Costa Rica, Happy 10 Years Eric and Katie

For our ten year anniversary Eric took me to Costa Rica for a week in June. We had the trip of a lifetime and had such a memorable time. My sisters were fabulous and met us in Houston at my Mom's house and watched our kids so we could go. They had a great time with their cousins and grandma's and grandpa. Eric's parents would come in the evenings after work and pick up the kids and take them to their house to swim or take them out to eat. Our kids really had a good time. I know they missed us, but they were well taken care of.

So we landed in Liberia, Costa Rica and rented a car (four-wheel drive, which we needed with the dirt roads that were very bumpy) And we drove for about 3 1/2 hours to the East and stayed at the base of the Arenal Volcano. It is an active volcano!

Costa Rica is in the rain forest, so this is what most of our drive looked like.

We stopped at a look out when we were almost to La Fortuna and took a picture. This is a huge man made lake, that was at the base of the Arenal Volcano.

We love food, and really wanted to try out the local spots while we were there. We found this little cafe off the side of the road on our drive called Cafe Macadamia and grabbed lunch. It was a little cafe with a simple kitchen with little ladies just cooking away. It was one of the yummiest sandwiches I've ever had. The guava mango smoothie made it taste even better.

Plantain Chips are a Costa Rican favorite that we had with most every meal. They are so yummy. Almost like a potato chip, but thicker and a little sweeter.

This was a shot of our room...

This was Eric's favorite part of our room... it had it's own private outdoor shower. He showered in it everyday, sometimes twice a day because he loved it so much. I stuck to the indoor shower with the rain faucet, I love those. And I love not having to think of bugs crawling on me while I'm showering. ...(in the end, surprisingly, we didn't see too many bugs, which I thought was great, since we were in the middle of the rain forest.)

This was one side our our porch. It was totally enclosed with all the plants/ nature

This was the other side of the porch... my favorite.. and this outdoor bathtub, I did use. It was so fun to take a bath and hear the noises of the rain forest all around me.

This was the view from our porch... the Arenal Volcano. We would hear a thunder noise, and it wasn't a storm, it was the volcano, and then we'd sometimes see a plume of smoke.

Eric enjoying the welcome drink outside the lobby.

The birds outside the lobby... were always talking and squawking.

I loved all the beautiful flowers and plants that were everywhere! I know I was told the name of this, but I forget now.

This was the little pathway that led down into a secluded hot tub with rain forest all around you. The spa and gym were just above this walkway, so as you're running on the treadmill you look out into dense rain forest. And as we were getting massages... most spas have the recorded soothing noises, here they just had open spaces so you could hear the water, monkeys, birds and rain forest noises. It was so relaxing to say the least.

UT Open Swim Meet

Taylor has been swimming on Abilene's Tidal Wave Swim Team this summer and has been doing really well. She can practice everyday of the week, or just two days a week. The flexibility is great and she seems to really enjoy it. She is quite the fish and has really learned the butterfly and breast stroke this summer. She had already mastered the freestyle and backstroke previously and really loves those also. Fourth of July weekend we drove to Austin for her swim meet at the UT pool. It is a huge pool! It's an Olympic Size Pool, in fact Olympians train in it everyday! All of her races were 50 meters, meaning one length of the pool. The pool she trains in here in Abilene is only 25 yards. So all four of her races were more than double of what she is used to.

This pool was huge- 50meters (the closer pool) and then the diving well is another 25meters.

Kind of intimidating for a 7 year old.

This is Taylor and her coach, Amy. She's getting warmed up.

Kind of cool to see your name up on the huge screen!

Taylor is in the middle lane, winning!!

Only athletes and coaches were allowed down on deck, so we had to watch from above. This is Tay and her friend after the race.

It was a long weekend for the younger kids...

We were happy when they both were able to take a nap. Brent was so tired, he crashed in the bleacher seats.

Peyton loves to wear cap and goggles. When ever she finds them around, she runs to me and wants me to put them on her! Pretty cute!

If you look closely, you can see some Olympians Names on the record board: Micheal Phelps, Ian Crocker, Aaron Persol... pretty cool to say you swam in the same pool as some famous Olympians. I was a little jealous I have to say.