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??!?

Sunset at the Ocean

With all the rain it's been a while since we've been able to watch the sunset at the ocean. Lately, it's been raining so we have to stay inside. Tonight was a nice night so we decided to go down to the ocean. We were not disappointed. What a gorgeous sunset!

Volcano Arenal One Last Time

We drove up to La Fortuna to pick up a friend today. She'll be visiting with us for the next week or so. It was a nice drive up and the boys always like to see a Volcano again. Everything was much greener this time! It really doesn't take a lot of rain.

The clouds take away from the view of the volcano. The photos are not nearly as impressive as in real life. At one point, we could see three volcanos at once.

Flowers and Plants in our Yard

We have a lot of beautiful flowering plants right now. Not sure what most of them are. We do have a lime tree. That's been fun with the kids.

Open Air Restaurants

One of the unique things about Costa Rica is all the Restaurants (aka Sodas) are open air places. There is a roof and the kitchen has walls, but the eating area is generally open for the breeze.

Many of them have hammocks to relax in while enjoying your cerveza (or for your kid to swing in while waiting for your food). The best Sodas are right on the beach where kids can play in the sand while waiting for their food. If it's high tide, watch your feet! (or they may just get a little wet.)

Critters Around the Casa

Today is the second day in a row it hasn't rained since the beginning of rainy season. It's kinda weird being dry, the roads are already getting dusty again.

When the rainy season started all sorts of critters started coming out around our house. To date, we have a frog that lives in our 1/2 bath outside, countless spiders like to make a home here (some big and some not so big), we have crabs that like to swim in our pool (not a good idea for them) and several small white/light yellow translucent lizards (1 inch to about 6 inches including tail). They chirp and love to come in our bedroom at night and chirp their little hearts out at 2:00 am.

We've also have an Oriole bird who is infatuated with his reflection on the car. He's fun to watch. Every once in a while, the cows come walking down the street. Nothing like seeing cows in your front window on the street (now there's a reason the front is gated).

The smaller and brown crabs have started coming into the house and at first glance they always look like a spider. Shrieks abound! We've also had 3+ scorpions "pass through" our house.

About a week ago, we even had the howler monkeys in our back yard! There were 6 of them going from tree to tree.