Elsie doesn’t just say water, she says “WAAAAAAA waa” and Costa rica was filled with it …
the beach
the over protective mother …
Dad explaining tides
of course the pool (dad, coaxing her in)
But her favorite Waaaa Waaa was the warm pool
with the jets on, oooo
Sweet innocent little Elsie meet Nicholas (Bam Bam) Johnston.
Finally Elsie and Nicholas are at an age where they actually play together (yes mom, I know its only parallel play, but it seems as if they are interacting to me) and we were pretty excited about the vacation. I find it exciting and terrifying to be with Scott - he is aggressively fearless with nicholas, which leads to mark following in his footsteps with elsie. I prepared for the trip by starting some anti-anxiety meds so I could give Elsie a calm collected front.
When we met in the airport and houston Nicholas instantly said Baby Elsie and she was immediately under his spell. Nicholas would run and Elsie would follow, Nicholas would stop to let her almost catch up and then off again … here are some great shots of the kids in Costa Rica …
At the beach collecting shells, finding crabs and watching the waves
Scott takes niko out to body surf, mark follows with elsie
We all watched Scott as he did some surfing …
Nicholas did some surfing in the pool …
Elsie had more success outside the pool, next step water!
Up and Down in the fountain (notice nicholas smiling and elsie’s shocked look)
Pool time: Nicholas floated a bit in the mini-raft
Elsie decided she wanted to do it too … (hard work)
maybe outside the pool…
ok finally a try in the water
In and out of the bath …
enjoying a jacuzzi bath
Pretending to be sleepy
During the trip nicholas showed elsie how much fun it is to throw things - elsie quickly picked it up. Here they are scheming about what they could throw off the balcony…
When we caught on they fake a cuddle (already smarting us out!)
What a duo!
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Note: you might notice how well matched the chillin’s are in many of these photos … that is no accident. 
We have been having great weather in Costa Rica … we expected some showers and some weather from the hurricane’s but we seemed to have come in at the right time. Our house is on a fantastic (secluded) beach so the first morning we woke up and decided to take a walk down before breakfast.
Here is Elsie walking in the water for her first time …
She was a bit hesitant, but Niko wasn’t
Both kids were extremely impressed with the stamina of the waves … we hear over and over “WOW, here comes another one, here come another one”
Elsie got some courage up to venture into the water herself …
Eventually all of the clothes were wet and Niko did what any smart kid would do, strip down and streak the beach …
After breakfast we spent the rest of the day napping, and playing in the pool. The sound of waves, airconditioning and pool exhaustion make for some loooong naps.
We have a couple of new Costa Rican pals…
We had a great night in San Jose and enjoyed the breakfast at the Hampton Inn before heading to the airport.
We arrived at 12:00 for a 1:30 flight - they told us we couldn’t check in until 1:00 (we were in a tiny cessna to Tambur) and there was talk of a weather delay (outside it was pouring rain). Elsie and Niko pulled out their toys and made the best of it …
First we played with Niko’s bugs …
We chatted with the desk agents …
Niko ran in circles and Elsie tried to catch him…
Niko took a cat nap…
then Scott invented the most fun game ever … try to get past the security ropes.
After much yelling and running we pulled out Finding Neee-mo. This was elsie’s first time to see it and she was in awe (Niko just wished she would be quiet)
There was finally a break in the weather and we jumped on the plane, Elsie took the window seat on dad’s lap so she could get a great view…
We arrived to the airport and were greeted by Hansel our tour guide/house manager. He loaded up the luggage and we headed to the houseo. We ut did ourselves this year … this place is amazing.
Elsie was so tired she headed right for a nap, but Mark jumped into the pool …
the house is amazing (love the bed complete with towel sculpture!)
So we made it to Casa Pacifico … now we are ready to relax.
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P.S. I am actually only on a dial-up modem, so my post schedule and photos may be a bit delayed. We also found out that our Mac Laptops don’t even have a modem, so I am stuck using the house PC which makes uploading photos extremely slow and painful …
Well we are off for our annual tropical anniversary vacation with the Johnstons! This year we headed to Costa Rica for a week in Tambor. We often use Luxury Link to search our locations we want to travel to and this year we tried out the luxury link auction - success! (you know mark, just like Ebay he watches the auction and bids at the last possible time!).
We will be enjoying Casa Pacifico in Tango Mar for the week!
Yesterday we headed out to the airport with what we considered to be a light load (we would soon find out that scott and julie packed everything into just one suitcase making us again look like overpackers!). We flew to Houston Texas where we met with great excitement Niko (cuco), Julie (JuJu) and Scott (cott). Niko immediately gave us hugs and kisses and shared his bugs with “baby elsie”.
We all boarded the flight to San Jose (funny johnstons were able to fly from San Jose, CA to San Jose, CR!) sitting next to each other. (Good Job Mark and Julie!). The flight was great - we had a nap, some snacks, videos, dad had a margarita, mom had some wine - by the way Continental was amazing, we had snacks and dinner provided on the flights!. Just as we started our descent, we got some news that there was fog in San Jose, we would hold for a bit and if it didn’t clear we would need to divert to Nicaragua for more fuel. A few minutes later the pilot said it looked clear and we went in for a landing … just as I could see the blue lights on the run way … acceleration and we aborted the landing. Back up to the holding pattern. Twenty minutes later we tried again and as we came through the thick fog, the pilot went for it … the ground seemed to come a bit earlier than he expected and he slammed on the breaks (I squeezed Elsie, stomach in my throat and mark reached over to me and said breath!) - the plane broke into applause!! We were here!
We entered the terminal to find a maze of people standing in line for immigration - with two tired and somewhat irritable kids, the line seemed daunting. This was the disneyland line from hell … Niko kept saying “all the people, all the people”. After about 15 minutes in line a Costa Rican man came up to us and escorted us to another area. Once we gathered with a few other people, he escorted us to the front of immigration (past the loooong maze) to the special needs line - along the way he grabbed any families with small children. First Experience in Costa Rica SUCCESS! In the end it benefited all - as both kids were on the brink of meltdowns.
We had a van waiting to shuttle us to the Hampton Inn where Julie had secured us rooms with cribs. We were off to bed! This morning we take a small plane over to Tambor where we can settle in for the week (and you will be overloaded with Costa Rica photos!
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Interesting notes: We are in the Mountain Time zone and like clockwork Elsie slept until 7:00 am, we woke up turned on the TV and it has our Denver News Channel. I am writing this while elsie takes her re-rack (morning nap).
