A traveling traveling.

Today I had our poor daughter placed on blankets/towels all around the apartment with me while I did various moving-in/putting-away chores so that she could see me/be with me/not get too bored too quickly. And a lot of this was motivated not by "let's finally get settled" feelings, though those certainly played a role, but also trying to get ready for a trip that we're going to leave for in about five hours so I'm off to bed right now folks; wish us luck!

xoxo, natty

Up in hurr.

The plane just landed after a sleepless red-eye.

It's a darn good thing that there's a cute husband, a dachshund, and the promise of bagels with cream cheese followed by a nap all here waiting for me.
xoxo, natty ♥

Back.

We're back and it's muggy and hot; quite a change from 40s and 50s.
I'm getting back on track slowly and will have plenty to report later this week.
Until then, see if you can correctly identify all of these veggies and I'll post what they actually are tomorrow!

Here's to Tuesday!
xoxo, natty ♥

Heim.

Today, we are headed back to DC; wish us traveling luck!
xoxo, natty ♥

To-Read List...

When we were in Tucson last weekend we stayed at a hotel that has a gift shop. While perusing for nothing in specific {which is what I can do in just about any store...hardware ones are the best}, I saw some amazing things. Things that are unique to Arizona. Apart from browsing stores, something else I love is local color. 
This is just a taste for you:

We spent all day putting things away in our little abode and tamale pie is baking away so this is a short post but I'm on a blessed two week vacation so, as alluded to earlier, expect a bit better {but not too much better} posting.
xoxo, natty ♥

Our hike & a few more random pictures a.k.a. the last Costa Rica post, I promise!

On Friday afternoon we went on a hike. We started after lunch. 

Looking sassy at our restaurant.

Before we left the restaurant, I spied these two guys. A quick side note- I go back and forth between saying something about the pictures I include in my posts before the picture or after the picture. In an effort to keep things aesthetically pleasing to mine eyes, I'm going to try to be consistent about saying whatever it is I have to say {that I don't include as an "official" caption directly below the picture} directly before I include the shot since that's the writing that seems to stick close to the pictures. Anyway...the poor fellows were being zapped by the mid-day heat.

Prior to lunch, though, one of our girls and I modeled our tacky tourist gear...

My skeeter bites to add to it all.

then we ditched the socks because it was hot {the best laid plans...}.
We began our hike as a smiley group.

Then we picked up our tour guide for the day, Vaya.

She howled when we started on the trail...I tried to take her home, it didn't work.

We continued up little {or not-so-little} hills.

While we hiked, we checked out some monkeys up above us.

Our guide ran ahead and waited for us several times {do you notice a theme in the subject of many of my pictures?}.

We made it to our first stop, the top of a hill? The top of something which afforded us an amazing view of the Pacific on one side

and the jungly hillside on the other side.

We enjoyed this vista for a little bit, caught our breath and had some water.

I also had a little photo session wth Vaya {not the last of the day, mind you}. 

"¡Vamanos! Let's go!" she was saying {or so I guessed she was}.

We walked down then and wound around to a lovely little beach, Playa Izzquierda. On the way there we got to see the national tree of Costa Rica, the Guanacaste, which is the name of the province where we were staying too.

I also took a chance to look up at the lovely foliage.

Once we made it to the beach, Vaya took a well-deserved rest.

The hermit crabs were everywhere!

I took this video to show how it looked like the sand was moving...kind of boring if I think about it, but I want to remember.

We all hung out for quite a while just enjoying the sound of the surf and being on our own beach. I randomly started collecting little bits of pink, purple and red shells and just putting them on my leg. Soon, the girls were helping me {we were just sitting and shooting the &#($ against a big rock} and we had an interesting little mosaic happening. 

Vaya got in some good belly rubs from Lucie, our wonderful leader for the week from the school. 

We enjoyed this until the tide came up to where we were and it was time to go home. What a wonderful thing to do before we came back to California; ¡muchas gracias Lucie & Vaya!
Earlier that day I had to run to our little home really quickly and enjoyed these horses on the road.

This guy guards the school.

This was a great trip. Pura Vida is the catch phrase for the country, meaning "pure life" and it seemed more poignant to me in English..."pure life" to me can mean lots of things, I'm sure, depending on the day or how hungry I am, but when I was on the beach and now here at home a few days out it means feeling everything, embracing the poignancy of what happens {mundane occurrences or otherwise}. It also means enjoying EVERYTHING, even the not-so-enjoyable things. I had gotten SUPER bogged down in the business of my little life before I left-to the point where I was letting my feelings just fly past me and I was kind of numb, way too focused on little dramas; I shed that shell when I was in Costa Rica. I think that life in a beach town in whichever country runs a bit slower than life in a city, but I'm still dreaming of the warm water and the Spanish I got to speak when I was there and trying desperately to hold onto my vacation buzz. I don't want this to just be a temporary after-affect of my week away, though, I'm aiming to keep pura vida in my life by striving to be aware, intentional and deliberate in my feelings, reactions and presence. "¿Pura Vida?" a guy asked us one night walking down the road. "Pura Vida" I answered, then & there and here & now.
xoxo, natty ♥

Marvelous Monday; so tired edition.

We traveled for near 18 hours yesterday. We left our wonderful little beach town at 7 AM {6:00 AM our time here in CA} and landed at SFO around 12:30 AM which is 1:30 AM Costa Rica time...but I didn't get into bed until 2 AM so let's tack on another hour and a half. Those 19 and a half or so hours involved a very convoluted passport-check-baggage claim-baggage re-check-customs-re-entry through security-two tram rides-approximately one mile covered on foot-and a combined total of almost two hours in a plane on the tarmac-ordeal that lasted about 4 hours total in and around the Miami airport; I never want to go to Miami again. All's well that ends well, though, and we;re all safely home; but thank goodness for no more standing around holding bags in an airport!
I'll do my marvelous five and maybe a few of the last few day pictures. I don't want to go through a mega-post right now so I'm trying to space it out over a few days you'rewelcomeverymuchdearreader.

Here goes:
1. Yesterday is over {see: above}.
2. I had a GREAT trip, even though it's a really busy season of my life and I wasn't thrilled about having to go.
3. I'm getting married in 26 days!
4. My great friend Becs is coming to visit me this weekend!!
5. My doggy is still super cute {though very odoriferous} after a week away.


Tori took some great beach pictures in the last few days so these are a mix of hers and mine.

More high tide

and low tide to compare. I loved low tide because you could walk out forever and low tide was great because you could just get right into the water; I liked it all!

The top of the coconut palm

to the bottom

and what comes in between!

These coconut palms ran across the beach and the gate to our school is right behind them.

The bright colors and pictures made me smile every day.

Speaking of, this is the little courtyard of the Intercultura in Sámara, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

A few more monkey shots, because I love 'em.

A fun plant.

A 7-11 style store, The Green Iguana; lovely murals.

Some horses that we walked past on a hike we did {the hike will be tomorrow's post}.

The sunset as we ended our hike.

Not an oft occurring sight considering that it was usually overcast/rainy by this time of afternoon.

A few clouds to make it even prettier.

Our humble abode...a bit messy.

Our hallway {it was just our room, this hallway and the ladies room; spacious, though}.

Our in-the-shower light switch which really concerned Tori, though as long as it wasn't an electric shower, I was cool.

We went crazy our last night a got tatoos.

Tori's wrist one looks like the one I got on my hip.

Don't worry, they're henna, we didn't get that crazy.

The surf school we frequented had this outdoor table set-up which includes electricity.

As well as this super-cute outdoor shower.
I also really liked how many signs like these

were all over the place in Sámara, not just our school. Where we stayed there is a lot of awareness of the environment and efforts to maintain things and take care of the place => awesome!

The view from lunch on our last full day; we really liked this place seeing as how you could dig your feet into the sand and enjoy your lunch/dinner/whatever {plus they had wi-fi [how crazy is that there's wi-fi while at a beach front restaurant in Costa Rica? Hella crazy, that's how.]!}.

This was our second mama Tica Marta and her perritos.

Eating breakfast with her on Friday {I think} in our fabulous outdoor dining room.
Now that I look back, this is a mega-post, but it's all of the random pictures that I want to include. Tomorrow I'll put up pictures from our beautiful hike and I think that I'll be even-steven by then.
Happy Monday y'all!
xoxo, natty ♥