Costa Rica

ABC Supply, a construction supplier has been sending us on a trip every year for the past 10 years.  If Adam buisness qualifies they take us on an all inclusive trip for 5-6 days.  This year the trip was in Costa Rica.  This is our 2nd trip to Costa Rica, with ABC, and I really like Costa Rica.  It reminds me a lot of Puerto Rico back when I was on my mission.  

We stay at the Westin which is a beautiful resort and then other Suppliers will pitch in to host some fun excursions.  This year it was a little tough getting strarted becasue our flight to Costa Rica was a red eye so we ended up loosing a full night of sleep and by the time we slept we had been awake for over 40 hours.  We went on a little river rafting adventure (nothing compared to some of the river rafting adventures we have had in Utah and Idaho) but it was fun.  We also went on a Catamaran snorkeling excursion. 

One thing very unique about this resort is the animal life.  There are a lot of iguanas and moneys all over the resort.  It’s crazy seeing one of these iguanas decide he wants to get to the other side of the pool so he jumps in swims across and is back out before you hardly know it has happened.  This guy saw us eating lunch by the pool so he swam across, climbed out, circled around and started stealing our food.  It’s no wonder these iguanas are so huge!!!

Be careful walking under trees.  Sometimes it feels like these monkeys are trying to pee on unprepared people.  

This has been a fun tradition we have been able to enjoy. 

January was a blur

The animals were happy when we finally returned from Mexico but after a snow storm we weren’t too excited to be home.  

Adam has spent some time studying and making some adjustments to his golf game and the extra work is making a huge difference.  He flew to Palm Springs to golf with a couple of friends and he got to play on Pebble Beach golf course.  They just missed the chance to watch a professional tournament but when they played the course all the equipment and gear was still set up from the tournament.  One guy was sitting out on his deck watching the golfers, (remember the guy had just finished watching several days of professionals) and Adam hit a fantastic shot!  The guy yelled out to Adam and said, “Hey that was an amazing shot, who are you?”   Adam humbly said it was a lucky shot but the guy said, “what is your name?”  After realizing Adam is just a hobbiest I think he was even more amazed with the shot lol.

For Engineering Ila had to build a marble run that was at least 40 sec long.  This is the first time Ila actually took a homework assignment seriously and she went down stairs after school on Friday and spent at least 8 hours over the weekend building this project ALL BY HERSELF!  I still can’t believe she did it!

This month was a big month for Ila.  After 2 1/2 years she got her braces off!!!

For a YW activity we went rock climbing.  Ila drug her feet to go to the activity because she was super tired that evening but surprisingly she took to rock climbing like a natural.  She actually had a ton of fun and was really good at it.  Now I need to figure out how to capitalize on this for her.  

Q is our little buddy and even through he is in his terrible twos we sure love having him around.  

Picture Explosion

Christmas 2023 was an adventure. Every time we go to Cancun we have a drastically different trip.  This year was no different.  We were on our toes at all times.  First, Im warning all that Priceline is a site we will never use again.  I rented a car through them but upon arriving in Mexico we were told that the insurance and rental would not be honored at the price we paid.  So our car rental ended up being 40% higher than originally planned.  After following up with Priceline they told us that when we pay for items on thier site it is only an estimate and it doesn’t guarantee the price.  This is written in small print on a completely different page than your rental.  So we will never recommend Priceline to anyone.

Once in the country and after a long day of traveling we were forced to pay the higher price and just deal with it.  

‘’

This was a frustrating way to start out the trip.  As we headed to our VRBO I was trying to finalize details with the owner of the property.  When we finally arrived at the property it was 7:00pm, we hadn’t eaten and we were super tired.  It just so happened that there was a family in front of us that was arguing with the property management lady.  After waiting for 30 mins in line I had caught enough information to realize they too were customers of VRBO.  I pulled out my information and started comparing info.  We came to find out that we had both rented the same apartment, through the same owner and neither one of us were on the list to stay at the property.  It was December 24 and our patience’s was gone.  We spent over an hour on the phone with VRBO trying to work out a plan so we had a place to stay for the night.  Although we thought they were going to take care of the situation, now that I have returned home and tried to complete the refund, they want information from the hotel/ apartment complex that was not given to us.   ITS MEXICO, THINGS ARE NOT AS CLEAR CUT AS THE US.  Ugh!   

At this point Im sure you are thinking the trip sounds crumby but we just tell our kids, this is part of the adventure when it comes to traveling.  We stayed in an apartment that happened to have a couple open days available.  The appartment had a private pool on the roof so it was fun.

We were staying in Playa del Carmen so there was a lot of parties, shopping and food.  

We spent one day at Xcaret 

One day we had open and the kids agreed to go on a long car ride to Chizen itza.  I really wanted to find an “lds” tour guide to take us around but it was a busy day and the guides said the lds guide was super busy.   






We had never visited xcaret so we went there for a day.  I think our boys would have died over a park like that when they were young but now that the kids are older it was a fun activity but we may not try that park again.  

After spending a week traveling around and being adventurous we have decided we like resting up at an all inclusive hotel for 2 or 3 days before returning home.  

At this particular hotel they had a trapeze set up.  Ila did so well at her little trapeze lesson that they invited her back for an evening show on New Years Eve.  

With the kids getting older we have decided we like traveling at Christmas a lot more then staying home and doing gifts.   The magic of Christmas is so different with teenagers so we enjoy making new memories together.