Costa Rican Honeymoon!

I know I've mentioned it before on here a time or two, but I am SO EXCITED to share that Mr. Hess and I will be going to the beautiful, scenic, exotic & dreamy country of COSTA RICA for our Honeymoon!

At first, we wanted to go somewhere in Europe like Ireland (Mr. Hess's dream vacation) or Italy (MY dream vacation), but we quickly figured out we would just have too much to do there!  Plus, those flights alone are not ideal for our budget right now...so, we thought long and hard and out of nowhere it hit us:  We bid on, won & paid for a "get-away" trip down to Costa Rica for a 5 day 4 night stay at a great resort in the Guanacasta region about 2 years ago. Well, what better way to use a "get-away" than cash it in for our Honeymoon?! Pretty genius if you ask me....

Costa Rican Paradise....ahhhhhhh!

I knew we wanted to go on a longer trip than 5 days so we added a weekend onto our stay at another resort that's a little more on the "nicer" side - close to what we would pick out ourselves to stay for our big celebration!  I don't know the exact hotel name because I told Mr. Hess that is HIS department, and he has now made it more of a surprise for me & I won't complain about that whatsoever...I think it's more exciting that way!  Here (at Resort #2), we will spend the last 2 nights of our stay in a different city and get to experience more of the country's culture & scenery.

When we were booking our flights, we saw there are 2 options:
1) Fly into the LIR Airport in Guanacaste (which is only about a 20 minute drive) -OR- 2) Fly into San Jose, rent a car, and make a 4 hour drive ourselves to Guanacaste.

At first, I thought this was decision was a no brainer as we thought to ourselves: "who wants to voluntarily be in a car for 4 hours trying to navigate yourselves in a foreign country?" But, after seeing the price difference (almost double of flying into San Jose) we chose to use the opportunity to fly in a little bit cheaper to take the scenic route and enjoy the beautiful sights, beaches and culture along the way!  So, yup, you heard correctly...Mr. Hess and I (a girl NOTORIOUS for getting lost EVERYWHERE she goes) will be driving ourselves across the coast to Guanacaste and back...and hopefully we won't kill each other in the process! :)  I'm nervous we might get lost, but you know what? Nobody's on a time schedule...it's Our Honeymoon, we're going to be together, & we have an extra 2 nights for that reason...so we don't feel rushed.

The view from our Resort!

Breakfast on the balcony...no big deal.

Playa Hermosa Beach, right by the Hotel!

I can't explain how incredibly I'm excited for this trip to get here already!  OF COURSE I'm excited for our Wedding Day - (DUH), but I am JUST as excited to take our first trip as a married couple together to a place neither of us have ever been and just RELAX!  We wanted a place that had beautiful beaches, had a Caribbean feel, and had no sort of schedule to follow...and I'm pretty sure we found it!  We won't have much to do but simply enjoy paradise, lay out on the beach, eat, drink & be merry (or married)! ;) We might even do a snorkling or zip lining excursion...fun, fun, fun!

Everyone we've talked about it RAVES about this place and from any picture I've seen online I would agree.  After all of the planning, stress, and headaches leading up to our BIG DAY it will be SOOOOOOOO nice to get away and celebrate our new lives together!!!!!!

I.CANNOT.WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, I'm sure you didn't think THIS was coming, but enjoy a random but oddly entertaining video we put together honoring this joyous occasion....(and, I apologize in advance for 2 things: the muffled sounds from the wind - sounds like we're actually IN Costa - and well...Mr. Hess, or "Taco"...You'll see....)

69 days and counting...

72 until we're on the plane...

Presh