Costa Rica: getting there

ok I decided to recap the trip, but I won't bombard the posts with billions of photos and I will keep the posts short. I'm mostly doing this so I have this trip documented somewhere. Our journey started out with breezing through check-in and security at the Madison Regional Airport. We had a hotel in Orlando booked to spend the night for our overnight layover which wasn't ideal, but no problem....but our luck decided that we couldn't get to Costa Rica that easily.

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 5:30. 5:30 passed, 6:30 passed, 7:30 passed...still in Madison. We had boarded the plane only to be kindly asked to deplane because the flight crew honestly had no idea when we would be actually leaving Madison. There was only one mechanic at our little airport and we needed him to pass off the aircraft so we could have the clear to go. APPARENTLY there was another plane that needed his assistance more...for about 4 hours. We got food vouchers ate some bar food, and kept on waiting when finaly we were called to board the plane!...again!

We made it to Orlando around 1:30am. We cancelled our hotel reservations because we didn't want to pay to stay in a hotel for 4 hours. We didn't feel like sleeping on the floor either. We ended up getting a room at the Hyatt Regency in the Orlando airport. I was pretty excited we got to stay here because growing up going to Florida every summer I have been in this airport LOTS, and have always wanted to stay in this hotel!...I was a weird kid.

MURPHEY! We were so tired at this point haha.

 Joey tried to get a deal since we were only spending half a night in a room. The concierge gave us a conference room for cheap. Inside the room they opened up a Murphey bed for us. It was awesome. The conference room had everything a regular hotel room had so it worked out perfect.

We slept for 3 hours and got up around 4:30am to go through security for our flight to Miami, then finally to San Jose Costa Rica! When we got there we met up with Joey's parents and his younger sister Kimmie. From there we got our rental car, and I was desperately trying to find some wifi so I could turn in my homework. I didn't realize we still had a 2 hour drive to the town we were staying in, and I needed to get my paper in by 5:00 Madison time (stressed). Luckily there was a Denny's just up the road from the car rental place! I camped out there while submitting my Rhetoric of Religion final.

so happy to have homework while on vacation!

After what seemed like forever getting our rental car we were on our way to Manuel Antonio! If any of you have driven in Costa Rica you know what a crazy adventure that can be! Luckily we had a GPS to guide us along the way. There were crazy bends and steep hills on super narrow roads. All of a sudden we would whip around the corner to find ourselves at a one lane bridge...or be going up a road that would have been a freeway exit in the States, but here it was both an exit and a road you could drive up? It was crazy but made it really fun. Getting to Manuel Antonio was only supposed to take a couple hours, but there was construction along the way that made the drive take FOREVER!

It is winter in Costa Rica right now so we experienced a few showers. It was coming down so hard at one point I thought we were going to get washed off the highway.

When the rain stopped we saw the most beautiful sunset behind us. I was deciding at this moment that this trip is going to be amazing.

After driving through the most curvy, steep, and narrow road I have ever been on somehow we showed up at this beautiful place. Finally we could say we made it! The hotel staff scooped up our bags and gave us some delicious mango juice stuff and scented towells.

 We got a tour of the resort grounds and got to our room. There were chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us! They were delicious...until I saw that hundreds of little bugs thought they were delicious too. We got the treats out of our room ASAP. After all this traveling I was ready to crash, but I had to get some more homework turned in before the midnight deadline rolled around. I did my homework on a porch over looking the pool and ocean...not too shabby. As soon as my homework was turned in I crashed. We slept like babies.

Sorry it was still a long post. meh don't read it if you're bored lol. That was day 1!

M.I.A

I've been MIA...and I am going to be for a while more too. School has of course been the main culprit for my absence. Have a final today then have to type a take home essay on the fly so I can get packed and clean our house before we go out of town this weekend. This week is crazy!...not cray...which is actually kray....which actually means hard to find. FYI (urban dictionary). While I am MIA enjoy this M.I.A music video. It is one of my favorite songs ever. Her newer song "Bad Girls" is good too, but this one just always makes me happy.

Birthday week

Woo! best time of the year baby! Birthday week officially commenced this weekend. Here's what happened...

                                                     I went to school. Took a final.

Found a food cart with green smoothies!

Joey got a new laptop for school. He is SO excited about it.

I got a card in the mail with some mula! Thanks dad! Also thanks Nana for the card and mula from when I was in town a couple weeks ago!

Made chocolate almond croissants for a baptism...that I forgot what time it actually started. Thought it was at 12, sent Joey to drop them off...yeah baptism was at 10 am. FAIL. Sister Missionaries sure got a lovely treat though!

We are training Gertie to be able to go on walks with us with out a leash. She did pretty well, but gets distracted sometimes and likes to wander a little bit. We just lure her back with a tennis ball.

We went to the movies at my favorite theater. Sundance cinemas. They are seriously the best! So glad we will have one in Houston too!

We saw Moonrise Kingdom. Best movie ever at the moment. This is the film of summer 2012. Go see it.

Kitty/Ethel likes to hang out in our cupboards.  She also has an undying love and friendship for computer cases. She has been pretty serious with my case since I got my laptop. Now there is a new guy on the block since Joey got his laptop. She is letting my case down easy not totally quitting it cold turkey, but she doesn't leave big black's sight for much. I thought she would appreciate me merging her two loves into one spot. I think it is safe to agree that she does.

I have an addiction to sweets. I also have an addiction to pancakes. I was seriously craving some almond flour pancakes yesterday, and these little minis did the trick. I should have waited to eat pancakes for later, because I want to try a pinterest "funfetti" pancake recipe on my bday...is that too many pancakes in a week? Prolly. Oh well. Happy Birthday week to me!

float like a hummingbird busy like a bee

Holy smokes it is summer people and yet I am more busy with school now than I am during regular school session! This week is a tough one because my 1st summer course is overlapping with my 2nd course. They are super intense and require reading a billion pages a night. I am exhausted after 7hrs of school and 4hrs of work. So no sleepies yet! I have to read/start prepping for my final on thursday.  Nothing cool to report here other than I am loving being super stressed out for summer school...On a happier note I can get my hair in a high pony! woot! there is a mini mullet going on in the back, but still I am making serious progress. Top bun is gonna happen to this girl! haha

happy to be home

 Hey everyone I am back! I spent an incredibly incredible and incredibly fast weekend in Utah. Posts to follow. Just had to give a quick post so you guys don't think I gave up on this blog forever. My blogging urges usually come around when I have things to procrastinate in school, which is why in the summer I haven't been posting much. The urge came back today though because I have a paper due tomorrow. Haven't even started it. #winning. One thing to mention from my trip is that I got my self some serious technology. An iphone and a new camera! SO SPOILED EXCITED!. Can't wait to start figuring out how to use all the cool features on this huge honker.

 

As much fun as I had back home, I am so happy to be back with my sweetheart. I don't know how I am going to do 5 months with out my man....not thinking about it, not thinking about it, not thinking about it! We have 7 weeks left. That means at least 7 date nights that I need to take full advantage of. Any good ideas for fun/cheap date nights? Would love to hear from my sconnie friends for fun local ideas.