Lots of random pictures, by Jodi

We've been trying to create a photo wall at the church of all the families in our branch. So, this is our family pic.

 The kids have been asking to go horse back riding on the beach ever since we started riding regularly. So, we finally scheduled it. The only problem was, the closest beach was Tamarindo and it's always super crowded. So, we'd ride the horses about 200 meters until we got to the crowded part and then turn around and ride back. So, it wasn't as exciting as the route we normally take on these secluded farm roads.

Tessa rode on my horse with me and at one point, our horse decided it wanted to take a little sand bath. So, out of no where, it stopped, sat down, and started rolling in the sand. Luckily, we hopped off and jumped out of the way as soon as the horse sat down, so we were fine. But, that instance, along with the time Sadie got bucked off and luckily didn't land on a barbed wire fence and my last ride made us decide that maybe we should call it good with riding horses in Costa Rica. The last time we went, my horse kept tripping on it's front legs every few steps. I kept telling our guide, but he said the horse was fine, it was getting new horse shoes the next day and it's hooves just hurt. Well, either the horse was really dramatic or it was in a lot of pain, because every few steps it would stumble. I was realizing that if it fully tripped, I'd end up with a broken ankle, since my feet were in the stirrups at an angle and there was no way I'd be able to pull them out in time. I finally asked our guide if I could switch him horses and after that, everything was fine. But, given our experience with Sadie's finger this last week and realizing that anything beyond a very basic doctor's clinic is an hour and a half away, we decided to stop pushing our luck. It was very sad for our kids when we told them. That's been one of their very favorite things here.

 Playa Avellanas

This is one of our absolute favorite beaches that we've found here. It has great surfing waves, is much less crowded than Tamarindo, and of course, there's Lola, the ginormous pig at the restaurant on the beach that's named after her.

Playa Junquillal

We went and checked out this beach on Monday because we heard it had great surfing waves and it's got lot's of property rentals nearby. We also discovered when we got there, that they have a turtle hatchery on the beach. The kids actually got to see them pull baby turtles out of the sand that were hatching. You have to pay for a tour if you really want to see the turtles, but we were able to sneak a few peaks.

This is the beach where Sadie hurt her finger trying to surf.

We also saw manta rays jumping several feet out of the water when we arrived. It was crazy! It took us a while to figure out what they were. I looked them up today and it looks like they don't know why they do this and it's pretty rare to see. I took a video of it, but you can barely see the manta rays because they're so far away.

Then we went and grabbed some dinner. Poor Kevin's dinner ended up being 9 little pieces of shrimp and some sauce. The kids ate their fill of ribs and then shared with him.

Tessa's story: "Hi Flower." "I'm not a flower! I'm a sunflower!!"

One of my absolute favorite things to do here is to head to one of the nearby beaches an hour or two before sunset. The temperature is perfect and the sunset over the ocean is amazing. This time, we grabbed Tegan and Ash on our way to Playa Prieta. The kids spent the next hour collecting seashells and creating homes for the 20+ hermit crabs that they collected.

For a youth activity, Kevin and Pres took the Young Men and all our gear and surfboards to the beach. The crazy thing is, I think it was the first time any of them had ever gone kayaking or surfing or any of it. They live their whole lives here, but it's almost solely tourists on the beaches.

I found this little gem as I was thumbing through one of Autumn's school workbooks. She had no idea what she was writing about since it was all in Spanish. I explained it to her and she was like, "oh, I was wondering why a bunch of kids kept laughing while we were writing it."

Their method of teaching here is awesome for learning Spanish, but I can't imagine having to do it if you already know Spanish. The teacher writes everything on the board that they're supposed to learn and then they have to copy it verbatim into their notebook. Autumn's notebooks are packed full of page after page of sentences she had to copy directly from the chalkboard to her paper. It reminds me of something out of Little House on the Prairie, except with notebooks and pencils instead of chalk and writing tablets.

I promised the girls before we came to Costa Rica that I'd take them all to get pedicures here because I read in someone's blog that they're only like $5. Well, I never found any for this price and the girls hadn't forgotten, so I finally followed through and made an appointment and took them all one Saturday morning. However, there was only one chair and each pedicure takes 45 minutes.

I forgot to take a picture of Autumn in the chair, but here's her toes. Her big toe was with a "fuzzy" polish, She thought that meant her toenail would actually feel fuzzy, but I guess it just meant it would look fuzzy. :(

Kevin decided to take Jack out for some boy time, so I dropped them off at the estuary in Tamarindo with the kayak so they could go looking for crocodiles before we went to our pedicure appointments. They found 4 and one was even sunning on the beach with it's mouth wide open. Kevin decided to touch one with the paddle as he rode over the top of it. 

We hit this beach, somewhere south of Playa Minas, one Sunday night right before sunset. The road to it was pretty sketchy though and we hadn't gotten our four wheel drive fixed yet. So, we only had 30 or so minutes before Kevin decided we'd better head out before it got dark.

Another sunset horse back ride. This was before we decided to end our fun tradition.

Thank you for the photo bomb, Jack.

Autumn still hasn't lost her contortion abilities.

We found this guy in Tamarindo that has a pottery shop and teaches traditional native pottery methods. They used clay from the area and rolled it on something he called iguana sand, which is found where iguanas lay their eggs. He used a baked corn cob to roll and shape the clay and had these two cement tablets that could rotate for spinning the clay. The kids got to pick out a pot from his shop that they liked and then he showed them how to make it. Monday we get to go polish their pots and then the third day they get to paint them.