Costa Rica! A New Years Trip

Welcome to 2025 friends! Last year had brought several epic memories, and several good blog posts! Thank you all to those of you who read my posts! It’s a joy to spread my story and share my experiences!

As most of y’all have gathered by now, we travel a lot. And a significant amount of our travel happens – well all year – but particularly during the holiday season! Well this year we mixed it up by NOT traveling over Christmas Break! I know, kinda crazy.

I have to tell y’all, this was probably one of my favorite Christmases in a while. On Christmas Eve afternoon we handed out goodie bags to unhoused persons, and spent dinner with our wonderful elderly neighbor Mrs. Dietz. Her husband Bert passed away last fall and her extended family were all sick so we decided that it would be fun to have her over! Our evening was completed with a candelight service at a local church down the road, and PJ presents from mom and dad.

Christmas morning came around, and a new member of the family joined! Lale the Kale destroyer was a Christmas present to my sister and is now a part of our family! The dogs and the bunny get along for the most part, and there has yet to be any… shenanigans between the animals.

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A few months back, mom had told my family that we would accompany her on a work trip to Costa Rica after Christmas. Granting that Costa was #2 on my Bucket-list of places to go (with Italy being #1, but I’ve already had the blessing of going there), this put Costa Rica now in the top spot. And now I would get to go there to!!

I had thought that one day I would be able to go to Costa Rica as a trip with my family when I’m older, or some retirement trip after I’ve lived a long and good life. Nope! Praise God that He had different plans for me! You can probably imagine my exuberant joy at the dinner table when Mom told me that we would be going to Costa Rica.

This trip was probably one of my favorites in a long while. When it comes to travel, I like to put it into two different categories.

#1 – Travel: Going on a trip to explore the community, learn its history, and adapt to it’s culture.

#2 – Vacation: Going on a trip to relax, enjoy the community, explore culture WITHOUT trying to learn every bit of history there is.

I have had several people say to me when I tell them that I travel the world for school “So… you are basically just on vacation for school all the time?” NO! As much as I would love that, my education and travel are combined with lots of activities when I travel. Endless museums, tours, exploring, and of course blog posts to document it all! Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE traveling!! The amount of incredible things that I have seen and learned while traveling is… more than I could ever put into words.

Now, a true Vacation? Those are amazing. And I am very, VERY happy to say that this Costa Rica trip of 2025 was quite relaxing and glorious. My days were spent by the poolside, reading my book with a (non-alcoholic) Strawberry Daiquiri in hand.

I am pleased to say that there were four particular highlights to my trip. Zip-lining, monkeys, the fastest sunset in history, and body painting.

Zip-Lining

We spent an hour zipping above the Costa Rican treetops with friends Gabby and Allison!

Monkeys!

These Monkeys were called Howler Monkeys, and they are… not quiet! Howler monkeys literally howl all day long, and it is their form of communication!

Sunset

I have never seen the sun go down as fast as it did in Costa Rica. Probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

Body Painting

Okay, before you start question my decision making, just read.

It was the first night that we were in Costa Rica, and after a delicious dinner of taco’s, my dad went to the store to go get groceries and he told us kids that we could go get ice cream. (I will note, the ice cream that we got was, some of the best that I’ve ever had. Most ice cream out of the U.S. is better than U.S ice cream… I don’t know why) While we were sitting in the plaza, eating our cool down desert, this man asked if we wanted to do some body paint. Being the big, protective sister I was, I kindly refused and tried to usher my siblings away. “I’m not a scary guy, I don’t want money, I just like art!” the man said. I smiled… politely and continued to walk away, but Kb turn and said “what do you pain?”. At this point, I am kinda freaking out, but Kb sits down with a smile and proceeds to get her arm painted with the most beautiful sunflower I have ever seen!

We learned that the man was the owner of the plaza, and just liked to build community with visitors and locals with his art. Conclusion: Costa Rican’s are so much nicer than Americans!!