Metorite of the space poop variety.

My husband, *sigh* ooohhhhhh my sweet, sweet, husband.

Ever since we were dating he had been holding on to this circular piece of, well, I am not quite sure what it is, but he claims it is a meteorite, I claim bullshit. Quite literally to. It looks like a giant piece of fecal matter. I know that isn't glamorous to say that, but really that is what it looks like. So, in an effort to be fair, I am going to give you my husbands argument for why he believes he owns something more rare than gold, maybe he can convince you guys because his claims fall on deaf ears with me.

His story:
He was out in the desert riding dirt bikes with his family, by the Salton Sea. His bike broke down and as his uncle and father tried to fix it, he was left to wander the desert. Which is where he happened upon his lovely specimen. It caught his eye because of the shape, and thankfully it was resting on top of a rock (because, you know, meteorites are thoughtful upon impact and like to make it easy for you to find them) and the rest is history!

My story:
I don't need a story, I have pictures on my side, and here they are. LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO THE MOST MAGNIFICANT PIECE OF SPACE POO EVER!

Top


Bottom


Side


Relative size (Yes I know I have stubby fingers, thanks for bringing it up. Jerk.)


Like I said, space poo. Do I need more evidence?

Oh my goodness!

I have been doing nothing but cooking for the past two days. What have I been up to in the kitchen? Well......

I had to remake those caramel things the cat decided to ruin yesterday, which, funny thing, turns out a candy thermometer is necessary for making candy, go figure. So, those delicious sounding caramel things? Yeah, they were pretty much ruined, the taste was good, but the caramel was over cooked and a little more tough than pretty much anyone in their right mind would want. Another thing I learned? If you dip anything in chocolate, you can make it look pretty.

Case in point.


I am thinking about doing the same thing to my face the next time makeup isn't working. I get the feeling people would like me better. In reality I might just attract bitchy women, but who doesn't like those?

The other things made in my kitchen over the past two days were not as exciting (relative, excitement is relative here.) as cat paw caramel. Just some butterscotch oatmeal cookies, chocolate dipped pretzels and peanut clusters. I am testing them out for small Christmas gifts.

SO WATCH OUT FAMILY. YOU MAY BE GETTING.....
Never mind, you will just have to wait and see.

Oh! I need you to do something for me. First, I need you to take all your desktop icons and move them to the left. I can wait.....

Alright, good job, now I need you to click here. Now, you see that picture, right click on it, and choose to "set as desktop background". Trust me, you will thank me later. That tounge can brighten up your darkest day. I promise you. It cures cancer and feeds the homeless.

I promise.

Stop rolling your eyes and just go do it. I dare you.

Unamused, so very, very unamused.

Alright, we have already established the fact that I am adorable*. This adorableness carries over to all aspects of my life. I am sorry, but it is true. Sometimes this adorableness even makes me do things that no sane human would do on a whim. For example, today I got the urge to make chocolate dipped caramallows. A nice labor intensive project for Tuesday. This entails, a layer of handmade caramel, then handmade marshmallow, then another layer of the caramel, letting it sit for 8 hours and hand dipping them in chocolate.

So, I finish one layer of caramel, I spread it in the pan, and after two attempts I get the marshmallow mixture right, I spread it on top of the caramel layer and just as I am finishing....

....I see it. A German Shepard, trying to cross the road. He almost gets hit by a car so I venture out to check his tag in an attempt to return him to his home and, as I make friends with the dog and start to check for a tag (there was none), I hear it.

IT!

Our fat cat freaking stepped in my caramel/marshmallow mixture, I knew it before I even got back inside. Then, when I do get inside, I see it.

IT!

There are marshmallow paw prints EVERYWHERE, no really, they are seriously everywhere. On the window, on the table, on the chairs, in the carpet. WHAT. THE. HELL? Have you ever tried giving a cat covered in marshmallow a bath? HAVE YOU?!? I am pretty sure it is as close to hell as you can get with out actually taking the elevator down. Ugh, I am scarred for life. At least the paw prints came up with a little bit of elbow grease.

Gah! I have to go, I have more caramel to make, but for your viewing pleasure, here is the culprit, when she is pretending not to be the devil.


*This statement may or may not be factual. Try to get over it.

Loose ends

Alright, I have a couple of really random things to share, so stick with me please.

Randomocity #1

You know who you are, I don't. You don't need to fess up, but to the person who hopped onto the computer and eagerly typed in the words "Monster eats naked girl" into Google, in hopes of....well....lets be honest, god only knows what. I am not going to test it out, nothing good can come of it.

Anyways, I am sorry that you were directed to my blog. It must have been a huge disappointment as the only monsters in my life are the socks that come off my filthy construction workers feet. They basically walk themselves to the washing machine. Scary, no?

Randomocity #2

For those of you who don't know me personally and just stumbled across my blog, thank your lucky stars. Thank them because, if you did know me personally you would be pulled into my orbit of adorableness, and you wouldn't be able to escape. Sorry, it's a proven fact. I would have you trapped with my charm, and if you have not taken your meds, or you have had a few drinks, you may even be pulled in with my wit. Okay, maybe that was just me being hopeful. A gal can dream.

Proof:
This year with the whole world being broke (Minus any and all CEO's of corporations who have been bailed out) my immediate family has decided to pull names out of a hat to determine who we are buying gifts for. With 5 siblings, two parents, and a niece who you can't resit buying the world for, the holidays can be pricey, and that is just my side of the family. I offered to be in charge of putting people's names on cards for drawing. But my adorableness over powered all things mundane and boring and I ended up making these....



They are white 3 X 3 envelopes, with the same sized black cards on the inside. I raided the scrapbooking aisle of my local jo-anns and came out with green ribbon, Swarovski crystals and little glue on snowflakes.

You are spared all the details as I don't have the cards done yet. Apparently working with tweezers, toothpicks loaded with glue and millimeter sized crystals isn't the fastest process.

Near Death Experience.

Oh, no no no. Not me, no. Sorry, hope I didn't suck you in with an overly exciting title just to bludgeon you over the head with mundane details about things only a select few care about, cause, you know, that would be awful.......or something like that. Oh well, to late now you are sucked in. Pull up a chair and deal with it.

The near death experience was not experienced by me, but by our fungia.

For reference, this is a fungia.


The fleshy neon orange membrane had torn a little on the fungia a number of weeks ago so we had moved it out of the position shown ever so subtly above. We put it in a corner of the tank so the flow would not make the tear worse, because corals don't really appreciate band aids. While in the corner a rouge yuma

For refrence, a yuma.

Okay, so where were? Oh yeah, so the rouge yuma posted above tumbled over to our fungia. And it stung the fungia. IT FREAKING STUNG IT. So not only does it have a tear in it's poor little membrane, but it is stung also! A-hole rouge yuma. So then the fungia does this cute little thing where it looks like someone took a match to it.

Not so great, right? Well, it looks bad but there is still membrane, no skeleton is exposed, it was still taking in water and it stayed like this for a few days. I should have stopped freaking out, right?

Wrong! This

marked the onset of it's decline in health. The white is the corals skeleton, it was starting to bleach out. Not good, and it only got worse from there, the whole half of the fungia proceeded to bleach out, not fully, but pretty close. It was dying, quickly and there was nothing we could do about it. We were beyond devastated, but until you know how many hours and weekends were spent trying to find a creature as beautiful, brilliant and orange as that fungia......you would be devastated as well. Oh, don't look at me like that, YOU WOULD. Bite me.

A couple weeks go by, we go to babysit the girls and we are gone for the weekend. After we wander beaten and bruised back into our house after 72 hours with 2 girls under 5 and we were greeted by a big, more healthy than it used to be, rebounding, fungia. The best welcome home present EVER.

Grab a tissue for this part ladies and gentlefolk

That was two weeks ago and it has continued to improve, it has been a slow go process, but it is BACK. Best things about these creatures?

Random Opinion: Best thing about these creatures? The way they puff up and open their mouths to eat.

Oh, don't act surprised that we have two of these things, I just wrote a mouthful about ONE, of course we have more than that. That is it though, I promise.


For now.


Whatcha gunna do about it, huh? Don't make me bring my crew into this.

Economic Downturn? Not so bad actually!

I am going to be honest. We be broke. Okay, maybe not broke but my filthy construction worker of husband and I are pretty much just scraping by living on only his paycheck. Extra cash is a thing of the past for us (or at least until I have a new job). Not only are we just scraping by, work for Gray has been a bit sketchy. Because the construction industry is directly tied to the economy, a couple of people have had to cancel jobs or have been unable to finish jobs and, like I said, things have been a bit sketchy.

So since I have been home, Gray has had a considerable amount of time off as well, which makes things even worse for us financially (go with me for a second, this isn't a sob story, trust me).

We don't eat out anymore, good beer is a luxury not common place. $20 at the movie theater isn't happening. Bills are paid easily of course, it is just the extras that are lacking.



and I can't say that the ducks care, nor do we. It has given us a lot of time to just hang out and be with each other and gives us time to not live life by proxy. Yesterday was one of the best Monday's I have had in years.

We were babysitting my niece while my sister was in L.A. for work and we took her to feed her obsession, literally. She has a thing for ducks that quack. Thankfully, the ducks had quite a bit to say about the quarter loaf of organic multi grain bread she was feeding them.

Please note Gray's face as his favorite mallard is scared away by our niece's advances. Gray has a thing for mallards.

Then we went for a sunset hike before dinner

to a sculpture garden, which was one of the last major international art projects done by Niki De Saint Phalle.

Everyone loves the "garden" and it is so random that it is in our town. Not the place I would picture such an amazing work of art.

and if you haven't noticed, being able to spend the quality time with my family, the people most important to me in life, has given me time to take just a few pictures of my favorite subject. she is such a beautiful ham.



And like I said, the ducks don't mind either.

Wall Art

Picture frames can be sooooo expensive and if you are like me and you have tons of pictures hanging around and you can't afford a mass amount of picture frames it might just make you turn to your creative side to come up with something...ANYTHING..to get those pictures out of the cabinet and on to the walls.

So the filthy construction worker of a husband and I came up with this low cost idea.


All we did was take two rows of cut-at-home-depot flexible wire, string them through eyelets screwed into the wall and crimp them in place and then used a small clip to clip all the pictures on to the wire. It was super easy, no super special tools were required and you really should go give it a try!

Sleepin with the fishes: A shortie

Alright so another week down and our tank is doing well! Oh what? You don't believe me? FINE! I will prove it!



The tank is much more bright and beautiful than depicted here. Honest. So far our mushroom corals are doing great, they are growing and seem to be happy and healthy. Our bright fish addition to the tank is taking great care to protect the corals and if I even so much as go near the tank the little bugger takes his stand in between the corals. They are his, so back off!

Shrooms - a beginers journey

So, our new reef tank has begun to take shape. We got our tank up and running, and because we threw in some old substrate and used natural saltwater it took less than the normal amount of time to cycle (meaning: the Ph is the right level, our salinity has been worked out and our nitrate/nitrite levels are good)and we were ready to get some live critters for our tank this weekend.

We researched and researched to see if it was better to put coral in the tank first or if it was better to put fish in the tank first and we came to one firm conclusion. In the fish world everyone has a different idea of what is best, and everyone is right. What works for some people wont necessarily work for everyone.

We went for a clean up crew first and they have been in our tank for a few days. I adore this snail and it's sweet little mouth.


And today we got our first corals. We bought Two mushrooms and two came along for a ride, the fish store was kind enough not to charge us for our hitchhikers.




Our only problem thus far to tackle is that we are having a hard time regulating the temperature in our tank and we don't want to stress out the life inside. Our nano cube is so small and our house is so hot that the water inside the tank with out a heater hovers around 90 degrees. So, we have been leaving the feeding lid open and using a fan to blow hair across the surface which keeps the water at ~78-79 degrees. The only problem is keeping the tank at a stable temp with out constantly baby sitting it. Any fish/nano people out there who have and tips on regulating the temp with a fan?

I am looking forward to the winter months!

Sweaty? Don't worry, that is how I like em!

It is hot, okay it is really god damn hot. I am not going to sugar coat it because my sugar coating has melted off. Southern California is experiencing a bit of a heat wave and the filthy construction worker of a husband and I escaped this weekend to the "wine cellar" here in town and picked up some new things to try and I am going to try to pass it off as an attempt to escape from the heat and then you won't know that we just really like trying new beers.

The lot:


















The porters and the stouts are mine, the pale ales are his an the smoked ale was ours.

Snake Dog IPA: eh, Pretty good, but skipable. Go for the dogfish head imperial IPA
Sinebrychoff Porter: Try it! DELICIOUS. When we were checking out and the cashier was mulling over our choices she mentioned that this beer was one of her favorites. I assumed she just kind of picked one out and was being a good saleswoman. But I don't think so. This porter was delicious.
Fuel Cafe Stout: Try it! Filthy husband pointed this one out to me in the huge fridge, because in our last trip I picked up an espresso stout and loved it. This was another good one. I am really liking the stouts with coffee.
Marin Brewing company stout: eh, skipable. Nothing special, not to say I didn't enjoy it but I just didn't find it that exciting.
Hop Juice Double IPA: Try it! Very hoppy, but not in a bad way. Very bitter, but not in a bad way. You just need to be into those two things. I am not. The filthy husband? VERY into those two things.

Our pick together?














Skip it, we had high hopes, mostly because I like smokey beers, filthy husband likes ales and juniper berries never hurt anyone. We waited all weekend to try this, we made the perfect meal to compliment it aaaannnddd it was a huge let down. It was fine but not worth the price tag.

Done, did it, finished, check!

Awhile back I mentioned something about needing a change in my life, and about how getting rid of the dingy, beat up, maltreated fish tank and getting a bookcase was going to be my catalyst for change. So, the fish tank is gone. We have yet to sell it, it is still hanging around for now but it is broken down into it's parts and ready to be sold on craigslist.

But have I made any changes?


Um, I would say so!

1)Like I said our huge takes-up-half-the-living-room-fish-tank is gone. Our bookcase is filled with books that were once banished to our dark dingy spare closet. Our small living room actually has room for me to breathe in now and speaking of breathing, we got something to breathe a bit of life into the room. A nano cube.

It is a small 12g Saltwater system that will be used for a fish or two and beautiful corals. I said I needed a hobby, well there it is! I have a feeling it is going to be a time consuming process, with a large learning curve and only a small margin of error allowed due to the life inside. Lots of research has gone into making sure that we are doing this right, and lots more will go in to ensure we keep doing it right. It will be a fun, beautiful, manageable journey.

2) On a much bigger scale, I quit my job and decided not to take the test for my Series 7 license. Okay, I didn't quit-quit. But I have started looking for another job and because my current employer gave me an amazing learning opportunity I felt it was only fair to be 100% honest and inform him that I was looking and give him more than 2 weeks notice. I felt like the series 7 test was the turning point for me. If I was going to remain in the financial industry the test would be my step forward but if I wasn't going to remain in this industry I needed to back out and move on and that is what I did.

Emotionally I am torn between thinking this is an amazingly exciting time in my life and tearing my hair out over the worry that I won't find a job. Whatever comes though, I am thrilled that I have chosen to make this change and very thankful that I have a large support network behind me rooting me on and I really believe that it is for the best.

I just hope I am right....

Bleeding heart

Dear family whose house I am looking after,

I look good on paper. Responsible, honest, trustworthy, timely and compassionate. All characteristics that you want in someone who takes care of your house while you are away on vacation for a week.

I will water your houseplants, bring in the mail, feed your fish, make sure everything is safe and care for your small garden. You don't have a thing to worry about.....

.....Unless you have neglected your small garden to the point where caterpillars have not only moved in and brought their entire family including their great aunt Helga but they have also all grown to be as big as a filthy construction worker's middle finger...and then some.

Here is the thing, I am not going to touch those things. Am I scared of bugs? Maybe, but not caterpillars, these ones are beautiful, soft and I would invite them to an afternoon tea. Why won't I rescue your garden from the attack? Well, to be quite honest, I won't rescue your garden because it is pointless. I am no detective, but my thinking is, if these caterpillars and their great aunt Helga have had time to grow this big...this is just a guess now, so bear with me, but I am thinking that you might not have even cared about your garden that much in the first place. The weeds up to my waist told me so. The caterpillars though? Oh man, the caterpillars, they care. They care about your garden a great deal and they seem to be very comfortable living amongst your tomato plant and *ahem* looking after it. So you know what? They win, they get to stay. I refuse to remove them. I will water it, feed it, stake it (because you failed to) but those caterpillars? Those suckers stay.

Nature: 1
You: 0

Love,
Your compassionate house sitter

Oh, and in case you never venture down to see your small garden. Here are your new tenants


and don't be a smart alec, I know that isn't a filthy construction workers middle finger. I made him switch to his thumb so you wouldn't be offended when it looked like he was threatening you with vulgar sign language.

Change baby, It's all about change baby

I need some change in my little life. I need to be more organized, I need to spend my time more wisely, I need to be able to find things that are long lost in the closet, I need to step up my game, I need....well..okay, I need a lot. Most importantly I need to start doing something about it.

What it the one thing that can facilitate all this change? What is the key that unlocks my ability to be productive? I think it is the salt water fish tank sitting in our living room. We want to get rid of this massive mess, we need to get rid of this massive mess, we just don't know how to get rid of the mess. And to further complicate things there is a living creature in the tank. A single hermit crab. We don't know what to do with him, but I think it is time to figure it out and get this ball rolling. So, here is my plan of action

1) Try to get rid of the tank on craigslist w/a hermit crab
2) If that does not work, try to get rid of the tank. Period. And take the hermit crab back to the fish store that we bought him at a year and a half ago
3)If that does not work, weep, get frustrated, gnash teeth until it scares someone into taking the blasted tank.
4)Once tank is gone, get a book shelf which in turn gets all the stacks and stacks and stacks of books out of the boxes in our closet that take up a huge amount of space. And if you give a mouse a cookie...
5)...she is going to want to get rid of a bunch of clutter that is just hanging (not literally) around in our closets and this clutter serves no purpose. This clutter needs to go, it is the first step in change.

I believe the fish tank is the key, I think it is the key, it might be the key, there is a possibility it is the key...

I hope it is the key. Because I need some change.

Another curious blog stat

Dear google searcher,

I am here to offer an apology. Again. To the person who searched "poop my pants" in google and came across my blog, I doubt my blog fullfilled you in your pursuit for pants pooping. I do not know what you were looking for when you were searching for "poop my pants". I don't know if you wanted to find something hilarious, kinky, down right filthy or information on a medical condition but my site is only one of those things. I will let you decide which.

I hope your quest is able to provide you poop, in your pants in a way that my site could not. I hope you stink stick around and I hope you come back.

Love,
The stink

A weekend in pictures

This weekend was random and fun and pretty uneventful...but fun! So instead of making you sit through a verbal explanation of what I did, I will shhoooowww you. Because pictures are always more fun than words.

We hit up the park for a walk....

....in a park, of Escondido's finest wildlife


We then explored the the colorful sculptures





End Scene.

Ooohhh, don't you worry, there are more of these puppies coming!

We also ventured over to Oceanside, which p.s. is doing pretty well in the rehabbing the community department. I mean, it still has it's issues sure, but the pier (where we went) and surrounding area they have done a really good job with!

I had a gay old time stalking some poor surfer...






And I was feeling friendly, so like any good friend I stalked the fishermen and fisherladies as well




They stunk up the place and I was thoroughly offended by the fish stench and thus, they are not lucky enough to have their faces pictured. Okay, okay, that OR I am such a nerd that I don't have the huevos to take pictures of random people or ask them if I can take a picture of them....and the surfer just so happen to come into view of my telephoto lens. His fault....

*ahem* MOVING ON...we are almost done, so don't get antsy, just a few more fun to me, mundane to you things to get through.

We drank

Not that uncommon of a thing for a 23 yr old to do but we found this really cool place here in Escondido called the wine cellar, it isn't a secret, just new to us. They had rows and rows and rows of various types of brew. They are so kind to even break bottles out of their six packs, mark the price up slightly (but not too bad) and make it so you can buy just one beer, which makes it great for trying new things. The funky beer pictured above was chosen a) because I love stouts b) the espresso seemed like it would make a good addition to a stout and c) I say this with great shame, I liked the label. What can I say, I am a sucker for cute marketing. In addition to the stout we got a porter and a triple fermented ale. Tasty!

Last and most importantly, we have some exciting news.

We are proud to announce the addition of a new family member to our little budding family!!





















Mother in law, you may now excuse yourself to the bathroom to clean yourself up as I know you just peed your pants thinking I was going to announce that I was with child. Alas, at this juncutre, I am not (your first hint should have been the beer talk). But very proud to show you our little fighter!

Meet gatesy!


He is our bed buddy.

Chili Cook Off - A shortie

It was brought to my attention that I never mentioned how I did in the family chili cook off (which was a huge success by the way!). Sooooo.....let me tell you!



I did just fine!
Those number are not rankings, rather, each chili (there were 9 there) was given a number so the cooks and their chili were anonymous . Voting was done by placing a first, second and third sticker on each number they liked best. My numbers were 2 & 3, so, by the sticker count you can tell I didn't do too bad. There was a tie for first place so my uncle in law, cousin in law and I all placed in the top three. Go us! Although, all the party goers were right, it was a hard decision, everyone brought some darn tasty chili and I can't wait to do it again!

And because I was raised well and know how to share here is the recipe I used for my winning chili.

Arrogant bastard chili

1/2 pound bacon
1 pound ground round
1 pound ground pork
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
6 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
6 habanero peppers, seeded and chopped
8 Anaheim peppers, seeded and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons beef bouillon granules
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 (16 ounce) cans whole peeled tomatoes, drained
2 (16 ounce) cans chili beans, drained
1 (12 fluid ounce) bottle stone arrogant bastard beer
3 ounces tomato paste
1 ounce chile paste
2 cups water


1)Place bacon in a large soup pot. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain excess grease, leaving enough to coat bottom of pot Remove bacon, drain on paper towels and chop.

2)Brown beef and pork in pot over medium high heat. When meat is browned, stir in the bell pepper, onion, jalapeno peppers, habanero peppers, Anaheim peppers, garlic, cumin, red pepper flakes, chili powder, bouillon, crushed tomatoes, whole tomatoes, beer, tomato paste, chile paste and water.

3)Reduce heat to low and simmer for 45 to 60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add beans and bacon and continue simmering for another 30 minutes.

Does anyone think their chili is better? Feel like sharing your recipe? Please do! I am open to making all sorts of new chili!

Everything I thought it would be and more!

A few months back I had downloaded the photoshop 30 day trial and was toying around with it, well my trial ran out the day before the husband and I got back from Costa Rica and I cried, gnashed my teeth and even thought about coming home from our trip a day early just so I could edit photos (okay, not really...but really, photoshop is just that fun!)

So here we are a little less than a month later. I am happy to announce I am a proud owner of not only photoshop, but I also got the Totally Rad Action set as recommended by the pioneer woman.

So, here is a quick example. Nothing too drastic, just a little oomph!

Before:


After:

On Google Searches

It is on my page, loggin' your stats.....

If you take a gander at the bottom of my page there is a little square that says "blogpatrol". On my page I have a widget that tracks how many people look at this site and a little about them. Nothing too creepy, don't worry. But, I do feel like I have an apology to make after looking at one certian stat that blog patrol alerted me to.

My apology:
To the person who typed the word "Naked girl hiking" into Google search and was directed to my blog, I am sorry (Do the naked girls hiking at least wear a pair of socks under their boots?). I am sorry for the lack of naked girls hiking. I don't know how Google got my site and and naked girls hiking confused. And, to the person who was trying to search for "Naked girls hiding" I just have three questions.

1)Are you the same person who was looking for the naked girls hiking
2)Why are the naked girls hiding?
3)Which is better, a naked girl hiking or a naked girl hiding?Or is that like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I am now off to google naked girls hiding to see what comes up.....other than my blog of course.

Chili Cook Off!

It is the great family cook off today!

Be back with the results later tonight! Until then I will leave you with this picture of the spice that went into my arrogant bastard chili.

Costa Rica and It's beauty

Best. Trip. Ever

Alrighty, I have been avoiding posting about our trip to Costa Rica because I so badly wish I was back there there and start plotting ways I can get back there every time I talk about that lovely country. I have issues, this I know. I am working through them. So, Are you ready? No? Well, suck it up cause here we go!

We started the trip out by flying into San Jose Airport and taking a car to Arenal. We stayed at the Arenal Observatory Lodge and had a great time combing the grounds. We saw coti, toucans, lava, parrots and the scariest spiders I have ever seen in my life. EVER. The lodge used to be a Smithsonian research institute and now it is a hotel. How that works, I have no idea. I just assumed that the scientists were smart enough to get the hell out of the area and leave it to the tourists to stay so close to the volcano. No matter, it was a wonderful hotel. It was about 25-30 minutes via a rocky dirt road from town.

That is how close us dumbass tourists were from the volcano. This picture was taken from the pool.

And from our balcony at night .

We did all the touristy stuff like going horseback ridding to the La Fortuna waterfall, hiking, drinking beer and of course.....
We went ziplining. I fought the urge to run, harnessed up, got into position and.....shut my eyes the whole way across. It was either that or poop my pants. Which would you have chosen?

After having our fun in La Fortuna we took interbus over to Aviarios del Caribe in Cahuita, a sloth sanctuary, and let's just say that within hours we were secluded to our musty smelling room trying to find ways to escape the place. Going into this we knew that the sanctuary was a Bed & Breakfast and we expected to be a little bored seeing as how, oh, I don't know...we are not two 73 year old women! But this place was bad, must smelling rooms, filthy windows, rusty bathtubs not to mention the hosts didn't know what the hell was going on. The good thing though? The hosts might not know how to run a B&B but they do know how to lovingly care for these little guys

Before the trip I might have considered eating a sloth, now I have nothing but mad sloth love for them yo. Sorry, I don't know where that came from.

We eventually stopped stomping our feet and gnashing our teeth and decided to make the best of it and opened our eyes to the beauty around the area and we were able to find all sorts of good things like...




The wildlife around the area was amazing and slightly scary. We lived and got to see some sloths. This may come as a shock, but I do not recommend the B&B.

After Cahuita we went south about 45 min to Puerto Viejo for our most relaxing part of the trip. In PV we stayed at Banana Azul . Everything about this place was amazing, the location (right on the beach) the service (friendly, welcoming and willing to help you with anything) the rooms (big, airy, lots of french doors) and the food (delicious, great price, lots of it). We spent our days swimming in the perfectly clear, bath water temp. Caribbean waters

wandering along the miles of pristine beaches where you hardly ever saw anyone else


and napping in the hammocks strung up between coconut trees on the beach. Don't worry I don't have any pictures of that, you lucked out.

It was an amazing trip, I am very thankful that we were able to go on it and have the experience under our belt. I am glad that I didn't listen to the review sites online that try to scare the life out of you by detailing how dangerous Costa Rica is. This country seems far from dangerous as long as your are respectful, polite, be aware of your situation and don't act like an asshat. We were not raped, swept up in a drug deal, mugged, held at knife point or anything of the like. While I am sure this happens in the country, it happens in every country. Never once did I feel as though I was in any danger. The beauty of the country quickly washes away any worry you might have about the safety reports you read while planning your trip.

One word to sum up our trip?

GO!