Blogs from Heredia, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 23

Now I am back here with Rachel for a 4th time this year. We have begun setting up a lot of the house. After bringing down 260lbs worth of stuff, we have started a number of small projects. Fortunately and unfortunately we cannot start anything too large because we are GOING TO BE ON NATIONAL TELEVISION! We were selected to appear on the show “House Hunters” on HGTV. They are filming us for a high-definition special called House-Hunters International, and shooting will begin on the 16th of August. Because of this we cannot start to do too much work until they get our before pictures. Then it will be a mad-rush to get them to do nice looking “after” shots before they leave. We have started to work on funny things like cabinet hardware and re-wiring ... read more

July 2nd 2006, my father and I came back here to close on the house here. Rachel still had not seen it, but I guess once your with someone for 1/3 of your life, you begin to trust that they know what you’ll like and what you won’t. The trip with my father was great. It was a true Tico (native Costa Rican) experience. We shopped at all of the local places and we almost even fit in, at least until we tried to talk to anyone. We got some projects accomplished and then we began the touristy part: My father and I as tourists: We went to Café Brit, a local coffee plantation that puts on an incredible show, it only about 2 miles from our house. You learn more about coffee than you ever ... read more

Now that summer vacation is upon us, we have a chance to look back at the school year that was. (Last Friday, June 30, was Ellie’s last day of school and Ari’s was the week before that.) It is hard to believe that the whole school year has gone. In some ways it flew by so quickly it hardly seems like a blink. In other ways, the beginning of the school year seems like it was a very long time ago. It is quite a paradox and I can’t seem to put it into words - but I’m sure you know what I mean. In the works of the Grate philosophers, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” The year started off normally enough -- Ari started the second grade at Quarry Hill in Mrs. Lowe’s ... read more

I’ve recently learned that Heredia is not just city living. Gerardo had mentioned that he wanted to take us to his cousin's farm up in the mountains of Heredia. His cousin, Rigo had a wood burning stove and Gerardo wanted to take him some scraps of wood he had left over from his shop. Tejoncito is the perfect vehicle for this type of road trip. We had 7 people, yes 7 - in the truck along with multiple bags of wood on the roof. Kudos to Toyota for making such a fine vehicle. While waiting for Tejoncito to be loaded up, I noticed multiple leaf cutting ants alongside the road by the Delgados house. These things are amazing. Marching in line with their little bundles while other ants sped past them in the other direction ready ... read more

Good Neighbors A day hasn’t gone by since we’ve been in Costa Rica where the people haven’t simply amazed me in some way. I’ve never been around folks who seem so completely genuine, who love to converse, and who take a vested interest in the wellbeing of others. Matthew has some really amazing neighbors. Ana, Juan Carlos and their children Gaby and Carlos, have welcomed us into their home as though we were family. I’ve mentioned “Sombra” before - she is their faithful dog. The first day Michael and I were at Matthew’s house alone, Ana came over to ask if we’d like some breakfast. Thinking that she had a batch of food made and most likely had some left-overs, we graciously accepted and headed over to her house. We came to find out that she ... read more