Trips, Pics, and Tales

After our visit to the Butterfly House it was lunch time.  We decided to go to the buffet restaurant.  We had a pretty good meal, at a reasonable price and everyone found something they liked.  The rain started during lunch, but that didn't stop us!  As my parents had come to realized, in Costa Rica, you don't let the rain stop you from anything - just just put your rain gear on and carry on!   We wanted to take full advantage of all of the other exhibits on the property, so we went to visit the snakes, the frogs, the Casita and the big cats! Alex and Megan at lunch The kids doing some chores at the Casita This is a replica of a traditional Costa Rican Casita Time to take the Ox out for a ride! The inside of the Casita, this is the dining room table set up for a meal This is one of the cats in the Big Cat area.  Each has a sign letting the visitors know its history, such as where it w...

After what feels like far too long of a break, let's continue on with our long ago Costa Rica family adventure!  So...back where we left off!  We were staying at the Peace Lodge and our next stop was the Butterfly House.  This is one amazing place!  If you've never been to any type of butterfly breeding house, you must visit one!   The Butterfly House has more than 25 different species, and let me tell you, they are everywhere!  During this particular visit, Megan was a magnet for them!  At times she must have had five or six landing on her at one time!  They would just land on her shoulders, her fingers, her arms and just hang out! They say there are over 4,000 butterflies flying about at any given time.  I believe it!  We had them landing all over us!  They sure weren't shy!   They're such delicate little beings! Perhaps even more amazing than these beautiful butterflies flitting all around, ...

Here we are in the middle of January.  It's not my favorite month for many reasons.  The main reason is that my real job puts me smack in the middle W2 season.  In my dream job world I'd be traveling and blogging and living the life!  But in reality, I'm here printing W2s and preparing payroll tax returns for my clients.  Don't get me wrong...it keeps me on my toes!  But it's one crazy-hectic time of year, right on the heels of December and all of the hustle and bustle that the holidays leave behind!   And then of course, we have the weather.  This year has been a bit out of control for those of us who aren't thrilled about cold or snow.  Between the latest weather term to hit the news - the Polar Vortex, which has us expecting lows around 5 degrees or so all this week, without the wind chill, and then we have the snow....I guess I should be happy to have all of the W2's to keep me busy! So, instead of posting some pictures of the latest ...

And now, back to 2010 and our trip to Costa Rica!  We just left off with our hike through the Waterfalls at The Peace Lodge.  Our next stop would be the Aviary! I thought this would be a favorite for my mom since she is a bird lover!  I had remembered the aviary as having so many birds, but when we walked in, they must have all been hiding- we didn't see any!  Hmmm...but almost immediately, one of the employees stopped my daughter, Megan, and asked her if she'd like to feed a Paca.  She was thrilled!  A paca looks sort of like a large guinea pig.  So both her and my son Alex got to feed the little guy some pellets through the cage while the guide told us about the pacas. Then the guide asked them if they wanted to feed the marmosets!  Well, of course!  So, he took us over to them and they were just adorable.  They would grab a piece of food with their hands and run off to eat it.  Sometimes they'd actually eat out of the kid's ...

We woke up after a wonderful night's sleep.  I love sleeping in the cloud forest.  It gets all misty at night and the clouds settle in the valley.  Our Villa had a wonderful balcony, complete with its own hot tub, and sitting out there first thing in the morning, just listening to the birds was a peaceful way to start the day.  Each balcony has it's own hummingbird feeder.  The birds would stop by often to have a little drink as I sipped my morning coffee.   Today our plan is to start with the waterfall hike and then to visit the other exhibits on the property. When we checked in, we were told that the trails to the waterfalls were all now opened again after the earthquake, and that the waterfalls were back to being visible.  And I suppose if you've never been there before, you wouldn't know the difference.  But from what I remembered from our last visit, the trail was much shorter.  The starting point was different, and there were few...

Another fantastic opportunity that The Peace Lodge offers guests is a night tour of their Frog Habitat.  We had reservations and shortly after our hummingbird feeding experience we were ready to see what the frogs were all about! We met outside of the Frog Building and our guide was named John.  He was fantastic!  The frog area is divided into a couple of different rooms.  We began in the area with the tanks that held the poison dart frogs.  He took out one of these frogs and held it.  He told us all about these colorful frogs and allowed us to take some pictures.   After learning quite a bit about the different poison frogs, we moved onto the middle room.  We spent some time here.  Actually a baby green eyed tree frog jumped right onto Alex's neck!  He wasn't too thrilled and had no interest in touching a frog from that point on!  We did get to see some frog eggs on the bottom of leaves in this room.   And then we...