By the way.....

Just for any family that is wondering. Internet here is all the way in town. Poor us, we will have to walk the 10 minutes down and across a beautiful beach. But what I mean is that we can't just open the lap-top and chat on skype. If you can all be a little patient, we should have 24 hour internet when we get back to Heredia and we will be there for a few days. I'm not certain if we will get a hotel with internet before then, but we should be in Heredia the last week of November. Yes, I know it's a little ways away, but we will be checking emails at least once every 3 days. Honestly, it's quite nice to not have to run to a ringing phone, or have something turned on all the time that you need to monitor. We do miss you all so much. And sometimes it feels as though we've been here for months, but unbelievably, it's only been 2 weeks. Pura Vida, we'll talk with you soon.

Just a quick note....

I feel so alive. Spending all this time with 'my boys', the beautiful sun, sand and the salty ocean. But it's the Ocean that has surprised me the most. Of course the boys are fantastic, and it's definatly the greatest to be with Chris all the time. But this is about the ocean. The ocean has never really done much for me, but cool me off when on vacation and sitting in the sun too long. But here it is completly different. Here jumping and swimming in the ocean awakens something inside me that I didn't know existed. I want to dive into the upcoming waves. I want them to take me further away. I just want to drift on them and stare out into the clear blue sky. I now crave the salty taste, the sound of the crashing waves, the smells of the sea. I am alive. In a way, that I didn't even know I wasn't.

today

11 am, Saturday afternoon. Chris is calling the bank in Toronto to ask them to help us out a bit. Because his debit card was eaten by a machine and then lost, they have frozen his account for security purposes. That's all nice and good, but my name isn't on the account, so we can't get any of it. Anyways, a long long story made shorter, Chris is calling the bank on a Saturday, hoping not only that someone is there, but that they can help us out. 1800 numbers do not work from Costa Rica, and all we have is a 204 number and it's for a credit card with our bank, not the actual bank. But they transfered us fine. After going through numerous security questions and finally being transfered to someone who has the authority to help us, we were cut off. So Chris calls the credit card number again, is transfered, goes through the security questions again, and is on his way. He explains our situation, and just as the supervisor says he'll help us figure it out, we're cut off again! So back to calling the credit card number. This time the girl who answer's doesn't know how to transfer the call. We'll have to wait a minute please. Chris hang's up and tries again. At this point the boys are getting restless and I want to get into town to buy a swim suit. It's hot, and all of our dirty clothes are at the laundry mat. This includes all of my swimming gear. So I'm off with Oscar, walking down the beach in the sweltering heat in the middle of the afer-noon. DUMB TOURIST. I'm hungry, and Oscar wants me to carry him. Ok. We get into town and I'm still hot, hungry and sweating (nice image eh?) There is only one place in town that has suits, and they are not made for Melnychuk's tops. Humm. Well, I decide to take a taxi back so that we can go and have lunch. Done. When we come back the boys are in the pool and I'm feeling like I should have just boughten a suit for now, our laundry will be done tomorrow at 4pm, and that's a long time to not be able to swim (especially in this heat!). So, I call the taxi back and ask him to take me back to the store, wait for me and bring me to the hotel. Great. I run in and buy the suit, a little small, but we're in Costa Rica, it's all good. I get back to the hotel pay the driver and run to the pool. It's sunny out so I go to grab my sunglasses (already my 2nd pair, I left the first one's in Heredia the day we left - 3rd day of our trip) But where are they? Ahh, I either left them in the taxi, or in the store. So I get reception to call, yes there are in the taxi, for 2$ he'll be here in about 15 minutes to drop them off. Man, what does he think of me, this white dumb north american........ Ah well. It's lunch now. Maybe I'll get a different driver for my mishaps tomorrow. BTW, Chris got things figured out with the bank, so Mom and Isabel if you're worried, please don't be. All of Love, The Lukies! ps- I am not getting any skinnier... I order for me and eat what's left on three other plates. Pura Vida.

To Samara!

So we are going to check out a few other towns. We need to know what else is out there, who knows, we may be back here or we may fall in love again!
So, at 9 am this morning (Friday - just in case it takes me a day or 2 to get this on!) our driver came to pick up the four of us and all our luggage (btw - we got rid of the broken suitcase, and more than 6 pairs of sweat-pants! that I had packed for the boys). So we are off to Samara. It is a small little fishing town just on the west side of the peninsula, about half way from Montezuma to Tamarindo. The direct road is only good 2 months out of the year and right now it is not open, we need to go around through Paquera and north then west that way. The trip will take between 3 and 5 hours, again depending on how the roads are.

So, again. 9am pickup. I was so excited for this trip to start, a new town, new people, new everything, and then it was 9:35. We had just passed the town of Paquera. Oscar was trying to sleep on my lap. Callym says his stomach hurts. 9:37, Callym says his mouth hurts. As I look at him, I see it. The water is starting to pour out of his mouth. ALTO! ALTO, Chris (who's in the front seat), please help Chris, stop, Callym is throwing up! What do you do when you have one child on your lap, and the other is doing his best to keep all the vomit in your small hands, cupped so that it doesn't mess up the car. I'm not sure if it was the smell, or the sound, or just because it had hit him too, but Oscar started now too. Remember, he's still 'sleeping' in my lap. Warm legs. Yuck. Finally, our driver pulled over. It's not that it took him so long to pull over, but everything else happened so quickly. Was it the Orange juice for break fast? The scrambled eggs and cheese? So we get out of the car, and strip the boys naked, (I need new pants too!) it's a good thing we had 3 bottles of water because we needed to wash all of our legs, arms, hands, face, and inside Oscar's shoes!

Ah, so it's now 10am, the car is as clean as we could manage, but we still have a 2 to 4 hours drive. In this stink, I'm not sure if we can do it. The boys want Chris to sit with them, so he does his best to hold them both over the huge bumps, and the quick swerving that our driver is doing. It stinks! I'm in the front. I feel that there isn't much I can do to help, so I start singing a little mantra like song in my head. Over and over. (to the tune of 'we are family') - We are healthy, all my Mr. Lukie's and me. we are happy, all my Mr. Lukie's and me.

It's now 11:30, I'm still singing my little mantra song. Chris is in the back, holding the boys as they sleep half on him, half hanging off the seats. But suddenly it's happeneing again. Callym again this time, no wait, Oscar too. We pull over and change everyone's clothes again. Wash ourselves, and get back in the car. Callym is asking us, 'please, can we walk the rest of the way'? Oh, my poor little babies. Every mother will know this feeling, and many fathers too. You feel helpless, and desperate, and guilty, and so stressed when your kids are sick. But we keep going. By now our driver says we only have about an hour left. Thank God! He is a very nice guy considering that we totally ruined the back seat of his 4X4. But he is driving very fast (can you blame him? the car stinks so bad). and instead of slowing down for the potholes and such, he swerves really fast, stops quickly and more. It would be a really cool drive for adventure seekers, or for the boys (for about 25 minutes).

After a few quick emergency stops, that ended up being false alarms, we are here. I haven't made a reservation anywhere, but being the slow season, I didn't think it would be a big deal. I was right. We made it to the hotel, and unpacked. Now we had a huge bag of smelly laundry to get done, and have some lunch. We are here. We are all fine. And we will have more to talk about tomorrow. The one thing we do know right now? We are not under any circumstances going back to Montezuma. At least not that way. Was this Montezuma's revenge on us for leaving such a beautiful paradise? I'm not sure.

Where are all the Monkeys???

After a nice dip and play in the Ocean, you really need to clean off. The salt sticks to you, and you feel sticky and dry all at the same time. With the heat and the humidity here, it's not a comfortable combination. Chris was off to do some international calls, and the boys were in bed having a siesta. I was going to wash up. No wait, I had also just bought Chris a treat snack of some 4$ Doritos. Yes, he hadn't opened them yet, but said he would when he got back from the phone calls. O.K., so I jumped in the shower. Then I thought I heard something. Kids talking? Where those boys up already? Checked but no, it wasn't them. I'm now drying off, and I hear it again. I look but it's still not them. As I'm drying my hair, I hear the wind blow over Chris' bag of Doritos (they are out on the balcony). All done, I'm ready to wait on the chair for Chris to come back. I'm walking towards the door, and "NO (insert foul word) WAY"! I see the sweet curl of a monkey's tail as he hops onto the balcony arm rail and into a tree. I'm running for the camera, and trying not to wake the boys up with my thundering steps. But alas, I was too slow. He was gone and across the street before I could take any kind of shot with the camera. As I come out side with the most dissapointed look on my face, I notice the Doritos. The bag is ripped into two, and there is a trail of chips all around the chairs and table. How long was he here. I'm thinking now that I could have probubly gotten some really good shots of him if I had just come out earlier. Oh well, Chris ended up throwing away the chips, and his left over beer, never know if they had some to wash down those expensive treats!

(I think) Part 2

Well today was an absolute blast! After breakfast we walked 10 minutes west and found a pretty good 'beach' area. The waves weren't too big, and there was an actual beach for the boys to make sand-castles and play. We were only there for around 2 hours, but it was so much fun. Take a look at the pictures here.


Christina picked us up for lunch and we chatted about what we are really looking for. She took us to 3 wonderful restaurants in town that are for sale under the 20000 price range. This price includes everything inside, as well, we would try to keep the cook and other's on to help. One was a pizzeria that is open right now and would only need a little work. Some paint, a new and working washroom, and an organic menu that I would have fun doing. One was an Argentinian BBQ place that is quite new and not open right now because of the low season. The last was a cute and popular place that also has some rooms to rent upstairs. I think it is a little out of our range, but something to think about. We're actually going there for dinner, so it will be a good chance to check it out.

She also showed us around a small little town called Delisias. Very cute, with about 20 homes, 1 grocery store and 2 restaurants. One of the restaurants was for sale, but it included a home and some more land - so it was out of our price range. She did show us an amazing plot.
Teak trees, howler monkeys, beautiful exotic flowers growing everywhere. But no home on it. We would need to build it. But that isn't so bad. The cost of a nice home would be between 10 and 20 thousand, and the land was going for about 20 to 30 thousand for a 1/4 acre.

All in all it was a great day. The town of Delisias is very small, but there isn't much land here in Montezuma. Actually, most of the people who work here and own business' live there. Interesting. We are considering this, but really feel like we need to not only see more of Costa Rica, but also look at at least Belize, if not a few other countries as well.

So, after a little looking, we headed off to the beach again.
So nice to finally feel the water on us. The boys really surprised us with how well they were in the water, and how much they loved it! Fearless those little boys are. It's almost the full moon and the tide is very VERY strong here. I almost got pulled out a few times, but the boys.... they would just run in head first! Have to be quick with those two! We are teaching them quick about this danger!

On the way home to clean up and go for dinner and local pulled us over and asked if we wanted to see his Monkeys? Ummm.... Turns out there was a family of 5 in his tree. We stood there in awe at the white faced monkeys, who in turn looked at us. It was too cool to see that. Real live monkeys (I know we've seen them at the zoo, but this was way different).
So now we've been up close to Monkeys and both tiny and small lizards. Today (it's now Wednesday) on the way to the beach a white faced monkey passed us on the street and took a good look at us, and at lunch the boys had fun chasing a few larger Iquana's around the grass area. Two nights ago at dinner, the waiter brought over a lizard about half the size of a lighter, it was wild, and so he let the boys play with it. This lizard went up and down their arms, into their hair, and back down. For a few minutes we lost it in Oscar's shirt, but there he was again, it was really cool for them.

Sorry this blog is a little choppy, I'm just trying to catch up.

Last night's dinner was great, but more importantly, Callym and Oscar made a great friend. Salvador's mother works at the restaurant we were at, and he was running around playing cars. Well, as soon as the boys saw a car, they wanted to go. Being North American, we didn't think it was right.... Silly Foreigners! Salvador came right up to those boys, handed them each a car, and off they all went! It was nice, but very different. We just sat at the table, and it was quite. Every 2 or 3 minutes the 3 of them would run by with there cars, driving them up and down the walls, over empty tables and having a great time. It made my heart so happy to see the boys having fun without us having to entertain them. There is something about boys and little cars that is the same in every country and every language.

Today at lunch I think I had my best meal ever! I finally found sushi! Delish, fresh avacado, rice, seaweed, and fresh yellow fin tuna. A coffee milk-shake and I was in Heaven. But 30 minutes later............

Ever heard of Montezuma's Revenge? The locals swear it has to do with a hang-over, but I didn't drink last night......... Well, someone had to get sick sooner or later, just glad it wasn't the boys!


More pictures will be on the site soon. I've been catching up for almost 2 hours, and need to get back. All our love,

The Lukies.

Monday and Tuesday (I think) Part 1

It's Tuesday now and we're going today to look at some properties, wish us luck - it may be where you come to stay! It will be really cool to see the other towns around in this area. We're hoping to be able to find a place to stay for the rest of November. Maybe in at least two other towns. Not sure. Montezuma is the smallest of them all from what we've heard. But we went into Cabyua yestaurday to walk around, some people said it was really nice with things to do. Well, it wasn't anything that we expected. Picture a town with a dozen homes, all spread out (about 2 every block) with farm land and jungle in between. The grocery store was the size of a hall closet, and there were only 2 restaurants. The town centre where we were dropped off consisted of a cross roads of 4 roadways. SMALL. But very very beautiful and it had a peacfulness that I have never been a part of before. Cabo Blanco National Reserve was just a few minutes walk outside of town, but it was so hot out today that we didn't want to make the trek with the boys. We will be going there, but maybe later in the week. After a wonderful lunch in Cabyua, we made it to the beach. The tide was out, and it's so rocky, that we just sat on some huge bolders and watched the waves. As I was sitting there, it sounded like it was raining.... I looked around, but there were no drops on the rocks. I then noticed that the beach was covered with Hermit crabs. The noise I heard was all of their shells hitting the other shells and rocks on there journey to where-ever!




I took some pictures of Montezuma, this is really the enitre 'town'. A cross-roads of 3 streets.




I hope you're enjoying the pictures so far. The boys are at the tide pool again, and I'm having some morning coffee. Very relaxing.




When we came home from dinner on Monday, we noticed that the water was out. It was raining and lightning again, but was that the reason? Chris went downstairs to ask..... Seems as though the entire town has been out of water all day! I wonder what our food was cooked in? No one has gotten sick yet, so I hope our luck continues. I don't know when the town will get there water back, but the hotel has their own supply and it was re-filled this morning! Ahh, to flush and wash your face. Things we seem to take advantage of. LOL.

Here things are both huge and tiny. Take the ants for example. You either have huge black ones the size of your thumb, or tiny red ones the size of 2 pin-pricks. Same goes for the spiders. I've yet to see a tarantula, but the tiny clear ones the size of about 2 pin-pricks are a little freaky. They are just sooooo fast! Not too many mosquitoes yet. But we do wake up with bite marks. Just a little itchy, but nothing that seems to make us worry. I don't know what is biting us, but we're fine. We saw a huge squirel today in the coconut tree. He was hanging upside down breaking open a coconut and drinking the milk. They are dark brown with a black stripe down their backs and bushy grey tails. Right now there are two 'exotic' magpies fighting in the bamboo tree.

I'm tried my hand at yoga yestaurday. It was really hard, but so much fun. I am going to try to make it to the sessions all week. Who knows, I may just learn to relax my mind and body! Here they are really into organic food, naturopathy, yoga etc. (funny how there is garbage on the roadway and no recycling containers!). Anyways, the 2 hotels up the road do yoga every day, and there is even a huge yoga retreat here at the begining of November (another reason we've been asked to move to the villa). One of the hotels actually teaches fire-dancing, but I'm not able to convince Chris to try it out, maybe later on in the trip! He's been practicing his Spanish a lot, and is getting really good at it. He's also been helping us out with it by talking to us in Spanish and then telling us what he said, and how to say it back.

Yestaurday was the first day yet that it didn't rain. Not a single drop all day. The sun was out in full force, it was super super hot, and it was just amazing! It looks as though today will be the same. This year (I'm not sure if I mentioned it before), but the rain has been really bad. Usually the Nicoya Peninsula only gets rain for 2 months, but this year it has been closer to 6! We are in search of a nice beach for the boys to run around in and play. I'm not sure if we will find it around here. Too many huge rocks. Not much beach. But if all else fails we will be on the Caribbean in December, they can get their fill in then.

our time in paradise

It's Sunday. I'm sitting here (actually, totally lazying around), drinking a beer. I want to tell you about our day yestaurday and up to today.

Well, to start, we have been feeling like we are sleeping in but in reality (what is that again?) we are up and dressed usually around 8:30 or 9am. We all usually wake up around 7am, but feel like it is way to early to start the day, so we all cuddle in together and sleep a little more. The sun is up at a time when only the surfers should be, but it is almost pure black around 5:30 pm. So anyways, we were dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. They only serve breakfast here, but it is amazing. A huge bowl of fresh fruit and some home made bread and honey. Oh yes, don't forget 4 or 5 cups of coffee between Chris and I. Callym had fresh Mango juice and Oscar had fresh Watermelon juice. Delish! We took a walk into town (Montezuma - only a 5 minute walk along the ocean) and did a little touring. Being the low season, almost nothing is open. I'd say only 4 restaurants, and 4 shops, 3 internet places, and about 5 tour companies. The buses are coming in everyday with new people, but they aren't staying yet. High season starts in November, so things should pick up then.

It started raining again so we headed into an internet place to check our email. Thank you Isabel for the beautiful email! We tried to do some chatting, but the connection was too slow. Maybe later? I'm not sure what time it was by now, but the rain had stopped again, and I was hunger. We headed over to Chico's bar and ordered a few beers and juice for the boys. No food. Opps. The boys had fun with their cars, and I ran across the street for some lunch, no one else was hungry. (If you've seen the pictures of the boys throwing rocks, please note that Callym just looks mal-nurished, but is really not!) My dellisious lunch was a monstorous tomato, cucumber and avacado sandwich made with everything fresh including the bread. Yum. I met a couple from Saskatewan during lunch. They were here for a small vacation and mentioned that when they were here 5 years ago it looked exactly the same. No new hotels, restaurants or shops. That to me is very amazing, especially in a place so beautiful. We chatted some more and found out that they just checked into the same hotel and are next door. Hope the boys don't keep them up! During this time it had started and stopped raining again. We came back to the hotel and went into the tide pool. The tide was quite low and the 'sand' (if you could call it that) was made up of small rocks and broken shells. I think it was 80% shells and 20% rocks.
We had a great time picking rocks and splashing around. Callym decided that we should make jewlery and sell them to people. He even tried selling some to some American's we met. The American's are here looking for property, staying at the same hotel, and are using one of the same realtors we will be soon!

Now time for a siesta! The boys crashed pretty hard today. I'm not sure when they fell asleep, but they didn't wake up until almost 5:30. Dark, but not too late. We headed out for dinner, and stopped by where I went for lunch. Such good food here, I won't even tell you what we had, but again it was huge portions, and everything fresh. Chris (one of the American's) saw us and chatted for a bit about his property hunt, seems he's more into the development rather than a new home - but he's had good experiences with the realtor Christina, hope she's good with us too! A small stroll around 'town' (so funny to say that seeing as it is about 24 shops/bars/etc). Not even a town. And another check on the computer. Eskimos were just about to start, but the connection was too slow to watch. Too bad for Callym and I. We headed back to the hotel and it was nearly 8pm! Where did the time go? Still too early to sleep, so we played a few games, and tried watching a dvd on the computer. (no tv, phone or internet here - so nice actually!) The waterfall and raging river is right out our hotel room so we were unable to hear the movie well. We got into our jammies (by now it was almost 10pm!) and got to dreaming. Although the waterfall/ river is loud, it is really calming to sleep to.

The owner of the hotel talked with us last night about changing rooms. They want to put in air-conditioning before the high season starts, and asked if we would mind moving to one of the villas for the same price as the 2 bed appartment. We took a look at the villa and fell in love again. A two story fully teak home with amazing ocean views! Kitchen, huge rock and tile bathroom, 4 bedroom (6 beds), and living room and up and down balconies! Ok, I think we're moving on. It's just next door to where we are now, but we are considering it. The more room we have, the more stuff we will pull out to play with, but it may be nice. Maybe if someone were to come and visit us it would make more sense having that much space??? Just throwing it out there!
Anyways, we still don't have any solid plans. We know we're going back to Heredia for a few days before we fly out to Belize on Nov. 31st. But other than that we're just going with the flow. I do think we're staying in this area, but with so many little towns around here, we really want to check out more than one. For now I think our make-shift plan is to stay at this hotel until Friday, Saturday or Sunday (see. not even sure about that!), and during that time our realtor will have taken us to a few other towns to see homes. Maybe, just maybe we'll fall in love again and stay in another sleepy town for a week or two. Just to see.

Rabbling on a bit now, but we had a fantastic sleep ( no strange critters yet, but I'm still waiting for a big one to freak me out). Another wonderful breakfast here, and we headed out towards Cabuya. We thought it would be a nice short walk, we were just strolling along the rocky beach, picking up sea-shells and looking into the jungle on the other side. (it is literally jungle on one side and ocean on the other). Humming birds were wizing by, butterflies were on every tree. The air was fresh and thick with sea salt. We were walking and walking. I'd say it was over an hour, maybe close to two. The roads here remember are muddy and narrow. Bumpy too. Pot holes the side of home! LoL. Finally someone stopped, and we found out we still have a 30 minute walk. (more like a 1 hour walk with the boys), so we turned around and headed back for lunch. Finally the four tired Lukie's made it to town for lunch. Not much was opened seeing as it was sunday, but we still have a great feast. Tried the internet again, and now we're back. I'm checking the time now and it's only 3:50, we still have time for a siesta, and picking more sea-shells. (Callym is really into it, we even bought some fishing line at the store to try it out, he wants to make all his favourite chocha's some sea-shell rings!) Well, off for now. I may write more b4 tomorrow, but I can't count on anything being as we're really getting into the beach life. Lazy Lazy days. Just as Tony the Tiger would say 'It's great'!