Releasing my inner grandma

I’m going to go ahead and put it out there that I was up until 1AM last night…knitting, it was a crazy night, let me tell ya. Well, I don’t know if you’d actually call it knitting, or repeatedly pulling out stitches and wondering why the heck it doesn’t look right. But, I think I have the basics down now (many youtube videos later…), so hopefully I can start knitting all sorts of things soon. 

My practice stitches

In other news- Frank completely gutted the hallway bathroom! Which means, return of the dust…evvveerrryywhhheerre. Yayyyy…I LOVE DUST! Ha. Not. But I am super excited to start working on a new room in the house. Also, the half bath is totally finished (we skim-coated and repainted it because we weren’t happy with the way it turned out the first time). It looks really nice; is it bad that our half bath is the nicest room in the house? I think I’ll probably camp out in there until the rest of the house is finished.

Other than that, not a lot going on at the home front. Frank flew a jet to Madison, WI yesterday for a meeting with their guard…he got to meet Congressman Paul Ryan, which is kind of neat. He’s coming home today, but he’s leaving again for Jacksonville, FL on Friday and will be there through the weekend. I thought about driving over there to hang out this weekend, but haven’t decided yet.

Costa Rica & Panama - Part 4

Friday, Sept. 9th:

We checked out of the hostel, grabbed a quick breakfast and ate it on the water taxi to the main island of Colon (where we would be diving from). Two girls that were at the hostel with us, Kirsten and Debbie – were diving with us that day and we actually ended up hanging out with them the entire day. We got everything fitted at the dive shop and went to the first dive site – I believe it was called Buoy Line. It was alright. I guess I’m pretty spoiled after our dive trips to Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Hawaii. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still super fun…but I didn’t really see anything I hadn’t seen a lot of times before. There actually weren’t that many fish, and not as much coral as I had expected, but it was still fun to get a dive in, it had been over a year since I had been diving. After the first dive my skin started to get really irritated where I had the scrapes and stuff from the bike accident (I was wearing a diving skin, so it was rubbing against my skin and hurt pretty bad). I opted out of the second dive and walked around Bocas Town instead. It was kind of neat to have a little alone time to explore the town, plus I needed to go to the pharmacy to buy some hydrocortisone cream for my legs, they had been eaten up by sand fleas! It was pretty bad!! How Frank had zero bites, I do not know, they must have just really liked me! Oh well, it was worth it! I found out that baby oil on your legs will keep them away…but I found that out a little too late.

Frank was back about 2 hrs later from the second dive. We left our bags at Kirsten and Debbie’s hostel and went with them to lunch at a restaurant that was on a boat in the water. The food there wasn’t that great, but the ambiance was fun. We had a few pina coladas, which were delicious!

After a late lunch Frank and I figured we should probably find out where we are staying that night (we decided to stay on the main island, so we’d be close to the airport). We spent the last night of our vacation at Bocas Paradise Hotel. It’s on the water, but our room was on the side of the building and didn’t face the water. It was a nice room, probably the nicest place we stayed the whole trip….we had AC, a TV…and wifi! We were high-rolling! Ha.

 

We met up with Kirsten and Debbie and split a cab to Starfish Beach on the other side of the island (where the photos above were taken). Enter – crazy driver #2. I swear I thought we were going to flip the truck taxi going around those curves, but I guess he knew what he was doing, because we all survived! Once we got there we all walked about a 20 minutes to Starfish beach – it was a beautiful walk…we took tons of photos. It’s crazy how each beach is so similar, yet so different and beautiful in its own ways. At Starfish beach we rented snorkels and we were basically the only people there besides one other couple. The water was so clear and there were several starfish hanging out on the ocean floor – it was pretty neat. We walked back to the main beach so the taxi could pick us up while the sun was setting over Panama…such a beautiful sunset.

We thought about going to one of those crazy Full Moon parties that they were having on the island that night, but decided against it. It was from 10PM-6AM on the other side of the island, and we had a flight to catch the next morning! Since we had internet at the hotel, I got on Trip Advisor and tried to figure out where we should eat on the last night of our vacation. The restaurant that I really wanted to try was shut down, so we wandered the streets looking for this other restaurant I wanted to try. I finally gave up and walked into the next restaurant that looked pretty decent…once we got the menu’s we figured out it was the restaurant we had been looking for the whole time! Haha. Oops. Welp, at least we made it there, one way or another!

The menu was in Spanish, but we deciphered it the best we could and I ordered a mahi-mahi dish and Frank got a filet with some sort of white wine sauce. Holy guacamole batman…the food was sooo good. I’m so glad we stumbled into that restaurant the last night there. We sat near the road (everything is outdoors…this town almost reminded me of a Caribbean New Orleans, but MUCH smaller, of course). Apparently there was some drama going on, because the people inside the restaurant were watching surveillance videos and the cops kept driving by and stopped in a few times. Who knows…we never really figured out what the heck was going on. Maybe someone had broken in earlier that day?

After dinner we went straight back to the hotel and to sleep- long day :).

Saturday, Sept. 10th:

Landing back in Costa Rica

Have we really been on vacation a week already, and now it’s over?? You can’t make me leave!

We woke up to thunderstorms, lightening…and yup, no electricity. Well, this doesn’t look so good for leaving on a small King Air turboprop this morning. Hmm. We pack up and walk in the rain to the airport where the electricity is also off. We noticed planes taking off and landing, so I suppose the weather isn’t affecting flights, whew! Pretty sure if there was no electricity at the Atlanta airport, all flights would come to a screeching halt!

After hanging out a whilte we boarded the King Air and had a fun flight back to San Jose. Too bad it was cloudy and raining the whole time, I was looking forward to seeing Costa Rica from the sky. I’m one of those weird people that don’t mind flying through some turbulence, so I thought it was pretty cool to be in a small plane and bumping our way through the storm back to Costa Rica…ha. Roller Coaster!

Once we landed at the small airport in Costa Rica, we had to take a taxi to the San Jose Int'l Airport...we got there in plenty of time and then just hung out at the airport before our flight back to Atlanta. I stocked us up on some coffee…enough to last for about a year!

All in all – the trip was sooo much fun and so worth waiting for. I cannot wait to go back to Central America. I definitely want to learn more Spanish before I go again, though. It would help immensely with getting around and talking with the locals. I definitely would like to see the west side of Costa Rica next time….hmm….2^nd wedding anniversary, possibly???

Weekend plans and a nutrition rant

True to form, my huge to-do list for last weekend was far from completed. ::siiighh: Oh well.

Not much has been going on this week in good ol’ Alabama. We had a pretty low-key weekend at home and did a little housework (mostly cleaning!), and visiting with friends. On Sunday night we had a few friends over for the football games; including a couple that we hadn’t seen in about 4-5 years, since Frank and I started dating! It was nice to catch up :)

I’m leaving Thursday afternoon to go to the Bahamas (Abacos Islands) with some of my co-workers for the weekend (woooohooo!). Frank is going to stay in Montgomery and is doing an adventure race with a friend, the Coosa River Challenge. It’s several miles of trail running, mountain biking, kayaking, rappelling, etc.  Sounds like a blast, but a lot of hard work; he’s been “training” for it for a few months now, so he’s really looking forward to it. I’m kind of sad that I’ll miss it, but I’ll be cheering him on in spirit.

I’ve been reading & researching a lot lately about nutrition and it’s really started to interest me. It may or may not be getting a little carried away! Ha. Nah- but I am starting to be a lot more aware of what I’m eating and cooking. About 2 months ago I almost completely eliminated gluten, grains and processed foods from my diet (of course I eat it every now and then, who can say no to the occasional cookie!?).  But it’s a very, very small amount compared to what I was eating several months ago. I also took out sweeteners, real and fake (besides honey), and all bad oils/fats (some info on good fats and oils). I’ve cut back on dairy a little, but I still eat some. Seems a little extreme, but… I feel the best that I have in a long time. It’s hard to make the changes in the beginning, but after the first month it has been so much easier. After reading what bad oils, sugar, soy, processed grains can do to you…I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to how I was eating before. I've also had problems with eczema off and on since I was a little kid, and now I'm beginning to think that it was somewhat diet related, but only time will tell.

Just look at how fast the rates of illnesses and obesity have risen, even since 1985! That link is from the CDC, which could or could not be completely correct, but it's probably pretty accurate. Obviously there are a lot of people not eating the way we should (coupled with a few other bad habits…). I guess I’ve just really started thinking about my role as a wife and possibly a future mom someday..and I want to know to feed my family and do it in the healthiest way possible. There are a few books I have on my list to read soon, and the next one is called Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges PoliticallyCorrect Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. Anywho- that’s enough about that, but if you want to do a little research of your own, these are some really good websites to start with:

Wellness Mama

She has a lot of info on healthy eating/lifestyle, especially for young children (she has 4), babies, and moms.

Nourished Kitchen

Recipes and information about "real" food

Mark's Daily Apple

Information, recipes, etc. about the Paleo diet 

Balanced Bites

Holistic Nutritionist

Everyday Paleo 

Healthy Recipes 

Robb Wolf

Author of a book called the Paleo Solution, has good info on diet, excercise and general health and wellness

This site deals more with health and natural medicine, but has a lot of good info on nutrition as well: Chris Kresser

Costa Rica & Panama - Part 3

Wednesday, Sept. 7th:

Walking over the Costa Rica border into Panama

Packed up and ready to go to Panama! We ate a quick breakfast at the reception room and said bye to Jake and Maureen :(. It was about a two hour drive to the Panama border. There were only two other people in the van with us, two girls from Germany. Once we got to the Panama border we had to go through customs and physically walk over the border (via an old rickety bridge)…it was neat! Panama basically looked the same as Costa Rica, but then again, we were only about 100 miles away from where we were before! Once we got over the border, we switched to another van with a CRAZY driver! Pedal to the metal the whole way, but I guess that’s just the way they drive there. It was a little rainy and we were driving through some mountainous areas, good thing we didn’t flip the van! Haha.

Almirante, Panama…we arrived here to take the ferry to Bocas. The ferry to Bocas was fairly short, maybe 15-20 minutes at the most. We arrived in Bocas Town and grabbed a quick lunch. Bocas Town was on the main island of Colon, we decided we wanted to stay somewhere a little more remote/off the beaten path, so we scoped out the other islands on the internet (thank goodness for iPhones and free wifi!). A guy from Bocas Town recommended Caremero Island, and we ended up spending the first night at a place called Buccaneer Resort. It’s not really a resort, just about 3-4 cabanas on the beach. The island is pretty remote, very close to the main island, but there’s not much on it…2 restaurants or so…a few places to stay, and that’s about it. It was really pretty and quiet.

We spent about an hour or two exploring the beaches (saw a HUGE spotted eagle ray!) and talking with some guys who were also visiting Bocas, but grew up in Panama City, Panama. We had an awesome dinner literally steps from our cabana at a restaurant called Bibi’s on the Beach. I tried some really yummy ceviche, (of course, had a passion fruit margarita), Frank ordered lobster and I had a really good shrimp dish. Our server was super friendly. Our cabana was nice in that it was about 10 steps from the water, and when you woke up in the morning you were greeted with a panoramic view of the ocean. I slept really well that night, we had AC for the first time in 4 days! At about 5 AM that morning the electricity went out because of a thunderstorm. It was very relaxing…the sound of the rain and thunder, and the ocean wave...and total darkness.

Thursday, Sept. 8th:

Bastimentos Island - Red Frog Beach

 Frank really wanted to go scuba diving this day and we had booked a dive trip for the morning. I wasn’t really feeling it, though. I just wanted to relax a little. We’d been on the go a lot and I didn’t really feel like getting on a boat that morning…plus, it was really cloudy and misty outside…not that it affects diving too much, but it will a little. I couldn’t really make up my mind what I wanted to do that morning…so naturally Frank got frustrated and I told him to cancel the diving. I don’t think he was very happy about that, but I told him we’d try again tomorrow. I know how much he really wanted to dive there.

Frank hung out at the cabana that morning and read and I went to Bibi’s on the Beach for some breakfast. I was the only person at the restaurant that morning and had fun chatting with a guy from Argentina who worked there. He spoke Spanish the whole time and I spoke English. We could sort of understand each other, enough to get our points across, anyway. It was actually the most I had been able to practice Spanish while I was there, and he helped me with some words I didn’t know and I was able to help him with some English. It was pretty cool! Sidenote: I’m pretty sure he was doing a drug deal on the side because while he was on the phone later on I heard something about dollars and kilos…not sure what else he would have been talking about…ha. Frank came down shortly after, had some breakfast, and we decided to venture off to another island for the day and stay the night there. Bastimentos Island was next on the list. We'd heard good things.

Bastimentos was so different than Caremero. It was further away from the main island of Colon, and even more remote, covered in rainforest. We booked a private room at a hostel called Bocas Bound. Seemed like a good place to stay with younger people hanging out. Once we got there we headed to Red Frog Beach which is a short hike from the hostel and the nicest beach on the island. Grabbed a drink at Punta Lava café on the beach and then decided to hike over to the rest of the beaches. We thought the trails to the beaches would be a little more worn and an easy walk…oh no…not at all. We were basically climbing through the rainforest the whole way, over trees, under bushes…it was pretty remote, and I was wishing we had a machete! We were definitely the only ones out there and I don’t think that trail gets used much at all! Some of the trail was on the beach, but most was in the rainforest, which was fine with me since it was still raining lightly…it did pretty much all day on Thurs. My husband sure is the little explorer! He was all about finding out what was behind the next point on the beach…or the next turn in the “trail”. It was good fun, though…something I will definitely not ever forget.

Once we decided to turn around we noticed a boat pulling up behind one of the points, 3 guys got out of it with a long rope and several machetes…Hmm…I wonder what they were going to do with that!? They tried to talk to us but we acted like we didn’t hear them and let them walk past us (they also had a dog…he looked pretty mean!). I think they were heading to the nearby beach to try and rip some people off. There had been reports of muggings and things getting stolen off the beaches recently (why else would the hide their boat behind a rocky point?). When we got to the next beach we noticed the guys using their machetes to make coconut drinks for some people on the beach. There was a larger group of people hanging out there, we wonder what the guys would have done if it were only a girl or two?  Guess we’ll never know. We hung out on that beach a while. Later on we saw people who were at the beach the same time as us, and they said a sloth was hanging out in the tree above us…we never saw it! :(.

That night we went back to the hostel and showered up. We ate at the hostel restaurant that night and met some people who wanted to dive the next day, so we booked a 2 tank dive for the next morning. The hostel had a ping pong table, so of course we had to play some pong for old time’s sake! I owned Frank, by the way. Well, he probably won’t say that...but I did pretty well if I say so myself. Playing ping pong with Frank brought back lots of memories from when we first started dating. He had a ping pong table at his apartment in Wichita Falls and we would play all the time! I remember playing pong with some of his friends and looking over at Frank sitting in the living room on the couch, thinking to myself “I really like that guy!” Haha…good times. It seems like so long ago…just over 5 years now. I think we need a ping pong table at our house…

Around 9 PM the hostel set up a projector in the common areas and everyone that was there (I’d say about 30 or so people) watched Source Code. Then we headed back to the room for the night. Long day - we were tired!

Almost time to bust out the cardigans!

It’s fall! I’m so ready for the cooler weather, I can’t believe it’s almost October. I keep waiting for that really hot day to warm our pool up just enough to go swimming one more time, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. It's still pretty warm here, though...mid 80's. I can't wait for the first crisp, cool day...prime camping weather :).

This past weekend I went to San Antonio for my friend Cathy’s bachelorette party. We had a lot of fun, catching up with old friends and hanging out…it was like being in college again. It was a pretty low-key weekend, and much needed for all of us, I’m sure. Sometimes it’s just fun to get away and reeeelax. We probably all spent more time at the hotel talking and catching up than we did “going out”. It’s crazy that the next time I see Cathy, she’ll be getting married!

Frank went to Rapid City, SD to visit one of our friends since I ditched him for the weekend. He did some mountain biking, drove past Mount Rushmore, and then yesterday morning he went to something called Buffalo Roundup – where cowboys move over 1000 buffalo for vaccinations, it’s basically a big stampede.

This weekend we have NO PLANS. Woohoo! It doesn’t seem like those weekends are coming very often anymore. We will probably stick around here and work on the house. I have an idea for the fireplace that involves painting and stencils...and depending on how motivated I am this weekend, I may try and tackle that thing. I also really want to finish the half bath. Now that it’s cooling off, we really need to start working on the house again, seriously! We thought it would be easier to wait until the fall to start working on it again, but I’m beginning to doubt that with holidays coming up, and football season, and all. There’s always an excuse! We just need to commit!

I’ll be posting about the rest of our trip to Costa Rica & Panama soon. I really want to upload a photo album, but for some reason my computer is not cooperating with me! I’ll work on that tonight…maybe.

Costa Rica & Panama - Part 2

Monday, Sept. 5th:

We woke up bright and early to go zip-lining! We were picked up by a van around 7:30 AM at our bungalow and taken to Puerto Viejo where we eventually picked up a whole bunch of people. I mean…our.bus.was.packed. We were all basically sitting on top of each other- it was good fun and I suppose it helped break the ice. The people we picked up were a lot of fun – so I knew that the zip-lining would be a good time. We drove about 45 minutes through a really rural area, saw a bunch of cows and farms…which was kind of a strange sight - cows hanging out in a rainforest near palm trees. It was cool…we passed a bunch of really small homes and saw kids playing in the yards. It was a neat drive. I wish I would have taken photos of the drive out there; it was sort of an adventure in itself. We even had to cross some streams, which was pretty entertaining in a van full of people. I was sure we were going to get stuck!

Once we got to the zip-lining location I checked out the first line - not quite what I had expected! Ha. I thought the first line would be sort of a “let’s-break-them-in-on-an-easy-one-line”…oh noooo…it was a long line…and pretty high off the ground! It was probably one of the longer, higher lines we did. It was really fun! I was sort of nervous the first time, but once they pushed me off the nervousness was gone. The views were awesome, flying above all the trees. I think the longest line we did was a little over a kilometer. All in all there were about 16-17 different lines. Towards the end we did a Tarzan swing, which was pretty fun, too. I was a little disappointed we didn’t see any monkeys while doing all this zip-lining. The guides said that sometimes the monkeys will play on the platforms and lines…we didn’t see any, though :(. After several hours we were done with the zip-lines and snacked on some pineapple and waters. We were THIRSTY! The heat and humidity there is no joke!

We got back to town about 2PM and started scoping out different tour companies that would shuttle you to Bocas Del Toro islands in Panama. We had decided we wanted to go on Wednesday and needed to figure out the best (i.e. cheapest) way to get there. We found a company that would get us there for $30 each, so we booked it. Then we found a place with wifi and booked the flight from Bocas Del Toro islands back to San Jose, Costa Rica on Saturday – that way we could make our flight home. We ate lunch in Puerto Viejo, but I can’t remember the name of the restaurant…it had a great view of the beach, though, and we did a lot of people watching. There are some interesting people walking around Costa Rica, that’s for sure. We’d see people bicycle by with a baby in one arm, holding a coke, and texting. I don’t know how they do it!

The rest of the day was spent lounging at the reception center and then we made another trip to the beach…same beach as the day before – Punta Uva. It was definitely our favorite beach there, so beautiful. Frank stopped by the dive center to see if they had some lobster snares…he was on a mission to catch some lobster, I’ll tell ya! Of course…they didn’t have any and thought he was crazy, just like everywhere else he asked. So we headed to the beach and did some swimming/snorkeling…I stayed out of the water for the most part since it stung where I had some bad scrapes…which was pretty much everywhere :(. There were some howler monkeys in the palm trees next to the beach. Frank and I probably spent 45 minutes watching them in the trees above us.

That night we ate at this really good middle-eastern restaurant called Pita Bonita. I had never really tried hummus…it had always sort of grossed me out. Frank thought their hummus was the best he’d ever had. I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but it was alright! The rest of the food we had there was really good, some sort of chicken dish…yummy. The owners were super nice…also American expats. There are a TON of them in Costa Rica. Most places to stay and eat there are owned by Americans or Europeans. 

Tuesday, Sept. 6th:

Hello monkey!

Last full day in Costa Rica and probably my favorite one…sad face. We were sad that we were leaving soon. I kind of wish we would have stayed for the whole trip, but we really did want to see Panama, and I’m glad we did. On Tuesday we felt like we kind of belonged there…we started recognizing people in town…we felt like we were sort of in-the-know about stuff. I started thinking…hmm…I think I could probably live here!

That day Jake gave us a ride to the Jaguar rescue center and we got to see all kinds of monkeys, sloths, snakes, etc…no jaguars, though! The stories about the monkeys are sad…if something happens to the parents of baby monkeys (if they get hit by a car or electrocuted on the power-lines, etc.) the baby monkeys will just sit by their parents bodies and howl. None of the other monkeys want them; they are sort of an outcast. The rescue center gets theses monkeys and nurse them back to health and eventually release them back in the wild when they are adults. They usually keep them for a year or two before they release them, though. It’s pretty cool – they’ll let the baby monkeys out of the cages and let them play with wild monkeys in the trees surrounding the rescue center. The ones that belong to them will always come back at the end of the day…they are trained pretty well. We got to go in a cage with about 15 monkeys and they crawled all over us…they are super playful. Pretty sure Frank was in heaven. He friggin’ loves monkeys more than anyone I know. He could watch monkeys all day long…it’s actually pretty entertaining to watch him watch monkeys, ha. When the tour was over he wanted to stay for another hour or so, so we hung out and watched sloths and monkeys for another hour.

We walked home from the rescue center by the beach - Playa Chicquita…another beautiful, unspoiled beach. There were many times that we were the only ones on the beach, it was so nice to have it be just the two of us hanging out, exploring the beaches together. We got some lunch at a place called Pasta & Pizza. The owner didn’t speak any English and we had a hard time ordering – another time I REALLY wish I knew more Spanish. I tried to converse with him the best I could. Then I found the gloriousness that is fresh-squeezed Passion Fruit Juice.

O.M.G. Heaven!

From then on, anytime I was at a restaurant I would order the fresh squeezed juices…why don’t more places offer these in the U.S.?! It is a shame, because they are absolutely amazing! Passion fruit was so good. Passion fruit margaritas….mmm…normal margaritas will never be good enough anymore! From that point on, anytime I had a margarita, it was a passion fruit margarita.

So anyway…I need to find somewhere around here that sells passion fruit so I can make my own juice. The end.

We made our way back to the bungalow and hung out at the reception center a little while…tried some funny looking fruit called rambutan. Yum! It tastes like gummy candy (same consistency, too). I’m going to have to find an Asian grocery store to find them…they are good!

We decided to ride our bikes to Manzanillo, which is the last tiny town on the little road south of Puerto Viejo. WOW. That place was amazingly beautiful. Super tiny town, there was one convenience store and one restaurant. We took about a 2-3 hour boat ride along the coast south of town…almost to Panama. The coastline was some of the most beautiful I had ever seen.  So much jungle and many desolate looking beaches…tiny rocky islands with just a few palm trees on them. No buildings or people in sight. Frank and I were both in awe…we didn’t expect it to be so beautiful, but it was. We stopped at one beach for about 15 minutes, and then at another for about 45 minutes and did some snorkeling. We started boating back to the town once the sun was about to set. Sad that we didn’t spend more time in Manzanillo…it was spectacular. I’m glad we were at least able to spend a few hours there, though!

The bike ride back was horrible. Frank’s bike broke and the chain wouldn’t stay on. We were a 45 minute bike ride from home…and the sun was setting. It’s not safe to bike those roads at night, lots of people told us that. Soooo, before the sun completely set, I decided to try and find a lodge or hotel along the road so I could get someone to help us out. We had NO cash…so this would be interesting. I didn’t find a hotel, but I found a house with a nice looking couple in the kitchen. I figured this was my best bet, so I went up to the front door and tried telling them in my best Spanish that my husband’s bike was broken down the road, and we needed a taxi. They were very friendly and before I knew it there was a guy on the side of the road that offered to drive us back to town. He said he was a taxi…who knows…it’s hard to tell who is a taxi and who isn’t around there. He seemed trustworthy enough, so I waited with him for Frank who wasn’t too far behind me walking with his bike. He brought us back to our bungalow and we explained that we had no money. We were going to try and borrow some from somebody, but he wouldn’t take it). We finally got him to take a half bottle of vodka we had as payment, haha.

After we showered up we hung out in the reception area with Jake and Maureen and split a bottle of wine, listened to some Mumford & Sons…just chilled. We were waiting for 8PM so they could close the office and we could go with them to Tasty Waves for half price tacos and drinks!

Tasty Waves was fun – different from the rest of the places we had been in that it was more Americanized. Most of the people there were American (I don’t think one person spoke Spanish). They played American music, it felt like we were in the US for a little while! The tacos were really good, and then we enjoyed a few passion fruit margaritas and beers. This was our “going-out” night. I’m sad that I have no photos from this night :(. That’s what happens when you have a good time, no time for photos.  The only photo I have is of me standing next to a pole that has the same print as the dress I was wearing. Oh well. We probably stayed out until 12:30AM and then headed home. We had a big travel day coming up the next day.

Proud of Frank

He's been doing crossfit workouts off and on for about 2 years, but these past couple months, he's really kicked it up a notch...and looking good! I'm super proud of him for kicking butt and reaching some of his goals. Here are a few photos of him from our trip:

Check out those muscles!

I'm happy that he's happy :)

Speaking of crossfit- I was in my first crossfit competition yesterday! It was called Fight Gone Bad and is more of a fundraiser for a few military non-profit organizations. I'm definitely a little sore today, but it was fun!