Blogs from Santa Ana, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 2

We started our morning by calling paw-paw Stuart to wish him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY STUART! BVS: Last week Grayson hand delivered an invitation to attend his school on Sept 18th. I didn’t know what to expect, but boy was I pleasantly surprised. The parents and children sat in a circle. I was a bit confused because the instructions were in Spanish so I watched Grayson and would follow (hahahahahaha). I did recognize a word or two here and there. It helped that the vocabulary was geared toward 4-5 year olds. The songs began and they were in English (whewww). First it was the 'Chicken Dance' followed by the 'Itsy Bitsy Spider'. Then 4 children performed solo’s…..GRAYsaun was one of them! I was so shocked when he proudly walked up to the microphone and began ... read more

Grayson has been sick for a few days so we decided to venture out to an ER or a clinic (it’s Saturday so we didn’t think we would find a doctor’s office open). A neighbor recommended a doctor nearby. We followed him to an odd indoor mall. We arrived at 8:50 am and the office didn’t open until 9. A nurse was already there so she did the prep work (took temp, weight, height). We were sitting in the waiting room and the receptionist arrived with 2 teenagers. Shortly after their arrival they screamed and ran out of the office. There was a lot of commotion and we believe her car was stolen but can’t be for sure. Anyway, we met with the doctor, a very attractive, well poised and studious looking young woman. She told ... read more

Nancy and I have been back for about 3 weeks from our 5-day scouting mission to Costa Rica. We have also moved out of our house so our renters could move in August 1, settled into our friend's house for the month of August, and continued working and such. So, here is what we learned and accomplished on our trip. The people of Costa Rica are - as advertised - wonderful. Everyone we met was so helpful and patient with our pathetic (for now) lack of Spanish. The driving will be exciting - from the potholes to the dearth of lane markers to the fact that there are basically NO STREET NAMES. Honestly, people give their address as a set of directions (i.e., "From the day care center, 200 meters to the west and then 50 ... read more

We visited Blue Valley School. Blue Valley is a private school located in Guachipelin (about 2-3 miles from where we are staying). The school has ~600 students in K-12. The school follows an American curriculum. 27 different countries are represented in this school, but the majority of students are Costa Rican. Blue Valley follows the Montessori program for the pre-school age group. The children are encouraged to speak Spanish during playtime. Instruction is primarily given in Spanish. When the children transition into elementary all classes are taught in English except for Spanish and Social Studies. Overall we were impressed with the school. Grayson wanted to attend that day. ... read more

Hey everyone. I'm just trying this out, not sure if it is going to work yet, as the site I wanted to use wasn't working today, I'll try to update you as sson as I can as to how this works.Adios!... read more