Quotes for September/October:

Jake after his first day of school, “Come on, Mommy, vamanos!”
Jake to Wes before bed, “Daddy, I want my agua, please.  That’s Spanish.”
We should use that bucket to catch rain water for flushing the toilet.
Wes–I broke my nose.
Jake to a crying Derek, “It’s okay, I’m right here.”
Jake to Derek, “I love you, too, Derek.”
A 10 yr. old’s comment about Jakob, “If I talked as much as him, I’d run out of spit!”
Come look at the giant iguana in that tree.
That monkey stole a banana from the restaurant bar.
I have now experienced, not a poopy diaper explosion, but a poopy diaper fountain.
To Wes, “I think Derek is crying, because he thinks you’re hurting Jakob.”
About 3 month old Derek, “He’s wearing clothes that Jake wore at 7 months!”
About Derek, “He smiles with his whole body.”
Jake threw up in a pirate taxi.
Stacy after school–”I have no idea what I learned today, but I did a good job!”
Wes–”It’s a weird feeling driving as fast as I want knowing there’s not a cop to pull me over.”  20 minutes later he bribed a cop with $20 to let him go.

First off, during the weekend of Halloween we were really blessed by a visit from our friend, mentor and counselor Dr. Steve Allison from ACU.  We had met with him while back in The States and he had scheduled a visit with us in Costa Rica to follow up with us individually and as a team.  One of his only requests was that we take him on a Costa Rica adventure.  So, we begrudgingly obliged and went with him on a jungle canopy zip-line tour and river boat tour through the jungle.  Pretty amazing.  We are really glad to have him in our lives and he will continue to be following up with us as we move forward.  More on that later.

Secondly, I have some really sad news.  As we’ve said before, our main form of transportation here is walking… but we also ride in taxis.  Well, you may not have known this, but taxis in Costa Rica are not unlike black holes that blast 80’s music.

While you ride in them they are quietly taking your things and hiding them so you’ll never find them again.  In fact, I think Costa Rican taxis are probably where all of those lost socks go when they disappear in the dryer.  Not sure how that works… but I’m pretty sure.  On top of that, I am not what most people would describe as “good” at keeping up with things.  Well… the taxis have swallowed up 3 umbrellas so far and who knows how many other little things.  But recently a taxi driver drove off with one very nice and very much loved Nikon camera and my jacket.  You heard right… don’t make me say it again… it hurts too much.  So, we still have the little point and shoot camera… but until I can replace my camera things just won’t be quite the same around here.

Finally, this past weekend we had a chance to go spend the weekend near Volcan Arenal. It was nothing short of ridiculously incredible.  But, to go into all of that would make this already long post way longer… so more on that later too… I promise.

Well… in case you didn’t notice, last Friday was Halloween.  If you are reading from back in the US of A, this is unlikely.  But, if you’re reading from some other country, like say… Costa Rica, then you very well could have missed it.  There were actually a few Halloweeny things around here and there… and at Hiper Mas (Costa Rican Wal-Mart) they even had Halloween decorations.  But for sure, if you went a couple of blocks East from the back entrance to the language school and took a right, Halloween was in full swing.

The Fletchers and the Thompsons live right next door to each other, so we took advantage of that, invited some friends and had a real deal Halloween Party.

We had a great time playing games with the kids, laughing at some great and some ridiculous costumes (as seen above).  We spent most of the night getting our kids as tired as possible and then, because we couldn’t inject it directly into their veins, feeding our 2 year olds as much candy as possible right before bed time.  Why do we do this again?  Who knows?  It’s just what we do… and it’s awesome.

Some more pics here if you’re interested.

Took these pictures this afternoon on our front porch.

Derek is such a smiley kid. It’s amazing how different the two of them are physically. Stacy pulled out some more clothes for Derek today… some of them are Christmas clothes that Jake wore when he was 9 months old… Derek can wear them now at less than 4 months.

Jake is talking up a storm as usual. He is learning more and more Spanish words every day. It’s funny because you can tell the words he learns from his teachers because he says them with a Costa Rican accent and the words he learns from us with a gringo accent.

This last pic is a view that I have every morning as Jake and I walk to school… well Jake doesn’t exactly walk anywhere.

The sun starts going down at 4:30 PM and rises at 4:30 AM.
You hang blankets on your 2 year old’s window to block out the sun.
8:30 PM feels like 11 PM because your 2 year old has been up since 4:30 AM.
Dora the Explorer now speaks Spanish and teaches kids English words.  For real.
No bathtubs so your kids bathe inside a rubbermaid container.
The only hot water in the house is through the “widow maker” in the shower.
It’s called a widow maker because there are loose hot wires in the shower.
You shower at a friend’s house because your electricity is out for days.
A different key to lock every door.
Not just locking up when you leave, but locking yourself in when you get home.
No doorknobs on your doors.
The wind blows the door closed and you’re locked out of your house.
A locked front gate, so now you’re trapped between your front door and the gate.
The birds that fly above are parrots.
You can’t speak Spanish and your Spanish teacher can’t speak English.
After his first day of school, your 2 year old says, “Come on, Mommy, Vamonos!”
Your favorite side dish is gallo pinto (black beans, rice, cilantro).  Yummy.
McDonalds is still McDonalds, besides the fact that they make deliveries.
Super Wal-Mart is called Hiper Mas and SAM’S is called PriceSmart.
Locals use weed-eaters or machetes to mow and their fingers to weed-eat.
You’re walking down the sidewalk and your 2 year old randomly signals for a taxi.
The door bell is replaced with a coin tapping on your gate.
Or, visitors just say hello, because you can hear them through your open windows.
Your neighbor opens their gate and you think they’re “ringing your door bell”.
Three different sizes of ants infest your dishes that haven’t been rinsed off yet.
Baby weight disappears fast on the walk to school and everywhere else everyday diet!
You download tv shows and movies to watch on the computer after kids go to bed.
You don’t have a mailbox.
You find bills slid between the slots on your gate, or you mistake trash for bills because
Paper crumpled up on your porch is a bill thrown past your gate, kept out of the rain!

It rains every day (it’s the rainy season) and we love it.
Your home address is a paragraph long.
You walk everywhere (because you don’t have a car).
Exhaustion pounds you because of the elevation change.
Taxi drivers try to scam you.
Taxi drivers collect your umbrellas, because you keep leaving them in their cars.
The water and electricity go out often.
You have a maid that cooks, cleans, and does the laundry!
Heating water on the stove to do the dishes (when you don’t have a maid).
No carpet anywhere.
Your walls are concrete.
Your kitchen cabinets are concrete.
You’re not supposed to flush toliet paper. Anywhere.
Scented trash bags.
Bars on every window.
Your windows are open all the time (no heating or air conditioning).
Motorcycles and trucks that drive by sound like they’re going down your hallway.
The box fan cost $40 and you buy it anyway (to block out the noise).
Bird poop on your paper towel holder and sink counter (see “open windows” above).
Locals think your baby is cold when you dress him for summer weather.
Open man holes, aka “gringo traps”.
Pot holes the size of large safari animals.
Cracks in sidewalks that loosen your stroller tires and wheels.
A pound of bacon costs more than $6 (and it’s totally worth it).
The infant bouncy seat costs $80 and you buy it anyway.

I am doing much better now… in fact, so much better that we took a trip out of San Jose this weekend.

Some time in the last couple of weeks came the realization that we had been to the hospital 6 or 7 times, have had one of the family on antibiotics almost since our plane touched Costa Rican soil and we still hadn’t seen a real jungle or famous Costa Rican beach. This was not a situation to be tolerated.

So, we booked a room in a hotel we found in our trusty guide book, Hotel California in Manuel Antonio.

The view from our hotel

Manuel Antonio is known in these parts for being the best place to go where the jungle meets the beach. Here the tropical forest complete with troops of monkeys, sloths and poison dart frogs doesn’t end until it hits the wide sandy beaches.

We just had a couple of days… but we made the most of it. At first, there was a time when we thought we might have lost our mind trying to take a 3 month old and a 2 year old to the beach… but not long after we rented our umbrella and chairs, just when we thought it wasn’t going to work, Derek conked out and Jake settled in to what must have seemed to him like the worlds biggest and best sand box.

Our hotel had a nice pool, a good little restaurant and an amazing view, and the little town was full of fun and interesting restaurants with tasty fresh seafood. Sometimes, for me, San Jose feels like everyone and everything are crammed shoulder to shoulder… the houses are smashed together, everywhere you turn are people jabbering away in what is supposedly Spanish and you can’t turn your head without getting honked at. It’s a special kind of energy that screams Latin American city, and it’s great. But what I realized is that with this, and feeling like I’m stuffed to the gills with Spanish I’ve had this sort of heavy feeling of claustrophobia without even realizing it. A weekend of big clean ocean breezes and expansive skies with amazing hot sun on my shoulders is exactly what I needed. A painful sunburn might not have ever felt so good.

Anyway, school is going well. Wes is cruising through his classes so far and is learning a lot of Spanish just through every day life and getting around. Every day he has Grammar, Language, Phonetics, and ping pong. Oh, wait, ping pong is not really a class, but it might as well be an elective since he plays it every day at school during his off period! It’s a good thing, because it’s the only “sport” he’ll get to play for a while. He got a new cast today and found out that he will get it off for good next Tuesday. He’s doing much better now.

My class is going well, too. I have one-on-one tutoring for one hour a day. Which means that Derek and I leave for school two hours later than Wes and Jake (also another great thing about having an extra stroller right now). Phonetics is on Monday, Grammar is on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Language is on Wednesdays and Fridays. My teacher has been great. She’s really patient with me and understanding about me having Derek in there with me every once in a while. The only reason I don’t have him in there with me every day is because Mark is our hero. Seriously, once again we want to give a big shout out to our teammate, Mark, for being so flexible and watching Derek for me during my class. You rock, Mark, and have come to our rescue in more ways than you know! He’s able to do that, because it’s his off period. So instead of getting to play ping pong, Mark spends his time with an infant that’s either sleeping or crying or happy or pooping or spitting up.

My first month of classes was pretty rough, because it felt like I wasn’t learning anything or retaining anything. (I took the easy way out in high school and took Latin instead of Spanish, because it was a dead language and I knew I wouldn’t have to learn how to speak it! Oh, the young choices we make that come back to bite us!) Also, most days it’s all I can do to just finish my homework, so my learning is coming along very slowly. I’m trying to find that balance of giving myself grace because I have a newborn, but also pushing myself to study more when I can. The veterans around here have been really encouraging to me. They support me and confirm that there are more important things than learning Spanish right now, and they assure me that the Spanish will come in a matter of time.

Well, sorry for the lack of pictures with this post. More to come soon. We are going on a much needed vacation this weekend to the beach. We’re pumped.

This was taken right after surgery

1 day after surgery

Also 1 day after surgery

The doctor said the worst of the pain should pass after the first couple of days. They are also treating him for a sinus infection, because well, that would be really bad if he got one. He’s a bit afraid of sneezing as well. Understandable. I was a little worried about how Jake would react when he saw his Daddy with a busted up face and nose cast, but he was warned and has been really sweet to him. He’s glad to have Wes back home. When he woke up this morning one of the first things he said was, “Where’s Daddy?”

We are glad to all be back home today. Once again our team has been awesome to us. They helped take care of Jake while I was at the hospital with Wes, and Mark stayed with Wes the whole time at the hospital (since I had to go back home last night to be with the boys). We are so thankful for all of you guys. The recovery will take a while and we are blessed to have such great support here.

Mark and Derek at the hospital