I would recommend bringing more food. We really couldn't get a lot of our regular snacks, and even cheese was hard to find (or very expensive). Josh pretty much lived on pancakes, crepes and yogurt. And I think Sam lived off of goldfish.

We spent a final night in San Jose at a nice hotel. They did not have suites, but we got a rollaway bed and a crib, which were all nicely set up when we arrived. They had a restaurant downstairs in the hotel, so Julian was able to set up our phone as a monitor so that we could go to dinner after bedtime.

Overall it was a great trip! I would definitely go back if I had the chance!