beckyandrick

[beckyandrick]

Spring break 2025 - Exploring more of Costa Rica with great friends

Love when friends who are family come to experience our life in Costa Rica and give us a good excuse to explore more! First stop, the mountains of Perez Zeledón. Gorgeous views and hikes.

And the most incredible spa to soak and massage sore hiking legs.

Next stop the beach! It was our second time in Nosara and I think it’s officially our favorite Costa Rica beach so far. We’re becoming spoiled with the little 10-seater domestic flights…30 min to the beach instead of 5+ hours in traffic? Yes, please!

Check out these little surfer girls!

Cheers to stunning sunsets, seeing more of this gorgeous country we are lucky enough to live in and making more memories with great friends!

[beckyandrick]

#10! Experiences > Presents … chasing snow

For the last several years we have done cool experiences instead of presents and parties for Kai’s birthday. This year after 2.5 years in Costa Rica she was missing snow and we all wanted to brush up on our skiing/snowboarding after almost 3 years since we lad last been on the slopes. So we headed north to Utah for a few days in Park City.

We got 2 days of plenty of powder and then a gorgeous blue sky day. This was the first time we really got to ski as a family with all 3 of us comfortable on blue runs. Park City is huge and while we felt like we explored a ton of it we really only got to a fraction of the resort.

Our third and last day on the mountain Kai wanted to try snowboarding again, which she hadn’t done since she was super little. So we spent the day on the bunny hill and she was wiped out!

And of course we had to do some pool/hot tub time in the snow and roast s’mores!

Super fun quick weekend getaway to celebrate #10 for the best thing we have ever done. ❤️ Now happy to get back home to the warmth.

[beckyandrick]

Old friends are the best! Quick Rio Celeste adventure.

Amy, Joe and I have known each other since middle school. So it’s super fun to have them visiting Costa Rica for a few days! After snow delays in Atlanta disrupted their original arrival, the backup plan worked and we got a fun 36-hour adventure together in Rio Celeste over the weekend.

We managed to squeeze in a night walk, a fun dinner and a morning tubing on the gorgeous blue river.

We also saw plenty of creatures to welcome them to Costa Rica!

Thanks for visiting guys! Enjoy the rest of your Costa Rican adventure!

[beckyandrick]

Christmas break - part 2: Waterfalls, Tide pools and TONS of animals!

After spending Christmas week in Ohio, we were ready to thaw out back in Costa Rica for New Years. We had a trip planned to visit the Osa Peninsula in southern Costa Rica, an area that has been on our list for a while, with 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity! Unfortunately Rick came down with a nasty sinus infection so opted to stay home in San Jose, but the upside is Kai and I got a fun girls trip!

We had heard that there were a ton of animals in this area but it was really amazing how much we saw on every hike and even just walking to breakfast or sitting by the pool! Coatis, agoutis, collared peccaries, an anteater, monkeys, toucans, macaws, and more!

One of our favorite hikes was down to the Pacific Ocean where we got to play in tide pools. Gorgeous!

We also got to climb a giant matapalo or ‘strangler fig’.

One afternoon as we took a bumpy ride on a dirt road in the back of a pickup truck back from the beach, Kai said ‘mommy, this is the definition of Pura Vida’. Sure is, kid!

[beckyandrick]

Christmas part 1

For the first time since we moved to Costa Rica we headed back to the States for Christmas. It was a bit chilly for these Ticos 🥶😉 but we loved getting to see our family, friends and Kai loved being spoiled by Santa and everyone across 3 grandparents’ houses.

Kai got lots of quality grandparent time. ❤️

And mom got to spend time with high school friends. Deep roots are the best. ❤️

And we had some Hochstetler Christmas Eve shenanigans. ;)

Until next time…love you guys!

[beckyandrick]

Annual Xmas run

This is the third year we have done the Xmas run. I did the 10k and Kai did the kids 1k.

I love the fake snow at the start/finish, Santa, Mrs Claus and the elf on the course and it’s the only race I’ve ever done where the calories consumed at the finish require doing the race twice! ;)

[beckyandrick]

Thanksgiving trip #7 with great friends in the books!

This was year #5 in Turks and Caicos and #7 celebrating Thanksgiving with friends who have become family. Even though our girls have never lived in the same state (and only in the same country for a few years) they are great friends. ❤️

Love this week together to relax, reconnect and kick off the holidays. ❤️

[beckyandrick]

After a super busy week at work, we took off for just the family beach weekend I needed. And I think we found our new favorite Costa Rican beach town in Nosara.

A quick 50 min flight including a short stopover in Liberia and we were at the beach! So much better than the 5-7 hour drive depending on traffic. Plus the views of Costa Rica from the air are gorgeous!

A couple lazy days on the beach were just what we needed. Kai and I did try a surfing lesson (we both got up a couple times but at least for me it wasn’t pretty 😂) and I got a couple beautiful morning beach runs. Otherwise it was sand, sun, waves, repeat.

Playa Guiones is in a protected preserve so there is nothing built up near the beach and no beach selling allowed so it makes everything so peaceful.

Saturday night we took our hotel’s advice and drove 30 min up a dirt mountain road, over rivers with no guard rails 😳 to the cutest restaurant with the best view. Coyol has been open for about 5 years and it’s well worth the drive.

I mean how cute is this place? And the food was amazing!

We had a couple large visitors…the biggest grasshoppers I have ever seen. The servers said these aren’t even the biggest! Costa Rica grows ‘em big!

Sunday night we found another super cute spot, this time on the beach. It’s the only restaurant in the area that is beach front given the miles of protected beachfront. Soon after this photo the rain came and forced us inside. It is rainy season after all, but we’ll take it for the benefit of low season with no crowds and pretty green landscape.

We asked Kai what her favorite part of the weekend was…and she said having the 3 of us together. ❤️ Me too, kid. Me too.

[beckyandrick]

Crazy things with friends … 2 adventures within 3 weekends.

So this was the view from breakfast which felt like the reward for adventure #1. Two weekends ago, together with a good friend and teammate, we drove 10 hours round trip to the beach within 24 hours to run 21k at 4 o’clock in the morning.

We definitely looked at each other multiple times as we prepped our gear and alarms for a 3am wake up and said “we are crazy!” Yes. We are. And it sure makes life fun! Good thing we found other crazy people to do these things with too!

Adventure #2…fly from Costa Rica to Boston as a family with mountain bike in tow, get 2 hours of sleep thanks to weather delays, do a reunion run at 6am before driving out to Cape Cod for the most hilarious new multisport event in a torrential downpour, and add in some mountain biking, a sunrise wetsuit swim, a quick 5k run and dinners with friends before flying back to Costa Rica all in a long weekend. Love it! And I need a nap. ;)

Southie Mother Runner 6am running reunion ❤️

Swimrun Cape Cod. A new multisport where you run/swim/run/swim over and over again with all your gear. So that means swimming in shoes with a pull buoy and paddles and running with a swim cap and goggles on with a pull buoy and paddles hanging from your belt. Hilarious. Just one little problem…

So weather cancels the event and we celebrate on the ‘party bus’ to keep dry with coffee and donuts…

…and then next thing I know…this crazy crew decided that since we will be wet anyway we might as well head out on the course to do some swimrun on our own 😆🤷🏻‍♀️

Quite the experience. Hilarious. Felt like we earned our evening beers with the full crew after that one.

Thankfully the weather cleared on Sunday so we could get out on the mountain bike trails and the kids could get outside to play.

And we couldn’t leave the Cape without taking advantage of a beautiful morning for a sunrise swim (no shoes this time…only wetsuits😉) and run.

No better way to start my next trip around the sun than adventures with great friends. Thank you all for making #47 one to remember. Until next time…❤️

[beckyandrick]

When the weather has other plans…

This weekend was supposed to be my second Gran Fondo New York - Costa Rica edition, a super well-organized cycling event on a gorgeous route around the Arenal volcano and lake.

We picked up my packet and all looked good on Saturday but overnight Mother Nature had other plans. All night and all morning of heavy thunderstorms leading to mudslides on the route forced the cancellation of the event. Definitely the right call.

So we made the most of a relaxing family weekend. :)

Hot springs in the rain…

Interesting critters…no wonder the cicadas are so loud…this guy is the size of my fist! And can you spot the lizard? Super camouflaged!

Hanging with my people and the sounds of the rain forest with my morning coffee. There will be other races. But this was a pretty nice plan B ❤️

[beckyandrick]

Ledgewood girls in Costa Rica

During my junior and senior year of college I lived with 9 other girls on the corner of Ledgewood and Dana avenues at Xavier University in Cincinnati. The 10 of us became ‘the Ledgewood Girls’ and 25+ years later…the name still sticks.

Over the last several months 4 of the 9 other Ledgewood girls have made their way to Costa Rica for adventures. Liz and Gish came with Liz’s friend Ellen in January and we did all the things in La Fortuna and I was good about getting a blog up soon after. But then things got busy and I have not caught up on the blog since Mindy and Bridget/family visited!

Mindy and I were roommates right after college too and then she headed off to Chicago where she has lived since. It had been way too long since we hung out but we always go right back.

Mindy came down for a chill week to escape the cold, gray Chicago winter back in February. While I worked she had a ‘Hotel Hochstetler’ staycation but we did manage to fit in a day trip to La Paz Waterfall gardens, the Starbucks coffee farm and some low key nights catching up on the patio soaking up the warm weather before she had to head back north.

Loved catching up, Min!

Then in March, Bridget and her family came down for Semana Santa (Easter week/spring break). We planned a two part trip starting in the tropical dry forest of Guanacaste at Rio Perdido and then headed to the beach in Tamarindo.

Rio Perdido was crazy hot and dry by this point in the dry season so the thermal river that Rio Perdido was known for and the hot spring pools weren’t exactly what we needed but we made the best of it and sweated through hikes, soaks and silly yoga moves.

Then we moved onto Tamarindo. We had an Airbnb with a gorgeous view up away from the town which turned out to be perfect since Easter Week is one of the 2 busiest weeks of the year in Costa Rica and specifically in Tamarindo.

We had some fun adventures on ATVs and a sunset cruise, morning runs on the beach and afternoons soaking up the sun on the beach or up at our pool.

Loved being able to spend the week making new memories with old friends. ❤️

Cheers to Ledgewood in Costa Rica! Now I just need to get the rest of the girls here!

[beckyandrick]

6 countries together…adventures in Costa Rica with Ant & B

We first met Ant & Barene in Nigeria. The Lagos Road Runners introduced us to Barene, a South African super runner on our very first morning in Nigeria, on a dark early morning run. Soon her husband Ant (Anthony) joined her in Lagos and we became fast friends. Since then we have traveled and run together in Nigeria, South Africa, the Philippines, Vietnam, Boston and now Costa Rica!

Ant & B just left after 2 weeks seeing our life and exploring Costa Rica. I signed B up for a race the first morning they arrived and of course it was just a warm up for her and she happily toured our neighborhood for a post-race run with Kai on her bike after the race. ;)

The first week was low key around San Jose as Kai was still in school and I was working. But we managed to fit in a morning at the local farmer’s market, Rick’s famous pizza, an afternoon at Kai’s school for the year end concert, and they did a couple day trips from San Jose.

Once Kai was out of school for summer break I took a couple days off and we headed out to show Ant & B some of our favorite places in Costa Rica. First stop - La Fortuna for all the adventures around the Arenal Volcano!

We of course stared off with a night hike to see all the night creatures and then the next morning the adventures began. Waterfall rappelling and white water rafting. I think Kai liked it. ;)

Any trip to La Fortuna isn’t complete without zip lining the highest zip lines in Central America. ;)

Then we headed to Guanacaste to our favorite spot for mountain biking on the beach, Las Catalinas. It was our first time visiting in the rainy season and wow, so green and beautiful. After an interesting start where I led Barene on what was supposed to be a sunset hike that turned into a night hike with 3 river crossings (oops) we had a great couple days biking, swimming and hiking.

Wrapped up with a weekend pool day at home before Ant & B had to start the 20+ hour trek back to Lagos.

So incredibly lucky to make memories with good friends around the world. Thanks for coming to see our Costa Rica home guys! ❤️

[beckyandrick]

Cycling lately…small towns, big churches and crazy hills!

I’ve done much more cycling in Costa Rica than I did in Boston thanks to the Stamina triathlon team (and the weather of course!).

I love seeing more of where we live on 2 wheels, even if it means climbing some crazy mountains (1.5 years and haven’t found a flat route yet!).

Some weekends I’m with the team, others I’m solo and it’s often those solo rides where I notice life going on in the small towns, the panaderías, the soccer games and the beautiful landscape.

The cute town signs are one of my favorite things:

And the views make those climbs worth it!

Thanks to the Stamina team and here’s to many more climbs, views and adventures!

[beckyandrick]

Best friends…keeping the connection alive countries apart ❤️

Kai and Eliza became close friends soon after we moved to Boston and she started school. As both are the ‘only child’ in their families they seemed to bond in a special way and it was the hardest goodbye as we moved to Costa Rica. We have been planning for a while a way to get them together and let Kai show Eliza her new life with monkeys and sloths in Costa Rica. So soon after my college friends flew out in January, Eliza’s family arrived and we took off again for La Fortuna but this time with a kid friendly itinerary.

First stop…zip lining. A must do in Costa Rica. But instead of the longest, highest zip line in Central America that I took my college roommates on we opted for more of a family friendly option. Still plenty of adrenaline for this crew!

After the zip line we checked into The Springs in Arenal and didn’t leave again until the weekend was over. So much to do on the property which makes it super easy for families! The girls loved the hot springs, monkey slide, river tubing and horseback riding.

We couldn’t let them leave CR without seeing a few sloths so we wrapped up the weekend with a sloth tour.

So happy these two got to make new memories together!

[beckyandrick]

Zip lines, hanging bridges, sloths, waterfalls, river tubing, hot springs and a volcano…New Year, New Adventures with old friends. ❤️

The day my parents flew out after Christmas, a group of college friends flew in. After a relaxing holiday with my family, this adventure was fast and furious! We packed in as much Costa Rica as they could handle in about 4 days and it was amazing!

I was the official tour guide for this adventure so we took off from our house in San Jose and headed 3 hours to La Fortuna where the Arenal volcano and all the adventures were waiting.

We headed straight for the highest zip line in Central America. I promised the girls amazing views of the Arenal Volcano and the Arenal lake as they zipped through the trees…but all we got was rain and clouds. Ah, the unpredictable rain forest. At least that gorgeous lake and beautiful volcano showed themselves a bit as the sun set.

After a fantastic dinner in La Fortuna and a good night’s sleep we were ready for day 2 of adventures…a drive to Rio Celeste for a hike and river tubing. Rio Celeste is absolutely magical. The water is this amazing chalky blue and local legend is that God washed his brushes in the river after painting the sky. We had a blast tubing, rope swinging and leaping into the chalky blue river with an incredible guide.

Day 3 was waterfall rappelling, hanging bridges and a relaxing evening at the hot springs. We adored our guide for the waterfall rappelling and had a blast!

Evening hot springs after a packed 2 days of adventures…just what we needed!

And on day 4 it was time to head back to San Jose. But not before a sloth walk!

We stopped along the way at a local ‘soda’ (small restaurant serving local food) and had an incredible view!

So thankful for more than 2 decades of friendship with these girls. Loved being able to share our new home with them, have an epic adventure and make new memories. ❤️

[beckyandrick]

Christmas in the Sand

Colbie Calliat is one of my favorite musical artists but somehow I only recently heard her 2012 Christmas song ‘Christmas in the Sand’…and I’m a fan. As she says… ‘I love Christmas in the snow…but Christmas in the sand is where it’s at’. ;).

This year our holiday season was a mix of sun/sand and a classic NYC Christmas.

Our annual Thanksgiving trip with great friends to Turks & Caicos always kicks off the holidays. We have stayed in a house on the same bay for the last 5 years (except that darn 2020 year) and love what has become a tradition creating memories as the girls have grown.

It’s also my favorite place in the world to open water swim. So much flat, shallow, warm water!

The girls have gotten more adventurous as they’ve gotten older so cliff jumping and tubing has now become favorite activities…for all of us!

Once we got home, it was time to get the tree up. I love lights on the tree at night during Christmastime. ❤️

Our next adventure was a New York City Christmas weekend. First a good friend was getting married in NYC and then Kai made her Christmas list this year with a request for ‘experiences’ from mom and dad (while of course still keeping some toys on the list for Santa). One of her experience requests was to go to the American Girl store in NYC. Perfect…two reasons to go so we booked it!

Such a fun surprise when we told Kai only two days before we left. 😁 I have never been to NYC in the holiday season and absolutely loved running through Manhattan to check out the sights!

Grandma came along too and helped to make it a fun ‘Christmas experience gift’ for Kai and all of us with the American girl store/doll salon, the slime museum, and a Cirque du Soleil holiday show.

And of course our friends’ wedding was beautiful! Gizem and I met while we lived in Nigeria back in 2011 and have had great adventures together in Nigeria, Turkey, California, and Boston so I was super happy to be able to be there for her big day!

New York weather was pretty mild for this time of the year but after a rainy chilly last day in the city we were ready to get back to warm Costa Rica! My parents arrived for their second Christmas here and Kai was super excited to be with her grandparents. At 75, I really appreciate any time I get with them and am so grateful that they have been able to experience two Christmases here with us.

After Christmas in our home we drove out to Guanacaste for a few days at the beach. Morning mountain bike rides, beautiful sunsets and lazy days. Just how I like my ‘Christmas in the sand’. ;)

It really was a special holiday season. We are so lucky to get the time with great friends, adventures in so many wonderful places and time with our families. Love to all!

[beckyandrick]

Thankful.

With all that is going on in the world, this Thanksgiving I am thankful for the opportunities we have had as a family to live in and appreciate different cultures, countries and experiences.

I am especially thankful for the international community that our daughter is getting to be a part of through her school here in Costa Rica. Each year they celebrate ‘United Nations Day’ with a parade in traditional dress from the countries they were born in or have connections to.

Such an incredible opportunity to see the world through your friends at such a young age.

They give me faith that they really will make the world a better place. (Sound on) ❤️