Back to Life

We are back to reality! I don't even know where to start, the past 5 days have been so much fun and I am still floating on cloud 9! On Thursday we flew in to Liberia and took a 30 minute bus ride to our villa. I had no idea what to expect. The Beau and I went to Saint Lucia in May for our honeymoon and stayed at a Sandals resort so that is kind of what I had in my head. It was nothing like that! We were in a very remote area with the prettiest scenery I have ever seen in all my life. We arrived at a nine bedroom villa that overlooked the ocean. Each couple had their own room and there was a large porch where we all ate meals together everyday. The villa was completely staffed and we were pampered from the moment we arrived. Here are some shots of where we stayed ...

It is the rainy season in Costa Rica but that did not stop everyone from having a blast. Many of the guests went on a zip-line tour through the rain forest (the Beau and I did not as we just did a zip-line tour in St. Lucia) and had a great time ... I stayed at the villa and had a full body massage with the mother of the bride. Seriously, the best massage I have ever had - not to mention we were on the back porch with a nice breeze and calming noise from the waves. Other days, some of the guests went to another beach and went surfing and many of the boys went deep-sea fishing ... the Beau did both, I did neither. What did I do? I devoured 2 books, relaxed on the porch, hiked down to the ocean, rested in the sun (and managed to get strap lines), ate like a queen, sipped pina coladas, and I LOVED every minute I was there.

Of course since I was on the trip there had to be some sort of drama! On Saturday (the day before the wedding) most everyone went down to Tamarindo to surf but Layne (the other bridesmaid) and I stayed behind ... we aren't really the surfer-type. Anyways, we decided to sit in the hot tub for a little while as it was sprinkling. For some unknown reason I went under water to get all my hair wet. No big deal? Well when we got out my hair immediately started turning green. We are not talking about a little green tint, it was bright blue-ish green! This has never, ever happened to me. There must have been some serious chlorine in that water. I had no idea what to do so I did nothing. When I walked inside to get something to drink the Costa Rican men who worked at the villa were laughing so hard and were making jokes ... of course I didn't care because it was really funny. After the Rehearsal Dinner, Layne was able to get on the internet and find out what to do about green hair! She found something that said to wash it with tomato juice and the acidity would get the green out. All we could find was tomato sauce (like spaghetti sauce) and we spent appx. 1 hour that night washing my hair with tomato sauce. I was gagging because it smelled like vegetable soup and it had to sit in my hair for about 30 minutes. But it worked like magic, thank goodness! Only me, only me!

Sunday was the deep sea fishing trip and the Beau was beside himself he was so excited. They went out from 7 am - 1 pm and caught lots and lots of dolphin. They were able to bring many of the fish back to the villa and that afternoon the cooks made ceviche with the fish they caught. It was soo good and we also had mahi-mahi for dinner. Here is the Beau with his biggest catch of the day

The wedding was Sunday evening at 5 pm. It is weird because the sun rises at 5 am and sets by 6 pm - it was always completely dark by 6:30. It rained a little bit during the ceremony but it made everything more sweet to me! The bride was absolutely beautiful ... see for yourself

This was before the ceremony ... I want to get someone to frame this picture in a double mat and also put the one of her and I from my wedding in it to give her as a gift!

The 2 bridesmaids ... I really liked our dresses and the bouquets were gorgeous!

Here comes the bride - trying to stay dry with the photographer!

After the ceremony ... we were just a little bit wet!

After dinner, a steel drum band came to play and they were so much fun!

It was definitely a trip and a wedding to remember! The bride and groom are staying here until Friday ... dreamy!!!!

xoxo~