Pura Vida! - Part 1

This summer was the Wegner Family vacation that we do every two years.  For this vacation we were all very excited about going to Costa Rica!  We stayed at a beach resort in Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste (west coast).  

This vacation was perfect.  Having three little ones makes it difficult to go out and do a whole lot of activities, but it was perfectly fine.  We ended up doing a couple big excursions, then spent the rest of the time relaxing, enjoying the beach/pool, snorkeling, etc.  Jeff and I fell in love with Costa Rica instantly.  We already started planning our next trip :)  We fell in love with the culture, the food was delicious, cool wildlife, and beautiful scenery!  

** "Pura Vida!" is like Costa Rica's motto and describes their way of life and culture perfectly.  It's pretty much like an "it's all good," "no worries" laid back type of attitude.  There is no rush or sense of being "on time."  The people are just very friendly and laid back.  It's great :)**  

Palo Verde River Cruise:

On the boat with our awesome tour guide Mark

Kristin and I

Colson thought it was pretty fun to drive the boat :)

Brielle got to drive too!

We saw bats...

Lots of birds...

And lots of Iguanas

A beautiful Scarlet Macaw!

The first couple hours were less eventful... I think we were all starting to feel a bit disappointed, because after what we really wanted was a... Crocodile!! 

Finally... We got exactly what we wanted.  And even better than we were hoping!

Not only did we see a wild crocodile, we got up close and personal!!

Our boat driver was crazy!  We finally found this big boy and he lured him over by slapping the water and dangling a piece of trash in front of its face! 

It was an amazing experience that these pictures don't do justice... A wild crocodile was literally inches from us!  Right at the edge of the boat.  It was funny cause I was mostly watching through my camera snapping away, and then I would put down my camera and realize how close he truly was!  Ha ha.  Pretty darn awesome experience.

The croc was focused and determined to catch that piece of garbage (or maybe our drivers hand ha) and spent the next 15 to 20 minutes lunging up out of the water trying to get his target!  It was pretty crazy to watch!

Look at those teeth!

Bye Bye Croc!

 On our way home we stopped for some pictures

And enjoyed watching a bunch of Howler monkeys in the trees above us!  We also stopped at a restaurant and had a very delicious, authentic meal.  Yum.

Surf's Up

I've been procrastinating updating my blog due to the massive amounts of pictures that are waiting for me to sort through, edit, and narrow down the blog worthy ones.... such a daunting task... so anyway here I am, catching up.  

Um, p.s. Where in the world did August go?!?  Sheesh it's already September!!

Ok so my bro-in-law's birthday was a few weeks ago and my sister's present to him was going surfing at the flow-rider in Orem.  The second surprise was that our whole family was going to be there as well! (well, minus Jeff... :( we were all very disappointed that he got called into work last minute and couldn't come...)

Us ladies (and nieces/nephew) had a great time watching the boys attempting to surf/bodysurf!  Ha ha!  It was quite entertaining.  Mike was the only one who had been once before, but it was a first time for everyone else (dad, Matt, Danny, & Chris).  We were quite impressed at how well they all did. There were lots of great biffs and spills at first but everyone picked it up pretty quick.

So pretty much, here are a bunch of pictures.  Enjoy!

 Danny - Birthday Boy

 Dad body surfing

 Mike (the pro)

Dad trying out the surfing!

 Taya, Brynlee, and Lexie.  The cutest girls I know :)

 Danny & Chris

 Matt impressed us all with his surfing skills!

 Chris surfing

 And some "belly-rolls" (no he's not crashing)

 Caught some air!  

And my personal favorites... the epic crashing pictures:

 Ouch!

Last of all... Battle Wounds!

Twinkle, Twinkle Little (Shooting) Star

 With the truck back in Utah and mostly working... we've finally, FINALLY been able to satisfy our Off-roading cravings.  Ahhh.. it felt so good to get out exploring the beauty that is right in our back yard!!

 We explored Farmington Canyon for the first time and took Skyline Dr. all the way to Bountiful.  We've tried this road before (from the Bountiful end) and got less than half way before we ran into a "road closed" sign. 

 About a week later we ventured back up Farmington Canyon and found a perfect camping spot to sleep out under the stars (in the back of the truck) for the meteor shower.  We were a little concerned, with all the smoke and clouds, that we wouldn't even be able to see any, but we decided to try it out anyway.

It wasn't quite as good at first, but we both ended up waking up around 2 am and watched the sky for another hour and a half or so.  The sky had finally cleared up and we saw SO many!  Some Huge ones as well! 

It was perfection. 

   

Our beloved "Turbo"... and so much sexier without the shell on :)

One Year Older...

...and Wiser Too!  Well.... that's debatable :)

Jeff had his 27th birthday a couple weeks ago and luckily he had the day off so we could celebrate!

His actual present is soon to come and I felt bad that he didn't have anything to open on his birthday so I wrapped up clues about the birthday activities I had planned for the night.

 Swedish Fish = Aquarium (something he's been begging to do for months now)

 Canned Chili = Dinner ha.... at Chili's!

 The last one was quite the stretch... hence the confused look on his face.

Hot Tomales = Bowling....? 

(I put a picture of a bowling ball on there... tomales are kind of like pins if you stand them up...?  yeah, told you it was a stretch ha)

We used our Pass of All Passes for the first time and both had quite the lucky night!  Yeah, we both totally set new records.  Well.. actually I have no clue what my "record" was ha... but we were on FIRE! 

(hey there's a connection - hot tomales...Fire.. get it? :)

 Homemade Oreo Ice Cream pie for dessert ...after already eating our very rich and very free fh'zookie dessert at Chili's... don't judge.  Can't turn down free :)

 Getting tired of pictures he he... but I had to get one with the traditional family gift bag!  Graduating Class of 2000 ha.  It makes an appearance at pretty much every birthday :)

And last but not least Goldfish Mac & Cheese.  I have no clue where my Mom found these, but talk about PERFECT for this boy!  These must've been made just for Jeff :)