Samara / Playa Carrillo (April 29 to May 3)

We had four low-key days here. We spent a lot of time in the pool and on the beach and had nice mornings doing Bible studies, reading, talking, playing games. Sutton learned to play checkers and Doug killed me in chess. There was one rainy day we just hung out on the patio. Unfortunately, Doug was really sick that day (at least it was a rainy day). He seemed to get what Hudson had had in Arenal, but it was even worse for Doug. Poor guy, it pretty much wiped him out for a couple days. Somehow, Sutton, Kerrigan & I escaped it. We only had a dial-up internet connection, that's why these posts are being posted late.

The kids improve their swimming much everyday. They ended last summer both swimming quite well, but they basically were starting over this year and seemed to be afraid again. They are far beyond last summer now, though.

We loved having resident monkeys and Iggy the resident iguana. It was fun to hear and see the howler monkeys each morning and afternoon. There were groups of at least 8 to 10 monkeys in the trees on each side of our house. We also got to see crocodiles in the river that leads to the ocean. I didn't have my camera, though. It was pretty cool.

We'd see Iggy often, but he was a little shy and wouldn't let me get a picture, but these are 2 other iguanas we saw in town.

We also had many resident bugs. The bugs here are crazy, they're much faster than the bugs in we're used to. There are many types and sizes of ants. Often we'd find ants carrying dead bugs they'd find in the house back to their nest. They'd carry big moths or this big bee a long way in minutes. It was kind of nasty, but it wasn't too bad since they were so fast and it cleaned up any dead bugs for us :). It was kind of cool to watch them. They'd have a rotation and take breaks carrying. Those on break would follow and circle around and sort of 'tag' a guy out to take his place.

Carrillo Beach was very pretty.

and it was long and flat, which was great for running. One of my favorite things is to run on or along the beach, although, it was a little more difficult in the humidity here.

Sutton practicing some schoolwork in the great dry erase books she got from Gran for her birthday.

Kerrigan snuggling with tired Daddy.

We 'Britney Spears'd' it a couple times, like the locals, when we only drove slowly a short way on the local dirt roads. I held her in the passenger seat, though, not Doug.

The kids played with this little girl from Connecticut (her Dad is from Costa Rica) while we practiced our Spanish with her grandma. She said our spanish is good :). We wish it were better still, but we can do pretty well with the basics.

having dinner out one night

some sunsets from our house. You can't really see them in the shadows in the tree, but there were two monkeys sitting there. It appeared that they were snuggling together watching the sunset. When the sun set, they moved on. It was cute.

and on the beach