Playa Hermosa

Yesterday afternoon we packed a bag and headed to Hermosa Beach for Jordi's birthday.  When we got there we put our stuff in our room and grabbed some surf boards and headed for the surf.  Within five minutes of being in the water I felt a pain on my foot.  I thought something had bitten me- it hurt but not nearly as bad as I had heard stingrays felt so I assumed it wasn't a sting ray and hopped out of the water to check it out.  Once out of the water a couple people looked at it and said it was definitely a sting from a sting ray.  I thought for a minute "well this isn't so bad" but they all said I should go put my foot in some hot water so I headed over to the restaurant for some water.  It took them about ten minutes to boil me some water and by that time I was no longer thinking that it wasn't so bad.  I was in some serious pain.  The hot water came and it helped quite a bit, although it was so hot that I couldn't leave my foot in it for long.  After an hour or two it felt much better and I was able to get back to the party.  On the one hand getting stung made me more scared to get in the water, on the other hand it made me realize that while it does hurt, it also goes away and it's bareable.  I know that I didn't get a very "bad" sting but I definitely felt what it feels like- not fun but it doesn't hold a candle to childbirtth.

By this point it was getting dark, we had some dinner then headed back to the beach for a bon fire.  We roasted marshmallows, the kids ran around chasing frogs, and the adults chatted.  It was a great evening. 

We ended it with some birthday cake for the birthday girl.  Since we didn't have any candles for her to blow out she just did a face plant into the cake instead.

 

Of course the boys had to get in on the fun.  All I can say about these three is it's a good thing they're all so stinkin cute.

We then retired to our rooms.  We all climbed into our mosquito nets and settled down for a long night.  Between the heat and getting tangled in the nets we didn't get much sleep (yeah we're kind of spoiled) but the boys still woke up bright and early so we went out to some hammocks and enjoyed the view.

 

At this point it was time to surf again.  I'm not going to lie, I was nervous to go back out into the water but I also knew that I had to show my kids that fear can't stop you from doing things that you want to do so we grabbed a board and headed back out.  Within a few minutes I was having a great time and not thinking about stingrays.  Carter is getting to be a pretty good little surfer, we have a good time surfing together (Cam has yet to get a picture of me surfing, maybe next time.)

 

A couple of the other little boys started surfing.  Logan had never really wanted to try to surf, he was always happy with his boogie board but once he saw Mattie and Ford he really wanted to try. 

How cute is Ford surfing?

 

He was able to get up on all fours but never quite made it to his feet.  Now he's begging me to take him for surfing lessons so we'll have to get that done in the next week or so.

The kids played in the sand with their new friends, surfed, enjoyed the hammocks and just overall had a great time.  Other than the sting ray incident it couldn't have been a more perfect trip to the beach, definitely an awesome birthday part.  As I looked at these pictures I thought "what if you could have an amazing beach pretty much all to yourselves for a ten year olds birthday party, only in Nicaragua."  thanks again McBroom's for inviting us.