Pop icon Christina Aguilera is giving fans a rare and heartwarming window into her life as a mom, sharing a video recap of her family’s recent visit to Costa Rica’s La Paz Waterfall Gardens and Wildlife Refuge. Last Saturday, Aguilera headlined the second night of the 2026 PICNIC Festival at Centro de Eventos Pedregal in Heredia, delivering a powerhouse set of her biggest hits to thousands of fans who had waited years — in many cases, decades — to see her perform live in Costa Rica.
The annual festival, which spans two consecutive Saturdays, also featured Maná and Christian Nodal on its multi-stage lineup. For Costa Rican fans, the night was nothing short of a dream fulfilled. It was Aguilera’s first-ever performance on Costa Rican soil, and the crowd of more than 55,000 across both festival days felt every moment of it.
Following her concert, Aguilera made her way to La Paz Waterfall Gardens in Vara Blanca, nestled on the slopes of Poás Volcano about an hour north of San José. The park covers 70 acres of cloud forest and rainforest, with five waterfalls — including one that drops 121 feet — as well as a butterfly observatory, hummingbird garden, and the country’s largest animal sanctuary.
Aguilera posted a video on Instagram set to QUITAPENAS’ track “Jaguar,” giving fans a rare look at her personal world. Accompanied by her fiancé Matthew Rutler and their 11-year-old daughter Summer Rain, the family fully embraced the Costa Rican spirit of pura vida as they explored the park’s waterfalls and wildlife refuge.
The clip captured Summer gazing in wonder as butterflies landed nearby, while the trio also encountered jungle cats, monkeys, and exotic birds. Aguilera captioned the post: “La Paz Waterfall Gardens & Wildlife Refuge … thank you for the wonderful tour and the breath of fresh air. Pura vida.”
The trip also offered a broader glimpse into Aguilera’s life as a mother of two. In a recent appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show, she revealed that Summer prefers seeing her without makeup, lovingly calling her “no makeup mama” — and that as soon as Aguilera is done working, Summer asks her to take it all off.
“She just loves my freckles; she loves to see them and asks if she’s going to have freckles one day. She’s the number one mama fan!” Aguilera also gushed about Summer’s blossoming creativity: “She’s such an artist, she paints, she draws, she makes beautiful masks, and she’s just so creative, but she’s definitely her own thing.”
Aguilera also shared that her teenage son Max — whom she shares with ex-husband Jordan Bratman — is at a whole new milestone of his own. “We’re looking at colleges,” she told Hudson. “Time flies, it really does.” She added that one way she can still impress Max is through music, noting that he loved going backstage to meet LCD Soundsystem at the recent Portola Festival. “It was such a vibe, and I got cool mom points for that.”
In a past interview Aguilera described her children as “the center of my universe,” acknowledging the challenges of balancing stardom with motherhood. “It’s definitely not easy juggling work and motherhood, as being a parent is a full-time job within itself,” she said. “My life has so many different moving parts, but my kids are the center focal piece, and everything else shifts around them.”
For Aguilera, Costa Rica was clearly more than just another tour stop. The trip blended a professional milestone with a deeply personal family experience in one of the world’s most celebrated natural environments — and from the looks of her Instagram, pura vida suited her just fine.
