Anticipation

It's the calm before our latest adventure: a trip to Costa Rica!

After a year of craziness and stress due to our move to Hintonburg Glosette Girl, Margot and I are off to spend a few nights tramping through the rain forest looking for monkeys, zip lining above the cloud forest in Monteverde and strolling the beaches of Manuel Antonio. We booked all the hotels ourselves and the various day trips through Anywhere Costa Rica. We just need to show up!

OK, let's go over the list of things to bring:

• "Guilty pleasure" book full of swashbuckling and sensationalism. Check.
• Bird-watching book to help identify all the cool birds I'm going to see. Check.
• GPS transponder so Santa can locate us even though we're at home. Check.

Things not to bring:

•  Winter clothes, even though we're not in Costa Rica just yet (OK...maybe I'll bring the sexy snowpants).
• Laptop or cellphone or anything else electronic (OK, I'm not a total Luddite, I'll bring a cell for emergencies).
• Spanish-English dictionary (because Jen is fluent in Spanish - ask her about it sometime if ever you meet her). :)

Mother nature isn't quite done with us yet though. Eastern Ontario is being walloped with 15-20 cm of snow today. We saw the writing on the wall (er, forecast) a few days ago and so got ahead of the storm by driving up to my parents' house (which is closer to the airport we're flying out of) on Friday night. I'm not a fan of driving at night but, to be fair, it was smooth sailing last nigh. We took Highway 7, my drive of choice between Ottawa and Newmarket, which was actually quite pretty due to all the houses lit up with Christmas lights. We arrived just before the snow. This morning our car was covered with a light dusting of the white stuff.

So that's it for me for a week or so! Have a Merry Christmas, a happy stress-free holiday, and talk to you when we return!