My adorable neighbor Peyton just turned one!  Her party was all about lady bugs, so her mother Marina and I thought some lady bug cookies were in order! I threw in some butterflies as well for variety.  These were the party favors.  

I started with a basic sugar cookie.  I was careful to pull out the cookies out of the oven as soon as the edges showed any brown because otherwise they are hard and cardboardish! This was sort of half day thing in itself because I needed about 50 cookies.  
For the lady bugs I used an egg shaped cookie cutter then took a little triangle out of the bottom to make it look like wings. 

After baking the cookies I made royal icing for the top.  Royal icing is egg white based.  So it dries very quickly and firmly.  This makes it so you can place the cookies in bags or containers without disturbing the frosting.

Royal icing is pretty hard to work with.  So if you are trying this, make sure you have everything out and ready so that the icing doesn't harden before you get the cookies frosted. This includes, the cookies, icing bags, rubber bands to seal the top and slow hardening, food coloring, bowls to mix fod coloring, and paper towels. Also, the more you beat the egg the harder the frosting will be.   If you can't tell it was kind of a learning experience for me!

My friend Kim came over to help me with this and was kind of a life saver! We put on the base color, then added details.  After that was dry I lines it with black frosting or a dramatic edge. 

I plopped each of them into an individual bag, so they could be taken home as favors. Repeat fifty time and you're done!

So...after 5 days in Samara Beach the really adventurous portion of our trip began.  We rented a stick shift car, which provided us with some good entertainment, and headed to the mountains.  We stayed at  Hotel Borinquen Mountain Resort at the base of an active volcano called Rincon De La Vieja.  I know I am being very specific but his place was absolutely amazing and if you are ever in the area you should go.   We arrived to cold tropical drinks and were taken out to our bungalow complete with a porch and hammock.  After that we started our spa day (which was outside in the jungle).  
Rincon De La Vieja is an active volcano.  All around the base there are steaming, boiling pots of mud and minerals.  The resort built a naturally outdoor spa. They plopped their sauna on top of a steam pot so we started by relaxing hovered over naturally boiling mud, weird concept, but amazing.  We then headed over to the mud pits.  They pull the mud out which is warm and buttery and makes your skin feel so silky.  So we gave ourselves a mud treatment.  While the mud is drying we walked along all these raised paths that lead you into the jungle and passed some ancient hyroglyphs. After the mud dried and was washed off we went through a series of three pools heated by the natural springs.  Lastly we got a massage in an open are room that is suspended over a creek, so there is no need for any relaxing background music.  
    The next morning we hiked through the national park and Rincon and saw all kinds of steaming bubbling pots scattered across the mountain.  Costa Rica is pretty lax on regulations, so you get to go right up close to everything and experience it to the fullest.  While we were walking through we were followed by a pack of about 15 adorable white faces monkeys.  They were swinging around in trees and it was pretty fun to watch.  

    After a very long rainy drive and a quick stop over in the capital city of San Jose we picked up our good friends Chris and LeAnne. With them we headed up north again to see another volcano, Arenal.  The site of it was impressive. 
    This resort had a series of about 8-10 different pools that were all heated by thermal water from the volcano.  You could kind of flow through them depending on how hot or cold you wanted it.  We tended to migrate the the pool that was the perfect temperature and has a swim up bar!
  

  The next morning we hiked through the lava fields at the base of Arenal and back through the jungle.  On this hike we saw a few animals that we neat but I honestly can't tell you what they were.  We definitely encountered lots of toucans and an incredible giant tree!
      On the way home from Arenal we did a zip line tour that covered 25 zips over all kinds of beautiful terrain.  One was a quarter mile long and zipped you over a small waterfall.  It was really fun! 
  I am having trouble getting these pictures to load on my site.  So when I do I will add them in!

Back in Samara we did a lot more relaxing.  We ate some delicious sea food, grilled out while enjoying the hammocks, surfed, and went on a fishing trip that resulted in 0 fish, and lots of sea sickness.  Overall it was a fantastic trip and I would do again in a heart beat.  I loved spending so much time with my husband and getting to experience the adventures with our friends.  I feel blessed to have been able to go! (One last world of wisdom: Don't eat the ceviche. Many days later I am still recovering)