COSTA RICA: WHITE WATER TUBING

Well hello there my fair ladies. Doesn't that just remind you of the childhood rhyme? (and yes I had to look up how to spell rhyme because it's just not normal).
Anywho.... the next day of our trip was spent again traveling the country side to our next excursion: white water tubing!!! We had heard that this was a lot of fun from some guests we met staying at our hotel, and it was not on our original plan. But papa stuck it in there and boy was it fun.
We first horseback rode through the country, and I could't stop laughing. Seeing my dad, sister, and Dan on a horse... oh my gosh!

yes we all look like guys,
but I think I debriefed you all on this the other day :)

I almost fell off my horse I was laughing so hard! We traveled for about a half hour, stopped at a gorgeous waterfall/cliff that you could jump off of (which we didn't know),

and ended up at the starting point to our next adventure.
We each had to carry our own 20 pound tube down to the water, and off we went. There were a ton of rapids!! Like we didn't stop going through a rapid! But when we did, we had to paddle. And it was ssoo hard!!!  The current from the bigger rapids would suck you backwards, I got stuck. Don't worry I figured it out and Sir Dan stayed back with me. My dad and sister kept going, nice huh?!
Now they did tell us all about safety and what to do and not to do before we went... like how you can flip and what to do if you do. Like don't stand up right away. Guess who flipped?! Thats right- ME! It wasn't bad but thank goodness for the helmets! Rapids are made out of rocks ya know, and when you flip you don't know which way is up. But it wasn't bad at all, actually quite fun! Annndd I immediately stood up and hopped back on my tube. Yea not suppose to do that. Here's why: If you stand up and get your ankle caught in the rocks, the current can be super strong and literally break your ankle in half. Smart little blond girl I am!
At the end, the very last rapid was a 10 foot drop, not.kidding. It was AWESOME! You literally got dunked underwater, but came right back up... IN YOUR TUBE! The guides helped to make sure you didn't fall out, but you were on your own! So freakin awesome.
After we relaxed to the end, we had to walk up a steep ass pathway, with our 20 pound tube... that part was not well thought out or fun. But we made it :)

Have you ever been tubing down a river?? White water tubing?! Leave me a comment below telling me all about it :)
Next time: Our encounter with Toby the monkey and Minnie the howler monkey! You won't want to miss this one!!

It's Time to get Beautified

What would a bunch of posts be without some hair fun!? Obviously it wouldn't be me- I had to squeeze some hair stories and fun pictures for your enjoyment!
Everyday I'm learning something new, it's surprising because I'm about halfway through already! But I love it and treasure every day there, each day is unique.
I'm just gonna let the pictures do the talking for this:

I did my aunts highlights
The top right is before.
What a difference :)

The next 4 pictures are of my beautiful cousin. I did her hair and makeup for her senior prom!!  

The day we were heading to the airport, my mom decided her haircut
wasn't short enough...
so I gave her a nice cut and thinning session before we left

highlights on a client

my beautiful Brianne,
my blond bombshell :)

beautiful blow dry!

re-dyed the underneath of my hair finally!

 The next 3 are of my friend getting blonder!

She went from a little blond to 

BAM BLOND!

Look at all those foils in there!

And there ya have it, a little hair fun and update for ya :)
What's your favorite color? Style? Anything you love!? Need help with a new look?? Leave a comment below and I'll help ya out! And share all about your hair stories,  good an bad!!!


Stay tuned... tomorrow I'll tell ya all about  white water rafting through the rainforest!

COSTA RICA: ZIP LINING THRU THE RAINFOREST

After our wonderful day of rest and becoming lobsters under the sun (even with SPF 50 sunblock), Tuesday-  Sir Dan, myself, my dad, sister, and her bf met our driver bright and early after our delicious breakfast and off we went. It took two and a half hours of driving through the country and many little villages to get to our first excursion.
Papa de Nicole is better than a tour guide! Before we arrived in Costa Rica, he had been researching multiple places for each excursion to make sure we got the best one during our visit. Hence why instead of going to a zip lining place close to our resort, we traveled the country to literally the coolest place there.
I don't know if you completely understand how poor  it is in Costa Rica, but it is a third world country, where you can buy a house  (not a very good one) for $250 dollars!!! So while we drove through the country, we saw just how poor it is. It was sad to see. The drive was also extremely fun and crazy! We literally were scaling the side of a mountain- it definitely got our adrenaline up and going before we even got there.
We arrived at a hotel, where the excursion left from. It was in the middle of a mountain with lots of trees, hills, and animals! Once we got harnessed up, we got in to yet another truck, this one was huge and had 4 wheel drive, which was much needed for our journey to the zip lines. We were scaling a mountain of clay like dirt and rocks- not pebbles, ROCKS! And people actually lived up there,  in the middle of no where!
After about a half hour of traveling through the country, we arrived at our starting point. We got our helmets and gloves, and a scorpion!!! Yes, that is right, a scorpion! It was in a compartmet of the truck, not hurting anybody. Our tour guides weren't phased by it at all, two of them took sticks and pulled the stinger off its tail. At that point,  he wasn't harmful and the guys were playing with it. Unfortunately,  without its stinger, it will only survive for a little while.
I was in charge of the go-pro for this excursion which was fun. We'd start it at the beginning of when I'd go down, and I'd keep it going to watch everybody zip line.
Sir Dan and I have been zip lining before, on our honeymoon actually. But this, this was unlike any other zip line we've both done. It was beautiful!! That's really all I can say, stunning and ssooo natural and unharmed. We went over waterfalls,  trees, animals, etc. We got to take a break halfway through and go swimming in a waterfall!!! It was the purest water I've ever seen- it was like how poland spring tastes! Chilly, but it felt good with all the work we were doing. Now because we traveled to Costa Rica at the start of their rainy season, in the mountains it is normal to rain in the afternoon. So guess what happened?!  It rained towards the end of our excursion, but it was so much fun!!! It was thundering and lightening all around us, we were completely safe but it was still so neat! Definitely recommend it :)
The go pro really captured everything, but here are some pictures we took along the way. (don't mind the stupid date stamp that I'm pissed about)

during our drive- one of the five volcanoes

getting ready to fly!

the boys getting their harnesses on

our ride up the rocky mountain

 
little side note: since most of our excursions were intense and in water, I wore a lot of Dans clothes and looked like a boy to not destroy my clothes. It was to protect ourselves from the sun and keep hair out of our faces! I normally don't dress like that! haha  Here's some proof:

Next time: White Water Tubing!!!

The Gift of Paper

Paper is such a random thing, dontcha think? It constitutes so many things though: money, calendars, books, checks, postcards, etc.
When I first found out that the traditional first anniversary gift was paper, I immediately went to Sir Dan and said 'screw this, lets do the modern version.' Sir Dan decided that we do both... I went for it, I mean how hard could it be?!
For me... it was freakin hard!!! The only thing I could think of was pictures and money. Both are meaningless in our marriage (except money but I hate money so that wasn't gonna work). I had this idea that I'd do a picture slideshowey schpeel and burn it onto a DVD (metal) and put it in a (paper) cover. BAM! Nicole is the bomb.
Yea that didn't work out! I got bored and it was a pain trying to find special events that happened except for holidays. Bye bye picture show.
We decided to exchange gifts sometime soon after we got back from Costa Rica. Before was just too complicated and my slideshow was slideshowing. During our adventures,  I randomly got this amazeballs idea of a custom calendar. Each month would represent something we did during that month of our first year together- and it'd go from this June to next June! I got super excited about it.
The day after we got back, and between loads of traveling laundry (the worst laundry if there can be anything worse), I headed to our favorite custom site Cafepress  and started building away.
It was relatively easy to do, the hardest part was picking out the pictures for each month cause I have a billion pictures per day!! I requested for 3-4 day shipping so it'd be here by Thursday or Friday. Well they were wrong on that, and I got it Tuesday, wasn't here and requested it for Wednesday via an awesome note to Mister UPS man.

But it came Tuesday night  (even tho I think I wrote that for Wednesday, scheduled post)! I didn't even wrap it I was super excited. You can imagine what I looked like to Sir Dan who didn't know why I was jumping and squeeling like pig in the mud.
I finally stopped squeeling and opened up the box- now I hadn't seen the final product at all,  except for the cover... so it was as much a surprise for him as it was for me. And it came out FREAKIN AMAZING!!!!! I couldn't have imagined it any better!!! And it was great to see what we did over the course of our first year.

Sir Dan opening it for the first time

The cover

This was for August- our trip to Wildwood

the last picture- from Costa Rica

And it combines both paper and metal- most of it is paper,  but the binding is metal! Clever aren't I?!
Little did I know, Sir Dan had my gift as well... well one of two. It was a love letter about our first year. And most of you don't know this, but Sir Dan is the most romantic, best writer I've ever read... so this is just what I wanted.

I started tearing up and then he told me  my second gift: A blueprint of our eventual house... no it's not being built but he's kept all the details I've  told him about it and is making it a blueprint. He knows just how to make me weak at the knees!
So there you have it! How we interpreted the gift of paper/metal.
What did you and your husby do for your first anniversary gifts? Leave a comment below- I wanna hear all about it :)
Monday I talk about the next couple days in Costa Rica!!!

WELCOME TO COSTA RICA

All righty folks, it is time that I show you all the beautiful country that is Costa Rica.
My dad treated Sir Dan and I, along with my sister and her boyfriend and mom to this trip. He certainly is an amazing man and we are  forever grateful to him for taking us!!!
Today I figured I'd talk about the first day of our adventure. And give you a little debrief on how our vacations work.
My family is not the kind of sit around for 8 days by the pool or on a beach soaking up the sun. Sir Dan and I get too bored too quick, hence why our honeymoon was spent adventuring. My dad has been wanting to travel to Costa Rica for some time now, and has done a ton of research on what to do once there. We are the adventurous types, we all love to see as much as we can and do as much as we can while there. Besides our two traveling days,  we had 2 rest/recover days and the rest were spent  seeing the country. 
Ok debrief is done, sorry for being a bore-  just felt like you all needed a little background story :)
Day Uno: Was our anniversary. Yea yea, that has been stated a million times, come on Nicole move on. Sir Dan and I packed nice and early, got everything settled at the Gilbert palace and headed to my parents. Sir Dan and I had to drive our car to the airport hotel because 6 people plus luggage doesn't fit in one car. Sir Dan calls my luggage Big Bertha, and that she is. Mom has one too, mine is Junior. We headed to a famous burger joint in  New York on the way to the airport for some dinner and boy was it delicious... probably not the best thing to have before an early morning of flying.
Our hotel was right next to the airport and right next to a bar- and we know how to start a vacation.

After a drink and much talking and laughing, we all headed back up to our rooms and relaxed, or really just laugh a lot. The four of us attempted to go to bed around midnight, but most of us couldn't sleep... most were excited about the trip, I was petrified about the flights.
Day Two: Our alarm went off at 3:30am to shower and repack our crapola. Boy let me tell you 3:30am comes up quick when you're having fun. Our flight was at 6am and off we were to Atlanta and then  landing in Liberia at noon, which was 2pm here. I slept most of the time, Sir Dan will tell you that I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime... I'm not a fan of flying so I try to sleep most of the trip.
Papa de Nicole got us a driver for the week because we would be traveling throughout the country, so when we arrived in Costa Rica they were waiting. I believe Sir Dan went to pick up a suitcase and an airport attendant goes: You are white, we will do the work for you (with a smile on his face I might add).
The country was unlike I have ever seen. Beautiful, lush, completely green, hot as hell but not much humidity, cows and horses everywhere, poverty like nothing here in the US.

sugar cane growing

After about a half hour of driving through the country,

we arrived at our resort:

The Hilton Papagayo.

Once we went through the gate,

it was like we entered a whole other world.

Everything was open and beautiful.

There were lizards walking around,

beautiful buildings,

the sound of the ocean.

As we arrived,

we were all greeted by the happiest people

and given cold fresh eucalyptus face clothes 

and delicious juice.

The lobby overlooked most of the main part of the resort

and it was just unbelieveable the beauty of it.

My dad arranged to have a conjoining bungalow

for the 6 of us... 

our own private bungalow!!

They were beautiful and ours was in the best spot.

It didn't take long to walk down to the restaurants, pools, bars, and beaches.

The resort had little trucks to transport people wherever they needed to go,

we liked to walk sometimes, but others we needed the shuttle.

When we got to our bungalow,

we were in shock at how nice they were.

The four of us shared one bedroom

and my parents had the other room.

They were both big and spacious,

with fridges, drinks, and our own private deck that

overlooked the ocean.

The first thing we wanted to do was change,

we were in travel clothes that were not appropriate for the heat.

The four of us immediately changed into swim suits 

and the 6 of us headed down to the pool and restaurant area for lunch.

The rest of the day was spent exploring and getting

burned at that wonderful swim up bar.

Let me just tell you-

a swim up bar is bitter sweet and here is why:

you can drink all you want and then you have to pee.

Ya end up breaking the seal and having to pee,

in a wet bathing suit a million times!

That is just not fun but when you are drinking

it's more of an adventure.

Also let me warn you that when you are basically 

living on the equator,

not even 50 SPF sunblock is going to prevent a burn.

I am still peeling from the burn.

Up next: Our ziplining adventure over waterfalls and through the rainforest.

Ever been somewhere fun and exciting?

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