There is nothing that gets my heart racing more while driving in Costa Rica than then dreaded bright green traffic cones. These are the telltale sign of the Transito’s, Costa Rica’s Transit Police. While we have been pulled over a number of times by the Transito’s, this year marks the first time that we receivedKeep Reading!
I’m never super excited when my alarm goes off at 5:00 am on Wednesday mornings, I like mornings, but it’s really early. By the time the entire family has arrived at the beach at 5:45 for the TIDE Academy Morning Surf Practice, the cobwebs are gone and I’m so grateful to be out there enjoyingKeep Reading!
Ben and Jacob both wanted to write something for the blog yesterday, and they opted to do a little writing about the TIDE Academy’s Morning Surf Program before school. Enjoy! TIDE Surf Morning Practice – by Ben Waking up at 5:00 am to go surfing is definitely worth it. Especially if it’s with TIDE. Last year if youKeep Reading!
We are about a week and half from our departure date. We are heading back to Tamarindo on September 16th – this time, for the school year. This period of transition is always hard – there is so much to do to prepare, but the timing needs to be right. You can’t pack suitcases weeksKeep Reading!
The kids wrote this song with their friends Logan and Macy last week. Just had to share as nothing makes me happier than the kids playing music.Keep Reading!
As we were driving to Lola’s our goal was to shoot another quick surf video, but upon arrival, the swell was MASSIVE so the kids decided to boogey board, play in the sand and enjoy a relaxing afternoon instead. This is a quick snapshot of that afternoon at Avellanas.Keep Reading!
We’ve been back in Tamarindo for about a month now and it’s been quite a whirlwind thus far! Things are finally slowing down just a little bit, so I thought I’d drop a quick update. We had two weeks of visitors as well as three weeks of very good friends in town, so we’ve beneKeep Reading!
My alarm went off at 2 in the morning last Friday and it was go time. Time for Rindo and I to travel to Costa Rica together. Rindo and I were scheduled to leave at 6 am on a flight to Dallas and then catch a quick connecting flight to Liberia, Costa Rica. We wouldKeep Reading!
As I mentioned in Part One of this series about bringing a dog to Costa Rica, it was a process to get ready to bring our dog, Rindo, to Costa Rica. Now that airline tickets have been purchased and reserved, it was time to get down to the technical details of the journey. When weKeep Reading!
This weekend we will journey down to Costa Rica again as a family. By this time we’ve got traveling to and from Costa Rica down to a science. Instead of making this 5th trip down the easiest one yet, we’ve decided to make it the most complicated one by adding our new dog to theKeep Reading!
It’s been quite a while since we’ve posted anything about SNOW on this site. We’ve been very grateful to have spent two weekends this Winter in the Colorado mountains, it’s been a long time since we’ve skied and played in the snow. Our first trip was to Keystone, and while it was amazing, we didKeep Reading!
The kids went to an amazing school while living in Costa Rica for the Spring Semester of 2013 called the TIDE Academy (website | facebook). As a part of their community outreach program, the school teamed up with another local school to create a beautiful mural on an old concrete wall in the center ofKeep Reading!
It’s been about 6 months since we left Costa Rica this year and I’m finally getting around to sifting through some of the video footage we took. This was one of my favorite evenings in Costa Rica this spring, the Villa Real Rodeo. Rodeo season is an amazing time around Costa Rica, these rodeos travelKeep Reading!
This is a repost from the TIDE Academy May Newsletter: Congratulations to the Sampsons for being the Featured Students of the Month! TIDE was lucky enough to have the Sampsons for four months this year. Ben, Jacob, and Abby all came prepared to learn everyday, always thought of amazing new ideas, and were awesome surfers!Keep Reading!
I think we may have found true paradise. I’ve seen versions of paradise in a number of places, each location with it’s own unique sparkle. But only a few times before have I been so awe inspired, so moved by natural beauty and simplicity that I was literally speechless. I’m in one of those placesKeep Reading!
Traveling around Costa Rica and Panama for 30 days was an incredible experience and each one of us has our favorite places, memories and experiences of the journey. Some of our favorites are the same, some are different, but in the end we each have that particular “moment” we’ll never forget. For Ben, that “moment”Keep Reading!
Since Bocas Del Toro is a collection of 9 unique islands, there are many beaches to visit.One of these popular “must see” beaches is nicknamed Starfish beach. Walking around Bocas Town, there are a lot of water taxi drivers vying for your business and eager to take you anywhere you want to go. Starfish BeachKeep Reading!
Bocas Del Toro is centered around the water and therefore water activities are abundant. On our third day in Bocas, we decided to take a catamaran trip with Bocas Sailing and see some of the other islands of Bocas Del Toro. The trip included two stops with opportunities to swim and snorkel. One of theKeep Reading!
By the time we woke up on our second full day in Bocas del Toro, the kids had not surfed in over a week and they were really excited to surf again, so we decided to scratch that itch for them and take them surfing in Bocas. Bocas Town itself does not have any surfingKeep Reading!
When we arrived in Panama I grabbed a Panamanian paper called “The Visitor” and read a great little article written by a guy named Jack. The article was called, “Tourists or travelers,” by Jack. While I’m not going to post or repeat the article here, he made some interesting and worthy distinctions between the two,Keep Reading!