We had a great time in CR, despite a few mishaps such as, Nick finding out he was allergic to Jellyfish, venturing to the hospital to see if I needed stictches in my lip after a surfing accident, finding out our waterproof camera didn't work in the surf and quickly died, running of money and then getting delayed on the way home in San Jose airport for way too long with a stayover in Houston....in addition...here's what we got up to!

PURA VIDA...

can be seen or heard almost anywhere while in Costa Rica, meaning 'Pure Life' in Spanish, it's used as a greeting and a goodbye and basically as words to live by. And with the beautiful scenery that surrounds this country it's obvious why they have adopted this versatile phrase.

I've wanted to do a surf and Spanish camp for while now, to get better at surfing and practice all that Spanish that has been bottled up in my head for years now. Whenever I have gone surfing before, it was for a one day here or there, renting a board in Australia at the beach a couple times or borrowing Nick's super short board and deciding that I sucked at it. It's always been something I could see myself doing, but then again it's much harder than it looks. This was my chance and thankfully Nick agreed to both parts the Spanish and the surfing for a week to learn and finally get the hang of it.

We stayed the week at the Escuela del Mundo, 'School of the World' which was pretty much like a hostel, although a pretty cool house. We stayed at the school with probably 15 other students who were busy studying Spanish and learning any one of the following: yoga, surfing or photography. Many of the others were there for weeks or planned on staying much longer than our very short 6 days. Looking back a week wasn't long enough, just enough to want to do something similar, somewhere else, for a longer period of time in the future.



Our first day there, we drove straight from San Jose to Jaco Beach, thankfully avoiding any time spent in San Jose, from what we heard it can be a bit of a dangerous place. And after being mugged once this year already, I didn't fancy staying in the city for the night, seeing some of the sites just to possible have something similar happen. Yes I'm a bit jaded now and not as trusting of places or just more vigilant, but regardless it was nice to just get to the beach.

We stayed the first night at a small hotel just around the corner from the School of World as we couldn't check in yet. Jaco beach is definitely a tourist trap with some touristy restaurants that charge way too much compared to what the locals would ever pay...and yes we got stuck in one the first night. Sad thing was, it wasn't even very good, just expensive. We would soon learn that Costa Rica while being in Central America is quite expensive. Add on the tours you want to enjoy and a splurge at the Marriott at the end it makes for a costly trip....fun, a lot of fun, but costly.

An awesome day in the mountains, Nick and I headed to Brekenridge to do some MTB. The weather couldn't get any better than this, along with the empty trails. We had a great ride for a couple hours although ending up on a advance trail, definitely not made for either of us, on the way down was interesting, but we made it! We then headed to Vail for lunch and took our rollerblades out for a spin afterwards.

We had the whole Scully clan out to Colorado for Brian and Christine's wedding on July 4th! No fireworks, but it was a great night with family and friends. We don't get a chance to see everyone very often and for Nick, he hasn't seen most of my extended family since 2004 when I made him jump into the deep end, joining me in Cape Cod for our family reunion. The wedding was held in Loveland, CO at Ellis Ranch and when thunderstorms were threatening to move the ceremony inside, the heavens opened up, for just long enough to have it outside!

We made a visit to the Badlands National Park and before we set out on the 5 hour drive home, stopped at the world's largest drug store, Wall Drugs for some shopping.

We drove up through Wyoming and over to South Dakota for a few days exploring US history with Nick and his parents. While in SD, we visited the Crazy Horse monument. If you don't know this monument has been in the works since the 70s, has never been funded by the government and is still only like 15% done. It's amazing looking at this carving, how big it will one day become, but it will be years and years and years before then!

We went to Mt. Rushmore looking for the secret passage as seen in National Treasure 2, only to be disappointed to find out that it didn't exist. Thankfully the trip wasn't a complete waste as Nick had a book signing to do at 2pm as seen below :)

The summer started in early June, at least for me, as I headed back 10 days before Nick so I could participate in the 2009 USA Water Polo Master's National Tournament...trying to make it sound official! Having been out of the water polo world for 5 years, I was a bit rusty to say the least. But I don't think the weekend was necessarily about winning...not sure if it could ever be about that when we were playing against former Olympians and National team members. I think it was more about catching up with the MSU Alumni gals and just have a good time. We lost all our games...and by a lot, but if we actually played and practiced together, stayed in shape like these Masters teams in Cali do, we would've done just fine. It was great to see teams from all ages up to 50s and 60s playing, I hope I can still play when I get upward in age :)

Here we go attempting to update the blog with our adventures over the summer. Now that we are back here in Abu Dhabi, with 110+ temps and 100% humidity, sweating our butts off, our summer pics are making us want to jump inside them and transplant us back in the mountains :)

SUMMER 2009 was filled with lots of green trees and grass....fresh mountain air....cool evenings....patient drivers.....cheap beer, oh how we'll miss you upon our return to life in Abu Dhabi!

We had a great time hiking, biking, climbing, rafting, golfing in Colorado....we hit a Rockies and a Rapids game....went to Costa Rica, became pro surfers and got eaten by Jellyfish.....Nick increased his Spanish vocab to about 30 words.....saw a few movies (Funny Peopls is a good one!).....ate way too much food (everyday).....went wild at Waterworld .....won money at the casino, twice...finally got the inlaws to meet each other.....shopped till I dropped (although I could've done more)....played way to much 'chicken'... visited Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands and of course spent lots of time with the family.

And thankfully before we headed back to Abu Dhabi, we got great news....after months of chemo, there was no trace of Dad's cancer in his recent CT scan!

Temps are really starting to heat up in Abu Dhabi 45 degrees this week....
A classic example of a sunshade thanks to this grocery ad..oh the many uses!

Nick picked me up last week from the airport in our newest addition to the family...It's a 2007 Jeep Cherokee otherwise known as the Liberty in the States.

While we didn't have much choice as for the color, yes we know...black is hard to keep clean, but here in the UAE any car is hard to keep clean with sand storms and dirt from all the construction. And if you want it washed you will find guys willing to do it almost anywhere you decide to park it!

And then there's the heat. Obviously the sun's pretty attracted to our beauty, but when it beats down into it with temps pushing 48 degrees, what's an extra few degrees..it's hot everywhere.....it feels like a sauna when you step outside and the car will be no different. Hopefully we'll get some tinting done to it and that will help block some of the sun's insane rays!

Until I get my license, which won't be until August unfortunately, as it was stolen and don't have time to get a replacement, Nick will be chauffeuring me around! Probably better off, I think he's much more confident driving here in the land of absolute craziness when it comes to the road!

It really seems to be a survival of the fittest on the road and the bigger the car the better. If we were in the US, I'd like to think we would've gone with something a little more 'green' and better gas mileage, but here, we needed some size on the road. Not too bully other small cars, just to be on the safe side that hopefully we'll be seen by these mad drivers here. Like when a car from the right lane decides they want to turn left at the last minute and cuts across 3 lanes of traffic without realizing there are cars going straight! This is a pretty normal occurrence, not kidding!

Driving and speeding go hand in hand here and seems to be a favorite pastime for Emiratis and other Middle Eastern people which is apparent when you drive on the highway from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. If we are going 10k of the speed limit, then the huge Landcruisers or BMWs that cruise by in the fast lane have to be going at least 30-40 k over the speed limit!

I have rarely ever seen anyone pulled over by a police officer for speeding, they don't seems to try and prevent accidents, but they do attend to them when they happen and they do happen everyday. It's not unusual to be cruising around town and within minutes already see a couple of them. Thankfully there are speed cameras now around town, but this really hasn't seemed to help curb the speeding, I'm assuming that those who are driving fast, get tickets and then never have to pay them because some how they are connected...hardly the point when it's these people who drive like maniacs and end up causing a majority of the accidents.

Here's a good video, no you don't see this everyday, but maybe Nick and I should get some 2 wheeler lessons, so we can be this cool in our Jeep too! This is crazy, but it's not surprising!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgpLaS0YyRw