I don't want to go to school!

This morning wasn't much different than others around the house: the clicking of toenails on the floor as the old hag makes it up the stairs and to the back door for her morning ritual. Lately the sound of Sophie's nails on the kitchen floor is reassuring, in contrast to the thump, bump, bang sounds as she makes as her back legs give out near the top of the stairs; and she ends up at the bottom. Recently I have watched her navigate the stairs and she does it with a bit more technique. She ascends the stairs on an angle, reversing her direction about every 4th step. Like a switchback in a trail, she traverses back and forth up the stairs making them less steep. Additionally, as she approaches the top step where the carpet ends and the hardwood starts, I've noticed that she gingerly puts her paw onto the landing and methodically pulls herself onto the wood floor, like that is the place where she didn't pay attention before. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Getting back to the morning ritual, as Zack wakes we have about a 70/30 chance that he will be in a good mood and ready to go. This morning we were on the 30 side of things. I think it started when he learned that it was 'best dressed day' (interpretation: mass). I listened to his refusal to get up, shower, get dressed, eat, go to school, all from the warmth and comfort of my bed. I finally got up to see what I could do. As he sat on my lap sobbing about not wanting to go to school, I started to get the whole story:

'I don't want to go to mass. We have to sit and stand and it takes too long.'

How could I disagree? I was in a conundrum, thinking back to the time several years ago when the same thoughts ran through my mind. His argument was complete, his logic well laid out, I had to come up with something quick. 'It's not that bad, I do it all the time' wasn't going to work. 'You have to go, why do you think we're paying all that money?'....too much catholic guilt for the 5 year old brain to process....too much catholic guilt for the 41 year old brain to process.

Somehow we negotiated with cherry life savers and an egg/sausage burrito, and as I danced around in his jacket, I acutally got a laugh out of him before we got in the car to go to school.

Holidaze 2008

We managed to make it through another holiday season relatively unscathed, though our credit cards are still smoking. More than ever, we found the best times we had weren't unwrapping gifts, but hanging out with family and friends. The photos in this post represent some of the highlights of the season:

We officially kicked off the 2008 holidays with Thanksgiving at our place. It was great to have everyone over, especially Cathy, Matt and April joining us the food was great but I think the music was better. While Ben and I muddled through lyrics of partial songs that I'm sure we know, Bud managed to keep it together with his consistent voice and memory. Ryan ripped on the harmonica. I don't know how many times we have played, but each time there's always a moment or two where we collectively know that we've pulled off some really great music.

Another highlight of the season is hunting down the perfect Christmas tree. This year we went up near Christmas Meadows on the Evanston Ranger District. The weather was perfect but it did take some time this year to find the right tree. Once we found it, we loaded it on the rig and headed out.
Christmas morning was great. Our annual photo in front of the tree with the boys in the PJ's that grandma made mostly turned out, sorry Hunts. This was Sophie's 14th Christmas with us.

Another great evening was when we had Tom and Angie up for dinner along with Angie's mom and dad (Mimi and Bibi). Additionally, We had Tom's aunt Marianne. We had a wonderful time visiting and after the meal, Bud came over and we played some music for them. Tom and Bibi pitched in on a couple of the more complicated musical pieces.

Finally, on New Years Day, we hosted the first annual Stevens sledding party. The living room transformed into a locker room for the kids getting ready to go out on the sleds. This was a great time and it was fun to spend time with Jen, Greg and the kids.

LOLA'S

So relaxing in the pool after a long day at the beach, Tom and I met our neighbor, Richard. Richard clued us in on several must see things, one of which was Lola's. Named after the pet pig that wandered around, he described it as a short drive out of Tamarindo around a couple curves and just when you feel like your lost, you will hit the end of the road at a beach. Lola's was described as a chill little resort that had great atmosphere where a person could hang out all day.

I pictured it as a hotel complex with a nice bar and some music surrounding a pool. What Lola's turned out to acutally be was truly a 1000 square foot leveled area with handmade Teak wood tables and chairs under evenly spaced 30 foot tall palm trees. On the east side was a bar with essential stove and deep fryer, restroom and small living quarters for the owners, and on the east side a few short steps away was another incredible beach.

Before describing the amazing conversation we had with the owner, I have to describe the trip to Lola's from our condominium that morning: Before we left, Tom got the directions once again from Richard, we packed our things and took off. On the way out of town, I sold it to Angie as a resort, with plenty to do. As we drove, the enthusiasm of seeing life in the country kept us busy for awhile, all the time each of us asking Tom if we were headed the right direction. Each response from Tom was one of assurance.

We drove for awhile past beautiful fields of horses and cattle, feeling further inland than when we first flew in. Feeling appropriatly lost, I was hopeful that we would soon see a sign indicating Lola's. Instead, we passed villages, 'se vende' signs in vacant recently scraped forests, and condo complexes in various stages of construction or abandonment. After about 40 minutes of travelling curvy, bumpy, dusty Costa Rican roads, it happened, that soft voice from the back seat claiming, 'I don't feel good'. The windy roads had finally caught up with Leslie and she shared with us that she was starting to feel car sick. The shared urgency in finding Lola's began to really surface, the three of us more frequently questioning if we were going in the right direction.

So finally as a good driver does, Tom pulled off the road at an intersection and approached a woman who was cooking lunch in her yard. The pots she cooked in were well used, and propped up on a steel sheet suspended by waist high cinderblocks over a small open fire burning between the rocks. While Tom initiated his international sign for pet pig, Leslie and I swapped seats, so she would ride shotgun.

"Hola, donde esta Lola's??"

....blank look....shrugged shoulders.....shy smile.....

"El Puerquo, Lola's????"

.....smile.....mild annoyed look.....finger point from where we come.....shrugged shoulders....

Tom got back in the car and we flipped a U turn.

"What did she say?"

"I don't know, but I think we missed the turn."

We were off again, looking at all the stuff we had passed, just with a different perspective. We rounded a corner when all of a sudden, "MONKEY!!!", Leslie spotted a couple monkeys in a tree next to the road. We stopped the car, like a good Floridian would in Yellowstone the minute they see a bison. We took our pictures, they didn't,and enjoyed looking at one another for a while, but we all knew we were on a mission. We jumped back in the car and as we scanned the trees, each shadow was quickly mistaken for another primate and as quickly discounted.

Near the end of our hope of ever finding Lola's we made one more attempt at asking. This time we randomly came upon a light haired guy, Tom rolled down his window and asked if he knew where Lola's was. This time we hit the jackpot!

In a spanish accent: "Just drive down this road around the corner, and you are going to feel like you are in the middle of nowhere, just go a little bit further and you will be there."

We headed on our way, this time closer than ever, we thought. It was another 20 minutes of driving through Teak plantations, past small villages and English signs exclaiming in so many words that the world had discovered/exploited this paradise.

Finally, we rounded a corner and saw a bunch of cars parked in a round undeveloped parking area with the ocean in the background. The parking attendant, in the middle of nowhere, guided us into a spot. Tom asked the attendant for Lola's, the attendant pointed to the passenger side of the car and through the manicured shrubbery, there it was.

Costa Rica Day 2

We had a great day on the beach. Tamarindo is a small town on the Pacific Ocean that looks like it has been discovered in the last decade as there are a number of condominiums that look a bit out of place among the quaint simple local homes.

There appears to be one thing that draws so many Americans here: the ocean, and surf. There are more surf shops in this town than any other type of store. 

The ocean is truly awesome. the water is warm and the waves are consistent and fun. Collectively, we spent about 10 hours in the water. 

Pura Vida

We arrived into 'Liberia International Airport', a quaint airport smaller than Ogden's. We walked off the plane, onto the runway and into an open building that was once a hangar. There were two ceiling fans about 12 feet in diameter moving air through the corrugated roofed customs building. We got through customs and onto our rental car where there were hammocks in the waiting area We loaded our car and headed down the road toward Tamarindo. We drove through the rolling countryside that was interspersed with agriculture fields with cattle, sugar cane, and forested areas. 

Leslie and I hadn't eaten, so we decided to stop at the first store to grab some food. We pulled off the main road and into a parking lot with potholes the size of our car. As Tom navigated around potholes, past people and near the storefront. The store was about the size of our living room, we looked as out of place as we felt. We grabbed some pastries and chips and a couple drinks. As we walked out, I looked up and saw a truck with soldiers with machine guns parked in the same area that Tom was in. It was a sober reminder that we weren't in Utah anymore. 

The Final Flights

by Hunter

The next few days where pretty exciting. We woke up a bit early that morning to find ourselves eating breakfast and getting ready to hop in another car ride. It took us about half the day to drive to a small airspace and meet up with our friend Eric (who took us around Paris earlier on our trip) so that he could take us up in a ride on his plane. He told us that he worked on his plane for ten years just fixing it up. It looked well enough even though it was a 1950's model. He could only take me and Dylan on one ride and take Tommy on a seperate ride becuase of our weights. It was a lifting experience (pun intended from like 50 miles away) as we took off not on a concrete runway, but on grass, then into the sky. We flew around over mostly rural France for about 30 minutes. We all had those pretty cool headsets with microphones so we could talk to each other. It got really scary when Eric allowed Dylan to take the joystick and we almost stalled and crashed (just kidding). It was a pretty smooth landing (Eric landed us, not Dylan) and then we waited as Tommy got the same experience. We went back on a ride home and an early dinner and sleep becuase we had to get up really early the next morning to get to the airport.

The next morning we woke up at 5:00 and got on going after eating a very quick breakfast and showers. We got to the airport to do airport stuff and waited to get on the plane at about 10:20. We got first class again and this time I didn't have to go as an unaccompanied minor! The flight was nice and we did airplane stuff in the airplane for 10 hours. We got to Salt Lake and did some more airport stuff in the airport. Dylan and I got held back for bringing bakc a bit of alcohol (hey, it was France, right?) but everything somehow worked itself out and we got back to our parents for a long embrace and got in the car (Tommy went home with his family) and stopped for a quick Apollo Burger and went back to our comfy home in Ogden.

Tune in in a few days for a more psycological overview of our entire trip from the eyes of Dylan Garcia.

Days 17, 18, & 19

So on friday, the day after futuroscope, we decided to take more of a rest day, just sitting around, and admiring the countryside all around us, until about two in the after

noon that is. That's when we went to one of the biggest castles around, Chantilly. The place is incredible. Just being in it gives you a real sense of the 1700's. It was super ornate (as a retreat for the former royalty of France should be), and had a great art collection, including 3 beautiful Rafael's, which, for the sake of the more modest readers could not be pictured here. Also, the gardens around were great, although we had more of a look at our earlier visit to the firework show, and the town of Chantilly, lightly bubbling with crowds, was a nice little break from all things 18th century.

The next day was much of the same, although instead of going to a chateau we went to the most scrumdiddlyumptious village in all of France. With roses lining every street and a thousand year old mansion overlooking the whole place. Most of our time was spent driving, because of course it takes time to get to amazing sites such as this.

The day after that, we drove with Bibi out to a castle. Yes, yes folks, we finally went to a castle, now calm down as I attempt to continue... It was called the Chateau De Pierrefonds, and although in the midst of a fair sized village, its white walls could be seen from a good distance. We initially walked right up to the castle, got tickets and went into a huge courtyard with entrances to a few diffent sections of the castle, in which first we entered into the main entrance to the higher levels, which displayed the most rooms in the castle including a giant fireplace, some very strange carved beings in the walls, long hallways, and more sculptures of important people. We even got to see the grave of one of the kings of France long ago. We walked back out into the courtyard and into the chapel where there were some more magnificent sculptures, plus a replica sculpture of Saint Michel from the top of Mont Saint Michel far away. We went back home to eat a nice dinner crash on our beds that night.

Asterix, Escargo, Futuroscope

ah rarara....

So sorry we havent done a blog for a while. There's so much other fun stuff going on ya know? When we wanted to do a blog, there was just no time cuz we were doing so much fun stuff. Ok, first we came home from Paris, right? So guess what then, the next day we have to go to Parc Asterix, which was a Disneyland-esque theme park. We rode the most popular rides first, hoping that they wouldn't be too crowded but we still did about 7 rides including one of the biggest wooden rollar coasters we've ever been on called the Thunder of Zeus. Lots of young people smoke here we have all realized... Dylan has just started too. That night was just for relaxation. The next day we just relaxed, and ate escargo. Seriously people it ain't that bad. You just have to close your eyes and pop that sucker in. Then on the 26th we rode the TGV (fastest train) and went to a future based theme park called Futuroscope (catchy eh?) There were no rollar coasters but virtual ones. There were also tons of IMAX theatres and 3D movies. What was also interesting was the architecture of all the buildings as you can see in the photos. We then rode the TGV back and fell right asleep.

Dylan does not smoke...

11, 12 & 13: PARIS

So ill let you know before hand, when we got ready to go to paris, we all got in the car and i tell hunter to get the camera and the charger and of course he comes back with the camera at its last limb battery-wise and no charger, we are all like crap, i guess we're gonna get like nine pictures of paris... these are them.

although we did do much more than these pictures show, and below is our exciting and wonderous account: so we drove to the airport friday morning and met with our friend eric and his daughter melanie, we drove into paris easily and went to eric's apartment which is located near the Chateu Vincennes and hung out for a little deciding which amazing site we would then view. We chose the eiffel tower. so we hit up the metro station about a kilometre from his appartment and wham bam boogie we were there, the pillar of iron shooting out from behind the skyline. So, being friday there were alot of people, and after waiting for like an hour at the southeast leg we bought tickets and rode up on the yellow rhombus-shaped elavator to the second level. Dang. That was a killer view. In no stretch of the truth, even at the second level, one may say they can gaze upon every rooftop in paris. After a while of awe inspiring view, we bought a few souveniers, a ham sandwich and some coke, and headed back towards the ground to meet angelina and Genevieve (sorry if spelled wrong), watch some music at the paris music festival going on on every other street corner and cobbled square, but most of all to party it up. After we met up with those guys we took the metro to the latin quarterand decided to go eat. What did we eat you ask? Two words: Fondue, baby. So basically we ordered a really hot stone with various herbs and spices on it, a pot of boiling oil and two plates of superbly fresh meat, and just went at it. Ten pounds and two bottles later we decided to get up and start listening to some music. So we went down to the nearest band playing, who was finishing up their song in that set, so angelina asked if hunter and tommy could rock out on their drum and bass, in fron of the small crowd gathered in the shady square. So they played a few songs, got a bunch of people dancing and tappping their feet it was pretty awesome im not gonna lie. It turned out that the drummer was a music teacher at a local music school, and he admired their skills. We kept walking around until angelina suggested we go to a little ice cream place behind Notre Dame, supposedly the best ice cream in paris. Ive only had ice cream a couple of other times in paris and i would have to agree, between the presentation and the taste, it was absolutely divine.

We were there for a little more than an hour, and after, we went out into the darkening city to music and shouts of mild drunkeness Tommy, Eric, Hunter, and I split from the other two when we realized it was very late and took the extremely crowded metro back to his apartment to go to sleep.

The next day we decided we wanted to go to the Louvre, so after a while of getting groceries eating breakfast and hanging around for a bit we took the metro to just one of the stops at the Museum. Walking up through one of the garnd entryways in the building was a sight in itself, with mosaics and exquisite stonework, its really more than anyone can process in just a few moments. We then went into a giant crowded courtyard where many people were just sitting by the fountains as well as going into the giant glass pyrimid that is the entrance of the Louvre after we went through, and then down two escalators into the main enrty hall, we decided we would see the museum's extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts.

We went into the Sully Part of the museum where alot of the very old artifacts from egyptians persians and other area of northern africa and the middle east. Unfortunately, because it was sunday, by the time we got to the end of the egyptian section the museum was closing and people were hurried out so that the exibits could be cleaned and maintained. After we came back up, eric told us about a greek resturaunt we could eat at just a couple blocks away from the Louvre called Chez Alexandre. A very quick and filling meal was a good change of pace from our upwards of 3 hour marathon dinners in the nights previous. We went around that part of town (in between the louvre and notre Dame) looking for souvniers to buy, we found many, but only seriously considered a few. By that time, being tired of walking around nearly all day, we went home and went to bed.

The next day, Hunter Tommy and I would be alone, eating breakfast at the apartment, and then walking to the metro stop to go to a large mall in the Defense district of the city and then back to another mall Near the Hotel de Ville that we skimmed past the previous day. The stores in the Defense mall were mostly closed becase we got there at about 9:30 in the morning (most stores opened at 10:00). We first stopped down at the Virgin Megastore at the very bottom level at got a few things that caught our eye. We worked our way up to the top level next to Toys R Us to get Zack a toy (he wanted a Transformer and we oculdn't let him down because he doesn't have enough of those already... anyway) and then to a perfume shop because Dylan wanted some cologne (this is Hunter writing now) but he couldn't really find any he was particularly fond of. We then headed to the nearest metro stop and caught a train to get to the "underground" mall. We had a little trouble finding it at first but all was well as we recognized our surroundings so when we found the mall, we just browsed and got lost and didn't really find anything cool. We did however find a Waflle Factory and we got hot waffles with Nutella which is about the yummiest thing I've eaten in about the few weeks I've been here. We waaaaalked out of the mall with basically nothing and Dylan wanted to go to those green boxes they have buy the river-side that sell a bunch of random souveniers. I was pretty surprised at how much stuff we got and how cheap it all was. We got some posters and poscards and all kindsa stuff for our freinds back home. If you are still reading this, dang, you really have a big attention span... So summed up, we came back to Eric's apartment and then on a rain to a car where we went back home and ate dinner. Then we crashed and sleeped in waiting for the next day to go to park Asterix. bye bye now!!!