Playa Dantita

I woke up this morning to banging, it was about 6am.  I got up, got dressed in my workout gear and went downstairs.  The girls were just finishing up french toast that Maria had made them and I grabbed a coffee.  "Were the girls drumming on something?"  Maria said Jim had just asked the same thing, yes, they were drumming outside on their boogie boards, but as soon as she realized what they were doing she asked them to stop and they did (after they woke up both Jim and I, lol).

Mom came out to the pool area a little while later and sat down in one of the chairs then said "This was your Dad's chair"  I said "You move your feet you lose your seat" She said well that's what she thought when she saw the seat open, because she had heard me say that yesterday.  Then when Dad came out he took a different chair, but Mom turned to me after and said he had given her 'a look' "For stealing his seat?"  "Yeah" he said, "You move your feet you lose your seat"..he said "well that's what I thought, so then I sat here"  haha.  "Yeah Maria took mine yesterday, but I let it go" I said and she   turned and looked at me and said "Obviously not!"

We went out to do our workout a few minutes later.  As I was doing crunches I looked up and there are several big birds circling overhead, I said to Jim and Maria "I think those are vultures up there and they're just waiting for us to die".  Its so hot doing workout, but I'm so glad that I have Jim and Maria to do it with, we keep each other motivated.  I've lost just under 18lbs since Sept 6th - the day the girls went back to school after summer and I decided I needed to do something.  That was after putting batteries back in my scale and having a WTF moment when I stepped on it after the summer.  Since then I've been really good at trying to match my intake to my calorie output so I've been working out 6-7 days a week between circuit and silks class.  Here the workout for 40 minutes gets me 2 tequila sours "free" and the best I can hope for is a weight neutral vacation, which is the goal.

During the workout Maria had said she was so hot she might just go into the pool with her clothes on after we were done.  I had JUST been thinking the same thing.  After the workout there was no one in the pool area except Sophie, so I just stripped to my sports bra and underwear and went in.  Sophie asked if she could go in in just her underwear too and I said sure.  She announced "Finally, someone to swim nudie with!"  Ok, not nudie but ok.  Jim and Maria came out shortly afterwards to dip in the pool, which was very refreshing after the rain we had yesterday, and it cooled us down nicely.

Jim looks dead..

We got out of the pool and got ready to go to the beach.  We're off to Playa Dantita today, or as we refer to it The Secret Beach because you have to walk about a km up and over an escarpment to get to Dantita.  When we get into the car I decide, as the driver, that we'll make a quick stop at the ATV place to arrange to ATV in the morning while Jim and Maria golf at Playa Conchal.  So we stop and I leave a $20 deposit to ride tomorrow at 8am.  I get back in the car and tell Mom the time and she said "8am?!?"  Really?  We're up at 6am, what does it matter if its at 8am?  True.

We then made our way to Playa Dantita and the public access where we also meet an official unofficial parking patrolman who will watch our car for a tip while we're away.  We park and make the hike up and over to the beach.  The hike is mostly uphill somehow, but its ALL at the beginning and because it rained yesterday its a little slippery as well.  We make it up and over and settle in under a tree for a refreshing dip in the ocean.  Mom asked what's around the point to the right (looking back at the shore from in the ocean), its Playa Danta, the bigger beach and we can just walk around the peninsula and get back to the parking lot, we don't have to hike back.  She's all over that.  So when we're done, which is only about an hour later, we walk around the peninsula and across the bridge and Jim says to my Mom "Are those the cars?! We don't have to walk over the mountain again?"  I guess he had been psyching himself up for it. lol.  Later at lunch he referenced it as the 'unnecessary mountain'.

We got lots of emails of photos like this today...

And to that we say...too bad suckas!

We decided to have lunch at The Beach House, which is another restaurant we tried last year.  Jim, Maria and I shared a pitcher of Sangria which was delicious but sweet.  It doubled later as an alcohol saturated fruit salad for dessert because of the amount of diced fresh fruit in it.  I shared a steak sandwich with my Mom with a greek salad side, Jim had the sandwich too with fries, Maria had a club sandwich with a twist (it had avocado and a fried egg on it) with fries, Dad had fries supreme (picture nachos supreme but with fries instead of tortillas) with a greek salad and the girls had noodles and a side of fries.  Everything was excellent and Mom commented on how amazing it is that we can have such great, fresh food in a place like Costa Rica and yet at home, in Canada, you're so happy to find a great restaurant with consistently good food.  As we were finishing up the owner came by and said hello and gave us a coupon for 15% off at Tiki's restaurant, so we'll definitely be going back there and on a card she gave us there was a third restaurant named Numu listed so I asked about it as well.  It has international cuisine (Kung Po Chicken and Pad Thai and Sushi) and a pool next to the restaurant where the kids can swim while waiting for lunch!  We'll have to try that one too.  She explained that they had bought Tiki's and The Beach House in March from the previous owners, who were also Canadian.  She and her husband are from Aurora.  We didn't ask them what brought them down here, but if we see her again we will.  Sophie wanted to know about the kitten at the restaurant and she said that it showed up a few months ago and hasn't ever left, it adopted them, she said.

We headed back to the house with a quick stop to the Super Massai, because, you know, we have to stop for groceries daily, and got in the pool as soon as we got home with a sour in hand.  I brought 2 of my Yeti cups down after Mom had mentioned she was packing hers - what an amazing idea - first, they're small, so once you put in ice you really only have room for about 7 oz of liquid which is good when the 7oz contains 3oz of tequila and second, it keeps the sour COLD to the last drop!

We were in the pool and Jim declined a drink.  He's got invisiline trays in his mouth and is supposed to wear them 21 hours a day, except to eat or drink because it can cause staining.  So I was asking him about them and he said that he gets 4 sets of trays that he wears for 2 weeks each and then after 8 weeks he goes back to the Chiropractor to get assessed...huh, I said I hope you get a discount for that!  Clearly he meant Orthodontist.

Google Play wouldn't work today for some reason, so I downloaded Spotify and got it working and got some music going by the pool.

Mom took a photo of the girls to send to Carrie-Lyn and Sophie was again just in her underwear in the pool.  Carrie asked where her shirt was in a text back to Mom..which I thought was odd, why does she need a shirt?  Then Mom talked about her Mom, my Gram, making her start to wear a shirt around at age 8. Weird. 

Jim got burnt today and I was commenting on how it looks especially red since he's wearing white sunglasses, he said "Yes, they're a very aggressive colour"  I'm thinking its the forehead colour that is aggressive, but we can go with the white glasses if you want.  "The problem is in this heat that you just sweat off the sunscreen so quickly...unless you didn't wear any"  No, I didn't wear any..."Ok, well then that's just stupid".

Jim later came out to the pool deck and asked if anyone has made coffee recently..No, no one had, so this was the coffee in the pot from this morning and its still cookin'...she said "maybe it will taste stronger now" which is a dig at Dad because he makes a weak pot of coffee.  I believe her words this morning were "how is it even possible to make coffee this weak?" haha!  Now we know there isn't a an auto shut off so we'll make sure to shut it off in the morning. 

For dinner we had a mish mash.  I made burgers for me, Dad and Jim.  Maria had leftover chicken from the other night and made a salad.  Mom had her leftover fish from Tiki's lunch the other day with her veggies and rice.  The kids had pasta (they like pasta, give me a break).

After dinner Mom asked if I had written Monday's blog..I said today's blog?  No, I'll write it tomorrow - so you still have time to do something funny.  Jim said, yeah, because we aren't going to bed for 6 minutes. lol.  Its 7:56..so really there are 4 minutes! Then we looked around and Mom was gone..that's my cue! (Apparently she came back and I was gone!)

Bed time, another great day in Costa Rica.