Are you Ready for........Some Football?!?

Notre Dame Football opens up today. You better believe that it is on our agenda to watch.  You better believe that Ryan will be sporting some type of ND apparel today. 

In honor of Opening Day of Notre Dame football, I completed a "Top Ten" list of how life changes around our house once the season begins....

Go Irish!!!  As Notre Dame's saying goes..."Play Like a Champion Today!"

Just a Little Laugh

I know this picture will someday haunt Quinn and embarrass her beyond belief, 

but isn't that what moms are for?!?

That "beautiful" dress looking thing is a towel wrap that Quinn picked out from the store herself.  She has found a new store that she LOVES - Justice - that is all things girly.  She sweet talked her Nana into getting it for her!  The glasses are Nana's too - just trying them out for size!

What a turkey!!

Funny Story...

Ryan and I thoughtfully picked out some souvenirs for the girls when we were on our trip to Costa Rica.  We always get them a key chain for their key chain collection.  We scoured several and settled on this one...

We also saw these colorful, glittery porcelain lizards in one of the shops.  They had the girls' name all over them.  Colorful and glittery.  What better words define them?

The girls have been into ankle bracelets lately, after seeing Livy next door wearing them.  So we picked out some handmade beaded ankle bracelets.

And who can go to a location without buying the standard fare t-shirt?

Inadvertently we ran across these little packs of gum at the Super Samara grocery store. Apparently this is how they sell their gum.  Sullivan is in LOVE with gum, so we picked up a couple of packets for Quinn and Sullivan.

And lastly, we brought them back a little of the Costa Rican money - called colones.  We wanted to show them how different their money system is than ours.  (1,000 colones equally approximately $2.00)

So after we brought back far more souvenirs than we probably should have, of which the girls were extremely appreciative of, we asked them which one they liked the best.

Quinn liked the lizard the best, which was not too shocking to either of us.  All things girly.  Sullivan? .... the gum!  That probably should not have surprised me either, but it did.  Something that I could have nearly bought in my own backyard ended up being her favorite.  Who needed to travel those 5,000 miles anyway?!!

2nd Grade...

Today was the first day of school - the day that Quinn officially became a second grader.  

Quinn has been looking forward to school for some time now - so she was ecstatic this morning that this day finally arrived.  Quinn got ready for school - dressed in her shnazzy new outfit - and took part in our annual picture taking tradition.

Quinn with her equally proud sister!

And proud parents...

With her new backpack...

As a family, we were all able to take Quinn to school for her first day.  Sullivan was sooo excited to drop her off, play on the playground equipment before school and experience what this "school thing" is all about.

After the flag ceremony, we lined Quinn up outside her classroom door.  In year's past, we have been able to walk her into the classroom and get her settled in.  This year however, it appears as though we have reached "that age" where we don't do that anymore.  Silly me for thinking that tradition would continue for years to come.  So we gave Quinn one last hug and kiss and sent her on her way.

The first day is always so bitter sweet for me.  I love that Quinn loves school and wants to be there.  It makes it so easy to let her go.  But despite how many times I've dropped her off on her first day, I can't help but think, "There goes my baby...into the arms of someone I don't even know. I am putting all my trust in her to embrace Quinn for who she is, love her and nurture her like I do, and treat her well.  If she learns nothing this school year, I hope Quinn feels loved and accepted."  I must admit though, no tears were shed today (by me of course)!

We met her teacher, Mrs. Hayzlett, at Open House this past week and Quinn instantly fell for her.  We did too.  She seems as though she will be a great teacher and we are looking forward to a great year!

End of the Summer...

With the start of the school year tomorrow, it makes me reflect back on this summer.  The summer has been a good one.  It's been filled with trips to the pool (although not as many as we had hoped - thanks weather!), vacations with friends, time with family, and lazily waking up.  While all those things have been all I've asked for and more for this summer, it leaves me with one last thought...

That's right, my to-do list is left somewhat uncompleted.  Every year I have high ambitions and hopes to accomplish a great amount of things around our house.  And every year I set myself up for failure.  

Oh well. At least I can say that I made great memories and spent the time with the ones that meant the most to me! Happy start to the school year!

Costa Rica: More Adventures...

More adventures outside of the zip-lining and boat ride took place in Costa Rica.  

One day we decided that we wanted to track down some local fresh fish and grill out for an evening's meal.  Finding fresh fish proved to be a bit more challenging than we had originally thought, but after some help from the local tourist office (who was fabulous!), we found the signs for the local fish monger. 

Following the signs led us here...

This is the local fish monger's house, who sells the fish that he caught on that morning's fishing excursion.  Abatha and I waited in the car while Ryan and Scott tried to finagle the sale of some fish.  With much broken language and a handful of gestures and signs, the boys managed to score some red snapper, which the monger politely filleted for them in his garage. 

Enjoying our fish dinner (minus me - who settled on some chicken instead)....

I am told that it was the best fish that the three of them had ever had.  I guess I'll have to take their word for it!

Adventures took form in the simplest ways... just driving down the street looking for a restaurant or taking in the sights of the village was an adventure.  The signage in this village was poor at best, so finding the restaurants proved MORE than difficult at times.  Sometimes we had to abandon our original plan for a restaurant selection simply because we couldn't find it.  And it wasn't because the town was too big.

Scott looking for a restaurant on the map while the rest of us waited in the car...

Driving down the narrow roads meant you had to dodge people riding their bikes, people walking on the shoulder of the road, or swerve to miss stray dogs.  At one point we nearly hit some horses that apparently run loose in the streets as well, as evidenced by this very unfocused picture.

One day we strolled down the road to Playa Carillo - dubbed one of the "must see" beaches in the world.  As it turned out, it was a very beautiful beach.  Abatha and I spent the time sitting out in the sun in beach chairs until we got to hot to take it.  Then we cooled off in the ocean and repeated the above said behavior.  

We couldn't get the boys to spend more than 2 minutes on the beach with us.  They quickly took to the boogie boards that we found at our house and tried their hand at boogie boarding.  Here they are with their stylish boards....

Might I just add... they were the only ones in the ocean with Styrofoam boards and the only ones that had a design on their boards - not to mention an obnoxious design. Could the locals tell we were tourists?!

We enjoyed some fabulous food at local restaurants and enjoyed the local cervezas (beer) - Imperial.  

At the sushi bar... the boys were in heaven!  Again a food I didn't partake in.  Seeing a pattern?

The trip to Costa Rica was in itself a fabulous vacation.  It was the perfect mix of relaxation, soaking in the sun, and experiencing a new culture and environment. The best part, however, had nothing to do with the scenery or the sun.  It had everything to do with creating memories that will last a lifetime with our best friends, Scott and Abatha.  I don't know that there are too many people out there that can say they have as close of friends as them despite the distance that separates us.  Until the next time we vacation together, we will have to hold dear the adventures we took, the laughs we made, and the memories we created. 

Getting back into the groove of "normalcy" is slowly setting in... still wishing we had one more day sitting by the pool, watching the whales in the ocean and the monkeys in the trees.

Costa Rica...

The place we called home while in Costa Rica was in the small town (if you can call it that) of Samara in the Provence of Guanacaste.  It's population is roughly 1,500 people.  It is a village that is a couple of blocks long and home to local restaurants, shops, small supermarkets, and a very beautiful stretch of the Pacific coast beach.  You most definitely were not going to find any Burger Kings or Pizza Huts or Walmarts in this town.

Here is a picture of "Main Street" and some of the shops that you would find.

One of the restaurants we went to while in Samara - Coco's.

A souvenir shop...

One of the larger grocery stores... nothing near that of Walmarts of HyVee's.

One adventure that the four of us decided do was to go zip-lining through the rain forest while in Costa Rica.  After all, what better way to see the rain forest than from above?  I have to admit going into it, I was a little hesitant.  I had done it in Hawaii and had a blast, but I most definitely have a fear of heights, and zip lining puts me a little outside my comfort zone.  At least I had Ab, who I believe shared the same feelings.

Before zip-lining - all harnessed up.

A few pictures of us zip-lining... it was a lot of fun!

Once we had completed all 12 zip lines, we stopped at the platform attached to a large tree.  We looked around and saw no more cables getting us down from the tree.  One lady on the adventure with us jokingly said, "What are we going to do - jump down?"  To which the tour guides said, "Yeah, kinda."

It was then that we had to repel (or in other words, free fall) from the tree 55 feet up.  We were guided down by the tour guides who controlled how fast we went.  Let's just say they were not that kind to us.  At a free fall speed, we zoomed down the tree one at a time in seconds flat.  Yikes!!  I don't care to ever repel/free fall like that again - like EVER!

But all in all - a good time and definitely worth doing if you ever have the chance!  The sights from the tree tops and along the zip course were some of the best we could have asked for.  You could see the rain forest, the ocean and everything in between.

We also took a Sunset/Dolphin/Snorkeling Boat Tour.  I had been on a few boat tours before so I had envisioned in my mind what the boat was going to look like and what the tour entailed.  Boy was I wrong!!

I had to resort to a internet photo of a boat similar to ours, as I forgot to get a picture before our tour.  Ab and I were both too seasick to even care about getting a picture when we got off.  :) So this will have to do to relive the memories!

As our boat tour began... everyone is still happy!

The dear sweet boat captain, who clearly displayed a language barrier with us Americans, was able to find a family of dolphins for us and a sea turtle (no picture).

When looking for and finding the dolphins, the nice man turned off his engine.  This caused our boat to really rock and roll from side to side from all the swells of the waves.  After about ten minutes into the 2 hour tour, I was green in the face despite having taken Dramamine before the trip. But lucky for me, I had one hour and fifty minutes to go!

While sitting there on that boat rocking from side to side, I couldn't help but notice the life jackets that were not required for us to wear.  They were neatly and securely fastened to the front of the boat.  If that boat would have tipped, there wasn't a chance in heaven that any of us were getting a life jacket.  Maybe not our smartest move in hindsight!

Note the pretty life jackets...

After being out to sea for quite some time, Scott asked to captain if they (Ryan and Scott) could go snorkeling, to which our dear, sweet captain responded to him.  None of us are quite sure even to this day what he said, but the only word that we caught was "whale."  So we are concluding that either #1: he wanted to look for a whale out in the ocean or #2:  said, "Heck no, you will get eaten by a whale in these waters."  We proceeded to search for a whale for the next 20 minutes with no luck whatsoever.

Finally, he let the boys get out and snorkel. But with the waves as choppy as they were and with Ab and I feeling sick, the snorkeling was short lived.

Despite being seasick by this tour, the scenery and the ocean life we saw were incredible.  

I am thankful that we did it, but not certain that I will be taking a tour on that small of a boat again.  The free fall from the zip line tour wasn't looking so bad after all!

One more post of a few more adventures to come...!