Costa Rica!

This last weekend, I was blessed with the opportunity to take a mini vacation! With 'babysitters' in place we took off for five days of rest and rejuvenation! Here are highlights of this extended weekend vacation!

1. Crossing the border! This was my first experience crossing a border in anything other than airplane. Needless to say the process is a little more tedious, but an adventure nonetheless. And to make it all the better I got six stamps in my passport between going from Nicaragua to Costa Rica and back!

2. I received my first marriage proposal since coming down (no need to worry, I said 'no'). I was from the first Costa Rican I interacted with once across the border haha! He didn't even know if I spoke spanish when he asked. 

3. Our condo was gorgeous! The first thing that stood out to us was that it was clean! It was a great little oasis in Playas del Coco, Costa Rica. And its most used feature. . . the infinity pool! Especially because the majority of the time we had it completely to ourselves!

4. One beautiful night we went out and floated in the pool looking up and the glorious sky full of stars. It was so peaceful and relaxing, a great way to go stargazing! 

5. Notre Dame Football! I watched my first ND football game of the season (at least the second half) while we were in Costa Rica :) Although it was a sad, yet close loss, it was still great to be able to be a part of Notre Dame again!

6. World Series! It just so happened that while I was in Costa Rica, the giants won the world series! Despite my american league allegiance, congrats!

7. The dryer. Our condo was also the home of a washing machine and dryer! Using a dryer for the first time in two months definitely feels awesome. 

8. Scrabble in the candlelight. In case you were wondering, the electricity can still go out, even if you are on vacation :) Fortunately it was only for a couple hours one evening, so we made the most of it, and played scrabble, seeing with the candles that our only neighbor let us borrow! Scrabble really is a great game. 

9. Sleeping. Sleeping was one of the best benefits of this trip :) I didn't set an alarm, and wasn't worried about babies waking up for the entire trip. 

10. Africa Mia. Who knew you could go to Africa while in Costa Rica?!?! Africa Mia is this zoo that you can ride through and feed the animals as if you are on an African Safari! We fed giraffe and deer among other animals :)