Hola From Costa Rica!

We have arrived on our much anticipated vacation, and we are having an amazing time celebrating our Fifth Anniversary (a month early :)

Our first entire day was pretty much chalked up to travel. Our brother-in-law Ed drew the short straw, and got up at 4 a.m. to drive us to the airport. We were actually looking forward to the travel portion of the trip, because after hauling 2 toddlers, car seats, luggage, and strollers through a billion airports over the last two years we were really looking forward to a nice smooth trip, where we could watch the airplane movie, and drink a soda without having it dumped all over us, and take a little nap on the plane if we wanted to. It was all we had imagined it would be. :) when we finally arrived in San Jose we met up with our very dear friends Tracy and Jeremy (tracy was a resident with me in Hawaii). With our very limited spanish (cris and i both took high school spanish, tracy and jeremy took high school french) we somehow made it to the Avis counter, and then the real adventure started. Cris talked me into paying the 8.95 for the GPS, and let me tell you, i married a very wise man, because we NEVER would have made it anywhere without the GPS. We twisted and wound our way through the city of San Jose, and then onto the highway, where we drove for another hour, and then made it to the Ferry.
Over the Ferry, and then another 1/2 hour of driving at night through the jungle (rather terrifying), and we arrived!!!

We had a fabulous day today, we laid by the pool, explored the resort, and just relaxed! I am afraid we are just a tiny little bit sunburned, but i hope it is the kind of sunburn that when you wake up in the morning it is brown instead of red. time will tell, though :)

In spite of the wonderful day, there is also the hint of sadness, as today was the day my tiny little nephew, Ethan Thomas Alford, met Jesus. You may remember my post from August about Ethan's sister, Ellianna. Ethan also was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. When Ethan was born no one in our family had even really heard of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (Werdnig Hoffman's Disease). His diagnosis was made when he was only about 6 weeks old. Ethan was a beautiful, beautiful baby (like all the Alford kids!) We didn't have much time to get to know this precious boy, but the time we did have we will all always cherish. One of my very favorite memories was getting to spend a night in the PICU with Ethan (there was ALWAYS someone by his side) , waiting for him to open his eyes for a few minutes so i could smile at him, or sing one of his favorite songs. "He's turned my mourning into dancing again, He's lifted my sadness. I can't stay silent, I must sing for His joy has come" - one of our favorite songs to sing to Little E.

Please consider a donation to the Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy as we search for a cure for little ones like Ethan and Ellianna.