We had another try at our homemade ski run. It was much more successful this time.Don't worry. No animals were harmed in the making of this movie.
Lately we have had some crazy weather! For the first time in my life (that I can remember), we will be having a white Christmas. In the past week we have had about a foot or more of snow, and school was cancelled three days this week. Crazy!
I took this picture last Sunday, when we had about 4 inches of snow. That was monumental for us, so I forced the kids to brave the cold for a snapshot.
This is the view from our front porch a few days ago. I wasn't willing to go too far from the warmth of the fireplace.
But today we built a big ramp in the front yard.
We had visions of riding it all the way down the front yard, but it wasn't as successful as we'd hoped.
On Sunday we also went to Daniel's Christmas concert in Echo. I thoroughly enjoyed the music, and it was extra fun because the "Weather outside was frightful." That makes all things Christmas just that much more fun.
They played the music from the Nutcracker, which Jantzen loved. She had heard the songs on an educational website that she plays on called starfall.com. She didn't realize that the music was from a ballet.
So now Christmas is in full swing. We finished our shopping yesterday, the kids are out of school and all that's left to do is to start eating until we gain the mandatory 10 pounds. Wish us luck.
Wait. Don't answer that.
The happiest place on earth!
Last Wednesday Jantzen was sick so she and I decided to just hang out in our pajamas. Things here have been very busy (see above pictures), so it was a welcome break. I knew that UPS would be bringing this very LARGE shipment that day, but they usually don't come until about 2:30. I think you can see where this is going. Yes, UPS was here at 1 o'clock, I was in my pajamas, and there was not ONE, but TWO good looking brown-clad guys on my front doorstep. They probably thought that I'm some lazy housewife that sits in her pajamas eating bonbons all day. Next time they drive past my house you can bet I'll be in the front yard doing push ups or something to try and redeem myself.
This is our nephew Jace. We got to see him and smooch on him at Thanksgiving. The good thing in my family is that babies come along only every 4 years or so, so there's plenty of attention for each of them. We had so many cameras pointing at him, I think he probably thinks he's a movie star. But the funny thing is...
Whenever you press the shutter button he goes to this "deer in headlights" look.
Or maybe not.
Daniel, being the music dude that he is seemed to really enjoy it.
Here's all the exchange students in the area that are here with PAX. All of them except for us live in the Tri-Cities, which is a bummer. But once in a while they get together for things like... A Crispy Kreme fundraiser this weekend!
It was a gorgeous day, a balmy 50 degrees.
Which means that we could stay outside for more than two minutes.
It was a LARGE time had by all. 
Yes, you read it right. This old mama is a surfer girl. We rented a car, which included a free pet gecko on the ceiling, and drove to Tamarindo for a day of surfing. Rich and Dawn came with us, but said that they'd just watch us. They had never tried surfing and didn't think they were interested. But by the time we got there we had talked them in to giving it a try. So we all signed up for lessons, rented surfboards and headed to the beach.
But before I could surf I had to try some coconut milk.
Hey Chris! Take my picture with my surfboard!
Ummm. Okay!
Surfing was awesome!! Dawn and I both got up on our first try, but after that I couldn't get up for awhile. Finally our surf teacher, Fau, told me to just relax. That turned out to be good advice because after that I had no problems. That was such a good workout that we were all so tired and sore by the end of the day. We were wishing we had saved our massages for surfing day. And by the way, Rich and Dawn are talking about buying their own surfboards now because it TOTALLY ROCKED!
That night we had reservations for The Italian Restaurant so we hurried home, did a 5 minute glam-up and went to dinner with salt water and sand in our ears and belly buttons. Shortly after dinner Chris started to feel really sick. We had a very long night that night and learned something...
Don't drink the water!
We had rented the boat for five hours and REALLY wanted to catch some fish. So right away there was a little bit of tension in the air. 
You can tell just by looking at this picture. These are two really tense guys. No fun going on here.
This is a mahi mahi. We hooked into this guy fairly quickly. And I use the term we very, very loosely here. I had no idea how this was going to work, but apparently our job was to sit and watch while the captain drove and the first mate worked his butt off changing out hooks and baits and things on all the fishing poles. Then when they get a fish on we, the overpaying tourists, have the privilege of reeling it in. It kind of reminds me of taking a four year old fishing. But don't get me wrong. We had a blast. And we probably wouldn't have caught anything if we had been trying to do it all ourselves. Especially since we've never fished for mahi mahi or wahoo.
We took the fish back to our hotel and they cooked it up for us that night. It was so good! And this is coming from a non-fish eater. So you KNOW it must have been good.
But before dinner, we had some massages scheduled at those huts I mentioned earlier. Chris was a little nervous because he had never had one before so I assured him that he would be covered the whole time with a sheet. OOPS! Apparently in Costa Rica it's customary to use only a beach towel to cover you. It was a bit... how should I put this? breezy.
After bearing it all to the massage therapists I was feeling extra care free, so I let Dawn talk me into Meringue lessons at the pool. See that guy and girl in blue and yellow? Their job is to make fools out of the American tourists. Job well done, guys. Job well done. I'm sure they have lots of good laughs in their break room.
For the remainder of that day, we took a shuttle into a little town called Playa del Coco for some shopping and exploring. It was kind of a cool place with shops selling jewelry, pottery and woodworks lining the street. You'll have to trust me on this one because I didn't take any pictures of the town, but this is the beach. Yeah, it was warm there. 
While we were waiting in the hotel lobby for our shuttle we had some time to hone my wicked photography skills.
And my subject was OH-SO-COOPERATIVE!
The next day was awesome! We took a tour through the jungle on zip lines.
We even saw a toucan and a family of monkeys. So cute!
This Costa Rican jungle gangster was a little scary, though.
And this little wild pig was trying to get into the girls dressing room. Dirty old pig!
After the zip lines it was time for the world's longest waterslide. Or so they say, anyways. Again, no pictures here because it's kind of hard to take pictures when you're riding a waterslide. But take my word for it. It was long! It takes about 8 minutes to hike to the top of it, then about 1 1/2 minutes to ride it down. 
Next on the agenda was horseback riding up to the hot springs. All the horses in our group insisted on walking VERY close together. We decided they must be Asian horses that are used to being crammed into small spaces.
When we got up there, we sat in a steam room, smeared hot volcanic mud all over our bodies and then let it dry in the sun. Then we washed it off and plunged into the hot springs. We started off with the hot ones, then slowly made our way into colder and colder ones.
After that we hopped on our bus for the ride back to our hotel. This little guy lives in a small town and loves to chase dogs. Someone kept him as a pet then turned him loose. So he's partly domesticated and might actually think he's a dog. We think he's cute.
This is the view on the way down. Someone on our bus had to stop to go potty, so we hopped out for some pictures. Hooray for small bladders!
And this is a howler monkey that was near the beach at our hotel. I hear they're pretty harmless, but when they start howling you'll feel like you're in Jurassic Park or something.
We had a long and miserable overnight flight down there and arrived in Costa Rica at 7 am. So our first day there was spent mostly sleeping, lounging by the pool and doing this:
We were at an all-inclusive resort, so it didn't take long for us to find the food. And it was good. And Jodi was happy. And she looked like a pig. A very tired pig. But a happy tired pig. And it was good. Did I tell you that it was good?
We wandered down this path and found the beach. On the way to the beach we saw these little huts where people could get massages. We took note of those huts and promised ourselves that we would definitely need to visit that sacred place.
