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Contributed by: Olivia Hello everyone! I thought I would tell about one of our adventures during our visit in La Fortuna. On our first day we went to the Bogarin Trail where we learned about the nature of Costa Rica. We learned about sloths and how there are two kinds of sloths, two toed sloth and three toed sloth. Also, we learned about some very cute tiny and deadly frogs: the green and black poison dart frogs. We also got to see many more animals like insects, birds, bugs,

While we were in Monteverde, our family got to visit an amazing animal rescue sanctuary! We started in a big garden filled with twelve adorable sloths. Each one had been rescued for a different reason—some will be able to return to the wild, while others won’t. One sloth was paralyzed from the waist down and spent his days resting in a hammock, another had eye problems, and one had lost a leg. There were even a few babies, but we didn’t get to see them because they had just a

After leaving La Fortuna we traveled on some of the most amazingly treacherous roads I have ever experienced. We pretty much drove straight up a mountain to the very peak where the small community of Monteverde sits. Here lies one of the most incredibly bio-diverse areas on earth: the Cloud Forest. Here in the misty clouds the temperature was downright cold for us (in the 60s) where clouds and mist and rain are most common. It was lush green (reminded us of home) and very rug

After leaving the beautiful Rio Celeste area, we traveled to La Fortuna. This is an amazing town that is in the shadow of the Volcán Arenal. We were so blessed to actually see the volcano as it is most often shrouded in clouds. In fact when we went up to hike at the volcano area it rained and we could not see anything. But later in the day we were graced with its beauty. La Fortuna is home to many animal species that we were able to see, including sloths, toucans, honeycreepe

After leaving Liberia, we traveled into one of Costa Rica’s volcano areas: Volcán Tenorio. Here we hiked another waterfall, the Rio Celeste Waterfall, and we actually got to see it this time! Notice how blue the water is. We learned all about how it is the convergence of two rivers with just the right combined minerals to create the blue color of the Rio Celeste. The hike was quite rainy and muddy and a bit more rigorous terrain than we had anticipated! But we made it!

Contributed by: DeAnna As the kids will be telling you more about the activities that we did while on our travels, I wanted to share with you just a little about each place we visited: First, we traveled to Liberia. This is where the airport closest to where we have been staying is located. Corey had traveled to Chicago for a conference so we needed to go and pick him up. It is also close to several volcanoes and rivers. While there we hiked at the Le Leona Waterfall: On our

Contributed by: Hannah Food We Made: roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, roasted veggies, rolls, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potato casserole with pecans, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and Oreo pie! While Grandma and Grandpa were in town, we decided to celebrate an early Thanksgiving on November 11th. Grandma brought a few things from home, and we did a big shopping trip to gather the rest of the dinner supplies. When our Thanksgiving day came, we spent the whole day co

By Lydia The last place we went to on our traveling trip was Monteverde. We stayed at a cabin! When we got there there was a kitten I named Zipper (well it’s real name was Nala). There was this cute dog name Kiera also. Oh and we got to feed Capuchin monkeys that lived near the cabin. They LOVE bananas. Oh and Olivia got the flu 🤒

Contributed by: Sam Part of our traveling adventures included tubing down a blue river, Rio Celeste. We got picked up in a really big van with the tubes on top and all the gear we would need. We drove down to the river and got all ready to tube. We started off with me by myself, my dad by himself, mom and Hannah linked together, and Maddie, Olivia, and Lydia linked together. We floated down, sometimes getting stuck but our guides helped! The most fun was at the halfway poin

Contributed by DeAnna Ok one quick post about the waterfall hike we did with Grandma and Grandpa called La Roca Waterfalls. It is right off the highway and really known mainly from just the locals. It starts at a local restaurant and quickly descends down a trail to a beautiful waterfall. The amazing part was that we ended up having the waterfall all to ourselves. We jumped in and swam for quite sometime before heading back up and enjoying the most AMAZING VIEWS while having

Contributed by: DeAnna We had the amazing experience of hosting guests for the first time while in Costa Rica these past couple of weeks. Corey’s parents (Grandpa and Grandma) visited us for 10 days! We had a wonderful visit and we sure packed some fun things in. While allowing grandpa and grandma to acclimate a little to the wonderful Costa Rican weather (clocking in the mid-80’s with humidity hovering around 80% most of the time) we spent the first couple of days just visit

Hello all! This is Maddie and I get the pleasure of telling you all about my current favorite activity here in paradise! I have taken up dance classes and have been starting to learn two different Latin dance styles. I have been learning Bachata and Salsa. While I have a little experience doing some partner dancing having learned swing and square dancing it has been a fun challenge to learn these styles of dance! I have been learning these dances by going to classes twice a w

Hey guys, it’s Hannah! Today I want to introduce you to our Costa Rican cat, Anchor. When our family first arrived at our house in Costa Rica, we were greeted by a small, fluffy kitten who we soon named Anchor. He’s very sweet and friendly, loves taking long naps, gets feisty when he’s playing, and ALWAYS knows when it’s our breakfast and dinner time. One of Anchor’s favorite things to do is knock seashells off our outdoor table and then run around the yard playing with them,

Hi this is Lydia here to tell you about Halloween! All us kids wanted to dress up for Halloween. Hannah and I dressed up as the mouse from the book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” Sam and Olivia dressed up as the Wild Krat Bros. And then Maddie was a Jellyfish (we had to make up all our costumes at home). Then we went to a big parade (called La Mascarada) in town. There the local high school band marched and played music. There were also these people holding huge papier-mâch

Hey Lydia here telling you about the green pool that we had! It has been raining A LOT! All this rain made our pool so green! So then we had to have some pool guys come and it took 4-5 rounds of them coming to sprinkle chemicals into the water and vacuum it. It finally is all better, and they came by again today to check and make sure it is still ok and back to normal. Adios and Pura Vida.

This is the newest addition to the Baldwin family. Any of you that knew me (DeAnna) back in high school would notice the resemblance to my dear 1982 Ford Bronco named Amy. Anyway, this beast of a truck is a 1984 Mitsubishi Montero. He is power NOTHING. Truly, your OG dumb car, manual transmission and all. But what he lacks in bells and whistles, he makes up for with utter strength and true grit. He also officially can sit 7 but in true Costa Rican style we often squeeze in m

Hello everyone, this is Olivia and I am going to tell you about Spanish school! Our first week we got used to the Spanish vocabulary and...

This is DeAnna reporting to you all about my favorite thing that I am learning: Costa Rican cuisine!   One of the first things that we...

Hi this is Sam coming here to tell you all about my favorite part of our home in Samara: the POOL!  Every day I love to swim in our pool!...

Hi, this is Lydia bringing you all a weather report from Samara Beach, Costa Rica.  Today the weather is rain, rain, cloudy, and more...