Costa Rica

Wow.  Completely spoiled this year.  Following a perfect family vacation to Disneyland/Newport, we left to celebrate York's big 4-0 with our family and friends.  Leaving the kids at home with Kansas City Grandma, we met our famiy and friends in beautiful Costa Rica.  A-Ma-Zing!

We stayed in beautiful villas overlooking the ocean, completely secluded, with personal chefs cooking and cleaning up every meal.  A big thanks to my brother Johnny for this hook-up:).  Two of the days we ventured out on excursions, but the rest of the time was spent relaxing, going to the beach, monkey hunting, playing games, eating, drinking, and being merry.  SO. MUCH. FUN.

At the top of our beautiful resort

As I said, the whole purpose of the trip was to celebrate York turning 40.  After everyone arrived in town, we celebrated with a fabulous dinner, a surprise birthday cake, the good 'ole name game, complete with self-made aluminum foil hats.

The next day we headed out early for a day we will most likely never forget.  Our first excursion to a place called Rincon.  We started out horseback riding, went white water rafting, and ended with crazy, scary ziplining.  I mean, this stuff was intense.  When we were done, we all kept saying, "I can't believe we just did that!".  Here are a few pictures of our crazy experience...

For our second excursion, we went to Nicaragua.  It was...interesting.  I think at the end, we all agreed it was fun, but waaaaay to much driving.  The highlight was definitely taking boats out to Monkey Island, and seeing our first monkeys of the trip.

A beautiful boat ride, and me feeding the cute monkey

Emily celebrated her 26th birthday in Nicaragua.  I'm sure not too many people can say that...nor would they want to;)

And, like I mentioned, the rest of the trip was spent relaxing at the beach and around the resort.  We felt like a bunch of kids playing in the ocean, the waves were amazing!  What a fun, fabulous trip with (most of) our favorite people.  Happy birthday York, and thanks everyone for joining us!

The girls with our cute tour guide Norman

The whole gang!

And of course, a special thanks to my Mom for watching our babies while we were away.  I have to say, although we missed the kids dearly, this break was much needed and definitely appreciated.  I am so thankful to have parents that are so willing to watch our kids and so supportive of us taking time away to spend with each other. Thank you, we appreciate it SO much!

I totally meant to get a good picture of my mom and all the kids before she left...but I forgot.  So here's a pic of her and Mady the day left.