This December, I had a work trip down in Costa Rica with our top distributors in our company. We decided to take our wives and make a real trip out of it. It was fantastic to leave 20 degree wintery Utah weather to go to 85 degree tropical weather in Costa Rica. Dawn's mom and my mom watched the kiddles while we were away and we were glad to see everyone survived when we got back.
Since we were there on a Sunday we decided to attend church. They were having district conference and it was good to see and chat with the locals and the missionaries serving there.
Anybody notice the baby bump? We are due to have a little one join the family the middle of May. We are excited.
Here's our group. We love having them be a part of our company.
We had a fancy dinner on the last night. Although it looks like Dawn is holding hands with Frank across the table, she was actually there with me. I'm just the one taking the picture.
Got to spend a day with the guys and went fishing for marlins and sailfish. We only got into the sailfish but we had a blast. I ended up catching two of them. They were about 6 to 7 feet long and around 100 lbs.
When I caught my second one, they asked me if I wanted to jump in with it to take a picture and release it. Only gonna live once, right?
While we were out there we saw a huge pod of dolphins. They were awesome to see.
They dragged this behind the boat to make it look like a school of baitfish were following us.
Here's the bait. It was about 12 to 16 inches long.
The captains let each other know how they did by hanging flags when they go back into the marina. We hooked up on 11 sailfish so he hung 11 red flags.
Beautiful scenery on the way back in.
Here is the group of guys I went with.
Kendall is one of my partners at work. He's showing off the slogan for the trip.
There is our resort right on the beach.
A trip to Costa Rica wouldn't be complete without a trip on a zipline through the jungle, right?
Due to Dawn being pregnant, she wasn't allowed to go on the zipline.
This is Dawn's crew of non-zipliners. We have Frank in the back, Monica our tour guide in the middle and one of the workers there in the front.
Dawn heading up the tram.
Here are some views from the tram through the rain forest.
I'm the tall goofy looking one in the bright green shirt.
We went for a little nature walk after the ziplining was over, and saw this big colony of leaf cutter ants.
We also saw a bunch of snakes native to the area.
That little speck on top of the leaf the ant is carrying is a little ant that guards the leaf carrying ant from a fly that wants to land on its neck and lay eggs.
Can you spot the iguana in the tree?
Here is a local resident of the hotel we were staying at.
Here is a panoramic of the beach we were staying at.
We stayed and hung out in the water for a long while. It must have been close to 80 degrees. It was wonderful.
Eating lunch at the hotel.
Beautiful view, beautiful wifey.
We went for a before-dinner walk on the beach with some friends.
What else do you do but pose when you find a tree on the beach?
We found some cool seashells and cool formations on the beach.
Including little sand crabs.
We went to a national park one of the days and had to hike in a little ways to the beach. Johnny decided to help Dolores out by wearing her hat.
We found some little friends in these little white-faced monkeys.
It was a beautiful beach to play at for the day. The only problem was there were raccoons that would steal things out of your bags. We lost a whole bag of cheez-it crackers to them. Even while beating them with a stick they would still rumage through things. They were a bit of a nuisance and we always had to be on guard.
For New Year's Day I took the little girls ice fishing in the morning with Grandpa and Uncle Matt and some of Grandpa's neighbors. We had a good time and each of the girls caught some fish. It was a beautiful day. While we were gone, Dawn and Drew went up to Woods Cross to pick up Aunt Kristin and take her to the airport. When we all got back home and after Drew's nap, we headed out for an adventure at Cabelas. When we showed up it was closed so we headed to Scheels instead. It worked out great. On the way home we picked up some burgers at JCWs and ate them at home. Madolyn told us it was the best day ever.
Jordan was out of town for a little while for work conventions and meetings and so we spent some time playing with Grandpa and Grandma Peterson while Grandpa was raking leaves. The girls loved being buried in them, but they sort of terrified Drew and he didn't really know what to think of the whole situation. You can kind of see it from the look on his face:)
