It's been a while, by Jodi

Surfboard kayaking in the pool

Zucchini boats

We ran out of zucchini, so Jack made Tessa a cucumber boat.

While Kevin was in the U.S., the kids and I went to visit one of my favorite beaches at sunset one night. It is still one of my absolute favorite things in the world, being at the beach at the end of the day as the sun goes down. When we got home, I decided to do a little search for a beach home along this beach. We’ve done many searches in the past and contacted many landlords in hopes that they’d give us a reasonable offer to rent their home long term. But, every time we try, we get turned down or offered a monthly rate way out of our budget. This time, I guess my timing was finally good and we landed the coolest house I could have ever hoped for. It’s right on the beach. It has 3 bedrooms on the main level and then the upstairs is just for Kevin’s office. While Kevin was gone, I canceled our old contract, signed our new contract, and packed all our stuff. He got home off his flight that afternoon after getting up at 3 a.m. to catch his plane, drove us all to the new house, dropped us off, and then went back to our old house to start loading up all our things.

We are in absolute heaven with this house. It has an awesome pool, a super comfy couch, air conditioning in every room, and a dishwasher! It’s packed with wildlife, especially crabs. We even saw an armadillo outside our fence on our way to get Kevin at  the airport. I don’t feel like there are enough hours in each day to truly appreciate this home and it’s location to the fullest. We met a lady tonight that saw a sea turtle laying eggs on our beach yesterday morning. So now we’re determined to find one ourselves.

We’re also trying to convince Sadie to have her baptism on our beach. She’s a little nervous about jellyfish.

Playa Ventanas...our new backyard.

Did I mention all the critters at our new house? We had cleaned out our pool the night before and Jack fished all these Halloween crabs out of our pool the next morning. They climb in and die because of the chlorine. 

This was the biggest cockroach I'd ever seen. It's body alone was at least 4 inches long. It was flying all over our patio until Jack killed it with our electric swatter. He fried it until it's antennae were smoking.

Our kids are so incredibly happy to have a new gringo family in the area. The Greene’s just moved here from Utah and once again, we have another Utah family with four kids consisting of three girls and one boy. Apparently that’s a requisite to move here. Sadie and Tessa are especially happy because ever since the Johnson’s left, there haven’t been any English speaking kids their age.

And, Kevin is finally getting released from his district calling. Yay!! Week before last we all had to go to church with him at a different ward because he had a district meeting afterwards. The kids were devastated. It was the first week Blanchard’s were going to be back after their trip to Ecuador. It was going to be Greene’s first Sunday and the kids first time meeting their kids. And, our friend David was going to be opening his mission call in Sacrament meeting. Jack was so mad, he laid on his bed face down, refusing to come with us until we were all loaded in the car and pulling out.

 Kayaking in our new pool with Greenes.

 Mari and Sadie with a bucket full of hermit crabs they collected on the beach.

Tessa and Eva

We finally took a road trip to Arenal Volcano.

We stayed at Baldi Hot Springs the first night. I had no interest in sitting in a hot spring when it was 90 degrees outside. I stayed in all the cold pools.

The slides were really fun, though. That toilet bowl slide behind Sadie gave all the boys some pretty gnarly war wounds. I don't think Costa Rica regulates quite as strictly for safety as they do in the U.S.

Tegan, Aaron, and Jack. They didn't mind the lack of safety regulations on the slides as they flew across the pool at the bottom of the slides.

This was our last big shindig before Blanchards move. Autumn is going to be lost without Ashlynn.

We stayed at a ranch house for 2 nights while at Arenal. The views were amazing.

This was our first up close encounter with a toucan. The owners were nursing it back to health.

There were animals everywhere.

The view.

The kids got to help with chores in the morning.

Collecting eggs and getting photo bombed by siblings.

Milking the cow. Does this look familiar, dad?

Autumn opted out of this one on account that it looked gross. 

Arenal Volcano

The tree swing

The view on the drive home was incredible. It was the prettiest place I've ever seen. The pictures don't even come close to doing it justice. All these lush green farms on the sides of hills with this gorgeous lake at the bottom and a volcano in the background. If we ever go off the grid, you'll know where to find us.

All our phones here are prepaid. So, when we run out of minutes, it sends you a message at least 7 times telling you to recharge your phone. Autumn decided to reply to it saying she understood and it replied again to her to recharge her phone.