Cahuita

Cahuita National Forest is so beautiful.  This 2 mile boardwalk was built through the forest , raised up on stilts above the marsh.  We could hear hundreds of frogs, birds, monkeys, and insects and loved being so close to nature.  Adam said he'd pay $10 to the first person who spotted a snake, a glass frog, or a caiman.  Game on!

I can't think of many things better than spending quality time with my family.  We have experienced so much together and have become soooo close.  No one fights or argues and we are all so happy.  We are understanding why Costa Rica was voted the happiest place on earth!  The weather, the fruit, the forests, the beaches, the slow pace...it's all so wonderful.  Coming here for 3 months was the best decision we've made for our family!

Ding ding ding!  We have a winner!  Brigham spotted this sneaky caiman!  It was gone within a few minutes.

How cool to see this golden orb weaver spider catch this dragon fly and eat it!  We spent 3 hours just watching all the living creatures do their thing. 

 A big helper right here!  She was so sweet wanting to help sweep the tile floors with the cool dustpan!  I never got a picture of the washing machine, and I sure wish I did!  The dryer was just like one found in the US, but the washer was a different story.  It had a tub which I had to fill with a hose that connected to the nearby sink.  Sometimes the connection would come apart and water would squirt everywhere as the hose flailed around and I scrambled to turn the water off!  Once the tub was full and it had a scoop of detergent in, I could put in the clothes.  I could turn a knob to rotate the clothes for about a half hour.  Then I had to turn another switch to drain the wash water, and then manually fill the tub back up while holding the hose and have it rotate the clothes again to rinse them.  Then I had to drain the tub again.  The water would go out of a hose to the back of the house into a little river that led to the ocean.   Once the water was drained, I had to lift the wet clothes out of the tub and place them into a smaller tub that would spin the clothes.  It could get going so fast it seemed the whole house was rocking!  They barely needed a dryer after the amazing spin.  We did a little bit of laundry each day and actually enjoyed the work.

 Beautiful view on our run this morning.

 A little cutie ready for swimming!

 The rest of our pictures  of this cool river got lost when we lost our GoPro, but we went paddle boarding up this river at Punta Uva and saw so many animals!  We passed a caiman hiding near the bank, saw tons of turtles, monkeys, and birds, and even held a giant golden orb spider! 

 Ahh, how we love this perfect sand!

 Eliza is seriously a champ traveler.  She naps so easily.  Here she is in a hammock at the beach.

 We saw TONS of sardines in the water right by the shore and the kids just reached down and caught some!  The fisherman said they catch them to use as bait.

 This is Maxi, the main restaurant in Manzanillo.  It is so colorful and fun and shows the Caribbean influence.  It is right across the restaurant from Playa Grande, where we liked to play.

 Brig found this cool starfish on the beach!

 We found a little structure built at our beach, so the kids got into imagination zone and built onto it for an hour!  They were so adorable working together and making it just right.  They then took me on a tour of their cool house!

 Brig sure likes using a machete....

 Linc and Eliza built their own little house too!  They are so cute!

I love this boy.  We are close.  He made me this heart out of palm leaves!  He often writes me cute notes or finds hearts in nature to point out to me. He is the best son and I'm so grateful for him and the time we've been able to spend together on this trip!

A Perfect Day at Playa Negra

 We loved our house.  The upstairs bathroom smelled like a sewer sometimes,  but for the most part, we loved being home.  This is sweet Eliza pretending to be Sleeping Beauty and waiting for Prince Phillip (Jade) to wake her up with a kiss!  So cute!

One day we were hyper and played a funny game of locking each other out of the house.  There were big doors in front of the stairs that locked the upstairs from the downstairs, so Adam was trying to lock everybody upstairs!  It was so funny.  He locked the kids out of the house downstairs and they found a way to climb in the window of the laundry room, but by the time they got inside, Adam was upstairs with the doors locked so they couldn't come up.  When they finally figured out how to come upstairs, Adam had lowered me off the 2nd story balcony with a sheet and we showed up at the front door, totally surprising the kids!!!!  Ahh, if Adam could not work for the rest of our lives....  It's SOOOO fun to have him play with us every day!

 Sand cake, anyone?

 We had a nice, relaxing afternoon at the beach. We'd stay till sundown, then make dinner while the kids showered.  The main shower head broke, so the kids would more or less take a bath in the shower.  They'd put a plate over the drain and huddle around the bath spout and take turns rinsing their hair.  Even if the day was cloudy and not super eventful, the magic of the beach made any day amazing!

 We were surprised this day to arrive at Playa Negra and it was actually SUNNY!!!!  We hadn't seen the sun in weeks!  Of course the weather has to improve the week we are leaving!  We worked together to build a shade structure for sleeping Eliza out of all the fallen palm leaves and the many piles of sticks that had been washing up on shore for months.  We felt like the Swiss Family Robinson building our house!  I loved watching the ingenuity of the kids to figure out which way the leaves would stand stronger and how thick it needed to be to keep the sun out.  It worked great and for the next few days we saw people using it!

 This day was one of my FAVORITES!!!!  The weather was PERFECT and the waves were just the right size for the kids to surf!  They waves were steadily getting smaller, so the locals weren't out as much.  I'd hold the surfboard for Lily and then push her at just the right moment.  She was a champ and loved it!  We stayed in the water for hours!!!

 Brig was ready for the short board on the bigger waves! It was a little harder than he hoped, but he still did awesome!!!

 This is the shipwreck on Playa Negra

 One of these surfers is Brigham....   Those waves may look small, but they were fast and powerful.  We loved watching the locals, especially the little kids!  They were amazing!

 One thing I loved about the beach was being able to do so many different things.  We could surf, boogie board, or just swim, and when we got tired of that we could just sit and create sand sculptures.  The kids could play together, or be alone if they were sick of each other.  I love the beach more than any other place in the world.  Mountains are beautiful, but the beach is just so.......perfect:).

 Jade had a super fun time surfing.  How fun to see their progress from the beginning of our trip!

 Lily got the hang of it and was catching waves on her own!

 Adam took Lincoln out to catch some waves and would shoot him up over the waves like this!  Linc was loving it!  (It created quite the crowd of onlookers from the beach as well...)

 

Brig and Jade learned to weave placemats from palm leaves and they turned out really cool.

 We didn't want this perfect day to end!  We decided to splurge and go to dinner at a fun restaurant just off the beach.  It was DELICIOUS!!!!  We played Lincoln's favorite game, UNO, while we waited for our food.  We took it everywhere and often played together.