Blogs from Ciudad Colon, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 2

6 months ago today (September 3, 2007), our family woke early and boarded a plane for Costa Rica. Our adventure started on a bit of an ominous note - because of the crash of a small plane at the San Jose airport, we had to be diverted to the Liberia airport, a 4-hour bus ride away. Well, we survived that little ordeal just fine and have enjoyed an amazing adventure since then. We have experienced unbelievable natural beauty - from volcanoes to cloud forests to beaches, birds, lizards, dolphins, and amazing flowers and trees. We have met wonderful people and made so many new friends, Ticos and gringos alike. We have learned so much - not only about Costa Rica, but also about ourselves. We have battled bureaucracy, malfunctioning appliances, and the insanity of driving here ... read more

Rather than try to create a well-crafted, eloquent blog post, we thought we would just bring everyone up-to-date with a bunch of "bulleted" snippets from the past month or so. - Christmas was great. In addition to Steve's mom & dad, his brother Jeff and his girlfriend Marne joined us. It was so much fun. We paid a visit to the United Nation's University of Peace, where they have a wonderful park and trails - got a great family photo. We also created a non-traditional (but pretty eco-friendly) Christmas tree, built a gingerbread house, and left Santa his cookies and milk (and carrots for the reindeer). Sam made sure that we left the back door unlocked since we don't have a chimney here. And, lo and behold, he came - leaving Kyle and Sam with ... read more

Many of our friends and family have sent us emails and called us to make sure we are ok - because we haven't posted any new information for about a month. Well, we are doing just fine - busy with school work, life at the clinic, etc. Also, we have not gone on any exciting side trips so we did not have any dramatic photos to show the world. Here are some the things we have been up to since we last posted. First, we finally got internet hooked up at our house. It took 4 days from the first visit of a service tech from ICE - the government telecommunications monopoly. And of course this was 7 weeks from the day we got our phone line first installed. And, this is just to get ISDN ... read more

Saturday was the Costa Rican Independence Day. The country - along with other Central American nations - won its independence from Spain in 1821. The boys started school just in time to get a heavy dose of national songs, symbols, and history. By the end of the week, Kyle was even able to sing along to a few lines in the national anthem when we heard it while driving in our car. ("That doesn't make me less American, does it?") Speaking of cars, we are now the proud owners of a 1997 Honda CR-V. We purchased it from the mechanic friend of one of the drivers for the clinic. He bought it new from the US and it was driven by his wife - only 71,000 miles on it. He even told us that he would ... read more

Well, we have become quite well established here in our new Costa Rican home. We now have appliances (fridge, stove, microwave, and washer/dryer). Nancy has scrubbed all the cupboards and drawers - which we have filled with dishes, etc. Kyle & Sam have decorated their rooms with posters and such from home. We are all getting used to the mildly warm showers and the occasional creepy-crawly bugs that appear. The boys have also made fast friends with our landlord's children (boy age 10 and girl age 6 - who speak only Spanish) and animals (1 dog and 1 cat). They particularly enjoyed showing the kids how to play catch with a baseball and American football. And, thanks to our landlord's current service, we have cable TV - an interesting collection of local channels, American cable ... read more