The Bright Side

The dark-wet clouds have moved out.


We're seeing the sun more and more each day!


And our dryer problem has been fixed! It seems that it was the heating coil that burned out. -Greg, you were right. And unfortunately it was a part they could not get in this country so the homeowners had to buy a new machine. And that lead to another problem. The machine they bought was WAY to big for the space. So a handyman was brought in, and literally cut a whole in the wall to make the machine fit.


old machine


far left is the space where the old machine was placed
far right you can see the hole created to make room for the new machine


And now we have warm dry clothes.

El Museo de los Niños y Mas!

Children's Museum and More!

We had an awesome weekend. Myles invited his best friend Christiana and her cousin over for dinner for a short play date. The came, ate, played and snacked on ice cream. Myles really enjoys hanging with them.



Jonathan came into town too. He's volunteered on two different farms for the past three months in Costa Rica. He is heading to Nicaragua in a few days to work on another farm, via San Jose. We asked him to come hang for a few days. Morgan hasn't seen Jonathan since he was 6 years old. It's been great getting to know him, and Myles has enjoyed all the play time too.



Yesterday we went to the The Children's Museum and Christiana joined us. This place was amazing. Similar to OMSI with lots and lots of things for kids of all ages to explore. It was amazing. Here are some pictures from the day.

Grocery Shopping



Bubbles


Playing with Lights


Puzzles and more!


Cute boys huh?

Time with the Neighbors

Two months into our stay in Costa Rica and we're connecting with our community. It's wonderful. This week our neighbor Carols asked us if we'd like to join him and Maritza (who owns our apartment) for a morning at his club.



Of course we took him up on the offer and spent half the day with them. It was great.


Maritza (Myles' CR abuelita) Me and Myles


Myles, Carols and Morgan


This is the cat that broke through the plastic bags that held our sandwiches. He ate half the bag. Bummer.


Myles getting in some pool time. One of his favorite pass-times. I suggest clicking on the second pool picture to get a better look at Myles' face. It pretty much sums up how he feels about swimming.

Myles also played on the playground structure. Since these are rare in CR, he was more than happy to get in some much needed climbing time.

It was a great morning! We are very appreciative of the time our neighbors spend with us. It give us a chance to learn about their world and culture, and we get to practice our Spanish. We're so lucky we landed here.

Here's a final picture of Myles playing with our neighbor and her cousins over the weekend. He loves Christiana! (The girl standing with the light pink shirt.) Every time he sees her he screams "ANA!" and runs to give her a hug. She loves him too I think. It's super cute.

Language School

Language school is coming to an end. It's been a great experience and we've learned a lot! I thought I'd add a post about the great people we've met, and our typical day at school.

Most days, Ramona, Sally, Morgan, Magoo and I walked to school. The sidewalks here are less than ideal for a stroller, so we'd carry him on our back.



Once we arrived, we'd spend a few minutes of socializing with the ladies at the school.



Then Ramona would slap Magoo on her back and head back up the hill to our house. She spend the morning doing fun stuff with Magoo.


I'll give you two guesses - What is he saying in this photo?

Morgan and I would then head upstairs to attend our 4 hour class with our teacher Melissa. She's a great teacher and we have learned so much from her. She's patient, organized and has a strong understanding of both Spanish and English which makes her lessons very clear.


Melissa with our Family.

Last week we celebrated Stefanie's birthday. So here are some pictures from the fiesta.

Linda- Lang. School Director, She made this delicious cake!


Stefanie- Birthday Girl and Office Administrator


Sally and Carmen- Lang. Dept. Director.

Toys

I constantly struggle with the fact we don't have a lot of toys here for Myles. One side of me says, he doesn't need a lot of toys. He can play in other creative ways. But the other side says he should have more toys to explore.

This weekend we had our new friends over for lunch, Hannah, Fabio and their son Ian. Ian is one month older than Myles. We had a great time with them. We talked about Costa Rica and all the possible places we could live and visit.



Myles and Ian played, did some hitting and pulling (mostly Myles) and also made up.



Ian brought over a toy for Myles to use for a while. It's quite funny they chose this toy. When Myles was younger we use to go to our neighbors house once a week for a play date. She has a huge array of toys to choose from. But this was one of they toys he seemed to be attracted to. Now he has one in his own house. He carries it around all the time like a briefcase and plays with it nonstop.

Thanks Ian for sharing!



Some friends asked us if we'd like to join them in a trip to Walmart on Sunday. How could we refuse? We went and got Magoo a few more things to play with. However, I still struggle with the fact he doesn't have much. However he seems pretty happy.

It's a Hard Life

Well not really. Life here is pretty good. But things did get a bit tough this weekend.

If Ramona leaving wasn't hard enough, both our refrigerator and dryer broke. I figure the fridge is a goner, but we'll see what the repairmen say. Thankfully, the freezer works so we have tons of ice in the frezzer to keep things cool, and our Landlady is letting us store more important items like milk and cheese in her fridge. The dryer is a mystery. It turns, but doesn't heat. Yesterday was a holiday so we haven't had anyone look at it yet. Hopefully today.

Why can't we get down like the locals and just hang dry, you ask? We've tried, but nothing gets dry. We are now in full-forced rainy season and nothing gets dry here. Yesterday we mopped the bathroom floor, and it was still wet after 5 hours. Seriously.

Our stroller has mold growing on it. Clearly, not using that until we get that problem solved. Thankfully the temps are in the 60's. It feels much cooler, so if it really were colder, we'd have bigger problems on our hands.

We're trying to be creative in how to get things dry. Any suggestions?

We hear from our friends that this could last a week to 4 weeks longer. I'm hoping for sooner. Besides being wet, it's starting to get somewhat depressing. I'm ready for the sun!

Flowers

Look at these beautiful flowers Morgan picked up for me after Ramona left. Aren't they stunning?