Humidity - Hannah

I've noticed a few effects of humidity. Here are ten:

1. Hard candy, such as candy canes, are always slightly moist and sticky when you pull them out of the wrapper. Maybe someone licked them before wrapping them up at the factory.
2. Snack products, like cookies or crackers, are also slightly soft. Oreos, for example, are missing that good crunch.
3. My skin feels great and I rarely use moisturizer or lotion. At home I used it every day, but here my skin doesn't get dry.
4. My hair turns into a frizzball. I don't love that part, but at least my flat iron helps the situation. Julia uses the flat iron occasionally, but then her hair curls up again within a few hours. I think she should embrace the curl--it always looks nicer than my frizz.
5. Day old bread seems to be softer the next day, rather than more stale.
6. Play-doh that is left out overnight doesn't dry out. It is as soft as ever, so we put it back in the container.
7. Markers also take much longer to dry out. If the kids would put the lids on, they'd stay great forever, but after several days they do eventually dry out. 
8. Things that you wouldn't expect to get moldy, do, like clothespins, clothing and my Vitamin D capsules (not that I actually need those here :))
9. Food does not last long. We used to get a week's worth of produce at a time, but it went bad too quickly, especially leafy products like lettuce and cilantro which tend to last no more than two days. Now we shop for produce more frequently. Also, we have to close up bags of  dry items like cereal and sugar or they'll get soft or clump together. 
10. The air is different, though difficult to describe. It looks and feels different. Because humidity is basically water in the air, it's like we're swimming in the air every day.

Visa Renewal Trip - Hannah

Every 90 days, an important deadline comes up for expats living in Costa Rica. It means visa renewal time. When you come to Costa Rica, your passport serves as a 90-day tourist visa. If you want to stay an additional 90 days, and don't have residency, you have to renew your visa by leaving the country. Our deadline came up on Thanksgiving, so we combined our renewal trip with our trip to the beach.

The difficulty came in trying to figure out exactly what the law says about this. You can do some research, but everyone seems to have a different take. Some people say you need to leave the country for 72 hours in order to renew your visa. Others say that the 72 hours is only for people who are buying things and need to declare items for customs. One site said there was a place you could go to pay a $100 dollar fee, and get a renewal stamp on your visa; others said that was illegal. This probably stems from the fact that you can pay $100 and have some paperwork done through the embassy (think bureaucratic nightmare), but this is only good for up to 60 days and can only be done once. Some people say that the whole leaving-to-renew-your-visa thing is skirting the law anyway.

So after some research and talking to other expats, we decided to try going in and out of Nicaragua, the closest country to the north of us. We had heard that taking a car across can be a lot of extra paperwork and hassle, so we ended up driving our car to the border, parking it at a local Alamo, and walking across the border. Though it was stressful, we were able to get in and out of Nicaragua in about two hours, with the stamps on our passports giving us another 90 days. After that, we were able to go have our Thanksgiving vacation in Playa Potrero.

The experience has given me compassion for immigrants to the United States. There are probably a lot who are seeking a better life for their families, are trying to do things the right way, but are uncertain how to go about the process. They talk to their friends and do the research they can, but they're also dealing with misinformation, an unfamiliar language, and, in some cases, corrupt government officials. It's unfortunate that the process is so cryptic, both in the United States and elsewhere.

That being said, we've got another 90 days here. The kids want another country on their passport, so we'll probably go to Panama next time.

The Town Christmas Tree - Hannah

On Friday evening the town Christmas tree was lit. There was music and vendors and lots of people. We stayed for about fifteen minutes, when we realized we're not big fans of crowded events like these even at home. We did snap a couple pictures, though, and then went home and watched a couple episodes of Bewitched. 

Feliz Navidad!

Dylan has found it fun to disappear whenever I try to
 take a photo. He was still there, just behind me.

The dancing would have been fun to see, but we couldn't get a good view,
and this was the best photo I could get.

On an unrelated note, yesterday we were able to go to one of our favorite beaches--Esterillos Oeste. We rented a surfboard and for the first time, everyone in the family was able to stand and ride the waves, even little Jonah. We have no pictures to prove it, but I promise it happened.

Friends - Hannah

The last few days have been great for Dylan. I've started giving the kids more structure with their home schooling, and for the most part, Dylan has been diligent. He has reading, math, and Spanish to do each morning. But in the afternoons he gets to play, and he's been running around with his friend, Jacob.

Jacob is in our branch at church. He lives with his Grandma, Eva, and his aunt Silvia. Recently Eva and her family have been building a house near ours, and so they are often in the neighborhood to help supervise. Plus Jacob's uncle lives next door, and so he is often there too. That means Jacob is around and he and Dylan get to play.

I love watching them run around together. It really doesn't require a lot of language skills to play, but I see them both making efforts to communicate and understand each other. Dylan often runs in the house to type something into google translate, and then runs back to tell Jacob something. They've played on the trampoline, pumped up an old bike, run around with Bonita the dog, played soccer, played video games, and gotten dirty.

It makes me happy to see Dylan smile :).

Christmas Flowers - Hannah

The other evening I was sitting in the living room and realized there was a lovely floral scent. All our windows were open, as usual. We determined the source to be these lovely flowers, blooming at the beginning of summer.

I must say, I am very grateful to be here now, especially since hearing how the temperature has been below freezing in Utah. Certainly it doesn't feel like Christmas here, but I don't mind a bit.

Confusingness - Caleb

School here is really confusing, not just because everything is Spanish, but they hardly ever tell us what's going on.

Today, Dylan and I went to school, but we got there about 15 minutes early. Because we were so early, it didn't surprise me that there was only a few other kids at the school. After a few minutes, it started getting weird. When there about ten minutes left before school started, only one more student had come, and two more teachers. But I wasn't that surprised. When there were 5 more minutes left before school started, there was still almost no one there.

When the bell rang for school to start, I was the only student in my class besides my teacher, and Dylan was the only person in his class including his teacher. He didn't have a teacher. I had seen people watch us, so I knew that they knew Dylan and I were there.

I was erasing the note that someone had written on my desk in chalk, that said, "C + L," for Caleb and Laren (yes, that is spelled right) and, "Caleb ama Laren," which means Caleb loves Laren with tons of hearts around it, when one more boy in my class walked into the room. My teacher still hadn't got up and said the morning prayer, like she usually did, so I just sat there.

After about three more minutes, Dylan and the principal's secretary walked in to my classroom. The secretary told me that there was no school until December 11th, the last day of school. She said that we needed to call my mom to ask her to come pick us up.

While Dylan and I were waiting for my mom to come, I counted about ten students in the whole school, and as far as I knew, all of the teachers except a few. Even the lunch ladies were there, to serve food to ten kids. I was so confused. I still haven't figured out what happened, and I don't think I ever will.

Julia had a confusing problem at school too, a few weeks ago.

Julia thought that school would end around the beginning of December, just like my school, but one day, she went to school and no one was there. She had to walk home because she didn't have a phone to call my mom with.

That evening, Julia texted her friend Mitsy, who speaks good English, to ask if they had school the next day. Mitsy replied saying that they didn't have any school until the next school year.

My mom and Julia went to the school the next day to figure out what was happening, and the school was completely deserted besides a few students for some reason or another. They had no idea what happened. The school year just ended all of a sudden. Today when I was coming home from school, there were a bunch of kids in their uniforms at Julia's school. There weren't as many as there were when Julia still had school, but there were still a few kids.

School is so confusing.

Playa Potrero - Hannah

On Tuesday we went to Nicaragua for a quick visa renewal trip--more about that later. But after our trip, we had the rest of the week to relax at an awesome condo in Playa Potrero in Guanacaste, which is on the Pacific northwestern side of Costa Rica. We'd heard great things about the area, and since it was a little farther than what we could do as a day trip, we thought we'd combine it with our Nicaragua trip. Plus it coincided nicely with Thanksgiving break, which, for obvious reasons, is not celebrated here, but during which Michael didn't have to work.

The condo was in a great location. We found it on VRBO.com, which, in case anyone is interested, is a great site for finding vacation rentals. It had a kitchen, comfortable beds, modern appliances, and this was the view from the living room. We had a swimming pool to enjoy, and then a few steps beyond that was the beach.

Here are a few highlights of the trip, in no particular order.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Although we missed family at home, we were able to enjoy a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal together. We walked about a mile up the beach to a Taco bar, where we shared some onion rings and guacomole chips. Then Michael and I had fish tacos, Caleb had buffalo wings, and the other kids had chicken fingers and fries (wherever you go, it seems, you can find chicken fingers). Although we missed pie, we did enjoy topping off the meal with smoothies--half of us got strawberry and half got passionfruit. We were happily stuffed.

Modern Appliances

We haven't had a dryer here, so I took advantage of the dryer at the condo. After putting a load through, I happily enjoyed the fluffy warmth of the laundry.

We also had a microwave, so we had microwave popcorn every night and enjoyed heating up leftovers. And we had a toaster, so I made my peanut butter sandwich with toast, and the peanut butter got melty and delicious. I miss toast, yet it's probably best we don't have a toaster here. The crumbs would be sure to attract ants.

Jonah's Friend

Our neighbors in the condo were very nice. Jonah hit it off with their daughter, Christina, and they played together often. Jonah never quite learned her name, but always called her "my friend." Here they are enjoying some lunch together and building in the sand together.

The Sunsets

Ten minutes down the road was Flamingo Beach. Our neighbors told us it is renowned for its beautiful sunsets. So Friday evening we went, and it did not disappoint. 

There were a lot of people there with cameras and tripods, and the view was fantastic.

Closer to our condo, the sunsets were also beautiful.

The Wildlife

Our first evening there we saw fireflies. They'd glow orange out of nowhere for a moment and then disappear, and then glow from somewhere else. We watched for them during later evenings, but we only saw them that first night.

The first morning there we saw dolphins jumping in the distance. One jumped clear out of the water. There was a cruise ship nearby and it looked like the dolphins were entertaining the guests. If I had a bucket list written down, watching dolphins in the wild would definitely be on it. Julia also saw a whale flip its tail out of the water that morning. It was awesome. 

One night we went crab hunting with our neighbors. Jonah was pretty tired at that point, so I didn't stay long with him, but we were out on the beach with flashlights running after crabs that would get covered and uncovered by the surf. 

Sand and Water

I can think of no better way for the family to relax than with the combination of sand and water. The kids built volcanoes, castles, and tunnels in the sand, and we swam, boogie boarded, floated, and body surfed in the water. 

Julia's first time boogie boarding while in Costa Rica

One night, Michael and I went swimming after the sunset, just because we could. Although it could have been slightly creepy, we didn't go out too far and enjoyed the dark cool water.

Enjoying Time with These Guys

And here are a couple glamour shots, just for fun.