Costa Rica: Games and Whale Tail

Hanging out in Costa Rica didn’t mean to always be out and about. Sure, it was fun to explore the village for a bit, go to the beach and kayaking or eat out. 

But at the end of the day, after a sunny and hot day at the beach it was fabulous to just go relax and play some games. 

Even I played...the one who doesn’t love games (what’s wrong with me??).

Alex still didn’t cooperate with taking pictures...😂

Robert looked magnificent in his blue shirt matching his eyes just right. 

Mark and his blues again. 

We were surrounded by the majestic views and nature!  Iguana alert.

HUGE! 

Unfortunately, we didn’t find our Harry the Sloth.... He is supposedly hanging around the house somewhere in the trees, but we never noticed him.

On Monday after Easter, our last full day in Costa Rica, we went to a cool pizza place for lunch, located in Uvita. 

Oh, it’s called Pizza Time! 😂

After lunch, we drove over to Parque Nacional Marino Ballena--or Whale Tail Beach. We parked and paid a few bucks for parking, then had to purchase tickets to the actual beach and wear a mask inside the park, near people.

The beach is called a Whale Tail because when the tide is low you can see this amazing nature creation of a sand strip that, when looking from above, resembles a whale Tail. You can kind of see it here, but that’s the strip of land that is covered with water at high tide, and at low tide it creates two “pools” of super warm and super calm water. 

Here are Robert and Mark on the rocky tip of the whale tail. 

This was the only beach that we found that had practically no waves. We spent such a long time here! Didn’t want to get out! And Mark still doesn’t think he can do a star fish maneuver on his back-hahaha!

Oh yes, the walk to and from the actual whale tail is kind of lengthy. We were fortunate it wasn’t too hot or too crowded on the day we went. 

Right ON the whale tail. Great place! 

Uvita was about a 20 minute drive from the place where we were staying. There is so much to see in the area, that it really makes me want to go back! 

Costa Rica: Easter Day

We knew ahead of time that we were going to be spending Easter in Costa Rica thus there was no way to expect any sort of normalcy this year. We made an effort to keep it as relaxing as possible by not booking any tours or doing anything crazy (minus having dinner at a bar).

First thing in the morning we got dressed and went down to our favorite coconut beach just down the road (literally...down from the main road where you park and walk to the trees and sand). 

We took a bunch of pictures of the kids and family. 

Alex is probably singing but no one can hear him because of the waves. 

Mark was climbing on every tree he could find, mainly so that he doesn’t get wet. 

The tide was coming in. 

Look what a gorgeous Easter Morning!

We had to ALL sit on the tree branch to avoid getting soaked. And we definitely had to put our camera and my purse way up high. 

We had a few close calls and had to run quickly to higher ground/branch. 

But ultimately we got a few fantastic photos, without any Easter baskets or plastic eggs, but nevertheless very festive ones. 

We then had a special testimony meeting sharing our thoughts and feelings about Easter and the Atonement and what we are grateful for.

For breakfast/lunch we headed to Cafe Mono Congo at the Dominical village for some deliciously healthy food.

And after a relaxing day at the beach we ended up at a place that is the hopping place (apparently especially for Easter dinner) for the expats. It’s called Bar Jolly Roger, famous for its wings of many-many flavors. You do have to have a 4 wheel drive to get up to that place, a windy mile or so up the mountain. 

We sat at the bar as no other seats were available. Live music was playing, wi-fi wasn’t an option, people were chatting loudly--a very pleasant and unconventional Easter evening for sure (with a Beer sign in this picture;). 

 Because of how our spring break dates always work out, Easter is always on the last Sunday before the kids go back to school. It’s great that it’s over spring break but we end up traveling on that day (unless it’s 2020) and have to improvise on our Easter traditions. 

To be continued...

Watsons Go To Nova Scotia: Lunenburg And The Long Journey Home

Our flight was leaving at 6 am out of Halifax, so the day before we left our magical little house in LaHave and drove towards Halifax, making a stop to see historic Lunenburg.

Lunenburg was established in 1753 (OLD!) by the British. Old Town Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage site as it is one of the best examples of the British settlements in North America. It's a port city that was famous for its schooner building. 

We visited a free house-museum called Knaut-Rhuland House where they have preserved the furniture, decorations, household items just like it was in the 18th century. But it's not on the picture below. 😂

It's amazing that it is so well preserved. Walking along the streets of the old town reminded us a bit about Europe, more like Dartmouth England. The weather was quite gray too, but it was not freezing (this is JUNE!).

We had a lovely expensive lunch by the water and strolled along the beautiful buildings until we found an ice cream place... Again, this is not an ice cream place...this is meant to illustrate us strolling around. 

And then we found this big Canadian Flag--I just think their flag is so pretty! Yeah...selfies looking down don't come out very flattering.

In the late afternoon, we drove to Halifax. We booked a hotel 20 minutes from the airport, so that it's not as horrible to wake up in the morning and drive. We showed up at this busy hotel and it turned out that they basically gave away the kind of room that I had booked (that would fit five people). And the hotel was fully booked! And there was no way to get a rollaway into the room. After a bunch of discussion and them apologizing, they said they would deeply discount the room and give us a blow up mattress, which was a good solution after all---we were going to sleep in the room just till around 3:30 am... So this inconvenience actually saved us money at the end;).

We left the kids at the hotel to watch a movie and went on a date to Halifax downtown. The kids were happy to just chill and we were happy to get out as a couple. We went to a nice Irish pub and had a very atmospheric meal:) It was lovely! 

That evening it was kind of drizzly and not so warm, so we didn't spend much time outside. The waterfront was nice, but super busy with some Pig lickin' festival goers. One cool thing was this memorial arch called Last Steps, commemorating the place when thousands (350,000) of Canadian men and women boarded the ship to go fight in the WWI...60,000 never returned. 

I am sure there is a lot more to see in Halifax but we were glad we spent majority of our Nova Scotia time in the countryside. 

Our time in Canada was over but we were not quite done with our adventures!

We got up super early, drove to the airport through the crazy fog, returned out car rental, checked-in for our flight and stood in line for a long time to get through passport control. I guess, customs didn't open till like 5 or so and by that time there were lots of people trying to get through customs to board their early planes. One annoying thing that I, as a seasoned traveler, didn't think would be a problem was bringing fruits from Canada to the US. I mean, it's not like we are coming back from an island... it was strange and sad because I had to throw away a bunch of cherries, plums and apples that I was planning on eating on the plane "for breakfast". 

Well, we boarded on time and were going through all the checks when they realized that the waterline was not functioning and so they didn't have enough water in the plane or something like that. It, first, turned into an hour delay....then an hour and a half...while we were still sitting by the gate. We started suspecting by then that we wouldn't be making our connection in Newark that was shortly after 8:30 am or something like that. While sitting on the plane, I managed to rebook us from that flight to the 10:30 am flight which we were going to make if only we left around 8. The problem was that after the water issue was fixed (which they had to wait for someone to fix it), there was some mix up with either luggage or passengers, so there was more delay. Basically, we finally took off but not early enough to make the rebooked 10:30 flight.

Once we got to Newark (right around 10:30), the gate was already closed for the flight to Raleigh. The gate agents just told us to go to the United Customer Service line and see what flight they could put us on. Well....we stood in line for over an hour and a half! The issue was that the day before, Newark airport had to close for a significant period of time because one plane blew two tires during emergency landing. So now all the people that were stranded the day before were also filling up the morning and afternoon flights that we were trying to catch. This was a Sunday and we really-really needed to get home by Monday morning. The agent was trying to get us on any airline, from any NY airport, but there was NOTHING for five people. And they didn't want to put us on stand-by because in this situation there is no way we could all get on the same flight. 

So the only solution after, seriously, thirty minutes with the agent was us taking a train from Newark airport to DC, then a taxi to the airport and then fly home DC-RDU at 8 pm. They gave us a few food vouchers to tie us over, but we had to seriously RUN to the train station as the train was leaving within minutes. So we grabbed Burger King as fast as we could and sprinted...literally jumping into the train as the doors closed seconds after us. We took a deep breath of relief... and then got stopped by a conductor who was checking if we had our tickets. Well, we didn't technically, and our name was supposed to be in the system as the agent had just added us. But it wasn't. So they told us we had to get off at the next stop, buy actual tickets and then get on the next train. What?:) Anyway! After a bunch of back and forth and getting another conductor to work with us, we figured everything out and did find our name in the ticketing system. So we finally could relax and enjoy the three hour train ride to Washington DC.

One thing for sure--it was nice to be traveling with older kids. Mark looks extremely happy to be on this train after waking up at 3:30 am:)

We got to DC still in good spirits because the whole thing turned into this massive adventure:) 

This is us at the Union Station in DC.

We somehow figured out how to get a taxi to fit us all in (as you can see our luggage was taken from us sometime in Canada, so at least we had only one suitcase to roll around). The taxi ride was around 30-40 minutes. We got to the airport and still had more trouble finding our reservations...it was a big merry-go-round as United had booked us onto an American airlines flight, but American airlines kept sending us to go talk to the United counter. And so it was back and forth until we said that was enough! :) We grabbed our dinner food (with the food vouchers from United) and finally got on the flight to Raleigh. 

This picture was taken on our first plane Halifax to Newark...as Robert was very tired. But this is how we all felt when we FINALLY got home at 10 pm at night. It was a crazy-crazy day, but at least we were all together, got home safely and did think of it as an unexpected fun adventure. I am surprised actually that with all our travels this was the first time ever that such a crazy thing happened! Well, maybe we could only compare this experience to this one time when we got stuck across the Chunnel.

The end.

Lyana. 

Kids in Montana

This year Katya and Alex were sent on a special adventure to Montana. They had been dreaming about if for years actually and finally this summer, we were able to arrange for them to stay at Grandpa Chuck's house for a week and then at Grandma Lorraine's house for a week--ALL BY THEMSELVES! And then they had to fly home on their own!

We left Katya and Alex in Fairfield, MT on Aug 1st. I tried not to interrupt their time with Grandpa and Grandma Linda much but hoped they would at least call me once a day to tell me what they did. Yeah...didn't happen much. It was like pulling teeth to find out. Therefore, although I have collected all these pictures from Katya's phone and instagram, I can't exactly tell you stories behind them.

Alex and Grandpa.

Katya in Montana (it doesn't get better from here).

And this is Alex at the farm. 

And Grandpa took Katya driving  A LOT! Which helped a ton when it came to her behind-the-wheel portion of the driving class here in NC. She loves driving. (The Model-T from 1912 provided no practice by the way)

And more of Alex...near a tree in Montana--my captions are profound...I know. 

I believe this is from the day when Grandpa Chuck drove to Libby, MT through Glacier Park to give the kids to Grandma Lorraine for another week.  Here is Grandma Linda and the kids at a beautiful mountainous lake!

And with Grandpa Chuck. Alex went swimming here, despite the very cold water... and Katya telling him he would be miserable.

An amazing waterfall hike!

 

And awesome selfie with Grandpa!

And here are some of the beautiful pictures Katya took during their two weeks. 

They said they had a great time although it was nothing like being at home.

They obviously had no friends to hang out with and spent a lot of time with each other. 

They did some painting and garden work at Grandma Lorraine's house. 

In Fairfield, Grandpa took them to an assisted living home to perform a few songs--the kids always enjoy that.

And they sang a lot of karaoke at Grandma Lorraine's house as well.

Although they had a great, unique and independent time, they were very excited to go home on August 14th. But their adventures were not over!! Are you ready for a long story? I have to write it down here as it was quite an ordeal...

I had booked a hotel for Grandma and the kids in Kalispell as they had a very early flight (6 am) and an hour and a half drive from Libby. So they showed up at the airport at 5 am (it's a small airport) and Grandma tried to put them on the plane. The flight was to Salt Lake City and from SLC to Raleigh. Well, Delta people said that because these were minors traveling alone, they couldn't take this flight because the flight from Salt Lake City was the last flight to Raleigh (although it was at 10 am or something when it was leaving Salt Lake City!). And they were adamant about it!

This whole problem arose because when I had booked these Delta flights in December, there WAS a flight at 5 pm or so from Salt Lake City to Raleigh, so the kids were allowed to fly on their own. But no one from Delta notified me that they had cancelled that flight and it affected my booking. In fact, I had called them a week before our family's departure and asked them if anything major changed because I got an email about the change of the departure from Kalispell (Montana). No one said anything. No one said anything when we flew out of Raleigh either, nothing got flagged and now they were telling me they weren't allowed to fly.

There was a flight leaving to Minneapolis, boarding actually, and they would be NOT the last flight out of Minneapolis to Raleigh, but they were too late and wouldn't let them on it either as it was 5:30 by then. This whole time Katya was texting and calling me and I was pretty stressed as I felt like my hands were tied. Katya was getting pretty upset as well as she was set on coming home, and I understand that. Alex was trying to keep her calm. It was not a good morning. So Delta people said that basically, they had to come back the following morning and get on the flight to Minneapolis and connect to Raleigh. They gave them a free night at the hotel and apologized. But of course, it was super inconvenient for Grandma having to drive all the way back to Libby, do what she had planned to do at the school and home and then drive back in the evening so they could sleep in the hotel and be early at the airport for their 5:50 am flight AGAIN.

Everything went smoothly from here. Everyone got on safely on the plane (they didn't charge Alex a $150 fee for needing an escort, that's how bad they felt). And, I called Delta myself, explain the situation and customer service reps and managers all couldn't understand why people at the airport didn't let the kids fly to Salt Lake City if it's a Delta hub with dozens of different connections from 10 am on that would somehow get them to Raleigh. They also felt very bad and gave each kid a $200 Delta credit, which was nice indeed.

And that is how I finally got these two goofballs back! 

The END!