Beach Time

Arrived in Jaco today, we all LOVED playing in the ocean. Hard to believe this is the same Pacific that we catch halibut and salmon out of!

Tomorrow we'll be looking into surf lessons....

Playa Jaco

Mike & kids catching waves

Costa Rica - Christmas Vacation

We've been in Costa Rica for 7 days and already had several adventures.

We spent a couple days at Grammie and Grampa's house in Atenas recuperating from the 20+ hours of flying time from Alaska. Time in the sunshine watching birds, butterflies and playing in the pool was excellent jet lag therapy.

Woodpecker at Grammie's Feeder

Butterfly in the bosque (forest/jungle)

 We then headed to the mountain community of Monteverde, famous for their dairy production. It was settled back in the 1950's by Quaker conscientious objectors of the Korean War. It has now become a center for Eco-Tourism and birdwatchers. It is a cloud forest ecosystem and as such can often be rainy and wet. The mountain road is infamous in Costa Rica for being nasty, but we were lucky that it wasn't very wet and was totally passable in our rental van with 2 wheel drive.

Cattle drive on the road to Monteverde

The kids and I went horseback riding the first day. It was a beautiful afternoon, we road past coffee farms, saw several nice vistas of the community, a few birds (motmot & toucanets) plus a sloth. The kids did GREAT, especially considering that neither of them has ever REALLY ridden a horse. Travis thought it was cool that the guide called him a vaquero (cowboy).  :)

P on "Cosmos"

T on "Johnny Walker"

Monteverde Sunset

The next day we headed up to Selvatura Park for a canopy tour and zipline adventure. Piper was pretty apprehensive at first about the heights, but she did great. Travis had no fear at all, he especially liked the three story drop Tarzan Swing. I did that too, but I screamed a lot more than Travis.

Selvatura Canopy Tour

T after Tarzan Swing

P on zipline

Whole Family after zipline tour

We rounded out our time at Selvatura with their butterfly & hummingbird gardens. Unfortunately most of their butterflies had recently died off due to a bad tropical storm that had moved through the area and dropped the temps too low for the "flutter-byes" as Piper likes to call them. The hummingbirds were quite cooperative though and we got some great pictures.

Piper the hummingbird paparazzi

Before leaving Monteverde Mike and the kids toured the cheese factory, which they really enjoyed. We picked up some yummy cheeses and caramels to take back to the USA with us. 

Monteverde had some GREAT restaurants….The Tree House (built around a REAL giant tree), Tramonti (excellent pasta), El Marquez (seafood….SOOOO good) and the fanciest mochas/ hot chocolates ever.

We are back in Atenas now…..Feliz Navidad!

2011 Turkey Shoot Champions

We were down in Anchorage for Travis' hockey tournament over Thanksgiving. Here is how the Fairbanks Daily News Miner wrote it up:

FAIRBANKS — The Fairbanks Amateur Hockey Association Phantoms were red hot during the 22nd annual Anchorage Hockey Association Invitational Turkey Shoot Tournament last weekend, bringing home three championship trophies.

The Phantom U10 Squirts, U14 Bantams and U16 Midgets all won their division titles last weekend in Anchorage. The victories came on the heels of the Fairbanks Hockey Hall of Fame’s donation of more than $10,000 to help FAHA pay for ice time to implement USA Hockey’s American Development Model skills clinics.“They appear to be paying off,” FAHA president Jim Culley wrote in an e-mail to the News-Miner.

Following is a brief roundup of how each team made it all the way to the top of their respective divisions.

Squirts
The 9 and 10-year-old Phantoms worked their way through a field of six teams to earn a spot in the championship game against the Mat-Su Eagles. After a scoreless first period, the FAHA squad stuck twice in the second on a pair of goals by Andrew Hebert and an assist Andrew Troppmann. Mat-Su scored its lone goal midway through the third period to pull within a goal. The Phantoms quickly regained the momentum, adding two more goals on breakaway rushes by Auston Hebert, Andrew’s twin brother. Auston Hebert led the FAHA offense during the tournament with eight goals in five games.

Mat-Su pulled its goalie with 1:28 remaining, but the Phantom defense held strong to preserve the win. Phantom goalie Isaiah Hebard stopped 48 of the 55 shots he faced last weekend for a .872 saves percentage.

Players on the team include Mark Fisher, Dylan Storey, Morgan DuPont (assistant captain), Levi Gho, Andrew Troppmann (captain), Auston Hebert, Caleb Spears, Justice Hoffman, Caleb Sanborn, Andrew Hebert, Travis Brase, Carson Colby (assistant captain), Simon Laszloffy and Isaiah Hebard.

The team is coached by John Hebard, Kevin Coiley, Skip Jantz and Jason Storey. The team manager is Audra Brase.

The team sponsor is No Sweat Gear.


FAHA Phantoms - Squirt Tier III





'nuff said



Backyard Hockey Rink

After the contractors dug out the foundation for our house addition last summer we were able to expand our yard big enough to accommodate a small ice rink. Travis and Mike started prepping the 15x30 foot rink on October 29 & we started skating on November 5.

October 29

  

Late October Morning Sun



November 6



Fall Fishin' at The Shack

We headed out Saturday to the DCR after Travis’ first hockey practice….we didn’t end up leaving town until almost 4pm though since I was dealing with jersey sizing issues at the rink, we hadn’t loaded the boat yet and we still had to have lunch….geesh! Of course this all might have had something to do with the fact that we were out spearing whitefish until 1am the night before…..

Luckily the boat ride to The Shack is all about 5 minutes, so we had the boat unloaded and we were relaxing by the fire by 6:30. A beautiful evening with a lot less boat traffic than we see in the summer! More duck hunters too. We didn’t bring any shot guns this year, but I’ll bet we’ll try next fall.

We got our “new” Craigslist table & chairs set up and our snazzy flannel sheet curtains hung (yup, there are those advanced sewing skills of mine at work). The Shack is looking pretty nice inside if I do say so myself!

It got chilly Saturday night, we even woke up to a little bit of snow! We were quite toasty inside though, our kerosene heater worked great. We were really happy that we made the decision to insulate The Shack.

Fishing went well, when we got to our favorite coho (silver salmon) spot Piper caught two right off the bat. Then nothing for about 45 minutes, but then they really started to bite...

 






 

 

Our Delta friends showed up so we all fished together for a while then we headed back to the cabin to relax by the fire for a bit. Travis got really industrious and re-dug out the outhouse hole that had filled in after the rains we had late in the summer. THIS time we put a barrel in the hole so it won't collapse again!

We got off the river at just about sunset….the full moon looked amazing.

A great way to end boating season….although it is a bit sad to put the boat to bed for the winter.