Stripes and Rubiks Take on Costa Rica

This post is much longer than a normal post for me but I really wanted to tell you about all the fun things Andrew and I did on our Honeymoon and show you all the pictures! If you every get the chance to go to Costa Rica we would highly recommend it! Here is a day by day account of what we did on our honeymoon!

Sunday

Sunday was a travel day. We started by driving to the airport to catch our flight. Andrew drove and we talked about the wedding. We were surprised that we had such different stories about the day! It was fun getting to hear Andrew's version of the day. We flew from Toronto to Newark, ran through the airport trying to find our flight (they changed the gate and our previous flight was 30 minutes late) and found our gate with 10 minutes until boarding time! We then flew from Newark to San Jose Costa Rica. We started a new tradition of taking a selfie on every plane we go on. It was raining when we landed so the landing was super scary. We grabbed our luggage, got through customs and then took a taxi to our hotel for the night. Andrew went across the street to get some McDonalds, since it was midnight and we still hadn't eaten supper. Sunday wasn't the most fun because I was sick, I got a cold the day of the wedding and I thought it was just nerves but it turned out to be something more. I had a bad cold the entire trip, but I tried not to let it put a damper on things.

Monday

For the first few hours on Monday we sat in bed and watched a bit of the news. The hotel had wifi so I checked facebook and instagram. Then we went down to the lobby for breakfast. They had delicious beans and rice as well as fruit, cereal and coffee! It was a good way to start the day. We then packed up all our things and waited outside for our ride to the treehouse. Our driver picked us up at our hotel in our rental and then drove us to our tree house. We spent two hour driving through the winding roads and to be honest  it was not fun. Because of my cold my ears were popping the entire time. We learned something very important about Costa Rica. It is not flat. At all. But the mountains and landscapes are beautiful and once we got to the treehouse it was all worth it. We quickly unpacked our stuff and then drove to the nearest grocery store to get some cereal and snacks. We had dinner at a restaurant with a view of the volcano which was pretty cool. We spent the remainder of the evening relaxing and reading since we had a big all day trip planned for the next day.

Tuesday

We woke up early (well, early according to Costa Rica). It was 6:00 Costa Rica time or 8:00 Ontario time. We had an early breakfast of rolled up french toast at the Rancho (The Rancho is where they served us breakfast every day, it was always delicious). Then we drove to La Fortuna to get to our tour of Caño Negro.We got on a tour bus and they drove us towards Nicaragua. We saw iguanas, caimans, cows, lots of birds and plants. Then we got on a boat and they drove us around to see sloths, monkeys, caimans, cows and more birds. It was awesome seeing all those animals. Then they gave us lunch and we headed back to La Fortuna. It was a fun but exhausting day.

A sloth!

Wednesday

On Wednesday we woke up and had coffee on the porch of our tree house. The ladies put plantain out so that birds could come near us. We went for a walk on one of the shorter trails before breakfast to see if we could see any animals. Then we went to the Rancho and had a typical Costa Rican breakfast of beans and rice. We then headed towards San Ramon to go zip lining! We had a really fun time and Andrew did the last zipline superman style, I was too afraid to go headfirst though. They had someone taking pictures that we could purchase afterwards but we completely forgot about them! So we have no pictures of us ziplining. But I promise we did it and it was really fun! Then we drove back to the tree house and the brakes broke on our rental car! Talk about scary! Andrew used the e-brake all the way home and then we called the rental company and they came and fixed it right away. We ordered pizza for dinner and it was SO yummy. We got Hawaiian and it had fresh pineapple on it. It was absolutely pouring outside that night so we just stayed in out tree house and watched The Big Bang Theory on Andrew's laptop.

Thursday

In the morning on Thursday we had coffee on our porch and then we went to the Rancho for breakfast. We had some time before our planned activity so we decided to got for a walk down to the waterfall. It was three kilometers down hill to the waterfall and then three kilometers back up hill. We were super tired afterwards and we definitely should have brought more water with us. Thursday was our last day with planned activities and this one was possibly our favourite. We went to Projecto Asis which is a wildlife rescue center just 10 minutes from the tree house. We went on a tour in a small group of 6 people while the guide told us all about the different animals they had. We got to pet a wild pig named Perla (who rolled over like a dog), hold hands with monkeys and scratch their backs! It was SO MUCH FUN. This wildlife center takes in animals (usually humans have tried to keep the animals as pets) and they try to rehabilitate them to send them back into the wild. This can't always happen because some of the animals live in packs in the wild and they won't survive on their own so they stay at the rescue center for the rest of their lives. The staff are awesome there, and seeing all the animals up close and learning about them was so much fun. I got tons of bug bites while we were there but it was totally worth it.

Friday

We woke up and had our coffee on Friday and we went to the Rancho and had Coconut waffles! They were super yummy. We then drove to different souvenir shops to get some things to remember our trip. We also went out for ice cream (we both got coffee flavoured). It was fun to just relax and read. We had pizza again for dinner because it was so delicious the first time and we went on the night walk! It either rained or we were too tired every night that we were in Costa Rica so we only got to go on the night walk once. We walked along the trails with our guide and saw lots of frogs and birds. We looked hard for a sloth but we didn't see one.

Saturday

On Saturday we had breakfast and coffee at the Rancho (we had a breakfast quiche which was delicious). Our driver picked us up and drove us to the airport and then we flew from Costa Rica to Washington and then back to Toronto. We arrived back at our apartment at about 2 AM and we were exhausted. We were pleasantly surprised to see that our bridal party had cleaned our apartment for us and brought over all our gifts! It was the perfect welcome home.

Plane #3

Plane #4 Almost Home!

Andrew and I had an amazing time on our Honeymoon. We can not wait to travel more together.

Currently (06-25-15)

I am finally starting to find a new normal. Here is what I am currently up to this week!

Visiting... With lots of family and friends. Andrew and I are fortunate to live close to both of our parents so we have been able to see them a couple times a week since we got married. We have also been having friends over for dinner to our apartment! It's been fun using all our new dishes and serving utensils. 

Planning... Our meals on a weekly basis. I'm trying to only shop for groceries once a week and so far it is working pretty well. I'm going to have to try doing my grocery shopping earlier in the morning because I went to the grocery store Saturday afternoon this week and MAN was it busy. 

Cooking... Lots of things! This week I made soup, chicken pie, pasta with carrots and broccoli and meatballs! I was worried that being in charge of the food would be difficult but so far it has been going really well.

The Chicken Pie I Made

Longing... To go explore other places. Andrew and I had an awesome time in Costa Rica and we are already talking about where we want to go next! We have a really long list so far and we are thinking we might do some more trips around Ontario on the weekends this year! 

Growing... Closer to Andrew. It's really fun learning all these new things about him. Like how he talks in his sleep. He just says random words and then goes back to bed. I think I heard him say "Dragon" one night...

Linking up with Kale + Beans and Ot & Et. 
Next weeks themes: craving, feeling, thinking loving, reading

5 Tips for Wedding Thank You Cards

Writing thank you cards can be a really stressful and time consuming part of a wedding. I (with my husband's help) got through writing all the thank you notes for the wedding within two weeks of the wedding! And to be fair, one of those weeks was my honeymoon, so we didn't even work on them. So it only took us one week of actually working on them to get them done. The process went really smoothly and thought I would share with my readers some tips Andrew and I discovered when writing the thank you cards. Here are my top 5 tips for writing thank you cards:

Just do Them

Seriously. Don't put them off, the sooner you get them done the better. I found thank you cards so stressful and the longest I put them off for was one week! Make yourself a cup of tea, sit down and get them done.

Ask Your Spouse For Help

Andrew was more than willing to write some of the cards. We split them according to who knew the person the best. Andrew wrote cards for his family and friends and I wrote them for my family and friends. Splitting the work helps the thank you cards to get finished faster.

Make a List of Who Gave What

Keeping track of who gave what gift and who you've written cards for is extremely important. I found the best way was to keep a notebook with the list in it. We wrote down who gave what as we opened our gifts and then we put a check mark beside their name when we had finished their thank you card.

Make a Spreadsheet of Addresses

I am so thankful that I made a spreadsheet with addresses in it before the save the dates went out. It made the thank you cards SO much easier. I only had to ask 3 people for their addresses, and that was because they moved. Put it on Dropbox so you can access it from your phone, tablet or computer!

Make/Order The Thank You Cards in Advance

If you are going to make the thank you cards yourself, make them well in advance of the wedding. If you are ordering them, order them well in advance of the wedding. This way there is nothing holding you back from starting on the cards. I was so glad that the thank you cards were all ready to go once I got back from my honeymoon. We made them ourselves about a year before the wedding! 

There you go! Do you have any tips of your own for writing thank you cards? Leave a Comment!

Tea of the Week-Honey I Dew

This is my first blog post as a married lady! I have been itching to get a bunch of blog posts out for a while now but the wedding and all the stress related with the wedding prevented me from doing so. I am so excited to be finding normal life again. Posts about the wedding will be coming up, but for now please enjoy this sneak peak picture of Andrew and I. This awesome photo was taken by our awesome photographer Robyn! You can check out her website here.

On to this weeks tea of the week-Honey I Dew! My Father in Law gave me this tea as a gift at our rehearsal dinner and things have been so crazy that I haven't been able to try it until now. It smells amazing and has one of the cutest names ever. Honey I Dew is a white tea with apple, white tea, pineapple, melon, mango, rose petals, and natural watermelon flavouring. It's made by David's tea and smells AMAZING! It smells fruity and sweet. It really does taste like honey dew melon. I really like it! I would most definitely purchase it for myself! The tea is nice and light and not overly sweet but definitely doesn't need any sugar. If you have the chance you should definitely try it out!