Three Days at the Beach

Sorry it’s been a quiet week on the blogging front. The WiFi from Wednesday through half of Friday was bad enough that we were pretty disconnected. But we didn’t really have time to write, anyway, as we were enjoying ourselves at the beach.

Trip to Punta Leona

Thanks to our wonderful in-country coordinator, we were able to get a fantastic rate at an resort on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast. I’d looked up a few places, but Rebeca found a great rate that also included all meals. Costa Rica celebrates Dia del Niño in September, and because of this holiday, the hotel was running a special where kids were free.

The drive to Punta Leona went smoothly. We arrived in the middle of the day, prior to normal check-in time, but they still had a room ready. The hotel even comped us lunch since we wouldn’t be staying through lunch the last day.

After eating, we headed to the pool and then the beach. I’m not really fond of visiting beaches in Humboldt, even nicer ones like Moonstone. I can’t even remember the last time I went to Centerville Beach. It’s nearly always windy and cold and not worth the effort.

Contrasting this was my first visit to Florida in May where I realized the ocean could actually be warm and inviting. The beach in Costa Rica was ten times better.

The first evening I watched my kids laugh and play in the water. The sun was setting, and the water was wondrously warm. Everything was like a dream. It was great to see them all so happy.

Second day at the beach

Our trip was for two nights, so this gave us one full day at the beach. We didn’t wake up all that early, and it took us until roughly 9:00 a.m. to make it to the beach in the morning. We lingered a bit at breakfast due to the fact that there were monkeys to entertain us. I had a good laugh when one of them stole some food from another guest. I wasn’t laughing when this happened to me the next morning.

We also saw another weird animal.

We headed to the beach first this day, and then the pool. The weather was very nice, and the kids enjoyed the time immensely. I was having a blast, too, swimming in the surf and watching my family enjoy their time at the beach.

But then one little thing went awry: I couldn’t find the rental car key. All I could remember was getting everyone out of the car, dropping it in my pocket, and then gathering up our stuff to go to the beach. Trouble was, I’d completely forgotten to stick it in the backpack before swimming in the ocean for an hour.

Long story short, it never turned up, and we called Budget to get another one. Fortunately, I’d paid for the $4 per day roadside assistance, so we were only out the cost of the key, which was a regular key without a fob. Lesson learned, fortunately cheaply.

After a brief rest in the afternoon, we headed back to the beach. Later, it was time for mini-golf, something I’d promised our 6-year-old we’d do. We ended up dragging along the 10-year old who made it abundantly clear that mini-golf was *not* what she wanted to do.

After a final dip in the pool, the sun was already setting (at 5:30!), so we headed back for a delicious dinner. It was a a great day.

The night was sleepless, however. Six-year-olds move a lot. I don’t think I drifted off for more than 20 minutes at a time before getting an arm or leg to the head.

Back to San José

We headed out mid-morning that last day. The only beach time was spent at Playa Blanca, which was different than the one we’d visited the previous two days. It was more beautiful, but the surf was a bit more rough, and I’m glad we all swam at the other one.

After breakfast, we were all packed up and headed out, to the incessant protesting of the 10-year-old. She is definitely the drama queen type. In her words, it was adios paraíso.

We haven’t told her yet we may come back, if we can make a day trip out of it. A 90-minute drive really isn’t that bad.

Also on the radar is a trip to Limón, on the Caribbean coast.

State of things

Overall, this week has gone pretty well. We are running into  a few issues, some of which are definitely exacerbated by the language barrier. I’ve had to sit our six-year-old down a couple times to talk to him about being respectful. He definitely tends to be a little bit more mischievous around Kels, because he knows that she has a harder time understanding and speaking Spanish.

The 3-year-old…is 3 years old. He is pushing boundaries a lot, and we feel that we have to discipline him a lot, unfortunately. Added to this is the fact that I know we botch some things in Spanish. For example, I accidentally said buenas noches to him this morning rather than buenos días, just after he had stood up in his crib. Complete meltdown. My guess is that he figured we were putting him to bed again. The bright side: things *do* seem to be slowly getting better.

Our 10-year-old is amazing. We had a fantastic discussion today at the pool. The kids had both mentioned bits and pieces of life before us, and even life before their time at the Proyecto Abraham. But she shared quite a bit more today. I hope that this means she is really starting to truly trust us as mom and dad.

Speaking of “mom and dad”, we are incredibly thankful that our kids all call us mamá and papá. We hit this milestone on the day they first came to stay with us. The six-year-old does say chau (LOL), when we put him to bed. Still working on buenas noches or I love you.

Be praying this week for us to continue bonding, and for nerves to be calmed as we approach our court hearing date on Thursday.