Costa Rica- Day 4

Today was pretty much a travel day... with some pretty crazy adventures :)

We drove from the volcano, down to the coast of Costa Rica, to a town called Puntarenas.

From there, we took a ferry over to the Nicoya Peninsula.

Once off the ferry, we drove about an hour to Montezuma- a little, crazy, surfer, party town on the tip of the peninsula. And the ROADS on the peninsula were SO torn up! I felt like we were in Mario Kart live trying to avoid all the pot holes!

ANYWAY- we booked a little hostel online before we got there... and we followed the directions... and this is what we found- Hahaha

Pretty awesome, huh? We ended up not staying there (go figure)

 and found a little nicer place in town.

BUT on the way INTO town- we nearly got stampeded! Ah!

By this point we were kind of unsure about this Costa Rica place...

But strangely enough- Costa Rica has some rockin' pizza! 

This place was right on the beach...

So we HAD to go to the beach afterwards-

Jon trying to get his own coconut...

Like I said, it's a surfer party town. That guy's dreads just kill me!

DEE-SGUS-TING.

We took it easy that night, and just went swimming...

And there were MONKEYS by the pool, playing in the trees!

SOOO cool!

(Do you see the little monkey eating his dinner?)

We tried to get him on video...

But he was kind of shy.

I officially want a pet monkey.

I'm sure I could have made it past customs with my monkey.

Costa Rica- Day 3

Waking up in our bungalow! Isn't it cute?

Breakfast with fresh fruit, bread, and guava jelly- yum, yum :)

We're going hiking to La Fortuna waterfall!

And the boys are in!

I was convinced that they were gonna die...

Especially kuz they were convinced to swim behind the waterfall.

Crazies...

We went a little further downstream and hopped in.

This is Jon's intense face as he tries to catch a fish.

His efforts were in vain.

Canon balls, hahaha.

Sunbathing on the rock... what girls do best.

For lunch we stopped at this little Tico food stand- which was surprisingly REALLY good!

And then we did some more hiking- this time to the volcano!

We hiked up to the 1992 lava flow and while we were up there, ashes started falling on us!

 Pretty cool!

The view from the top

The whole motley crew

On the drive home, the volcano erupted! Bah! Run away!

We survived :) And even had some pretty incredible dinner that night

And paid money to a Senior Citizen home....

so we could look like Senior Citizens!

Tomorrow- down to Montezuma!

Welcome Home Elder Stone!!

My little brother got home from his mission (in Fiji) last night!! Yay! It's SOOO good to have him home!

Don't worry- we embarrassed him sufficiently when he walked through...

with our tooters and American flags :)

I love the St. George airport. 

There's no terminal- just one big room with an outside door to the tarmac. 

Hahaha...

This is his plane coming into the St. George...

in case you couldn't tell from the quality photo

Here he is!

I love, love, love this boy.

All happy and smiles. Even after 24 hours of travel.

Hugs for the madre

The whole happy family!

(minus Danny... he gets in tomorrow)

Returned with Honor! Wahoo!

We stayed up late, told stories, and he unloaded his luggage full of souvenirs :)

The girls in our sulus...

We're so glad he's home! 

Our family is officially all back in the States- it's been a while!

Costa Rica- Day Dos

The next morning, our hotel gave us a yummy breakfast- fresh fruit and all!

And then we took off for La Fortuna- home of the Volcano Arenal which equals super cool.

Getting there was another story- talk about crazy road conditions!

I've never been on such a windy, curvy road in all my life.

The scenery was beautiful though...

The best part though was that our GPS would ding and tell us 

"Dangerous Bridge Ahead" or "Sinking Road" every other mile. Hahaha

All their bridges there were one way... crazy!

As soon as we were there (and recovered from our car sickness),

we headed to this "Hanging Bridge" park... which also equals SUPER cool!

These bridges were SO bouncy and scary to walk on! Not to mention that underneath you was a huge raging rainforest river! Agh!

We saw lots of rainforest...

Doesn't THIS sound enticing? 

See one of the hanging bridges way up there?

We found a waterfall...

Cool trees...

Great views...

And saw the volcano!

It started raining (how appropriate for a rain forest!) so we left and headed into town for some lunch.

Of course by then, it stopped raining :)

Tanaya found friends wherever she went...

This is Mr. Geico

And one of her many perros

BUT the highlight of today were the HOT SPRINGS! 

There are TONZ of hot springs all over because of the volcano...

Of course, they're all in resorts so you have to pay to go in, but it was worth it!

We had a blast!

And they even fed us dinner- yay for food :)