Sunday, July 4, 2010

Pura Vida!

We spent the last week in Costa Rica! The weather was very similar to Tampa, although, everything was way more GREEN! Beautiful flowers, plants, water, mountains, and of course the Arenal Volcano!

We spent the first half of the week in northern Costa Rica in Arenal (La Fortuna). It's a small town surrounding the biggest volcano in the country. It is active, and although we never saw liquid lava, we did see it erupt with black smoke!

Our hotel 'Naraya Arenal' in La Fortuna, was amazing! Fantastic view of the volcano, wonderful grounds and pool, and friendly people with good food!

Get your 'scrolling finger' ready for this plethora of photos..... Pura Vida!

View from our airplane flying into the capital San Jose.

La Fortuna.



Private hot tub on our patio.



Four birds joined us for dinner at our hotel everynight.


In fact, we DID exercise one day. Although, with how incredibly hilly CR is, we got PLENTY of exercise!

Our first adventure in Costa Rica was a 'hanging bridges' walk. Some of the bridges were verrrry high. We saw lots of animals, plants, and great views.
Howler Monkey! A boy, were they loud!
Can you spot the snake?






Where did the volcano go? This is how it looked every afternoon during the rain.







Our second day in Arenal we went zip lining!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Words cannot describe how much fun it was!!!!!! AND how H I G H it was.
Here we are on the Sky Tram on our way up, up, up.


We spotted more monkeys as we got higher.

These smiles are fake. We are thinking about what lies ahead . . . ughhhhh.

Arenal Lake. More than half of the countries energy supply comes from this lake.


After our trip to Arenal was over, we drove back to San Jose and then on to Manuel Antonio (5 hr drive!) On our way, we stopped by a river with the largest crocodiles you've seen! SCARYYYYY.


Once at our next hotel in Quepos, Hotel Parador, we went on an ATV tour through the towns, and hills. We started off in beautiful sunshine, and ended getting soaking wet!!!!! SO MUCH FUN!






We stopped halfway through our ride at the waterfalls!
Can you spot the sloth?! What a life.

Manuel Antonio. Not a bad view from our hotel right?





Hotel Parador pool.


Starting our journey back to the US. Small plane to San Jose before our international flight to Miami.
Just when I'm getting good at Spanish, we're back in the US. Adios Costa Rica! We had a blast!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Feliz Cumpleanos!

Happy Birthday Pop!

Love, S and A from Costa Rica!

(don't worry, we had a celebratory drink for you tonight......!)

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Ooh-Rah!

As many know, David is at Marine Corps OCS Boot camp in Quantico, VA, ooh-rah! So, naturally we cannot speak with him, only send him letters and cards. My mom was able to look on the Marine Corps web site Officer Candidate School where they have been posting pictures and she was able to locate David in one of them, which means he's still alive! Can you spot him?

* Four down from the top right, next to the tent.

He's completed week three of twelve and going strong. Go David!
If you have a free minute and want to write something to David, I know he would LOVE it since he has no connection with the outside world except these letters:

Richey, David T / 0855
5th Platoon, A Company
2189 Elrod Ave.
Officer Candidate School
Quantico, VA
22134

NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 20!

Welcome to Miami!

We ventured down to the beautiful Four Seasons Miami for one of my many best friends, and former 'flyer' on my FSU cheer squad's wedding!!!!! Awesome food and great friends made the weekend soooo wonderful, and full of dancing, dancing, stunting in wedding dresses, and more dancing! (It's what we FSU girls do best)

Meet the FSU cheer squad. (+ our coach... can you guess which one she is?.....gosh, I'm so mean...)
Doing our old 'fsu chant' that we would do after every practice.


Hot.
Sara and Brian Frost. So adorable all night...

Table 12 (the best table!!!!)

Taking the shoes off.....ready to stunt.

Like old times!

The benefit of leaving early: first dibs on the 'candy station' on our way out!!!

This was my last smile of the night (but what candy doesn't make me smile?).....because we then got in my car at 11 pm and drove alllll the way back (4 hrs) to Tampa, to attend lovely work the next day. I can't take credit for it....my boo drove me all the way home. That's why I love him.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Wrinkles, Sun, and Sand

Saturday was our monthly Bulldog Meetup group at the Davis Island dog beach. Here are a couple of fun pictures from Berkley's favorite day of the month.



This 'water drinking phase', which unfortunately was an all morning event, only led to bad things coming out of all sorts of 'ends'.


Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend Tampa 2010 was spent eating, dancing, riding roller coasters, more eating, and naps. My best friends Amanda and Chris made it all the better!

On our way out to Channelside.
Happy 'it's Friday, woo!' shot . . .

. . . post shot. Yikes.

Andrew 'Dancing Machine' Head.

At J. Alexanders. Yummy!
Busch Gardens flower butterfly!



This is my 'wahhh we got rained out of roller coaster' face. Yuk.