Lake Powell 2009

Every year Cody's family goes to Lake Powell. This was the first year the twins went. They had a good time. Lake Powell is a fun place for little boys to run free.

Parks with a water squirter.

Parks and his cousin Noah are good friends.

Aiden Garrett and Drew the little beach bums.

Collecting seashells. Drew

Drowning ants. Aiden has to swim with his goggles.

Parks

Noah Gage

Drew caught a fish! A big ugly fish.

See you next year Lake Powell!

Costa Rica

In July, Cody and I went to Costa Rica with our friends Crystal and Jason Thiriot. Crystal's brother Greg and his wife Miki went too. Crystal planned the trip and booked all the hotels and adventures. She did a great job and we had a great time.

Our first stop was La Fortuna. This was the bungalow we stayed in. Costa Rica is very tropical and has beautiful vegetation. This was the view from the front porch of our bungalow. That mountain covered in clouds is actually the Arenal volcano.

This is what it looks like when the clouds and gases clear away. This is what it looks like when it is erupting! It is an active volcano and we could hear it erupting while we were in La Fortuna and Monte Verde. It sounds like thunder.

Because there is an active volcano, La Fortuna has hot springs. On our first day in Costa Rica, we went to the Baldi Hot Springs to relax and have some fun on the water slides.

This is a park in the center of La Fortuna. You can see the volcano in the background. Our first adventure was whitewater rafting on the Rio Toro in Class III and IV rapids. I think everyone agreed it was the funnest part of our trip. Cody and I shared a raft with Greg and Miki. We had a tiny little Costa Rican guide in the back who told us what to do. He was a slave driver!

These rapids look bigger from the raft. This is the part where we all fall in. I blame Greg. He didn't eat enough tipico for breakfast.

Here we go!

High side right! High side right! Our guide was the only one who stayed in the boat. He pulled the rest of us back in. Even Greg who outweighed him by at least 100 lbs. Our next adventure was canyoneering. It involves hiking down canyons and repelling down waterfalls. It was really fun too, in a heart-pumping, I-don't-want-to-die sort of way.

This is Jason coming down the first big repel. It was 180 feet. He's about half-way down in this photo.

Me on the 180 footer.

I made it!

Crystal's turn!

Cody didn't even act one tiny bit nervous.

Cody at the bottom of the 180 footer. This is where we had to jump off a small waterfall into a pool at the bottom.

So refreshing. I think I was wet about 70% of the time I was in Costa Rica. And I had zero good hair days. Here goes Cody. Here is Cody with our guide Diego. Yes, his name really is Diego. (My twins love the show Go!Diego,Go!) Cody's about to go off the 200 foot repel.

200 feet is a LONG way down.

My turn!

In this photo, Crystal is doing the scariest part, which is leaning back off the platform. Here she goes! If you look really close you can see the tiny guy down at the bottom.

We left La Fortuna and headed to Monte Verde. This is a video of the crazy drive from Lake Arenal to Monte Verde. The roads in Costa Rica are very windy, steep, muddy, and narrow. Wait, did I say bumpy? They are bumpy too. And, we had the worst driver in Central America.

This is where we stayed in Monte Verde. It was even more beautiful than La Fortuna. It's up higher in the mountains. You can't really tell, but in this photo there are monkeys running across the hotel roof. This is Miki and I walking back from a delicious italian dinner at the second best restaurant in Costa Rica. I think this restaurant was called La Marquez. It was a seafood place. We did a little rain forest hiking in Monte Verde. It's very rainy in a rain forest. Hence the name.

Here we are about to start our canopy tour. It's a zip line above the rain forest. It was sooo fun. You stand on a platform high up in a giant tree, and then whoosh, you disappear into the mist. On our canopy tour there was a tarzan swing. This is Miki. She was a little nervous.

Cody's turn.

Our next stop was a beach town called Manuel Antonio. It had beautiful beaches and a National Park full of monkeys, sloths, and other strange creatures.

We did a little boogie boarding. This is Escondido Beach, which means Hidden Beach.We spent the better part of a morning hiking to it. It was beautiful.

.

I celebrated my 25th birthday (again) in Costa Rica. This was taken at my b-day dinner. We ate at the first best restaurant in Costa Rica which was conveniently located across the street from our condo. It was a sushi place with the world's best teriyaki salmon, and teriyaki chicken.

The walk from our condo to the beach.

The farewell photo. We didn't want to leave our little paradise. Thanks Crystal for planning an amazing trip! And thank you to the two Super Grandmas who watched our boys so we could go.