http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Central America Caribbean , Costa Rica , San Jose , Ciudad Colon en-us Sat, 05 Dec 09 22:10:13 +0000 Sat, 05 Dec 09 22:10:13 +0000 My sister Patti and her 2 children John age 7 and 10 months and Grace age 5 arrived first. Unfortunately my brotherinlaw Scott was unable to break away from his law practice so he missed out on this trip. After playtime with their cousins Kyle and Sam we enjoyed a dinner in their honor with some of our new Tico and expat friends and their families. The next day they had Luis the v http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-308784.html For those of you who have been enjoying our blog these past 11 months our apologies for being so delinquent in writing anything new recently. We are still here in Costa Rica in case you thought our lack of updates meant we had gone home early and hadn't told anyone. But we are now in our final month of our yearlong sabbatical. We will be returning to Minnesota the first week of September a http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-308699.html Beyond our travels to the various parts of the country lots of other stuff has been happening in our lives.School The boys continue to enjoy Pinewoods. They did quite well on their first trimester midterms yes they have midterms and finals in 7 different subjects every trimester. Their finals are coming up next week so there will be lots of studying at our house.The school put on skits http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-272805.html Wow it has been 2 months since our last blog posts. Everything is fine here in fact we have been so busy with stuff at the clinic school outoftown visitors and family life in general that we haven't been able to sit down and reflect on our recent adventures.So this weekend with no visitors and no big plans we committed to getting things caught up. We have broken things up into distinc http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-272796.html 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 4hour bus ride away. Well we survived that little ordeal just fine and have enjoyed an amazing adventure since then. We have experienc http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-252508.html In Costa Rican political news.... Kyle came home on the second day of the new school year and casually announced that he had been elected class president. Apparently his responsibilities include sitting on the school wide student council and being in charge of the class when the teacher has to leave the room. He also claims that he has the authority to hand out boletas demerits if he sees http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-251367.html Rather than try to create a wellcrafted eloquent blog post we thought we would just bring everyone uptodate 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 par http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-245028.html We have had an incredibly busy month since our last blog post. Here are the highlights Kyle and Sam successfully completed their final exams scoring in the 90s for almost all of their subjects. Most importantly Sam passed his Spanish exam thanks to many hours of studying. They are now on break for 2 months starting their new year of school in the first week of February. As a reward for a http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-229544.html 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 la http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-222694.html This week's post will focus on life at the clinic we don't want you all to think that we are simply touring around the country. So for all of you friends of Kyle and Sam who have been reading our blog you will probably be disappointed not to find any pictures of cool birds lizards volcanoes or waterfalls. Don't worry I am confident that there will be many more in future posts.First som http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-215059.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-202683.html Some of you have inquired about how to contact us or send us stuff beyond using email. Now that we are established we have some of those basics worked out.Our home phone number is 5062494810 and our cell is 5063616459. When calling from the US you need to out a 011 in front of the 506. Also unless it is an emergency we suggest you call our home number since we don't know what if any http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-201858.html Well we have become quite well established here in our new Costa Rican home. We now have appliances fridge stove microwave and washerdryer. 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 creepycrawly bugs http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/Ciudad-Colon/blog-200763.html