Hello Lovelies! Sorry for the delay in getting the second part out. I've recently picked up more hours babysitting and I'm still getting used to my new chaotic schedule. It's challenging to watch a nearly 2 year old from 8pm-6am (this being their "day" hours so no sleeping) and still get my kids dressed, to school, sleep, and up again before they are out. But I can't complain, I'm extremely grateful for the extra money plus the little girl is such a cutie.

Anyhoo, upon waking on our second day in Costa Rica we tried to sit down and map out all the things we really wanted to see while we were there. This lodge is nested right in a waterfall and nature reserve. Members get a free unlimited pass to the park. You could spend your whole time here and never actually need to leave the area. There is so much to do. In the photos above, the first is right next to a tiki lounge. We enjoyed a fruity mixed drink there nearly every day. The Costa Rican colada was my favorite! It was like a pina colada but with coffee in it! You can also swim in the water. It has both a heated and cool section. The second photo on the right is where you can also swim or fish for trout. Your trout can then be cooked for you over at the tiki lounge.


The park offers many hands on activities for guests to participate in. One of them is releasing new butterflies. This is done daily! How cool is that?! I thought the Blue Morpho was the most beautiful butterfly there, it's also the most common. You can see this large beauty flying all over the place. It was extremely hot and muggy in the butterfly garden so definitely overlook how sweaty I am! Jedidiah was more eager to see other things. This was purely for me but needless to say I don't like being that hot so we didn't stay any longer than the release.


Next we fed the toucans. I can't tell you enough how excited I was to do this! I may or may not have pushed myself through a group of kids just to be first to feed them. We had so much fun feeding them we went back the next day. They're messy birds and they did get my clothes dirty. I was amused by how picky they are, fishing through the mango to get to the avocado first. They seemed to like that best.



While most of the second day was spent wandering around the reserve, we did manage to find some enchanting trails. We didn't have a map when we came across our first trail and had paused with concern that we might get lost. But we threw caution into the wind and soon learned that all the trails eventually lead into each other. These paths are all stone paved and completely drenched in moss. Since we were the only people on the trails at the time I naturally had to take a quick outfit shoot. LOL! This place is the perfect backdrop for outfits! Of course I might by biased because I love the the outdoors, moss, and the color green.


 Well that's all for this post! I'll be sharing one more later this week with the remaining photos from our anniversary adventure!

Outfit:
Necklace: Happiness Boutique
Shirt: Forever 21
Skirt: Target
Shoes: Rue 21

Take Care & Enjoy,
♥ Heather

Hello Lovelies! I recently celebrated my anniversary with my wonderful husband in Costa Rica. Like most of the things in our adventurous life, this was completely unplanned. We are not people who save dates or book things months in advance. Flying free, ie flying stand-by doesn't allow that even if we wanted to. To be perfectly honest I like that about our lives. Nothing concrete, flexible. I think that might be the Irish gypsy in me talking. The wanderlust is strong in this gal. I do however love checklists. Oh how I love writing out lists and checking things off! Ok back to our anniversary. We had been going rounds and rounds as to what to do this year. Last year we went to Portland. It was wonderful seeing the foggy ocean, busy city, and going to Astoria... I loved the movie Goonies growing up. But this year I've been really cold and I knew I NEEDED to be somewhere warm. Jedidiah had been hinting around to going somewhere warm for ages. I'm not usually a warm climate person, I don't care for being hot and maybe it's because I grew up around beaches, I don't care for the beach either (Thankfully Jedidiah doesn't either). I know I'm completely crazy! I threw around the idea to Jed that maybe we could go to Punta Canta. We would look things up, then would change our mind. I kept thinking maybe we will just save money and stay home this year... I really didn't want that but it was a week till the time Jed had taken time off and nothing was planned. Three days before we were set to do something I came across a Groupon for an enchanting place in Costa Rica. We immediately did a ton of research. It was perfect, too perfect! We decided to sleep on it. The next day I started talking Jed out of it, in truth I hate flying and that reality kicked in. But he said too late its done! We are going to Costa Rica!



A part of me panicked but a part of me was also excited and relieved that Jedidiah had made the decision for me. I never would have dreamed I'd be going to such an amazing place but it was actually happening. We lucked out and flew first class the last stretch of the flight and arrived around 11am. Customs was a breeze! I was pretty drowsy by the time we got our rental and starting driving so I slept through most of it. That's compliments to the many mixed drinks I had on the plane. Don't judge, I'm terrified of flying! When we arrived I started to feel more refreshed and alive. We were warmly greeted by the staff and given gifts! I cannot express enough how hospitable everyone was there. They took our bags and drove us over to our suite.


A young man showed us inside and shared a little about the room, then left. It took everything in me to keep from dropping my jaw to the floor. WOW! This place is everything! You see hotel photos and often they are not what you ultimately end up with. I hate saying it but I'm prissy when it comes to where I sleep. I have a horrible phobia of bed bugs! They're creepy people! This place far exceeded anything I have stayed in, including the Us and Canada. The room was over 800sq. It was their king deluxe suite and I completely recommend it over the standard, there is a huge difference.


The attention to detail and making it personable to you as a guest is astounding! From the moment you enter the room with your last name on the entrance, to the bathroom, to the welcome note printed just for you and why you came, ahhh so impressed. But I suppose you could argue I'm pretty easily amused. This bathroom, let me tell you it is hard to leave it! We had to remind ourselves every day that there is so much to do, we can't hide just in here... even though you totally could! It's huge, vaulted ceilings, live greenery everywhere, skylights, and waterfalls! Waterfalls! (Insert surprised emoji!!)


There were two waterfalls with mood lighting for at night.Next to the bath there was also an open shower that had another waterfall option. On both sides of the bath there were large stones with padded mats that you could lay on and look up at the greenery. A jungle within a jungle!


There was also a private shower that could easily fit four people in it... not that you would but in case you were wondering. The shower is the open door to the left. I'm really into being eco conscious whenever possible and this place has bits of that everywhere. Even a recycle bin! <<< See I'm easily amused! Although Jedidiah found it amusing that they shared info about water conservation and to consider it when you brushed your teeth when the room had two large spa bathes and two showers. HA!


The view from our private balcony was spectacular! It overlooked the whole nature reserve. This place is not quiet. There are no rolling ocean sounds here. Instead, it is full of chatter with the sounds of squawking toucans, humming birds buzzing by every few seconds, trees rustling, it was hypnotic. As such we slept with the screen door open every night.


I'll share more about our outings and adventures next time in Costa Rica: Part 2!

I've have so many people ask about our trip and different parts of it... I'll try to share as many pictures as I can. It's a ton to go through. I also have several clips that I'd like to make into a small video but I don't know a whole lot about editing videos. Does anyone have a good program they could recommend? Something good for splicing, adding/removing, maybe some editing options, and adding music.

Oh and please over look my terribly frizzy hair! Being in a jungle basically means any flat ironed or curled hair dies after about 2 hours. Me being naturally curly haired definitely didn't help my cause. Maybe next time I'll see how it would hold up to wet set pincurls!

Take Care & Enjoy,
Heather ♥

Hello Lovelies! I've been a bit under the weather on and off this past week. Not so much with a cold but more feeling terribly drained, weak, and down right tired to the point that I've had absolutely no energy to do much of anything but rest. I tried several times to get on the computer to work but I never stayed on long before feeling sleepy and losing my focus. It was especially hard having Jedidiah out of town for the past 4 1/2 days. He always seems to go out of town at the worst possible times! I'm thankful to have him back.


On a brighter note, for now (and hopefully from now on), I'm feeling much better. These photos were taken about two weeks ago. I had hoped to have them up sooo much sooner. But I'm a work in progress so bare with me as I work out the kinks in making this a fantastic blog! Which by the way I'm so happy for the little group of followers that are reading along! Thank you!

Anyhoo, I'm off subject again, as I said, these photos were taken a few weeks back during one of the random bursts of warm weather we've been having lately. Hasn't that been so lovely?! There have been so many of them on and off this year. We try our best to get out whenever we can on these random warm days. It's sometimes hard because they usually fall on school days so by the time we get the kids, the sun is already setting. On this day we took the girls to our favorite wetland nature center. It's conveniently very close to our house. If you're ever interested in me taking your photos, I recommend this location.


We walk this park often and because the sun was starting to set we regrettably didn't stay as long as I would have liked. It's wonderful living so close to a large mountain range but the down side is that the sun seems to disappear much faster. It also gets cold the second the sun disappears. On the plus side, I finally got my darn 85mm back! Yea! I sent it out like 7 weeks ago to get cleaned due to some internal debris. I was promised 2 weeks max start to finish, boy were they waaay off and horribly rude. I'll learn to take names and be more assertive next time. With a full arsenal on hand it was fun shooting with a 35mm, 50mm, & 85mm, although after being spoiled with my L series lenses jumping back to my 85mm 1.4 just didn't seem to have the same punch as the other two do. An up grade is definitely in my future...just not my near future cause that lens is crazy expensive!


This girl and that stick. She dragged it through half the park before I finally said something is going to lose an eye! LOL!


I'm married to the dorkiest guy I know. I couldn't be luckier! I have dozens of "Where's Jedidiah" photos. Haha I should put together a collage of all these photos. It would be fun to see all the places he's popped up!


My beautiful curly haired girl. She was such a help offering to carry my camera bag so I could photography easier. I also wasn't wearing the most sensible shoes on this mostly muddy trail. This wasn't well thought out. Chloie can be intense but I'm so grateful for her constant help.

What I Wore:

Cardigan: Barracuda Bazaar | Dress: Fleet Collection (Or their Etsy Store) | Belt: ModCloth | Tights: Forever21 | Shoes: ModCloth (Chelsea Crew) | Earrings: ChicWish

Take Care & Enjoy,
♥ Heather