A Sunny Beach Day!!!

Today was our last Friday here in Costa Rica. Last I talked to the RMs on Tuesday, we decided to get together again this week and have a girls night out for the Moms. We thought it would be best to do it at our place, and if they are gonna drive all the way out here, might as well go to a beach too, no? So it was arranged. Playa Flamingo, and let's get all our American friends - the Martinsens and the Heathman's to come too. So it was. We got there around 1 and stayed until sunset (5:30). With our big group it looked/sounded like Raging Waters - water splashing, kids squeeling. It was great. Couldn't have asked for a better beach day, but we might still try to go one more time before we fly out. Flamingo is an awesome beach, and today it was a BEAUTIFUL DAY!!!! It was sunny! There were hardly any clouds in the sky.


The ocean looked SO BLUE - it was a beautiful beautiful day. Wow. My camera's battery was low, so I was trying to conserve and thus didn't take as many pictures as I normally would have, but still have a ton.


Lily fell asleep in the car on the way there, wasn't happy I woke her up and took her out into the hot and bright outside world. But she calmed down quickly and started playing with the other babies in the small slightly shaded area from the two folding chairs-


President Lopez from our branch came with the Martinsens and he was so cute with all the babies digging in the sand. He kept them quite entertained and the little ones seemed so pleased to have an adult freely choose to play with them.


Melodie sculpting her body again. Giving herself little troll legs. She's so funny.


Joseph started this - take a quick run in to the water and get wet, then book it up to the dry sand and coat yourself like a snickerdoodle cookie.

From Joe's macho pose here, I guess being a sand man makes him feel pretty tough

And Ethan as the Sand Man.


Rolling down the beach slope - making sure to get that sand everywhere!


Inspired by the other boys, Wesley also coated himself in sand. Wes was the only kid that I realized (at 4:00) that I hadn't put sunblock on. Luckily I think the dirt covering him did the trick. His cheeks looked kinda rosy though, so I rubbed the sand off of them and put some sunblock - made them look nice and pink. Glad to report that after the bath at home, I was glad to see that he wasn't not fried. As seen in Wes' photo above and hte following pictures, the sun was starting to get lower in the sky - it's more orange in color and longer shadows.

Lily was our designated beach b u m today. (I forgot her b o t t o m s - o o p s!) She wore a diaper at first, but when she needed a change I didn't want to waste a diaper that was just going to get filled with sea water, so she went without. Totally the norm here. :) I saw a grown man just take off his pants on the beach, right out in the open, to put on his swimming trunks! That wasn't here, that was at Samara. Maybe he was from Europe?

but Lara didn't seem to mind Lily's b a r e bottom at all and was so cute holding her and playing with her - thank you Lara! You are such a sweetie! As you can tell Lily loves her.

Lara also helped Abi find a hermit crab! We love and will miss the Martinsens! Maybe we'll come visit you guys in St. George since you all might be back in Utah before us! We'll miss you guys!

The boys spent the last hour of the beach making sand forts for their sandball fight. Ethan's head poking out - and up close...
Very impressive - this was packed dirt, so I thought it was really hard to dig in. Playa Conchal - now that's my kind of digging material. But the kids were determined and worked hard. when the mom's said it's time to go at 5, they hurried and had their mudball fight. We're doing the best we can to not miss out entirely on all the winter activities we're missing...

Sunset was beautiful!!!!

A great ending to our last week in Costa Rica.