Logistics

I really should be blogging every day, I seriously can't remember everything that has happened.

But, one thing I do know for sure is that we should vacation like we "live."  It's nice to pick 1-2 things to do each day and then relax, enjoy meals and just enjoy life without rushing around to do everything there is to do all in one day!!!  It's quite nice to take a little slower pace, especially with a baby!  More on that later...

Saturday night was the worst night of Tatum's life.  (Read, worst night of OUR lives!)  She must be teething because we can not figure out what else was going on.  We could not get her to stop screaming, and after 2 hours of tears around 3am, we could hear our neighbors on both sides talking... everyone clearly awake.  We felt really bad, but were doing everything we knew to do :(    Some neighbors were weird to us the next day (but, they were always weird) and the others were sympathetic.  Luckily, Sunday night went great and T has been happy since.  Maybe its the roosters about 5 feet from our hotel room that T didn't like...

Sunday morning we were zombies getting ready for 9am church about an hour away from La Fortuna in Ciudad Quesado de San Carlos.  Scott and T were not on speaking terms (from the night before) and we were tired driving there.  The church (which I totally forgot to photograph) was huge and there were about 80 members coming from about an hour out in each direction.  Scott picked up some of sacrament meeting and I entertained T and made friends with the Young Women in the row behind us.  T really makes friends easily.  All the girls wanted her picture and took turns holding "la princessa."  The other kids (6-12 mo) in church got to eat watermelon straight from the rind and had lots of snacks... T was jealous!

Sunday school was good.  Again, hard to really enjoy when the only thing I knew was the lesson title, but still, ALWAYS good to be surrounded by saints in a familiar environment   Two brethren in specific were especially helpful in offering their resources to help us find a place to live.  Nothing really panned out with their leads, but still nice to try.  One guy, Romney, is the VP of operations for Sky Track, the local zip lining company... perhaps a discount in the future???

We had a weird moment after church where we thought we were going to Manuel Antonio, drove about an hour towards there, didn't feel good about it and turned around.  We made our 1 hour trip back to La Fortuna into 3 :(  Que Lastima!  (What a shame!)

Back in Fortuna, we checked BACK into La Pradera (nice hotel!) but this time got a room on the end (keep less guests awake if T freaks again) and very far away from the roosters.  Things have been a LOT better since then!  The buffet breakfasts are awesome here.  We eat that around 8am, then have another meal around 2-3pm and maybe a snack at night.  We found a cheap Soda (local, street-ish food) near the bus station where I had high hopes for my chocolate shake, but got a weak chocolate milk instead :(  At least it was cheap!

We pretty much decided on one specific apartment just north of La Fortuna (about 1-2 miles from the city center) but when we went to tell Sergio, the owner, we discovered he has gone to Nicaragua!  Ahh!  So frustrating!  His place is not yet furnished, so once we tell him we want it he can have it ready within a week.  We are hoping we can tell him tomorrow, get a bed in there asap so we can move in, and then get the couches, stove, end tables, fridge and such throughout the week.  If Sergios doesn't work out, our next best option is Rosas, which is in the center of town and nice enough.  I guess only time will tell. It really felt like we were on house hunters intl as we are comparing the pros and cons of each property!

We took a gravel rock-filled road out to El Castillo today which is a very very little town between Fortuna and lake arenal.  The road was really tough on our little rental car, and there is this weird clunking over the front R tire.  It has been doing it since we got the car, but is exacerbated on rough roads.  We firmly believe that it is nothing we did, but how do we explain that to the rental agency?  Hopefully it will all work out when Scott returns the car.  The plan for now is to take the car into Liberia to return it and then bus back to La Fortuna.  (This will take 8+ hours with bus transfers involved...)  That will work great if we splurge and stay at the hotel (where we are comfortable, safe and have a pool!) for yet another night, but if not, that will be a very long day for me and T without Scott.  Don't worry, we will be sure to find a safe option for the that day!

And because everybody loves a picture, here it is!  I need to upload more (goooood ones!) but the cord is in with the sleeping baby.  Plus the photos cover different things than I've written about today.  So until next time...

PURA VIDA!