Backyard

Well we heard they were going to break ground on our house this week but just found out they are still waiting on a bid to come in - bummer! We were getting so excited.

Sunday after church we decided to head over to the house to take some before construction pictures of the house. After $200,000 worth of construction there is some potential for things to get messy. They are suppose to leave the house in the same condition that it is currently in before construction so we wanted to document it just in case.

We didn't take a picture of the front of the house head on, I'm not sure why, but here are some pictures of the yard.

This is the front entry, the door is on the left of this picture.

This is the front side of the house. The front door is on the right of this picture.

Front porch area.

 This is the side yard by the boys room. The house has 3 master bedrooms (and one normal size room with no bathroom attached, this will be the nursery) so the boys have one of them since they will be sharing a room. These are their sliding doors. Not sure how this is going to work out when they are teenagers, makes it pretty easy to sneak in and out of.

 This is still the side yard by the boys room just passed the patio area. Things are a bit over grown here and need a little work.

 Still the side yard by the boys room. This is actually a pretty big area.

 This is the over grown part of this side area. The boys room and patio area is to the left of this picture. In the picture is the nursery and then the other master bedroom and bathroom. This is going to be our study/guest room.

 This pathway leads to the rest of the backyard.

 Leading to the backyard.

 This is the patio area of the backyard.

 The kitchen with the door (which we are going to make a dutch door, so fun) is on the left. The family room is on the right.

 This is the other side yard with the shed. It is more open to the backyard then the other side.

 Side yard/backyard.

 This is the view from the family room sliding doors.

 This is the back corner of the property with the hot tub - wahoo! If you know me you know I LOVE hot tubs.

 Patio area. I want to add built in seating along the wood retaining wall.

 From the patio area looking at the living room downstairs and the master suite upstairs. The whole upstairs is the master suite, bathroom and office area/loft area attached to the suite. Love this part of the house!! Looking forward to having that big walk in closet all to myself (Rick has his own closet).

 Patio area. I am thinking of having a built in fire pit/BBQ build here in the middle of the patio.

Not too bad for being vacant for two years. We definitely have some work that needs to be done on the yard but at least they have had a gardener keeping it up over the last two years.

Costa Rica - Day 9

We woke up and packed up all of our stuff and headed to the airport. I hate how countries have fees you have to pay just to leave. We paid $120 to leave the country - ripe off.

We had a quick flight to El Salvador and then on to San Fransisco. It was a pretty good flight. I thought Taca Airlines was a great airline. It was comfortable, good customer service and served us 2 meals both ways.

Once we landed in San Fransisco of course we were the last off the plane so we were last in line at customs. For some reason every time I go through customs at SFO it is a huge line. Why do they schedule every international arrival at the same time I do not know. It took us several hours to go through customs, wait for our parking shuttle and pick up our car. We got home close to midnight and our flight arrived around 7:30ish.


We all enjoyed our trip and we made wonderful memories!

Athen actually took this picture of us - pretty good huh.

Athen giving Crew a big hug while he was strapped into his car seat. We love this toddler travel strap that straps the car seat and kid onto your roller bag. It's easy, light and convenient.

 Each seat had it's own TV with free movies, TV, kids movies and TV and free video games for the kids. How great is that!

The plane had nice big leather seats with plenty of space. It was a great plane.

Costa Rica - Day 8

Rick and Crew woke up early and wanted to go for a hike. My pregnant body told them to leave Athen and I behind and take a little hike and meet us at the restaurant for breakfast. The resort we stayed at had many different hiking trails on the property. We had already spent a lot of timing hiking so I sent them on their way.

Athen and I enjoyed the morning sleeping in and taking our time getting ready. Athen enjoyed the big soaking tub to himself while I enjoyed a hot shower by myself. We headed down to the restaurant right before it was going to stop serving breakfast. I was wondering where Rick and Crew were.  Luckily, they showed up just in time. They had got lost on the trails and ended up at an elementary school just out side of town. They hitchhiked back to town and walked back to the resort. Crew's first time hitchhiking!

The boys took a nap in the room while I headed into town to do some shopping. Once nap time was over we headed higher up into the mountains to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Train for a train ride through the cloud forest. It was a beautiful ride although, there were lots of clouds so we didn't always get a view. The kids loved the train of course and when will we ever be able to take a train ride through a cloud forest again. Half way through the ride we stopped for a little hike which the boys loved. We saw lots of bugs and creatures.

The security at the resort let the boys sit on his motorcycle.

After the train ride we started our journey back to San Jose. Of course it was a wild ride with the roads not being paved. We got back into San Jose late and had to find a place to stay. We wanted to stay somewhere close to the airport but all the hotels were booked. Finally, around 10:30 at night when I was just about ready to have a break down we found a two bedroom apartment that they rented us for the night. It was a perfect place for us to unload, layout all our stuff and re-pack for our trip home.

Costa Rica - Day 7

 We woke up and enjoyed a nice fancy breakfast at the resort restaurant. It was delicious and we chowed down. We then went to Monteverde National Cloud Forest to go hiking. We hiked through the beautiful jungle. The kids loved it. We saw lots of birds and insects and had to stop quite frequently. Athen would shine his flash light (hanging around his neck) down on the bug so he could see it better, even though it was day light.

 

 Lucky for us Crew fell asleep on the hike so we all had some peace and quiet and enjoyed the hike.

 We hike to the Continental divide. Here we are resting and enjoying some snacks.

 The Continental divide. We didn't get to see much of the view since it was so cloudy.

 We walked over a suspension bridge which the kids liked.

 Crew thought it was so funny seeing himself on the iphone while papa was taking pictures.

 A milipede.

 Athen using his flash light to see another bug.

 We then went to the Hummingbird museum to see all the hummingbirds. We were able to get so close to them. They were flying around every where which of course was another big hit with the kids.

 In the afternoon we headed back to the resort and went swimming in the heated pool.

 That evening we headed to the frog pond on the resort property. The boys hiked around the pond searching for frogs and this is what they found.

 Before we went swimming we went to the Monteverde Cheese Factory. I didn't take any pictures here. We bought some delicious fresh cheese which of course was one of my favorite things of the day. We picked up a fresh baguette from the panaderia and some rotisserie chicken and headed back to our room for some chicken and cheese sandwiches for dinner.

It was a busy day. We were all exhausted by the time we got home.