Costa Rica

As some of you are already aware, and are awaiting the vacation run down, we left the kids at home with their Grandma Ricks and got on a plane headed for Central America. We spent a total of 11 days filled with new and exciting animals, beautiful scenery, and many, many insects...biting and non. We planned our trip with our good friends Jami and Spencer but due to scheduling conflicts we arrived in Costa Rica two days earlier then they did. So we spent that time in one of many little surfer towns, Montezuma. We loved it here and didn't think that it could get any better and luckily we were very wrong. We had a room with an amazing view of the beach and surf (literally five steps to the beach) in a wonderful and quiet hotel surrounded by tons exotic flowers and lush jungle. While in Montezuma we hiked to the Montezuma waterfall, beautiful, and went horseback ridding along the beach and through the jungle. The horseback ridding was fun despite the small abrasions left on our calves from our lack of wearing long pants. We first laughed at our stupidity but when the small abrasions turned into open, oozing wounds we stopped laughing and started first aid. Be it the humidity, or being constantly in and out of the ocean, our legs didn't even begin to scab over until two days before we came home...8 days after horseback ridding! We moved on to our next destination and met up with Jami and Spencer at our wonderful and almost exclusively our own resort in Santa Teresa. Oh how we loved Florblanca!! We stayed in our own open air bungalows and had a whole staff bend to our every need. It was fabulous and much out of our budget except for the fact that our very good travel agent got us such a great deal!! Thanks Jami! We enjoyed sleeping in and relaxing on the beach during the days. We spent evenings boogie boarding while watching the sunset, eating delicious food and playing cards until we retired to our candle lit, incense filled rooms. Loved it! Nate and I also got to experience zip lines for the first time. We did an 8 platform zip line though the jungle with amazing views of the ocean as well. It was amazing! Okay so before I ramble on and on about the amazing things we did and saw, is anyone wondering where our amazing pictures are?? Well funny story, okay not so funny but definitely true. One morning we decided to rent some ATV's to drive to some other beaches and explore the area since our prior form of transportation around town, i.e. a golf cart belonging to our resort, ended up only being for transportation on the resort...oops. Anyways, we rented ATV's and attached our backpacks to the front with a bungee cord as instructed by the owner of the ATV rental place. When I say we put our backpacks I mean our backpacks containing cash, credit cards (only because of the ATV rental), camera, and a bunch of other misc. items. Not thinking and totally forgetting about the backpacks entirely, we pulled up to a quiet, almost deserted beach and parked our ATV's on this little gravel patch surrounded by jungle to check it out. When we returned to the vehicles not even 5 minutes later, our backpacks and all their contents were gone. So to spare you the rest of the gritty details, we lost all forms of payment we brought to Costa Rica, all our memories and amazing pictures we had taken thus far, and our trust in our previously trustworthy Ticos. Okay so its not fair to blame all natives of Costa Rica, i.e. Ticos. Actually after many conversations about what happened to us with the locals, the blame actually fell on the Nicaraguans, who are immigrating like crazy into Costa Rica for a better life. They are the poor working class and according to Ticos, the source of all Costa Rico's crime. Nicaraguans or not, we hoped for a small miracle that who ever did take our stuff would have a change of heart and at least bring back our cameras. However, after a day of dwelling and moping we cut our losses and tried to forgive and forget so that we could continue to enjoy our vacation...which we did. So the following pictures were taken with a disposable camera, hence the terrible quality, of the remainder of our trip in the Osa Peninsula. We spent our time here exploring the rain forest by hiking many different trails. We saw many animals we didn't even know existed and some that we did. Of those were Toucans, Macaws, Sloths (a mother and a baby), every kind of monkey including the very loud and very early "bird" howler monkey, crocodiles, snakes, and poisonous frogs. It was an amazing place and an adventurous end to a great vacation!

The beach at Florblanca...beautiful!!
Jami and I sad to leave our little taste of heaven


A rare picture of the whole gang at Florblanca
Me in front of our bungalow

An incredible sunset on the beach at Florblanca (this picture was taken by a photographer who was shooting a wedding that night, he knew we got our cameras stollen, felt sorry for us and graciously took some pictures of us with the sunset)

Nate and I on the boat tour of the Mangrove Forest and River
Nate and Spencer on the boat trying to find dolphins with no luck

relaxing and enjoying our ocean view in the OsaThe tropical garden on our resort in the Osa
Jami and Spencer in the Jungle by our resort
Hiking the pacific trail down to the beachWe hiked the pacific trail at high tide and experienced some of the biggest waves we have ever seen, the picture doesn't do it justice.

4th of July Festivities

I know what everyone is thinking...the 4th of July seems like months ago...but alas here I am trying to document the fun we had. It has been a busy month for our family so please bare with us while we try to catch up to speed. We spent the day with the usual morning parade, played at the park, tried to enjoy the festivities at our community's Town Center where they had rides and games for the kids, but lines were too long and the day was way too hot. We managed a pony ride for both the girls and despite protest, headed for the car. Later that day we went back to the Town Center to have dinner and hang out before the fireworks. It was so fun to hang out with some of our favorite people... sit and eat lots of watermelon and junk food while waiting for the sun to set and the fireworks to begin. Taylor could not wait to see fireworks and had talked about it for days prior. As we were waiting on the blanket at the park a stray firework was let off and made a very loud boom and after that Taylor decided she had had enough of the fireworks and wanted to go home. She spent most the night after that sitting on our laps and burying her head in our shoulders because she was so afraid. The next day I asked her what her favorite part about the fireworks were and she simply replied "when they ended." Oh to be 3 and how at times the world around you must seem so big and scary!

The Parade

Pony Rides

Taylor and her butterfly wings

Face painting...a butterfly of courseCrew Bowen waiving his flag
Eating too much candy, but having a blast together

(The girls with friends Crew and Mason)

Taylor finally decided that pretending to sleep was better than seeing fireworks, after a while the boys joined her...although they lost interest very fast.

Kennedy playing at the park before the fireworks

In Memory

I have to take a moment and mark the one year anniversary of the passing of a beloved father, grandfather, husband and friend. I would love to say that dealing with his absence has gotten easier with time, but as I get together with my family and we experience major milestones in our lives it only makes those times together bitter sweet. I long for my father to pick up the phone when I call. I long for my children to be able to remember the fun times they had with their papa and to know how much he loved them. I long for his quiet and powerful presence that made our family complete. I am so thankful for the knowledge I have of eternal families and the peace that comes with knowing that we can be together again. We love and miss you dearly papa.

E. Wayne Ricks

September 10, 1943~June 26, 2007

The Jeppson Family Reunion

Road Trip

After returning home from Utah we packed the car and started our two day road trip to Nauvoo, Illinios to be with Nate's family for a reunion. You gotta love a good road trip. The long hours in the car, the classic questions coming from the backseat of "is this Nauvoo??" and "are we there yet??" Passing the time by eating candy and snacks and then stopping at Wendy's and/or McDonalds (yes I will admit we do let our kids eat at McDonalds). Oh and I can't forget the "quality" hotels along the way. With all sarcasim aside I really did enjoy our road trip. The girls did so well in the car by watching movies and singing songs to keep entertained. We made it to Nauvoo and met up with the rest of the Jeppson gang. It was a lot of fun and with all the cousins to play with Taylor was in heaven. It was good to be with family and to experience the church history of that part of the country. We have had a good month filled with family and lots of fun but it is nice to slow down and be at home and relax for a little while.

Our visit to Utah!

We spent the first week in June in Utah with Grandma Ricks, Uncle Tim and his family, Aunt Christine, Aunt Becky and the rest of the Turk Family. We had so much fun and enjoyed the time we got to spend with counsins and family in general! We are glad we got to spend time with the Turscanski's before the big move to Italy. Thanks Grandma Ricks for letting us visit and letting us all stay at your house! We love you all and miss you already!

Quirky Colorado

This memorial day we spent our free time discovering Colorado's quirky side. On Saturday we went to a place called Tiny Town with Jami and Crew. It is a place up in the mountains filled with tiny houses and buildings with miniature displays inside the windows. There were even some tiny buildings that the kids could go inside and explore. One of the highlights of the day was the tiny steam engine train that we road around Tiny Town. Taylor and Crew loved the little houses and I must admit it was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. Then on Monday we headed south to Colorado Springs to a place called Santa's Workshop at the North Pole. This is an amusement park for young kids at the foot of Pikes Peak. The whole park has a Christmas theme from a spinning Christmas tree to a carousel filled with all of Santa's reindeer, and yes even Santa himself was there to take requests. There were lots of different rides to enjoy that were some kind of variation of spinning around in a circle. Nate and I took turns going on the rides so we both weren't completely motion sick at the end of the day. We all had a great time, even Kennedy who because of the laid back attitude of the park went on almost every ride!

Tiny Town

Santa's Workshop