top ten costa rica moments...

1.  zipline through the cloud forest.  not rain forest. cloud forest.  where clouds have gathered on top of a mountain making a beautiful canopy of trees and an awesome jungle.  this was no safe american zipline.  it was the real deal.  scary and all.  the longest of the 15 ziplines was 1 km.  yep.... nuts.  it was awesome!

2.  surfing in tamarindo.  we stayed by the beach the last three days.  russ wanted to take surfing lessons of which i thought "there is no point."  but due to the fact that "point break" is one of my favorite movies, i decided why not.  the fun part is that russ and i both truly surfed many times.  we got it down pretty good.  however it was exhausting.  and i can never be compared the "blue crush" girls.  i was proud of myself and my many injuries to prove it.  i felt tough.  sometimes it is hard to feel physically tough when you're a mom.  so i was encouraged to feel that again.

3.  skype.  i had my first venture with skype on the last two days of our trip.  my conclusion is that i was probably better off without it.  i did great without seeing josie for so long.  only getting updates in 5 min conversations.  but upon seeing her... i was always a mess afterward.  crying as i walked to the beach with my book.  lame i know.  children....they get this major hold on your heart that is indescribable.

4.  reading without a time constraint.  i haven't done this in so long.  c.s. lewis "the weight of glory" was my "spiritual" book.  don't get me wrong i had my fun book "middle place" by kelly corrigan.  but i felt like i was in college again reading and reading a spiritual book without any thoughts of time.  it felt right.

5.  luck of the irish.  our last b&b was amazing.  we were one of two couples there.  the other couple was on their honeymoon from ireland.  we ended up chatting with this sweet irish couple for hours.  went to dinner with them and everything.  it was awesome!  we learned a lot about ireland.  for example... they get honeymoon days off work.  like maternity leave here.  nuts.

6.  open air restaurants.  

kristy:  these open air restaurants are awesome.  why can't we have anything like this in georgia?

russ:  because we have cold weather

kristy:  oh yeah

7.  no schedule.  of course you don't have a schedule on vacation.  no the truth is it was nice to not have a josie schedule on vacation.  no thoughts of feedings or naps.  it was nice.  thanks mom and mary!  somebody has to think those schedule thoughts.

8.  waking up to a volcano errupting.  it was awesome.  we stayed in an observatory lodge for the arenal volcano.  we woke up at 4:30am to gurgling and burping of the orange lava.  it was awesome.

9.  jogging a jungle loop.  in the valley of the volcano was some lush running trails. it was great to run a loop (i love running loops so i don't see the same things twice...much more entertaining) with all these amazing sites to take in!

10.  fresh mangos and fried sweet plantanes.  the cook at the b&b taught me how to pick a ripe mango and how to cook sweet plantanes.  oh it was so good.  i am salivating now.

for those of you that are wondering:

russ and i arrived home from costa rica last night.  josie was already in bed.  and the truth is she was extremely confused when i went into her bedroom this morning.  sorry there is no fun story to tell of squealing or smiling.  just royally confused.  i think i squealed though.  i could not wait to squeeze her.