Day 1: Eat. Ocean. Pool. Sleep. Ocean. Eat.

Saturday night was rough, not going to lie about that.  I woke up Sunday morning at about 5 a.m. and Caleb was nose to nose with me breathing stinky breath in my face and then he gave me a huge, sweet smile and I knew everything was fine.  It was still crazy early to be awake, but such is the life with little ones.  Caleb and I slipped into the living room to read books and hopefully to let Brandon sleep a little longer.  As the sun came up we rocked outside in the hammock and in typical Caleb fashion, he said, "more milk mommy".  Geez, this kid.

Nice Mug.

I could see the branches of the trees were rustling above us and I assumed it was birds until I looked up and a monkey was right above us!  Caleb and I both were thrilled (maybe me even more than him)...Monkeys, I love monkeys!  Turns out there were four monkeys in our tree, and one was a momma with a little baby on her back.  It was so amazing and a great way to hit the reset button on our trip and start fresh.  This is a good point to mention that I hadn't planned on blogging on this trip and didn't bring the cord to my camera so all these pics are going to be iPhone pics and I won't get to check out my big camera pics until I get home.  Monkey pictures are on the big camera...first world problems.

Our refrigerator was still basically empty at this point, so we went down to the beach and looked for a breakfast spot.  This momma needed coffee, stat.  We stumbled upon the absolutely perfect spot, the Breakfast Grind.  It was on the second floor and all open air, so the views were beautiful, the people were friendly, and even better, the owner had a little girl so there was a kids corner full of toys and books.  I told our server that Caleb had had an upset tummy the night before and she made him a fresh fruit smoothie that got some vitamins back into him and perked him right up for a full day of swimming.  I had an awesome breakfast sandwich with fresh avocado and Brandon had a breakfast burrito with a green sauce so spicy that sweat was beading off his head.

We left with full tummies and walked across the little street and found a nice shady spot to set up our beach spot for the morning.  The weather could not be more perfect.  Mid-eighties, sunny.  We watched the surfers and soaked in the amazing view.  The mountains to the right of the beach are totally undeveloped so it's just blue sky and green mountains as far as the eye can see.  The tide change here is pretty drastic, so at low tide during the day, there is so much beach.  Caleb ran and ran and ran.  We played in the sand and splashed in all the little tide pools around these cool black rocks.  I am definitely observing some cultural parenting differences.  A group of four little kids about Caleb's age played in the tide pools for about an hour (one was totally naked), with not an adult nearby or even in shouting distance.  I am assuming their parents were surfing...and you know what?  They didn't die.  They were as happy as they could be, covering each other in wet sand and using their surf boards as slides into the tide pools.  I instantly realize I need to back off and let my kid breathe and be independent.

After a few hours on the beach, we were hot and sandy and decided to take it up to our pool for a cool dip before lunch.  We floated and chilled and life is good.  The boys went up to the condo and I went off to the supermarket in search of some food.  I am hoping to cook some meals to keep costs down a bit.  Tamarindo is a town of only 500 residents and all surfers and tourists so we are finding the restaurants to be a bit more pricy than our last trip to Costa Rica on the Caribbean coast.  I fumbled through the market trying to piece together a couple of meals in my head and realizing I had to carry them all back home...up all the stairs.  Funny to pick out things at the grocery store using weight as the discretionary factor.

Brandon and I had sandwiches and cold beers on the back patio and all snuggled down for a nap.  It took a little wrestling to force Caleb to sleep, but I had to wake him up at 5 for the sunset, we had all enjoyed a mellow afternoon.  We made it back down to the beach just in time, and man, the sunset really lived up to the hype.  It was incredible!  I will let the pictures speak for themselves, but the colors, the clouds, the reflections in the sand, it's all perfection.  We cracked open a couple of celebratory beers (we are so happy to be drinking Imperials on this trip!) and soaked it all in.

Earlier on my grocery store field trip, I had spotted a restaurant that looked really good, so we went to dinner after the sunset.  Like all the restaurants seem to be, everything is open air and all outdoor so you can feel the nice breeze and the smell of the roasting chickens was making my mouth drool.  The waiters were so kind to Caleb and brought him special little books and pens to color with and Caleb is getting great at saying "Gracias!".  He is making lots of amigos here.  I talked Brandon into going for the special which was Sangria for two and a big tray of steaming meat to share.  Doesn't it sound good when I describe it just like that? Big tray of steaming meat...but that is just what it was!  There was chicken, steak, grilled corn, guacamole, pico de Gallo, something that we couldn't really figure out and are referring to as fancy hot dog.  So good!