New Eyes!

After the destruction of my prescription sunglasses (mom ran them over when I accidentally left my purse next to the car while buckling the kids in)... I knew I was in trouble. Riley had twisted my eye glasses so much that one side was bent enough that I had to tighten it into lockdown... I was out of contacts, my sunglasses were super glued together and in order to get any of the above I would need an eye exam... all that would total close to $1000 to replace and so we decided to get my eyes lasered:)

Last Friday Aaron and I went to San Jose for the procedure. My appointment was at 9 and I had a few short exams before they were to cut my eyes in half. Okay okay, nothing that extreme. It actually took only 15 minutes for both eyes. There is some pressure and some slight pain at one point but all in all the procedure was not bad at all. After I was finished it was only 11 or so and we couldn't get into the hotel until 2pm...I didn't even think about that when planning, oops!

We decided to go have lunch and chill out for a couple hours. The restaurant didn't open until noon so we had to wait in the car... at that point I was pretty uncomfortable, I hadn't taken any of the meds and it was really bright outside. I had to wear the plastic shields they taped to my face, my sunglasses on top and a towel on top of that, no fun. Finally we got inside and the nice lady unscrewed the light bulb for me. Normally when you have laser eye surgery you are supposed to go home after it, take the meds and go to sleep for a few hours. I see why. My eyes were unable to open. If I even tried it felt like they were being stabbed with ice pics so I kept them closed. I had a lunch in a blind mans shoes and Aaron messed with me the whole time, moving my drink, making me think he had gotten up and left me talking to myself like a crazy person, you know how he is:):) I was pretty uncomfortable so he got my meds and I topped it off with a glass of wine and life was good again:)

After lunch we went to the hotel and napped for a few hours, then got up and went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. I exchanged my plastic shields for 3D goggles and my eyes worked! The next day we ran a few errands and came home. Its weird not having my glasses and at times I find myself looking for them or trying to take them off after reading before going to sleep... but it's an adjustment I am happy to live with!!!

My first pair of glasses, about 2004 sometime.
Incidentally it seems I won at poker:)

Second pair of glasses. I really liked that short hair...hmmmm.

Third pair of glasses, much like the second.

Post surgery, that's tape above my eyes holding down my plastic parts... not wrinkles.
Although those ARE real wrinkles on my cheeks! YIKES!!
Ahhhh a happy place!!!

Philly Visit - Part 2

Our last day in New Jersey we went into Philadelphia and did what any good tourist would do, we had cheesesteaks! There wasn't any counting of weight watchers points that day, that's for sure! After our cheesesteak we walked around South Street and did some window shopping, followed by a nice cold Rita's Water Ice! A "water ice" is sort of like a snow cone, but a bit, I don't know, wetter...juicier...better?

The next day we made it home safe and sound. It was a great trip but went way too fast. The boys and I hadn't seen Ted and Rach for almost 2 years, actually Rachael hadn't ever met Riley before. We can't wait to see them again!!!

Here are some pics of the festivities.

All the boys outside Jim's Steaks on South Street

Love at first bite!
Okay the truth is, he ate most of it but mom and dad helped!

Riley had some bread, his sandwich needed help getting eaten.
He isn't into meat or all that grease. Weird.

Full bellies!

Enjoying his Rita's Water Ice!

Philly Visit - Part 1

Okay okay, I know I am in serious need of a blog update... my apologies.

We returned from yet another trip to the States a couple of weeks ago. Aaron and I flew into Denver, where we met and dropped the kids off with Saint Grandma and took off for Albuquerque for one of the country's biggest Hot Sauce Festivals. We stayed two nights there, returned to Denver and parted ways for a couple days. He went on to New Jersey and I went to Wyoming to pick up the kids, only to return to Denver the next day and fly the three of us to New Jersey. NJ is the home to our good friends Ted and Rachael, Ted was having a surprise birthday party so we flew in for the occasion. Aaron and Ted golfed for 3 or 4 days and by some miracle had great weather!

I think this was my quickest visit home to date. I arrived around noon and went to lunch with the kids, my mom, dad, grandma and my sister was able to meet us for a few minutes. Later that night everyone came over for pizza and the next day I packed the kids into the car and hit the road.

We arrived at Newark Airport (aka the pits of hell) in the early afternoon and by an amazing act of god finally made it to the rental car area... if you haven't had the pleasure of flying into Newark, don't do it. Just don't. They didn't have any signs when you got off the plane to tell you where to go, we found an elevator but it too, was sans signs to tell you what floor you need to be on, and after getting off the elevator Jax told me he never wanted to go on that elevator again. It stunk like pee. We finally made it to baggage, which amazingly did have signs, which I read and told me to go to the opposite side of the baggage area to get over-sized bags, car seats and the like... so I hauled the stroller and our luggage cart on down, only to be told that those things will come out on the turnstile. Really. Thanks.

Got all of our stuff and realized that we needed to get on their train to go to the rental car area. I read the sign and it said I needed to be on platform 2 for Budget. Okay great, get the stroller and luggage cart onto the elevator and squeezed into a train car and a helpful man informed me that platform 2 was closed now and I needed to be at platform 3. Okay thanks. Well whaddayaknow... when I got off on platform 3 the man there said no, you need platform 2, it's not closed he must have meant platform 1... awesome!!!! Turn around kids, stroller, luggage cart and back into the train we went. We made it, had no issues after that point and it was smooth sailing the hour drive to Ted and Rachael's...

We arrived on Wednesday and just hung out. Thursday the big boys went golfing and I took the kids with me to meet up with a friend that lived in Philly. Friday we all squeezed in the car and took the kids to Philadelphia's "Please Touch Children's Museum." It was a lot of fun, we all enjoyed a puppet show and afterward went to lunch at a great Mexican restaurant.

Saturday was the day of the surprise party. It started raining on Friday and by Saturday things were flooding. They have had so much snow that the ground was already completely saturated and there was no room for the water to go. At some point the power went out, as did the sump pump in the basement, and Ted spent much of the day filling up buckets to dump outside while Rach went and drove to 3 or 4 Home Depots finding a generator. We worried that the power wouldn't come back on and there was no way we were going to get Ted out of the house to go out when his basement could flood. At 5:00 we decided to break the surprise and tell him that there was a party and 70 or so of his closest friends would be waiting for him... about 15 minutes later the power came back on! After some babysitter snafu's we dropped the kids off at a friend of theirs and off to the city we went. In the end it all worked out and the night was great but getting thru that day was stressful on everyone:)

Here are a few pics, will post more in part 2.

Uncle Ted and Riley on the bike

At the museum

Rach and Jax playing the keyboard

One of Ted's friends brought a box of donuts the
day after the party...they sure didn't last long!!

La Tamalera

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited to make tamales with a senior citizens group here in Bagaces. My Spanish teacher Line works with them on a regular basis and Judy helped out another time and had a great experience. When invited back she asked if I would like to come along!

We arrived a little after 7am and they had already been at it for a couple hours. The rice was done, the banana leaves were being cleaned and veggies were being chopped. Judy was handed a knife and the bowl of cooked pork, it was already done too, and for me, carrots to slice!

We set to work and in no time all the preparations were done, thanks to the help of about 10 others! Line mixed up all the corn and spices and we got busy rolling the tamale dough balls, which are really wet and so full of grease it's a makeover for your hands all at once:) Another lady and I started squeezing balls together while Judy learned how to put it all together. One ball laid on top of two banana leaves, flatten it down, on top place two carrots, two potatoes, one red pepper and a couple chunks of pork. Then fold into the banana leaf and wrap the sides in. After awhile we traded positions so we could each have a turn at doing both jobs. I kept forgetting the pork, oops! But there was always someone there to remind me:)

By about 10:30 we were done (with the production, still had to cook them)! It went really fast thanks to all the helpers and the fun atmosphere. At that point they put the pinas, which is a package of two tamales tied together with string, into a giant stock pot of water, and set atop a fire to cook for a few hours. After which they remove all the pinas and put the ones that were on top, on the bottom. This is the hardest part I think, since they have been boiling in water for several hours they are a bit hot!

I don't really love tamales but I sure loved the experience. It was so interesting to see how the whole thing comes together. It's is a very primitive set up, cooking over open wood burning fires, mixing with your hands, etc... The community spirit is enough to make you want to come back for more! I am lucky to have been included in this experience and I hope to do it again:)

The small outdoor kitchen, everyone busy at work!

The stove.

Judy slicing and dicing the pork.

Line mixing the tamale dough.

Little Brian adding wood to the fire.

Making dough balls.

Judy learning how to put it all together.

Judy tying the tamales into "Pinas"

My turn assembling the tamale.

Finished product, ta da!!

One for the books...

Up until this year I always said the best Valentine's Day I ever spent was the time I drug Aaron to a pottery you paint place and we painted coffee mugs for each other. It's something we still have to this day, the mugs as well as the memory. It was a lot of fun and I would highly suggest doing this for a date one of these days.

This year V-day fell on a Sunday. On Wednesday Aaron asked if I wanted to get away for one night and leave the kids with his parents! Of course I said yes and we decided to head up to the Arenal area where the weather is cooler, we needed an escape from this heat! We headed up without a hotel reservation, and without a plan, something we never do with kids in tow. We stopped for lunch at Mystica, a small cabina hotel/restaurant joint overlooking Lake Arenal. It's a gorgeous place with a nice walking trail which leads to their outdoor yoga studio built over the river, its amazing. Anyway, we had some of their delicious pizza for lunch and continued on our way.

Upon our arrival we found a hotel right in the center of town for $50. We were stoked considering everything online was at least $100. It was a simple hotel with beds and a shower, we didn't need anything more. After tossing our bags down we decided to walk around town and plan out our night. Right away we saw a place called "Lava Lounge" and knew we would head there for dinner. We continued walking and at the next block came across this truck with gorgeous planters and these really cool giant star hanging things. My description totally sucks but it doesn't really matter. What does matter, is Cynthia. Cynthia was browsing the items from this truck and we started chatting. It turns out she is the owner of Pure Trek Canyoning, an adventure tour which takes guests rappelling down waterfalls. She was one of those people you just can't help but have an hour conversation with. She invited us to be her guest the next day and check out the tour so we can bring our visitors and whatnot. As Aaron quickly ran through his list of reasons we could not go in his head, he soon realized he couldn't tell his lovely wife no to something so amazing on Valentines Day. So we quickly agreed!!

The only problem was, I hadn't brought any clothing that would work for such an adventure. I had skirts and flip flops, hardly the apparel needed for canyoning. To my surprise, Aaron had brought two pairs of sneakers along, (which is totally random in and of itself) but I still had shorts to worry about. I asked a man working in a souvenir shop where I might be able to buy a pair of shorts and he sent me a couple blocks away. Since I only understood about 1/2 of what he said I didn't exactly know what I was looking for. We came across a small shopping center and I saw a sports store, unfortunately they didn't have what I needed. Let me say here, Costa Rica is about the worst place for a 5'8" person to clothes shop. The people here are tiny and if they have a little junk in the trunk or over inflated tires, they still shove it into the tiny sized clothing. They don't make clothes for people my size and if I do manage to find something, I have to buy it in XXXXXXXL. And it's still tight. So with my spirits quickly deflating, I started to think I was never going to find anything, stores were about to close and nothing would be open on Sunday.

Out the store I went, turning right to head back to the street, then something made me turn and I spotted a small store tucked into the corner with regular looking clothes in the window. "Hey Aaron, hold up, let me run in here real quick." I walked in and whaddayaknow... clothes from... wait for it... can you guess... this is the amazing part... TARGET!!! I'm talking Merona and Mossimo, clearly Target and I have never been happier to see it. Clothes from home!!!! AND, I found a pair of shorts and tank top in record time!! AND they are cute! AND the prices weren't over inflated... it was truly a Valentine's Day miracle:)

So with bag in hand, we happily strolled back to the room and changed for the night. It was fun to wear jeans for a change:) We walked the 1/2 block to lava lounge and found a small table at the bar. The restaurant was really cute and the atmosphere just what we were looking for! After receiving our food, a man came up to our table to ask how everything was. Turns out he owns the place and we got to chatting with him, Aaron mentioned he is making hot sauce and Scott mentioned he is making chutney and a friendship was formed:):) It also turns out that Scott and aforementioned Cynthia are great friends who moved to CR together and opened Pure Trek.

So while chatting with Scott, Aaron ran to the car and grabbed him a few bottles of hot sauce. He opened one right up and tasted it, of course he loved it, who wouldn't?!!! About five seconds later he was called over to a table who was inquiring if they had any other...wait for it...another magical moment...any other hot sauce. "Why yes, we do actually," and he brought them the bottle he had just opened. It was really really hard watching this all unfold without making a scene, but I resisted. It was like watching a silent commercial... Pick up and look at bottle, put sauce on food, taste food, nod, pick up bottle and examine, show bottle to friend, talk talk talk talk about how fantastic the sauce is. Okay okay, it was a silent commercial so Aaron and I could only assume they were discussing the depths of deliciousness of the sauce and not their many adventures in Costa Rica. The point is, they loved it, at least we think so:) And the most important part, Scott wants to have the sauce for his restaurant! So it was a great night.

The next morning we got up and got ready for our waterfall adventure. Aaron went to find coffee for us and made a new friend...one of the street dogs we had seen the night before. Let me tell you, the street dogs in La Fortuna are the healthiest, cleanest, happiest street dogs you will ever see. They even have flee collars...it's a really cool thing to see the community taking care of their citizens:) Scott actually takes some street dogs in and adopts them out to tourist who want to bring home more than a t-shirt!

Aaron returned and off we went in search of some breakfast. We finally found a small cafe and enjoyed a sumptuous meal, which was much needed after the bucket of wine I had the night before! We arrived Pure Trek around 7:30 and checked in. There were two others there so we assumed it would be a small group for that mornings tour. WRONG! A bus arrived to pick us up which had a few other groups already inside. We drove about 20 minutes to the waiting 4x4's which would take us up the mountain. There we met up with the rest of our group, there were 40 of us in total. So five or six trucks were loaded with eager tourists and all of our equipment, and up, up, up we went! We arrived and everyone got on their gear. The gear included helmets, jackets, waterproof bags for cameras, and the most important, our harnesses. After a brief do and don't do speech, we were off! A short hike later, we were at the first of 5 rappels, 4 of which were in waterfalls, the other down a canyon wall.

Aaron and I were last in line, which was good and bad. Good, we got to meet and chat with some other couples vacationing and really enjoyed their company. Bad because the anxiety of the first 160 foot waterfall and the screams from the people in front of us really had our nerves going! Finally it was our turn! Aaron went first and I watched as they hooked him up, turned him around and sent him on his way. Imagine Ralphie on The Christmas Story as he is tossed onto the slide after seeing Santa only to grab onto the edge to get his last words out and having the elf's foot pressed onto his head and given the final heave down. It wasn't that bad, but there was no coddling, no "are you ready?"... just "GO!" Then it was my turn...oh no! The quickly strapped me in, turned me around and pushed a foot into my head. No no wait, that didn't really happen. I turned around knowing I had to lean back, couldn't quite make my body do it! Finally I gave it and just went with it. After a few (or maybe a lot) of baby jumps, I got the hang of it and went down down down to the bottom. After being unhooked and looking back at the waterfall we had just come down, we were hooked and ready to hit the next one!

The rest of the rappels were equally as exhilarating and we were sad when we realized we were on the last one. After the 5th and final, we had about a 20 minute hike to the pick up spot. We reluctantly got into the truck and headed back down the mountain to the Pure Trek offices where lunch was awaiting us.

We finished the tour with a traditional Costa Rican meal and the company of our new friends. After saying goodbye and a million thank you's to Cynthia, it was back home to reunite with our kiddos. Incidentally we did stop off at Cafe Macadamia for some macadamia pie and a cinnamon roll:)

Upon our arrival we were happy to hear that the boys behaved themselves for Judy and Giff, and Jax was able to put his Papi to sleep while reading a story...(Giff was reading lol). It's so nice to have such loving grandparents nearby, we are very lucky. A big thank you to them for making it possible for us to get some much needed time away!

Serendipitous is defined as "the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way." That somewhat sums up our weekend, the stars were definitely aligned for us that's for sure. It couldn't have gone better and I wouldn't have wanted to spend it with anyone else. I love you my Valentine!

More melodies from Jax

Jax loves to sing songs before bed, here are two more of his favorites:) I KNOW that I am awful for teaching him the naughty one but come on, we all sang it as kids...right?? Right??

Actually, think what you want, I don't care!! It's funny, and we laughed from the bottom of our guts for 45 minutes the first time I sang it to him.

Here is "Rain Rain, Go Away"...



And here is our little version of "Row Row Row your boat" with a second verse I learned when leading story/music time when I worked at Borders. Don't worry, I refrained from teaching them the rain song...

To be or not to be....meat free?

We are far from vegetarians, however, after Aaron and I started working on our weight loss, (and after watching Food, Inc.) we have discovered it isn't the worst idea in the world. The only deal breaker, we both love sinking our teeth into a juicy steak...however, due to the fact that meat is hella expensive, not to mention heavy in weight watchers points, I have been trying to cook on the lighter side.

I don't think I have ever eaten a purely vegetarian pizza, I certainly have never made one before. Until I found this recipe, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind.

I used THIS pizza crust recipe, which was beyond fantastic and very low cal... combined the two and my pizza was only 3 ww points per slice. It was SO FREAKING DELICIOUS I can't even describe how good it was. Maybe it was the fact that we barely eat cheese anymore so the gooey mozzarella combined with the garlicky pesto made my taste buds dance and sing, or maybe it was just the simple fact that I am such an awesome cook and my happiness cooks into the food making it uber tasty??? No? Okay fine. Whatever the reason, if you like pizza and are looking for something totally freaking awesome and tasty...then go make this pizza. Don't even think about it, just make it. You won't regret it.

Oh PS... I added red peppers for some crunch and color, and used spinach as I can't buy arugula here.

The crust. No need to rise, roll it out, top if off.

Ummm. Okay. So the veggies here sometimes have questionable additions. I don't know if this is a bug or a plant, I'm thinking a bug of some sort...I went ahead and discarded this piece despite the high fiber probability. We eat enough bugs without knowing it.

The bug free veggies simmering

Mmmm the pesto...

Ready for lift off

And there ya have it. Looks damn good huh? (Don't answer that mom!)