Weeks 21 and 22: Celebrating Christmas and the Arkins Visit!

After Nana and Papa left we had a few “down” days to recover from their visit, celebrate Christmas, and then get ready for the Arkin’s trip down. Although it was difficult for us to get into the Christmas spirit in shorts and swimming suits, we were able to find a nice bilingual church service on Christmas Eve that helped! It was slightly different sitting in an open air church with the pastor shooing stray dogs away with the wind blowing and the potential that the church may burn down with the hand held candles we all had during “Silent Night”, but it seemed like a “Costa Rican” Christmas in every way!

The beach on Christmas Eve.

The Arkins Visit:

Ray and John-

Having our relatives visit was a refreshing lifestyle that wore us out in the end. It was surprising that we enjoyed showing them the ropes and the normalities of Costa Rica. Also having kids our age around made it easier to relate to. Their trip was sadly during everyone elses trips to Costa Rica which made traffic terrible and beaches crowded, but there was still room for fun. Much to my surprise they embraced the Tico way. While visiting beaches they would be totally relaxed. Will, our 12 year old cousin, took to the waves on our boogie boards and rode gnarly waves. Lila, our 8 year old cousin, embraced Costa Rica by shooing frogs off our balcony and making shell mobiles. All in all a great time hanging our with our relatives.

Zafira Catamaran tour:

The “big” trip that we took with Shelby, Joe, Will and Lila was a 4-hour sunset catamaran cruise on the Zafira Catamaran. I would highly suggest taking a tour like this to anyone touring the area! We all had a chance to eat, drink, snorkle, and dive off of the catamaran while meeting many locals, tourists, and Canadians! Our trip ended with the Canadians singing their national anthem (with gusto) with a following of “America the Beautiful”. How Costa Rican! A fun time was had by all including Mark who somehow became the bartender at the end of the evening!

John’s 10th Birthday:

Amidst all of the excitement, we were able to celebrate John’s 10th birthday! It was nice to celebrate with some family here and John got some cool surfing things as well as a ukelele. He will be attempting to learn to play the ukelele and then trying to hit people up for cash while playing on the beach. Wish him luck! (We also went to a restaurant called “Eat At Joe’s” in honor of John’s birthday and having Uncle Joe with us).