What We're Thankful For at Home and What We'll Miss About Costa Rica:

Things We're Thankful For in the USA:

- clothes dryer
- smooth roads
- central air
- cheap electricity

- steak

- dishwasher

- door threshold (to keep bugs out of house)

- cheap groceries

- coupons for groceries

- street addresses: easier to find people/places

- cheap gas

- unscented laundry products

Things We'll Miss From Costa Rica:

- playing in and driving by the ocean everyday
- open air restaurants (and the breeze to cool off!)
- monkeys & iguanas in our backyard
- the backyard pool
- sunsets at the ocean
- carmel popcorn

- hearing the roar of the ocean in our backyard

- monkey bridges

- big colorful birds

- fresh fruit (pineapple and mangos)

Quick Shopping/Visiting Trip in San Jose

Today we turned in out car, checked out of our house and made the 5 hour trek back to San Jose. After checking into our hotel, we took a cab to San Jose's central market to meet a friend and get a quick tour and some last minute shopping in. We saw typical Tico architecture, parrots on top of buildings like we imagine pigeons, central park and the opera house.

Tomorrow we fly back to Atlanta and settle back into life at home in the USA. I'm hopeful that the kids remember this adventure!

God Gave Us A Beautiful Sunset for Our Last Night at the Ocean

The boys are getting chewed up by mosquitoes, so it's a good time to start thinking about heading back to the US. We went out for our last evening at the ocean and the sunset was gorgeous! The boys ran up and down the beach and tonight John thought of burying his legs in the sand. He thought it was a pretty cool trick.

We just felt an Earthquake! :-)

It was kinda cool. Very far from us.



Just felt ground moving ever so slightly. I though maybe my blood sugar was whacking when Daddy said, you feel that too? By the time we realized what it was, it was over. 



The kids didn't notice, they were moving too fast with their trucks.



Photo below of where the epicenter came from. It' the one with the pin in it (largest red circle in ocean off Nicargua). We are located South of the two smaller red circles (one in ocean, one in Costa Rica).

Last Day of School!

The boys have enjoyed school here. They have friends to play with and even have to do a few dreaded worksheets. They have also learned about the farm, plants and marine animals. Today they said good-bye to all their new friends and teachers. I just know they are going to miss this school.

4x4'n on the Monkey Trail

There is a short cut from Potrero to Playa Coca. It's a "road" affectionally called the Monkey Trail by locals. It's more like a wide 4x4 tail.

Since it hasn't rained in almost a week, we thought it would be dry enough to try it. It was good fun, until it started to rain. Then it was a slippery hope-we-don't-loose-control-of-the-car kind of fun.

Amazing how many times the road and the river were right next to each other. At one point, the river had taken out the road and we had to drive in the river bed to keep going.

Again, of course, the pictures don't do the trial justice. Many of these were taken looking steeply up or down and it doesn't translate into a photo. It was steep, rocky and rutty. Once on the other side of the trail we ran into a Tico herding his cattle on his bike (in the rain).

Monkey Bridges

There are lots of monkeys in our area and they have been known to go from tree to tree to power line. That makes a very bad day for the monkey. :-(

Some concerned citizens have put up monkey bridges so they can cross the road safely without touching a power line. We've actually seen monkeys using them. My only questions is: how do they know the bridge is good and the power line is bad??!?