Navidad

There are a lot of perks with have both the Russ and Santos families living so close to each other. But probably the best is not having to decided who to spend the Holidays with. That means we get not one but two yummy dinners.

Christmas Eve at the Russ House

The evening was filled with lots of family, Brandon's fried turkey, candle light dinner on the porch, kids singing, service, cake pops and probably the coolest gift Blake could have gotten from Mama Liz. 

(minerals that fire into different colors)

 Christmas day at the Santos house
was filled with early morning grift giving, wonderful day at church (love it when Christmas is on sunday), more turkey, guarana, mom's pavlova, naps in the hammocks, staying in pj's most of the day and silly photos with Jari. 
And yes, the Santos family likes to put little gifts in BIG boxes just to make them look pretty. 

there is a bogie in this photo

Scuba, Costa Rica

How could we go to Costa Rica and not scuba dive? All we had to do was get up really early one morning, catch a ride with a Colombian dive instructor and we were on our way. This was our first time diving in the Pacific. What is the difference between Atlantic diving and the Pacific diving you may ask? Well, almost everything. The Pacific is colder, rougher, the fish and animal life are different, bigger, more colorful and more poisonous. We had the opportunity to dive two of the Catalina Islands, The Sombreros and Cupcake.

The Sombreros 

(you can not see the other sombrero in this photo)

We were all pretty excited to see these bright blue sea stars

(the picture does not give it justice). 

Jari's first ocean dive, and she dove like a pro. I love my sister.

Cupcake

Cupcake gave us a little more of a workout. After swiming to the opposite side the water got a little crazy, but all in all we loved our Pacific dive. 

Something not pictured, a shark about 4-5 feet long that swam by right after we descended the Sombreros.

Pura Vida

Well for Christmas this year the Santos Family took a trip. The only way to get Dad away for the Urgent Care is to get him out of the country, so off to Costa Rica we went. In true Santos fashion we were late to the air port (we still could have made our flight but some new-be worker messed up...). So we spent the night in Orlando and filled our free time with Golden Corral and the Outlet Mall to lift our spirits. 

After eating and shopping we still decided to make one more stop, Disney. We hotel hopped and enjoyed all the Christmas decor, including a ginger bread house, big Christmas trees, a bell choir and of corse we stopped and watched the fireworks.  

So we learned a few things from missing the plan. 1) be to the air port 3 hours before your flight, 2) if traveling with the Santos family we should just plan on a night in Orlando to make sure we are at the air port 3 hours before our flight, 3) sometimes bad things happen and the family can be mad/sad or get over it and have fun anyway. We all enjoyed our time in Orlando and yes we made our plane the next morning and finally got to Costa Rica

The resort was beautiful and full of life, the sounds of the rain forest were everywhere. We were in playa conchal which was off away from any big city. The first order of business was to get in the pool and pina colada for everyone. We had so many virgin drinks while we were there it was awesome. 

After a good nights sleep Blake and I got up before everyone so we could order a bread basket and smoothies. It did not take long after for the birds to know what was up.

Once the whole family was up we explored the resort a little more and found Iguanas. I mean these things were everywhere. In the trees, out sun bathing, or just roaming around. Blake remembered that they liked to eat hibiscus flowers so we got a few and fed them. 

We also saw packs of what the locals call "piscotes" running everywhere. Since we had feed all the other animals why not try to give these little guys a few crumbs as well? Adam and Blake soon had at least 15 surrounding them, they would come and eat out of their hands. 

Then on the last day we got to see a group of monkeys swinging through the trees. There was no feeding these howler monkeys, but they were fun to watch. 

And we thought there was a lot of animals on our honeymoon... 

Like I said this place was filled with life. We did not spend all our time searching for and feeding animals, we also spent a lot of time at the beach, playing games and just being together. 

This trip was more then we could have asked for after our semester of Reman, hot dogs and endless amounts of studying. Thanks Mom and Dad for being so cool.

Pura Vida