travel
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The Food in Costa Rica
When we visit a country, we like to eat the local food. So as soon as we arrived to Costa Rica, we knew we want to eat local food for lunch. As we left the car rental place, we asked for a recommendation to a local inexpensive restaurant and we were direct to a local Soda place nearby. In Costa Rica, small restaurants are called Soda and this one was just few minutes away. The one thing you will notice in our typical Costa Rican meals is the common theme of rice and beans. At this Soda, fruit juice was included so we got to taste guava juice, tamarind juice…
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San Jose to Quepos, Costa Rica: Advantages of Renting a Car
Welcome to the first of many posts sharing my 2oth anniversary trip to Costa Rica with my husband! I figured I would write these post kind of like a journal sharing some travel tips along the way. We were able to use Delta Sky miles for this trip (just paying fees and taxes) and spent 2 nights in a Hilton Hotel in San Jose (using hotel points which included free breakfast and free happy hour). Saving money in these ways, we were able to spend a little more than our usual for 2 nights at Tulemar Resort which was still not crazy expensive (about $230 for our room which had…
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What to Wear to Costa Rica
How do you decide what to wear to Costa Rica? The first thing I did was look at the forecast which predicted 90%+ chance of rain every day since it is the end of the rainy season at the beginning of October. It turned out we didn’t see much rain but we did get good use of our rain jackets on our ATV ride where it rained for some of the way, the night jungle tour (it rained a good 10 minutes) and during our visit to La Paz Waterfalls and Gardens where it also rained and the spray of the waterfalls could get you pretty wet. The second thing…
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Weekend In Jacksonville
Two weekends ago, we spent the weekend in Jacksonville, Florida. My brother was having his church wedding and reception and while we didn’t want to miss the occasion we decided to do the trip in two days so as not to miss school nor work. It is a 6 hour drive one way and leaving early on Saturday to get there for their afternoon wedding worked out well. I really enjoyed the opportunity to dress up and cannot wait to see all of the pictures! The wedding party was supposed to wear dusty rose and we each got to chose our dresses. After several really funny attempts, I came upon…
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Atlanta Botanical Gardens: My Walking Tour
I really enjoyed taking pictures on our last visit to the Atlanta Botanical gardens so today I am sharing some of our favorites from our own little walking tour. We have visited enough times that we do not feel the need to visit each nook and knowing we have a membership allows us to not feel any rush while we are there. Architecture This large building houses the rainforest sections, the desert section as well as the orchid house. There are also a couple more areas in here including an educational wing. It is nice to have an area that is protected against the elements if it is hot or…
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Atlanta Botanical Gardens: Orchid House
This past Sunday, my family and I visited the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I took so many pictures I decided to dedicate several blog posts to our visits. Today, I am focusing on the orchid house since they were one of my favorites and many were in bloom. I shared another visit earlier this year when the origami exhibit was about to start. Here is that post of you want to admire the large and small beautiful sculptures, another post explores some of my favorite spots while this post focuses on some of the plants. The different seasons display different flowers and beauty as well as exhibits so I did purchase a…
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Butterflies and Flowers
One of my goals this years has been to delight in the little things and to find contentment in moments in my day. One of the ways to do that has been to sit outside with my coffee in the morning and to plant some zinnias and sunflowers near the house and the patio. These have brought the butterflies even if a little later in the season than usual. Last week, I took a few moments to take some snapshots. When I plant something, it has to be resilient and need little care. Zinnias are easy to plant, come up fairly quickly and come in a variety of colors. My…
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Daily Exercise: A Walk with a View
I have been working on making sure I move everyday now that the boys are in school and I have extra time and no excuses to not exercise. I like to make sure to do a variety of activities from running and walking, doing a workout on my rebounder (trampoline) or doing a quick 5 to 10 minute workout on you tube. I often times do a combination of these. I am also incorporating some bike riding to some weeks. On this day, I decided a walk at a local trail would be fun as it was overcast and not overly hot and the views are always pretty. The walk…
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Impromptu Float Down the River
This past weekend, my Goddaughter came for a visit. I have seen her grown from a cute little baby to now a beautiful young woman who will get married in 6 months! On Saturday, we decided to go float down the river. I usually am a planner but try to be more spontaneous and when my husband made the suggestion, we decided to give it ago despite threats of rain. It was an overcast day not too hot so it would make the float more pleasant. Since it was imprompu, we didn’t really think it through and had to go back to the house for our river sticks and paddles,…
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Coolidge Park, Chattanooga
When I met up my friend Rachel (My Faux French Girl) in Chattanooga at the end of July, I couldn’t believe I had never taken the time to go to Coolidge Park while visiting the city. We met up and park (for a very low $2) on the street and let the boys enjoy the fountains before eating a picnic lunch. My boys, ages 4, 8, and 11 had a ball! They didn’t want to come out of the fountains and asked to come back when possible. I am not sure we will find the time before the fountains close for fall but if nothing else we will come back…