Byron has been begging to go back to Costa Rica (where he served his mission) ever since we got married. Thanks to my sister who was willing to watch the kids we went for 5 days. The roads are terrible there, windy, narrow and a lot of the time you are driving in the rain and through a cloud forest. We rented a 5 speed Toyota Yaris that Byron had fun driving thinking he was a race car driver going around the turns with a cliff on both sides, with Amber saying slow down and ready to puke. We decided to just concentrate on the rainforest and volcano and hit the beach another time since they span each other by about 8hrs.
This is an active volcano and we stayed at the only hotel that you could actually view it from.
This is one of many waterfall hikes that we went on, on average we hiked about 2x a day.
This is the view over a cloud forest right outside of our room. The placed we stayed was tons of acres owned by a bunch of Israels. The great part was the on site food and activities, so we never left the resort. We ziplined here and river rafted and hiked.
This is me ziplining. I was terrified to do it cuz I am scared of heights, but since you can't see the ground because the trees are so thick it wasn't so bad and I just never looked down. We were about 26 stories up. We had a great time, but I was ready to come home to the good ol USA were there are actually street signs and no bars on the the windows.
Since Linsey was here we decided to float Ichetucknee river on a Sat right before school went back....BAD IDEA! The park rangers said that before 8am 750 people were already waiting to enter the river. by the time we got there at 10:30 only the south enterence was open, we waited in line for about an hr to enter the park, then again in line herding like cattle into the river, then played bumper tubes with crazy people all the way down the river. Wish I had a pic to show you but don't have a waterproof camera. Just imagine cattle herding down and river and thats what we looked like. AND Mikaylas expensive glasses got thrown into the water...we won't say who's fault that was....mind you we 3 days soon just come back from the eye dr. who said she didn't need new glasses....now I guess she does. The water is 72 degrees year round and cold. Next year we will be sure to go during the week. The upper pic is of the kids getting into one of the cold springs watering hole. 
This is a deadly cotton mouth snake that was on the edge of the water hole that my kids were swimming in....there were 2 that I saw and I can only imagine how many that I couldn't see.
