We got a soccer ball for the kids today, their first and only beach toy thus far. Our day today was filled with non-beach activities, we walked all around Tamarindo and saw quite a few places we’d never seen before, brought our laundry down to the Laundromat, had a pretty bad lunch (Don’t go to Walters… C- food at best), came back to the Spanish Institute to have a facetime chat with Yaya and Grandpa Buzz, piano practice, homework, math practice, journal entries and then FINALLY around 4:00, we made it to the beach for the first time all day.

The beach was quite festive, we saw a really nice sand sculpture, right next to the giant letters carved in the sand that said “Smoke da Hooka”  with an arrow pointing toward a group of people hanging around giant hooka. It was hilarious. A few meters further, another sign in the sand “Free Beach Stuff” and another arrow pointing to the group next to the hooka folks with toy guitars. They were clearly having a fun evening 🙂

We proceeded a little further up the beach and found a nice open spot for a game of soccer. At first, we were just kicking the ball to each other, getting warmed up and then Ben and Jake decided we should have a game, so we found some sticks to make a few goal posts and started playing a feisty game. Ben and I were on a team (the Butt Kickers) and Jake, Erin and Abby made up the Tortugas. It was really fun. During the game we had quite a few guest players as locals and tourists alike would jump in a play for a kick or two on their way to or from somewhere. The sun was just setting over the point by Playa Langosta and it was absolutely gorgeous out there.

 About halfway through the game, I was reminded very quickly that running on the beach is not like running on grass, especially when you don’t stretch. Not sure exactly what I did, but I pulled my calf muscle and was incapacitated for a while. Hurt like crazy. Oh well, lesson learned. Thankfully, Ben was able to hold his own after my unexpected sideline visit and the Butt Kickers and Tortugas had a tie game. Erin hurt her foot surfing yesterday and I had my pulled calf (still hurts this am..) so the two of us limped away from the beach and headed back to the hotel after the sun went down.

We came back to the hotel and had one of the best italian meals I’ve ever had. The owners of the hotel are from Italy and cook the most amazing pastas, pizzas, pestos and more. It was shockingly good. We enjoyed dinner by the pool. We had the pool to ourselves, so it felt like we had a personal chef while we sat by a beautiful pool drinking beer and wine (and 7 up :). Wonderful evening for sure.