August 2017 – Tico Tales

Let’s do this! We visited our storage unit on Sunday for one last drop off of a few boxes, and then finished packing our bags and making the final decisions about what was or was not going to make the cut. At this point, anything that didn’t fit would be put on the curb. Amazingly, I feel we did a pretty good job of the final packing and we still cannot believe how smooth the travel day went despite having had to change our flights through Houston one day before we flew due to Hurricane Harvey. That just kept things exciting! 🙂

We flew American and used curbside check-in which was a dream with our friendly airline representative – we were totally ‘those’ people at the airport and you wonder where in the world are they going and for how long? We had 6 checked bags plus a pack n play, 2 car seats and 6 carry-on bags! Our flights were on time, got put to the front of the line at immigration (thanks to Alice and Oscar for that one) upon our arrival into San Jose and we grabbed a porter as soon as we got to the baggage area. Our bags were already waiting for us, and we quickly hooked up with our transfer driver to get us to our AirBnB about 30 minutes away. It was already dark, but we were greeted by our friendly host Forest and by 8:30pm, we were settling in our new home where we’ll be for the next month.

One last visit to our 10′ x 25′ storage unit. bye bye stuff.

Getting ready to head to the airport. Toys all packed or in storage = luggage fort

Logan airport: whatever it takes – iPads and ‘mimis’

And this is what the next morning brought us…

What a sunrise view – mountains, palm trees and beautiful skies

Ring pops at 5:30am- special thanks to Lila!

Now to start exploring and let the adventure REALLY begin!

Hey all, so this is our first post about our upcoming adventure. So Palmer and I have decided to quit our jobs and sell our house in the Boston area, and move our family (Oscar is almost 5 and Alice is 2) to Costa Rica for a year. Whoa…a little crazy, right? I thought so too at first, but it’s now so exciting and we’re well on our way to making it all happen. The countdown is on as we leave in just 11 days! Pretty surreal.

We first discovered Costa Rica as a family for a short visit in January 2017. We spent some time checking out some authentic Tico towns in the Central Valley before heading to the Pacific Coast and exploring Manuel Antonio National Park. What an amazing few days it was – from unique mountain towns surrounded by coffee and banana plantations and beautiful vistas at every turn to the warm waters of the coast with forests filled with monkeys, sloths and scarlet macaws. This experience confirmed our decision that Costa Rica was definitely the place where we wanted to spend at least a year being immersed in a new culture, spending more time together as a family and slowing down the pace of our hectic lives. It was of course just a short vacation, but we are so excited to experience a deeper connection, improve our Spanish, watch the kids grow and be part of a different culture, and be active members of a local community. See below a bunch of photos from our exploratory trip. Stay tuned for what we’ve done since January to prepare for taking the big leap!