Volcan Arenal

We spent the weekend at the Los Lagos resort, which is located at the base of Volcan Arenal (an active volcano here in Costa Rica). The volcano is active, but we stayed on the INactive side. The scenery was beautiful. Although the clouds hid the volcano until the bus ride home, it was a wonderful weekend. The hotel owns a massive amount of land so there was so much to do and see right there on sight. It was great. There were many, many pools- both cold water and those fed by the hot springs that run from the volcano. (KJ- you would LOVE these pools!!!) So the girls and I spent most of our time in the pools (the hot springs ones ;). There was a large water slide in the large hot springs pool and all of us enjoyed it. The boys enjoyed the cool water pools and the slides for those. And Matt and Ethan both conquered the Canopy- the zip line that runs through the hotel property. I have a ton of pictures that I do not have time to post right now- they will come later. For now, here are a few.
This was taken on the trip there. We stopped at a Catholic church and this was one of many shrub sculptures that were in the gardens surrounding the church.



Here are a few of Ethan on the zip line...

The road you see in the picture runs through the grounds. It is amazing the areas they went through!

Can you believe this? He loved it!





Mateo having fun flying like Superman!


Here is a picture of one of the many animals that freely roam the grounds. There were so many of these howler monkeys. You could hear them making their "howl" during the day and the night. They were pretty cool!


Here is another animal that (not so freely-thankfully!) roamed the grounds. There was a crocodile farm where many crocs hung out. We were actually standing about two feet away from this one (behind a nice and secure chain link fence...)


There was also a frog farm and butterfly garden- sorry no pics yet...BUt the kids loved it!


It was a much needed respite from school and our small cozy apartment. I was reminded of the amazing imagination of our God- the vast expanse of all creation and the beauty and magnificence of this land he has given us to live on.

This was the view from our back patio. Amazing!



On the way home, we stopped at a restaurant that attracts many tourists because there are literally hundreds of iguanas just hanging out around the restaurant and the surrounding area. It was a lot of fun and the kids loved it. You could actually get close enought to touch the iguanas - and some actually did! Ethan and Isabelle were actually brave enough to feed one- I'll post pictures later...here are a few for now!

These kids got close enough to touch this iguana!


This is one of hundreds roaming around.



A weekend away like this has always been few and far between for us- so the ones we get are always memorable! We are so blessed to have this opportunity to live in such a beautiful country! Gracias a Dios!

I took this on the way home. What a beautiful way to end the day!