Jodie and Bill

We arrived here just fine via Lacsa Airlines. We were a little
worried because we'd never heard of the airline and thought there
might be goats in the aisles, but lo and behold, they had an official
sign at JFK! They are CR's national airline. It was such a quick and
easy flight. Four and a half hours in the air. The travel day was so
much easier than we had anticipated. I think it helped that we tried
to think five steps ahead of the babies at all times and kept them
entertained and comfortable. The only hard part was getting Adam to
nap on the plane. He's a creature of habit and likes to nap in a bed.
He finally zonked out as we were taxiing INTO our gate.

Laura and Alex met us at the airport, drove with our shuttle to Dollar
Rent A Car, just outside of the airport and then Laura stayed in our
car with us all the way to the hotel. We stopped at a roadside fruit
stand and bought some mangos and a watermelon.

We are very happy with our hotel. It's small and located at a quiet
end of the beach. It's strategically placed to catch a perfect sunset every night - at least at this time of the year. The pool is perfect for A&L with three pools in one; a shallow kiddie pool, a beach entry and a not-very-deep regular pool. It's quite huge and not very crowded.

So far we've played on the beach a lot. A&L love the black sand, but
DON'T like the surf to creep up on them at all. They want to play in
the sand, but too keep the surf where they can see it and get out of
the way before it sneaks up on them and touches their feet.

We've also spent a lot of time in the pool and they, especially Leah,
is really getting the hang of balancing in the water with her
lifejacket on. Her favorite activity is to bob around the pool
collecting leaves. Of course, she throws them all back in the pool as we leave for the day, so they'll be there to collect tomorrow. Adam
is getting much more comfortable, too. He practices blowing into the
water with his mouth so he won't swallow any uninvited pool water. A
very good skill.

Laura's husband Alex has turned out to be a great guy! So considerate
and sweet to us. Adam and Leah just think he's great. You can tell he
has two kids - he's very comfortable goofing around with them.

Bill has already been on a zip line ride through the jungle. I go
tomorrow with Laura. Alex took a picture of him NOTE: CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE!

We spent Sunday at a resort called Punta Leone which is an older
resort here on the beach with a pool and lots of things to do. There
was a 'casa' (a house-like structure) in the middle of the pool which Adam and Leah had a great time exploring. It's funny to listen to Leah ask for what she wants; 'babysuit!' when she wants to swim for example.

Bill, Adam and Leah are fine as can be and having a fantastic time. Adam and Leah adapt so easily to a new environment. Our room is perfect, too. It's around 750 sq ft with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a full kitchen. It's an end unit, so it's quiet and has spectacular views of the water and beach. We have a green and orange iguana living in the tree outside our room and he scrambles up and down the tree after bugs much to our delight. We've seen an amazing number of butterflies, iguanas, hummingbirds! and the most beautiful blue and yellow/black birds on the beach and flying between the trees. The garden at the hotel is beautiful with tropical plants and flowers everywhere.

The weather has been just perfect, too. Hot, but not too
uncomfortable providing you dress very lightly. The trick is to stay
out of the heat at around 2 in the afternoon. Adam and Leah have been
waking up at 5:30 am and taking a long midday nap. They've been
sleeping like, well, babies, right through the night.

The environment around here is so interesting and worth a much longer
conversation. It is clearly a 'second world' country, much like
Turkey is, but the development boom catering to wealthy westerners is
obvious and there is a lot of space to develop. I've never seen
anything like the focus on building condos, hotels and houses for
westerners. I can see why Laura thinks it's a bit of a goldrush and
that she can make some money here. She's already speculated on a
couple of small properties that have risen quite a bit in value in
just the three years she's been here.

Well, I'm only allowed 20 minutes at a time on the hotel computer, so
I'll try to write again before we leave.