Costa Rican weekend

We're still here in "rockin awesome" Costa Rica. I want to keep up on my posts so I don' t get home and get overwhelmed at all I need to write about. The last couple of days have been great! On Saturday Rick and I drove to Liberia (the town) about an hour away to meet up with our tour guide. We followed him up to the Miravalles volcano. We hopped on some horses and rode up to the rainforest. We hopped off and hiked into the jungle a ways. It was AMAZINGLY beautiful. We hiked to four different waterfalls. The first one we had to cross a suspension bridge that was about fifty feet above the river with the waterfall directly off the side. REALLY COOL! Interestingly enough the jungle was eerily silent. I was expecting to see animals but other than a couple of butterflies there wasn't really much.
After our hike we hopped back on our horses and rode to the volcanic mud baths. We ate some Costa Rican food for lunch (YUM) there at the restaurant and then changed into our swimming suits for the mud bath. Rick really wanted to do this and I wasn't quite sure because these thermal pools smell like sulfur which isn't too pretty. I figured I might as well enjoy life to the fullest so I did. First we got into a thermal sauna (which smelled like boiled eggs x's 50) to "open up our pores" and then we walked to the mud hole and slathered ourselves with volcanic mud. Crazy! Normally I would have felt pretty silly doing something like that but hey, other people were doing it. The mud is suppossed to be fabulous for the skin. that's funny......it's mud. Anyway after that we cleaned up and than got into three separate pools to 'close back our pores'. it was definitely something you don't do everyday. after our experience there we drove back to Tamarindo (a quaint town known for their great surfing) and watched the sun drown in the Pacific. Nice!

Y?yesterday was Sunday so we took it easy. We drove to Santa Cruz (about 40 minutes away on dirt roads........there are a lot of those and those that do have pavement are mostly patch work. It's all an adventure here!) for church. Church was WONDERFUL! the people are so kind. One little lady walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek. I thought that was sweet. Rick made sure I understood what was being said throughout the meetings. On our way home from church I wanted to stop and get a picture of a mango tree so we did and Rick gave away a copy of the BOM to the nice man that lived there:). We headed back to our room and made sandwiches for lunch and then took a nice long nap! In the late afternoon we took another drive into a town called 27 de Abril ( yes the town was named April 27th.) Funny, huh? this town was really cute. there were people out cooking, kids playing soccer with makeshift goals, people dancing in the bars, people walking and riding bikes. it was just really neat. it will be an excellent memory for me in years to come. Oh yeah, we spotted about 10 howler monkeys on our drive. They put on quite a show, those monkeys! Costa Rica is truly amazing!

PS I'm on Rick's iPad so my typing is not very good:)
PS. I'm on Rick's iPad so my typing is not very good:)

A FABULOUS DAY

Hello world! Today I went snorkeling with my best friend! He held my hand as we navigated the waters of Playa Conchal. We saw two eels, three burrfish (my favorite) a huge rockfish (ugly), a trumpeter, and LOTS of other colorful fish. After that we relaxed on the beach for a while each enjoying our books. A little while later a small brown woman came over and asked if I would like a massage. OH YEAH! I was laying on the table out in the open with a black tarp tied to the trees above me for shade listening to the waves roll in and the exotic birds singing in the trees and some spanish music playing somewhere off in the distance all while this lady worked me over. (Did I just type a run on sentence)? It was a surreal experience! A little later we rented a wave runner and let me just say that I got my full intake of sodium for the day on THAT ride. A LOT of water In my face but OH MAN what a blast! After returning to our hotel we got cleaned up and headed to dinner and then took a nice walk along the beach under the stars. It was a FABULOUS day!

PS Yesterday I had wild monkeys eating bananas off the top of my head.........more on that plus pictures later. Goodnight!

Phelps Sisters 2011 Oregon Trip

Last week was the Phelps sisters annual (well it's becoming annual) trip to Oregon. This is the third year that they have been doing it. (and only my second because I missed the first year) We flew into Portland on Monday and rented a van and made our way to the coast. We stayed in Lincoln City in the same cute little house that we were in last year. We had a marvelous time just being together and having fun (and of course, shopping)! Brad is in this picture because he flew into Seattle to pick up a worktruck and drive it back to UT so he stayed with us that night (Ruth really didn't mind that) and then bought us all lunch the next day! From left to right...Kathy, me, DeeAnn, Karen, Darla, Ruth, and Brad. We are missing Janice, Robbie, and Lar.

Here's Kathy and I out on the beach. There were 107 steps down to get to the sand and yes, it was worth it!! Kathy, and all of us really, liked combing the rocks to see what we could find. The starfish and anemones were cool. It was a little chilly but we were blessed with pretty fine weather considering it's still February.

Sea lions in Newport.

All of us out on our fun, HUGE deck.

Kath and DeeAnn sharing a toast with their rootbeer:) while Ruth looks on!

Game Night!! Kathy and Ruth won all three games of 5 straight! How did that happen?? We also played Imaginiff and had some good laughs!

Last but not least we got to sit around and watch a couple of chick flicks throughout the week. A great time with some great women. I love you all!!