Time with Family in Quepos

Mrs. Ott
Jan 6, 2020
5 min read

A lot has happened since our last post. November was a very quick month for our family. The days just seemed to fly by!

Probably the most exciting part was getting visitors from the USA!

Adam flew in first and spent about 10 days with us. He was able to sleep in Clayton's room while Clayton took the top bunk in Aria's room. He was an easy visitor to host as we still had classes through the day, but he is used to going out and exploring on his own! He even found a key making place so we could have a few extra sets of keys. He flew in on a Thursday afternoon. Mom and Dad Ott and Aaron and his family flew in the following Tuesday.

We had a Thanksgiving dinner with our school on Tuesday night at school. Costa Rican's don't celebrate Thanksgiving, as it is an American Holiday, so we put on a dinner and invite Ticos to share the meal with us. Mom Ott brought 8 boxes of StoveTop Stuffing from the States and we made party potatoes to take. The Student Body served the food so the line would go quicker. They were expecting around 200 people. Turkey is very rare and expensive here, so the School bought like 50 rotisserie chickens from Pricemart. All the Students signed up for sides to bring and the Student Council organized everything. They did an awesome job!

It was our last night with our friend Sarah Noland. She is the missionary who had met some of our missionaries in Haiti before coming to ILE. She had a previous commitment for December so wasn't able to finish out the semester with us. She will continue language school with ILE via VideoChat next Semester. I'm going to miss her easygoing personality, her laugh and working out with her at the Gym. Us ladies met at Cafe Paris for "cafecito" the previous weekend as a farewell. I'm praying for you Sarah!

Wednesday morning we were supposed to leave San Francisco around 7:30am. Our driver texted and said he was having trouble with the traffic and was going to be late. So all the Otts came over to our house for breakfast before he got here. We all got packed in his 12 passenger van and were off to Quepos! About 20 minutes into the drive, Aria ended up throwing up. She was wearing a hoodie and I think she got overheated. So I asked the driver to pull over and about 15 minutes later, we stopped at a gas station. Poor Mom was sitting by her and got some on her so she ended up changing too. I had given my older girls Gravol before we left to hopefully avoid a situation like this. But I should've given some to Aria in some food or something. Clayton refused to take it and I was worried he would be the one to throw up.

I was sitting up front with the driver and asked if we could talk in Spanish. We started out that way but about 60 minutes into the drive, I started getting really sleepy from the Gravol and just wanted to close my eyes. We stopped at Jaco, which about 45 minutes-1 hour from Quepos. It was great to see the water! We took pictures of the kids with the Jaco sign and got back on the road.

The house we rented for the 4 days was Casa Tropical. The owners are Canadians so Glenn was conversing with them on our way down. It was kind of tricky to find the place so luckily the driver Jose conversed with some of the neighbors to get us in the right direction.

The house was awesome! Below are some pictures I took from the FB page. There was 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, a large living area, wraparound porches and a huge upper level where it was completely open air. It was perfect for early morning coffee or early evening sunset.

One morning, Mom was able to capture a video of the monkeys playing around us. Unfortunately I slept in this day :(

Wednesday night, Ana and Cassandra, who are the caretakers, made us a delicious supper. It was an amazing chicken dish, rice, veggies with an appetizer of fried plantains & guacamole.

Thanksgiving day, we headed to the beach. It was about a 8-10 minute drive from the house. It was beautiful! The scenery around us again was excellent! Aria wasn't really a fan of the sand, so she whined and cried in every picture I took of her:(

The waves were so fun! There were people taking surfing lessons right next to us, so we had to watch out for them and the parasailers that kept taking off. And then the lifeguards that kept telling us to come in to waist deep. The tide kept getting higher all day and by 3pm? the water had reached our cabana.

Local Ticos were selling jewelry, bowls, sunglasses, drinks and food all day long. The chicken empanadas were delicious!

I was walking the beach and found a 1 mil colon laying on the sand!

We kept reapplying the sunscreen and Malaya probably still got to much sun. I forgot to spray the part in her hair, so that burned. :(

Towards the end of the day there, a man came up with horses on the beach and of course our kids wanted to ride.

Friday we spent the better part of the day at the Manuel Antonio National Park. It was a warm day and lots of walking.

Funny story about this picture: right after we took this, a park employee came up and asked if we spoke Spanish. We replied that we did a little and she began telling us in English that the tree the kids was sitting on was poisonous and that we needed to wash the kids legs off right quick!! Oh brother! Of course there was a sign BEHIND the tree that mentioned this in both Spanish and English...some kids were more worried than others if it was going to hurt them...

At one point, somebody said something about it being Black Friday. I never was a hardcore Black Friday shopper but I realized how silly it sounded compared to being on vacation with Family. Things and the thrill of a good deal just don't mean anything when you've been removed from family for so long. I realize some people are away for much longer, years even. I don't want to sound like I have it so bad. This is the first time in my life that I haven't been "home" for longer than two weeks and its just different.

Saturday we had signed up for a horseback trip. Two Ticos picked us up and took us to their restaurant for breakfast. We rode horses for about 45 minutes and then got into a river with a waterfall over rocks. The kids had a blast sliding down the rocks. Then we got back on the horses and rode back for lunch.