Days 1 & 2 in Costa Rica

Well we finally made it here to Costa Rica!! After a 7 hour drive to Vegas (which included 2 1/2 hours stuck in hoover dam traffic), and two flights we are here. It is amazing, better than we ever imagined. The people here are so friendly, and are very patient with our complete lack of Spanish. Well not complete lack, we can say: red, duck, cat, hello, thank you, chicken, and your welcome, but that's about it. We are getting by with a lot of smiling and nodding. In fact at dinner last night we ended up ordering the same thing even though we pointed to different things on the menu. We stayed the first night in the capital city of San Jose. It was a nice hotel which we will be staying at again on the last night of our trip. The airport was great here, when you get done with immigration and customs they have people waiting outside to help you either get a cab, rental car, or hotel shuttle. We told them our hotel and they pointed to a spot on the curb to stand and within 5 minutes the shuttle pulled up. The next morinig we grabbed a transfer and head to cahuita. It is a very small caribbean infused town right on the ocean. We are staying in a beautiful bungalow owend by a swiss family. This morning we awoke to the wild life, and the most amazing breakfast I have ever had. Here are a few pictures of our trip so far:

Oh and the best part of Costa Rica is......Jennifer can go almost the entire day without having to find here chapstick. (Everyone knows how amazing that is)!

Busy holiday season....

Well it has been a busy busy time for us, which is why it has been over a month since we have had time to post. We finished with the fall semester, and in the middle of finals we also ended up moving apartments. We wanted more space in our cinder block student apt and put in to move to a 2 bedroom, well one came available but we had to move during finals week or they would give it to someone else. Needless to say it was a stressful week, but with some help from our friends we were able to knock the move out in one day. The day after finals we took off for our month-long vacation which started with an overnight at Brian's parents house for their family Christmas party. We had a good time hanging out with the family, it seems like we only see a lot of them at this annual party. Bright and early the next morning we started the drive to Arizona to spend Christmas with Jenn's family. It was a blast, we went to see the temple lights at the Mesa temple which is like the ones in SLC but not nearly as frigid. We were able to spend a lot of time with the whole family including the nieces and nephews who get bigger by the hour it seems. It was a great time especially since we only get to see the AZ family a couple times a year. For Christmas we decided that instead of presents for each other we would just go on a trip and relax between semesters so, tomorrow we take off to Vegas to catch our flight to Costa Rica!! We will be there for about 2 weeks chilling on the beach and getting engrossed with Central American culture. Stay tuned because we will have internet a couple times while we are there and will keep everyone updated. Hopefully you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!!Here are some pictures of our vacation so far.....