Dinner in La Fortuna

We drove down into La Fortuna for dinner... it is just east of Arenal Lodge and because it was raining, and I forgot my raincoat in Ocotal (I hate this!  I pack everything that everyone else needs and forget what I need!  UGH!!!)  we drove into the little town and thankfully found a poncho - you know the kind... a garbage sack with a 'hood' - in a little store right next to where we ate.

We stopped at a "Soda" which is a little restaurant - there are TONS of them in CR - and I ordered La Casado con pescado - the daily dish with fish and this is what I got!

Fish, rice and black beans, fried plantain, some kind of ground beef mixture in the middle - had like green beans and carrots in it... Yum!, yucca - it's the stuff with the chips stuck in it... tasted like au gratin potatoes to me!, some lettuce salad, and that purple stuff... it had hard boiled eggs and beets... not my favorite.

Dave had the buffet - it was basically everything that I had but no fish... he is more adventuresome in eating than I am...

The kids got una hamburguesa con papas fritas (hamburger and fries) and weren't thrilled.  They put mayo and ketchup and a slice of ham on their hamburgers... and "the bun tastes weird" is what Meg said... WHATEVER!!!  Their favorite part of the meal was the rice pudding that the waitress brought at the very end.

One of the most exciting parts of dinner was when we first sat down and I opened my menu to a tiny little gecko --- Meg and I couldn't decide if he was inside the menu or jumped down from the thatched roof!  It was funny and it ran into the flowers  you see behind Meg (above)... she tried to catch it but it was quick!

Then we just cruised around La Fortuna for a little while.  Neat little town square with beautiful flowers and a fountain. 

Arenal Lodge

Here are some pictures of us messing around on the grounds of the Arenal Lodge.

Jack was pretty tickled to find this butterfly on the bricks.  He is following right in his sisters' footsteps in tha the loves all of the critters!  He chased a lizard around the pool this morning, trying to catch it!

This is one of the best views we got of the volcano while we were here.  On Monday, it rained and rained but on Tuesday it was dryer and the clouds lifted a tiny bit... nothing like Mom and I saw three years ago (click here to see the blog post and pics from 2008) but still quite a sight to behold!

Here is the view from our deck.  The grounds of this place are a large part of why I enjoy Arenal Lodge so much.  You'll see in the next post how we took advantage after dark!!

Can you see the hummingbird among the purple flowers???

I was so tickled to get these photos!!!

A view of our deck --

More of the beautiful flowers on the grounds...

They have little ponds on the grounds and we saw many different sizes of tadpoles... teeny tiny all the way to frogs with tail nubs... Ella reache din with her net and snatched them out for us to look at!

Here's the inside of our room...

And Meg and Jack enjoying the swing on the deck...

Arenal Bound

We decided to head for the big volcano - Arenal.

It is the one thing that Mom and I did on our last trip to CR that I thought Dave shouldn't miss. 

We stopped at one of the highlights from the drive last time (see how I loved it here)

Cafe Y Macadamia--- I got a mocha or 'mokka' as it read on the menu  and they didn't have THE tuna sandwich so we had tilapia instead. 

Then we continued our trek to  Arenal Lodge. 

Our kids are such great travelers...

Upon arrival, we enjoyed a yummy drink.

We were glad to arrive and get settled in so that we could start exploring. 

The rain didn't stop us from heading over to the butterfly garden right away!

Sunset Pictures

Check out Sandy's post of the beautiful sunset from yesterday!

"How's your butt cheek?"

Ella learned the hard way why lifeguards and parents are always saying, "WALK!" when we're at the pool...

A little bit of road rash, eh?
And she didn't even cry!!!

Makes it tricky to wear pants!

Church in CR

Went to this church this morning:  http://www.catfishfarmfellowship.org/

Think it was a nice fit!  I'll take the kids back next weekend!

One of the ladies invited me to join them on Thursday for their Beth Moore Bible study! 

See, I could live here...

The Pool

Hanging out at the pool today and some other folks showed up - they had their 3 or 4 young boys with them --- I'd been thinking that jumping over the edge of the infinity pool might be fun - but probably not safe.. .then we watched those boys do it --- now it's a free-for-all! 

Jack is becoming much more confident in the water -- jumping off the side into our arms and going under water, holding his breath, no problemo!  He wanted to jump over the edge with us...