Todd, Britt, and the Girls

We spent a month in Nicaragua.Todd could only come for 12 days of it, so the girls and I went without him for about 3 weeks. The reality of this trip was that it was hard. Extremely hard! (At least until Todd came.) I drove 7 hours across the country in the dark with 2 needy kids without a map, GPS, or phone service. We got lost so many times and found ourselves driving down the slums of cities, along muddy dirt roads in the jungles, and sometimes in the middle of nowhere. Our first house we rented was covered in rodent poo. I've never seen so much mouse poop-- on every possible surface. There was no water, no toilet paper, no cell service or WIFI, and the fridge smelled like rotten animal. At night it sounded like animals were fighting eachother on the roof, which kept me awake. We couldn't cook anything without water so we split a can of olives for dinner the first night. We managed to secure another place to stay but still had to pay for the awful house. We stayed in a tent with a restaurant and WIFI, but then had relentless mosquitoes and HEAT to deal with all the time. There was no escape from either, our tent baked in the sun all day and mosquitoes flew in through cracks in the floor all night. The girls wouldn't eat any local restaurant food. They whined and begged for shows all day every day. They were nervous at first with our nanny. I crashed the rental car into a rock avoiding a cow. I almost came home early.
And then on day five I caught one green wave. And I thought, "OK- maybe I can do this one more day." And the rest is history.

Beatriz, our wonderful nanny made the trip possible. We truly love her!!

Bad taxidermy at the volcano Masala museum

More bad taxidermy!

Nicaragua is very lush and green. It was the dry season when we were there, so we hardly saw any rain.

Beatriz and her husband Byron, filling in as a father figure till Todd joined us.

Because we ended up tenting it, Lydia took a lot of naps in the air conditioned car. Everywhere else was too hot!


Every morning I got up at 4:40, surfed a few hours till the restaurant opened, then had coffee and watched the waves. Then I'd go back out for a few hours, till I couldn't lift my arms or till the wind changed and forced me in. This trip was all about surfing, and I did as much as humanly possible while there.

Mamma turtle tracks. Her eggs had already been dug up by someone when we found these. I hope they don't end up in soup!

We became good friends with the employees at Tapas.

The kids played for hours in our "front yard."

Avery's pet butterfly. She held it and whispered kind things to it till it flew away.

After the biggest wave session of the trip I was totally wiped out!

Another fantastic nanny we used a few times.

Home sweet home. In reality our tent was usually a disaster inside.

Avery had a few friends to play with.

We got to ride horses every few days. Adan, our good friend took Avery and I took Lydia.

Lydia was afraid of the water unless I was holding her. It made for a long month of not being able to swim in the ocean unless Todd or the nanny was with us.

Lots of restaurants had pools, and swimming was the ONLY escape from the heat. So we spent hours each day swimming.

Picasso unicorn by Avery

We had a lot of campfires on our beach.

After relentless mosquitoes for weeks we finally got a mosquito net!

I feel so lucky to have seen this sunset in real life.

This butterfly didn't survive.

These little stinkers make my heart sing. (And swear sometimes too)

Sunrise treasure hunt.

So many treasures!

Poor turtle was dead. Avery was heartbroken and wanted to have a funeral.

Crabbie, the dead crab we played with for 3 days till it got too stinky.

We did have a funeral for the crab.

Typical restaurant food. I liked it just fine, but Avery and Lydia survived mostly on peanut butter and yogurt the entire month.

Surfer chick or dorky mom? Definitely dorky mom.

Our tent village had a little pool we swam in 2 or 3 times every day.

We had sand everywhere the entire trip. Everywhere! Which was fine with me.

Shark tooth? We found a few of these but didn't see any sharks.

Avery's pet slugs. She adopted a lot of pets on this trip!

There were lots of turtles around.

Jiquillo, a beautiful neighboring beach

The beaches were all but empty.

We helped some kids collect these snails to eat.

Supergirl

Me enjoying my morning coffee

Volcan Telica

Another pet

There seemed to be more cows than people in this country. The second place we stayed was accessed through 2 cow gates, across a field, and around dozens of cows.

And Todd finally made it! It was wonderful to have him with us. I missed him (and all his help) tremendously.

Lots of toasted marshmallows

We moved out of the tent and into a house the day Todd arrived. I. WAS. EXHAUSTED.

Just a little joyous that Todd was really here!

Oh how I love this picture. These girls adore their daddy.

We made a lot of earth art.

Our next door neighbors had 2 adorable girls that would come play. They spoke no English but had a great time anyway.

The house had an incredible breeze that kept us cool and cleared out the mosquitoes. Lydia would nap somewhere besides the car!

Massage

Dessert heaven at Al Cielo.

We even had movie nights in our house.

Because I had built up more stamina than Todd, he would come in from surfing after a few hours and take photos of me. So I have a ton of great shots of myself!