Sights of San Jose

 After yet another hearty Costa Rican breakfast, we made our way back down the winding road to San Jose.  We arrived a couple hours before check-in, but were able to leave our luggage at the hotel so that we wouldn't have to lug it around everywhere.  First stop was lunch as we were all starving by now.  The hotel front desk recommended a few places, but we chose Argentinian cuisine as we had had enough pico gallo and plantains for awhile.  Afterwards, we walked around and explored San Jose for a little bit before checking into the hotel.  Though we were tired and would have loved to rest a little longer, we headed back out to check out a museum.  The jade and gold museums didn't seem too interesting, so we went to the National Museum instead, which wasn't that great either.  Oh well, at least we did some obligatory cultural thing while we were here.

We found several shopping areas and Weiru and Cora stocked up on souvenirs at a cool place lined with little shops.  As tempted as I was to buy something, I had already purchased my bell, which I've been collecting for a couple decades now, and Trung had asked that I not buy anything excessive...he would have been proud.  After a simple dinner, we called it a night as we would be waking up at 3:30 the next morning to catch early flights back home.

Outside the Argentinian restaurant where we went for lunch

Enjoying fresh coconut juice while strolling down San Jose's version of the Promenade

Apparently, feeding pigeons is a big thing here.  As we walked onto this square, a local was practically forcing a bag of dried corn on me to feed to the pigeons.  The idea of pigeons swarming around me didn't quite appeal to me, so I had to keep refusing him.

The National Museum of San Jose where we barely lasted an hour.  Not that Costa Rican history is boring, well, maybe a tad, but mainly because we were tired and the museum was solely about history and not much else.

The best past of the museum was the butterfly garden.  We saw some very colorful, unique butterflies there.

Chrysalis, old and new

Notice the rows of chrysalis that were pinned to this plant.

We listened to a couple pieces performed by an orchestra gathered in front of the museum.  I'm not sure if  they perform there often or because it was St. Joseph's Day, a national holiday.

A Day at Tabacon

 Though we all went to sleep early, Cora and I had a rough night because the AC kept dripping water on our heads and then it got uncomfortably cold.  Fortunately, we had a relaxing day planned at the spa and could catch a cap nap whenever we wanted.  First, we enjoyed a Costan Rican breakfast with Cora's now favorite dish, pico gallo, and my favorite, plantains.  A quick taxi ride to the spa and then we had the entire afternoon to explore Grand Spa Tabacon; we chose to come to Costa Rica solely for this spa.  The first part of the morning, we stayed near the swimming pool area and had some lunch.  We didn't realize that there was so much more to discover, with trails leading up to various thermal pools and waterfalls.  Our time of discovery ended abruptly when we say a small green snake slither away by one of the pools.  Apparently, Weiru is deathly afraid of them and refused to go up into the rainforest any further.

No problem, we had about an hour before our spa treatments, so we asked if we could "check-in" a little early and we relaxed in bathrobes and enjoyed the serenity.  I didn't know that our facials would be outside, which was amazing, with the sound of the waterfall in the background the entire time.  The facial itself was good, something I would expect at any high end spa, but the service was excellent.  We could order fresh smoothies whenever we wanted!  We had an Italian buffet dinner afterwards that came with our day package, which wasn't the greatest, but satisfying enough.  Another wonderful day in the volcano region.  

Arenal Volcano disappeared this morning

Here's a picture of it from the same place the day before.

 Grand Spa Tabacon, not (as we learned) to be mistaken for Hotel Tabacon as they are in two separate locations. 

 A large lizard welcomed us to the resort; the poor thing had a huge chunk missing from his "fin" though.

 Excited about our day of relaxation

 Thermal swimming pool with a swim up bar and a spectacular view of Arenal.

 Just taking it all in

 Cora and I having a little fun, poking our heads out of the waterfall

Talk about paradise!

 There were stairs into every waterfall we encountered, so we couldn't help but go into them.

 The last picture we got before encountering the snake.

An elephant greeted us when we returned to the hotel, which was a bit sentimental because I just bought Sophie a stuffed animal elephant just before I left on the trip.  We accidentally left her original one at the hotel in Denver and she would cry for it sometimes.  She was clingy the week before I left, so I thought that getting her a replacement elephant would make her feel better.

Drive, zipline, eat, repeat

Cora and I had a very good night's sleep and enjoyed a nice continental buffet breakfast at the hotel.  Our transportation service, Anywhere Costa Rica, was a little early, so we got an early start to pick up Weiru at the airport.  Good thing too because there was major morning traffic on the way, but when we finally arrived, we were all excited to see each other.  Now off to La Fortuna, the volcano region of Costa Rica, and a good three hour drive.  Weiru had a red eye flight and motion sickness, so she spent most of the winding drive resting in the back seat.

We stopped one time to take pictures of a cool park and church, and then again midway at a diner so that we could pick up some food to go for lunch.  The driver needed to eat too, so we shopped next door at the souvenir shop while we waited.  We arrived at Volcano Lodge around one and spent the next hour eating and resting.  A full tourist bus then picked us up and took us on a very bumpy ride up to the zip lining center.  After gearing up and taking a ten minute tram ride, we went down seven zip lines zig-zagging over the rainforest and next to Arenal Volcano.  Since we had to hold a fetal like position, we couldn't really move around much, but when you looked side to side, it was amazing.  At one point, I looked over to see Weiru zip-lining in the opposite direction.  Way cool!

Since the last shuttle left before dinnertime, we decided to have dinner back at the hotel,  We stuffed ourselves silly and then took a little dip in the thermal springs feature where the little waterfalls gave excellent massages.  We had a wonderful ending to day two of our trip/ 

A beautiful Catholic church with marble detailing

A park with adorable landscaping

Dino hedge

Enjoying a typical Costa Rican lunch on the back porch of our hotel room

Geared up to go zip-lining

Arenal volcano straight ahead and the second zip line on the right

Of course, I volunteered to show everyone how it's done

Incoming...

Zipline #3 right over the rainforest.  The cables came one right after the other, so you seriously didn't have time to get scared.

Steak, chicken, fish platter at the hotel restaurant with complimentary cocktails.

Red eye

I had a direct flight to San Jose, Costa Rica with an hour "stay on the plane" stop in Guatamala and arrived at the San Jose Airport around 9:30 AM.  I had never been on a true "red eye" flight before, just super early flights, and actually didn't intend on ever taking one.  My original flight was booked for 7:30 AM with a layover in El Salvador, where Cora, flying from Houston, would meet me and we would fly into San Jose together.  The partner airline, however, decided to cancel the 7:30 flight or get rid of it altogether, and moved my flight up to 1:30 AM with the same layover in El Salvador.  I had no intention of waiting in a foreign country for 10 hours, so I gave customer service a call only to find out that even though the flight change was the airlines' fault, I could only change flights if they had one available for the same number of miles I had used to redeem my initial flight.  I don't know if that even makes sense, but after another phone conversation with a super nice customer representative, I was able to get the new "direct" flight and even get Cora one too!

So, I arrived a good two hours before Cora's flight in San Jose and just like last year in Santa Fe, I had planned to greet her at her gate when she arrived.  Airport security wouldn't allow me to "re-enter" the airport nor wait in front of customs, so I found myself waiting outside with a slew of annoying taxi drivers with no cellular connection or Wi-Fi.  I just hoped that Cora would figure it out and make her way to me somehow, and after two hours, she did!  We took a taxi to our hotel and soon made our way to Multiplaza, the largest shopping center in Costa Rica.  We had lunch and smoothies, and spent the afternoon window shopping as the clothes were way overpriced.  The mall, interestingly enough, also held mini soccer games, pool competitions, swim demonstrations, and even cheer leading performances, so we were never bored.

We asked our hotel for the 7:15 PM complimentary shuttle back and we waited for a good 20 minutes, so when 7:20 rolled around and a driver shouts out our hotel name, we immediately get in and believe that we are on our back.  We were very wrong.  Apparently, our hotel forgot us entirely and the guy who picked us up was supposed to pick up another person going to the same hotel in a different city!  So, of course, we realize this when we are almost at the wrong hotel, so the driver has to swing around and take us back to the mall to pick up the other guy and then figure out how to get to our "out of the way" hotel.  *sigh*  We eventually make it back to our hotel and go to sleep by 9 PM, exhausted by the flight and day's events.

A night at El Capitan

Weeks ago, I saw a deal for discounted tickets to watch the new Tinkerbell movie "Pirate Fairy" at the historical El Capitan Theatre.  We had never been before, so Trung and I decided to surprise the girls and figured that since the show was pretty late, we would go on the day that I would need to be dropped off at the airport for my 1:30 AM flight to Costa Rica.

We spent the better part of the evening at home and the girls were all confused when we needed to get ready to leave.  All Trung told them was that we would be going to "a show", but they didn't know anything else.  They weren't as expressively excited as I would have liked them to have been when they saw the movie posters, but they did have a great time at the show, especially since Lydia's friend Sydney showed up.  Adam Sandler was there with his kids too, so that was an added bonus, at least for me.  :P

Sophie, Sydney, and Lydia at El Capitan

Disney Firsts

 After having an annual pass for 10 months now, you would think that the kids would be sick of going to Disneyland (Trung is), but fortunately they aren't.  This visit, I went on the Screaming Over California roller coaster for the first time and literally screamed the whole time because it was going so fast.  Lydia even asked me not to scream so much the next time...uh, what next time?  The girls each got to go on their favorite rides three times!  Sophie loves "Goofy's flying school" and Lydia's is, of course, Screaming Over California, which she went on twice more with Trung after me.  

It was so hot today, at least for California, so we enjoyed cooling off a little on the Grizzly Run rafting ride.  We had never been on it before and it was quite fun.  We got to finish the afternoon at Radiator Springs Racers since we arrived early enough to grab fastpasses after staying the night at Mike's home; he lives 15 minutes away.  With a meal stop at Brodard and Che che che, we got home early and got the kids in bed to help the, adjust to Daylight Savings.

  

Proof that I went on Screaming over California

Ready to get wet

Sophie has characteristics like "Alice in Wonderland"

I am like "Belle" (Lydia got Alice in Wonderland too while Trung got Gaston)

Lydia as "Thumper", Trung as "Flower", and Sophie as "Bambi"

 You can actually see the girls in the front row!

Basketball season is over

Today Lydia played her final basketball game of the season.  Over the last few months, Lydia has shown improvement in handling the ball and being a team player.  Though she has much to learn, this was a great start and exposure to actual games.  Hopefully, Lydia can continue to improve as we would like her to be more involved in a team sport as she gets older.

Lydia's rare attempt to shoot a basket

The wolves ended the season with a win!

2nd-3rd grade basketball team

It's a bird, it's a plane...

Booked!

A month after signing with our agent, Sophie finally got her first audition for a fashion show.  The audition date was totally fine, but the start date of the show was when I was just getting back from Costa Rica.  I didn't want to decline our first audition, figuring that worse come to worse, Trung could take Sophie to the show.  That same evening, Sophie got another audition for a photo shoot with "The Children's Place".  Again, the audition date was fine, but the shooting dates were the exact same dates as our Florida trip during Spring Break.  Just our luck!  So, of course, I had to decline this second audition and just hoped that the agent wouldn't be too upset because it is a no-no to decline auditions.

So, it's Saturday and time for Sophie's first audition and we arrived at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising a little early despite the rain that LA has been having.  Never having gone to a fashion show casting, just auditions for commercials and such, I was wondering how the "fittings" would work.  Apparently, people match you kid with an outfit or two, then he/she puts it on, pretends to walk on a runway, and then a picture is taken.  I showed Sophie the fashion show from last year, so she was all prepared with her waves.  :)

Sophie was one of the smallest kids at the casting and the dress she tried on was just right on her, plus her "walk" was super cute, so I was pretty sure she would get the booking.  But right after the casting is when you wait, and wait, supposedly moving on with your life, but still wondering if you'll get that call.  Monday and Tuesday came and went...no call.  Then early this morning, Lydia woke Trung and I up four times complaining that her stomach hurt.  Not sure what was really going on with her, I dropped Sophie off at school and soon after I got home, Lydia decided that she was feeling better and wanted to go to school.  Okay, so back I go with Lydia only to get a phone call two hours later that she was in the nurse's office complaining of nausea.  I picked her up along with Sophie and her friend Luna and she spended the rest of the afternoon resting.  During this crazy time was when I received the call that Sophie got the booking!  I really needed some good news right about then!  We got lucky though, most people don't book anything until after 5-10 auditions and Sophie got it on her first try!  Sometimes it's nice to get confirmation that I knew what I was doing getting her an agent.

So, here's the clip that I showed Sophie to prepare her for the casting.  

Black or White

Lydia's second class and another class performed a dance routine to Michael Jackson's "Black or White".  Though she has told me that in the past that she doesn't want to take dance classes, she really seemed to have fun with it.  Maybe I should put her in a hip hop type class instead of ballet...  After watching the video clips I took of the performance, I showed Lydia and Sophie the original "Black or White" music video.  Sophie asked "who's that girl", um, that's MJ.  :P

Ready to perform

Getting into it

Group video

The best clip I got of Lydia since she was right smack in the middle of everyone

Watching classmates break dance

Oscars

I have always loved the Oscars, so when the red carpet interviews started at 4 PM, Mom was out of commission.  Well, not entirely, I did cut up all the spaghetti ingredients during the commercials.  :) 

This was Lydia and Sophie's first time to watch any part of any Oscars and they were disappointed that Idina Menzel changed up their beloved song.  I heard that she was sick, which does explain her voice cracking during the high notes at the end of the song, but she still should have left the ending the same.