I also woke up more congested than I have been the previous few days so decided not to dive. On a good day when I dive I end up with a mask full of snot, so diving today would end up just nasty and potentially painful. I drove Trev into Flamingo to dive and the girls came with me because they wanted to drive in the front seat on the way back - it was Sophie's turn. Jay laughs at me because I'm so anal about them being in their boosters at home, but in a foreign country not only are they not sitting in boosters, but they can sit in the front - it helps that there are very few cars on the road and the maximum speed is 60km/h. We dropped Trev off and went to the bank machine to get out some cash, we've been paying cash for everything and keeping track of the receipts so that we can split it later per person per day. After hitting the atm we came back to the house.
While Maria made french toast for breakfast for her and Sophie, the girls switched off wearing Maria's FitBit clip, doing cartwheels and running around the house. Maria might just hit her 10,000 steps today! lol. After that both Sophie and Paige put pedometers on their list of Christmas wishes, but only FitBits, which is not happening.
Jay made pancakes for us and Paige, and I heard Maria chuckling on the deck. She said "Did you see the message from your Mom?"
I think she's on to something! Maria is starting to hashtag all her posts with #sauzagold - haha!
Maria wasn't feeling well today and didn't want to stray too far from the house in case she needed the facilities, so Jay and I took the girls down to the beach. We had to pick up Trevor back in Flamingo at noon and then go for lunch but we got a late start today, so we ended up at the beach at around 11am and went straight in the water to play in the waves. Jay went out to get the boogie board and tossed his new Roy Bun sunglasses onto the towels and the arm snapped off - guess that's why you buy $12 Roy Buns and not $100 Ray Bans!
The surf is pretty churning and picks up a lot of sand, you end up with sand EVERYWHERE. But if you move out just 10 feet further (maybe 25 ft off shore) its clear just before where all the waves break. We were just talking about how clear it was when we saw a big wave forming that was going to break early, so we both dove under it and Jay came up out of the water with an orange waterproof camera! I took it to shore and looked through the camera, there were very few photos BUT the person had used a label maker to put their phone number on the side of the camera - genius, so I sent them a text.
Then we got a text from Trevor saying that he was on his way back to the dive shop so we packed up off the beach and went to grab him and then went to Tiki's for lunch. Trevor has an odd blood blister on his finger that he got when he was trying to put his luggage handle down at the airport and pinched his pinky in the handle..we like to call it "Smiley"
Smiley is here enjoying a Pina Colada and some fish tacos!
Tiki's had a great breeze and a playground for the kids to play, so we had a nice and relaxing lunch before we headed back to the house. We had to stop for groceries (tequila) on the way back - as an interesting side note we have now bought an even dozen bottles of tequila and currently have 4.5 bottles on reserve. Its funny, Jay is always giving me shit for letting my gas tank fun empty but I'm all over the tequila reserve..priorities - and besides there is no CAA for tequila (but there should be).
We had told Sylvia, the housekeeper, not to come for the last two days (after making sure with Antonio that she wouldn't lose pay for not being here), but asked her to come today because Maggie and Alice arrive later and we wanted to make sure they got clean sheets on the bed in their room.
Sylvia I don't think speaks any english - but we managed to tell her as she was leaving not to worry about coming again until Monday.
Antonio said today he wants to cook a BBQ dinner for us on the 17th. So nice. I told him that Jay and Trevor will be gone then, they're flying out on Monday..he said he would still like to do the dinner as long as it was ok with the men that he was here with all the women.
Today has been a LONG LONG LONG day without sours...the pool seemed colder and the sun not as bright or warm on my skin...lol, just kidding - but it did drag the afternoon. Probably more because I knew that bedtime wasn't just 5 short hours away in the heat of the 2pm sun! Sophie was in the pool with me and kept asking me to race, to play, to race, to play and finally she said "I'll race you from here to the bar" Well that is one race that I will never lose! So we had a race to the swim up bar and I did win...with a little pushing and shoving and lots of laughs.
I forgot to mention how Paige smashed her face off the step of the pool the first day here and had a major nose bleed..you can really see the scrape on her nose in this photo. The pool is concrete and the step is a charcoal gray colour and she didn't see it when she was swimming and pronounced "I am not going swimming in that pool again!" Which lasted about 10 minutes.
Trevor was telling us about his diving this morning and the water was warm, and we got talking about our dry suit dive in Lake Ontario in October and how we had this 80 yr old guy, Christopher, who was just a disaster during our training - but he was taking the dry suit course because his girlfriend wouldn't let him dive in BC without having the course. We were taking about how its kind of impressive how active he was at 80 and Trev said "I'm impressed that he has a girlfriend at 80 - there is hope for me"...oh Trev. Maria has been wracking her brain to see if she knows anyone for him as well.
We've been tracking Maggie's flight this afternoon and it was coming in 45 mins early! So we made dinner at about 5pm (toasted BLTs and chips) so that we could head out at 6"ish" and make the 1hr15min trek to the airport to get her. We went out into the car park area at the house and were surprised that the house has Christmas lights decorating it in front of the gate - lol, this is what happens when you don't go out after dark! Maria and the girls came with me to the airport and they (the girls) kept asking me how long until we were going to arrive at the airport and how now they wish they had of stayed home, etc. I suggested we get gas while we were out on this trip since there isn't a gas station nearby us, but the Pathfinder is extraordinarily good on gas and we still had 3/4 of a tank. We passed a couple of gas stations and Maria pointed out a third, I think wondering why I hadn't stopped yet...I said unless we can find one that isn't sketchy looking I was just going to pass and find gas during the day another time! The next station we came across was bright and clean and new and looked like a Petro Canada at home, plus it had two attendants pumping gas for you so we filled up and were on our way.
As soon as we left the gas station both girls said that their tummies were hurting, we had about 12 km to the airport, we had brought some snacks in ziploc bags so I had Maria empty out the ziplocs of the banana and tupperware of pineapples and give each girl a bag. I wasn't so worried about Paige, but if Sophie says she doesn't feel well in the car there is a good chance she will be sick. I said now *I'm* wishing they had stayed home but Maria distracted them by starting to count the number of houses with Christmas lights on them between where we were and the airport. She quickly learned that they are competitive with eachother OR have very bad eyesight because their numbers kept climbing with no lights in sight - 'those little lights are not twinkling'.
When we got to the airport I got out of the car with the girls to wait for Maggie and Alice to come out and Maria circled around, their plane had actually ended up landing almost 50 minutes early, so we had seen it land 10 mins before, and knew they were flying carry on so we didn't have to wait too long. But Sophie was having some anxiety and now was really not feeling well. At the Arrivals gate outside the airport there are 20 - 30 Costa Rican men holding signs for various hotels, shuttles, taxis and they're all shouting and crowding and there are 4 - 5 police officers standing around the barrier to make sure no one crosses and I think she was just panicking. She got that 'look' that she gets usually before she passes out, so I made her sit down on my feet as I looked for Maggie, with Paige complaining that she needs to go to the bathroom (ok honey, ask the nice Policia if you can go in the restricted area..I don't think so - hold it). Finally I picked Sophie up and held her with her head down on my shoulder and she seemed to calm a bit while I envisioned her vomiting and passing out and peeing down my hip and into my shoes - oh joy. (For those of you who don't know yet, the girls were misdiagnosed with Epilepsy and do not have it - they just have anxiety and a propensity to faint! This doesn't change our life at all or how we deal with 'drama' but it does mean that I never have to worry about them having a seizure that will cause any permanent damage because they aren't having seizures they're just passing out). Finally we saw Maggie and Alice (with an I heart NY travel pillow around her neck, which I haven't heard the end of because I told the girls in the Toronto airport that they couldn't have one!) and Sophie's anxiety instantly disappeared and she was a chatterbox - and also Paige all of the sudden didn't need to pee anymore either - Alice is like magic.
We had brought Maggie a roadie, so she enjoyed that on the way back to the house. Maggie said that Alice had said on the plane that she was totally going Nudie in the pool when she got here! Maggie said, but Jay and Trevor are still there and Alice said "What?!? I thought this was a girls vacation!"...soon baby girl. lol. Jay and Trev fly home Monday, which I'm pretty sure is not going to change our routine in any way with the exception of I'm going to be carrying more stuff to the beach and we're going to have to go back to squeezing our own limes, because Trev has been the muscle the last few days. Jason was saying today how "cute" Jim and Maria are because they still Facetime every day - earlier and earlier every day so that Maria is still coherant! Just kidding, we never get that bad - with the exception of the mysterious elf moving incident from this morning we're usually pretty good!
We got to the house, showed Maggie and Alice their room, served up a (well deserved and highly anticipated) round of sours and sat outside on the deck. Maria could not get over the stars here and commented on them several times in the car with her head out the window and then again at the house - this is what happens when you go to bed at 7pm daily - you don't see the Christmas lights or the stars - or maybe its been so long since she has seen the night sky that she was in awe :)
Trevor and Maria are zip lining tomorrow at 8am and we booked an atv tour with the kids for next Wednesday which I think Sarah is going to come over from Playa Grande to join with Jackson and Ellie. Aside from those activities I'm pretty sure it will be breakfast, beach, lunch, pool, sours, snack, pool, sours, dinner, sours, bed - oh the monotony..somehow we don't mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment