Frantic Friday

First, I would like to start out by stating that we don’t have a cell phone. I thought it would be easy to live in Costa Rica without a cell phone. I don’t like conversing over the phone much and my old job consisted of customer service type calls which I could do without for a while. Besides, my Spanish sucks so what’s the point of having a phone if I have no idea why the caller called and vice versa. It’s not like I’m going to call for take-out pizza, right. (Well, I have thought of that…)

Okay, on to our frantic Friday.

Azure’s soccer team had a game scheduled for Friday against Blue Valley. I recalled that my blog buddy, Jen poco loco, had originally planned to send her kids to Blue Valley so I knew that the school would be in Escazu. When we met Jen a few weeks ago, I mentioned the soccer game and asked her for directions. Surprisingly, I knew the area she mentioned so I confidently told Patrick I could get us to the school. (By the way, I’m happy we finally met Jen and her family. They are great people. Patrick and I enjoyed our chat and Azure really had fun playing with her kids. We can’t wait to get together again.)

Since we knew where to meet the team for the game this time, we decided to get some errands done first including a little gringo shopping at Hipermas and a huge hardware store I spotted nearby the last time we were in Escazu. We breezed through Hipermas noticing the store in Escazu stocks a lot more gringo style products than the one we normally shop at in Heredia. We still didn’t buy much but Patrick replaced the jack, lug wrench, and tie down which were stolen out of the car the week before. Next we headed to the hardware store across the highway. The name of the place was EPA and it happened to be very similar to Home Depot (I kept looking for Tony Stewart ) which isn’t typical for Costa Rica most hardware stores require you to know what you want and a gentleman will go in back to get it for you. I’m embarrassed to say that we loved the place. We found much needed kitchen cabinets that are more affordable that all the other stores we have shopped in and I actually like them more. I thought I would have to settle but I guess not! We also found some bamboo blinds I just have to buy for the empty windows. We plan to go back with measurements but I did end up buying a vanilla plant and some chiles for my growing garden.

We left EPA about 2:30 figuring we had plenty of time to drive to the school. We knew we would even beat the school bus since the game didn’t start until 3:30. So, we drive past the school and notice no one is there. I don’t mean that there are no people we know there; I mean there is literally no one there. No kids, no teachers, no bus drivers –wait! -there is a guard dozing on a folding chair against the fence. I leap out of the car and verify with him that this building is actually Blue Valley School (since there is no sign labeling it). Yes, it is Blue Valley. Where is everyone I ask him in my crappy Spanish. He tells me nothing is going on there until Monday. What? Where do the girls play soccer? He mentions something about down the road. I do remember an indoor soccer place we passed about two blocks down. So, we head over there. Another security guard stops us and we explain that we are looking for a girl’s soccer game between Blue Valley and European Schools. Of course he has no clue what we are talking about but like all helpful Ticos, he directs us to another soccer field down the block.

On the way to the other indoor soccer field, our car’s security alarm wouldn’t turn off (remember our previous story about this subject?). so our car locked up. Patrick had to disengage the car battery and fiddle with the alarm wires. Meantime, I walked up the hill to check out the facilities and to see if I could find either of the teams. I didn’t see any girls but the woman working the place claimed they were in the back. I walked back down the hill to wait to check things out further with Patrick.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the conclusion of Frantic Friday or Where’s Azure?

two for one day

I already published a post today but I wanted to add some photos to go with the car/theft blogs. I figured no one would realize I added them unless I put them in a new post so here is the map we tried to use for Tibas, missing stereo, and the car window (newly fixed).

Happy Thanksgiving

I realize this happens to be a day late but I’m sure all my American readers are enjoying their 4 day weekend and won’t even read this until Monday…

Since Azure didn’t receive any time off for Thanksgiving, the Jones Family spent the day at home. This was a change of pace for us since the last five years we’ve taken advantage of the school break to travel and the years previous we had always spent with family. Oh, well. I miss my family but it’s also nice to garden in mid-November when I heard it was snowing in Minnesota!

Some people have asked me if Ticos celebrate Thanksgiving. The answer, my friends, would be “maybe”. Thanksgiving really is not a national holiday here in Costa Rica (and it shouldn’t be). BUT, due to all the influence the Americans hold over the locals, some of them seem to feel obligated to celebrate especially the rich ones. Even the kids at Azure’s school teased her when she asked if they celebrate Thanksgiving. Yet we know most locals don’t celebrate.

Local high-end grocery stores offer imported turkey for about $50 per bird. (Patrick and I still can’t figure out why they don’t have turkey farms here). They do stock “turkey” lunchmeat on a daily basis but we aren’t exactly sure what type of meat it is –perhaps iguana?!? Also, some of the local restaurants cater to Americans and offer real Thanksgiving dinners for an average of $20 per person. I love turkey but given our budget we couldn’t afford the prices for a typical Thanksgiving meal and instead we settled on spicy spaghetti and delicious fresh baked garlic bread.

Anyway, if you are reading this today and you live in the US, have fun shopping on Black Friday and don’t be tempted to buy something just because the price is unbelievably low! You don’t have to be “good consumers” to have a great holiday!

Just another day in the slow lane OR how to find auto parts in Costa Rica

Obviously since we were driving around with a missing side window and it rains everyday, we figured it would be a good idea to replace it as soon as possible. Our first stop was Joel’s Used Car Parts which is right around the corner from Azure’s school and as it happens, the only place we’ve noticed for used car parts. I figured it would be too good to be true if “Joel” actually had what we were looking for - a rubber piece to hold the piece of glass into the car. The place always has several cars parked around the entrance so my fingers were crossed; guessing he must have a lot of the right parts or it wouldn’t always be so busy. Unfortunately, it turned out he didn’t have the correct part.

But, Patrick met a gentleman that explained that he knew exactly what Patrick needed and drew him a map to a place in Tibas that he usually goes to when he needs this part. Patrick appeared happy when returning to the car with the hand drawn map and said we would drive to Tibas on Friday since the drive there and back would take a while and he doesn’t like to drive in the dark. After I saw the map, I expressed my concern that we would never be able to find the correct place. Patrick, undeterred, spoke to his bus driver friend Friday morning who agreed with Patrick that there should be no problem finding this place. I still was unconvinced…

So, after dropping Azure off at school in San Pablo, we drove to Tibas and attempted to locate this mysterious auto-parts store. We stopped at many potential places and no one had the part or could make heads or tails of the map. The first place we stopped had given Patrick the name and address of a Suzuki parts store in San Joaquin de Heredia. This seemed like a likely place to find the part but we were currently way south and east of Heredia and figured we would head back that way if we exhausted our current search.

After driving around Tibas and then Santo Domingo for 2 hours we were quite grumpy and hungry. We grabbed a quick lunch of plantain chips and orange juice at Mas X Menos (grocery store) in San Pablo and headed for the Suzuki parts shop.

We easily located the Suzuki parts place a few kilometers west of Hipermas and Heredia. But again they didn’t have the part. A young guy gave Patrick a phone number for a guy named Leo that may or may not have the part. Patrick’s lunch didn’t help his mood and he was about to leave when I said that we should have the store call Leo for us since we didn’t even have a phone. I was quite determined to end this fiasco instead of prolonging it another day or more. Grudgingly, the young kid at the store called Leo. Apparently, Leo could help!

Long story short, we met Leo at the gas station in San Pablo –he actually waited for us to drive over there. Then he took us to his shop which was the backyard of his house. An associate of his directed Patrick to a store that sold the exact rubber piece he needed by the length while I waited at his house and tried to converse with Leo’s wife in Spanish. Shortly they appeared with the part and grabbed tools to install the window. A quick 10 minutes and 4000 colones ($8) later, the window was installed and looked as good as new.

The whole incident cost us $4 in parts, $8 labor, and $10 gas. The funniest thing happened to be that Leo’s shop was about 4 blocks from Azure’s school and 1 block from Joel’s where the whole adventure started!

Unlucky November in Costa Rica

I’m not sure what it is about November in Costa Rica, but this is the second time we’ve been robbed. Last year we had our backpack stolen while waiting for the bus in Jaco to take us back to San Jose. It was quite traumatic because our passports and car keys were in the backpack along with all our cameras, mp3 players, money, and credit cards.

This time (yes it happened again), Patrick noticed the passenger car door open before we headed down the driveway Thursday morning. We all knew immediately that someone had broken into our car. Patrick was furious. Azure was upset. But I didn’t really let it bother me. So, once we were at the bottom of the hill, we noticed that the thief or thieves had cut away the back/side window to get into the car. They took our Pioneer stereo (probably the only part of the car worth anything) and Patrick’s tools.

Okay, so we’ve been hit again. I’m not surprised and the best part is that the robbers were very nice about the whole thing. I’m sure you’re thinking, “what do you mean nice? They stole your things!” Yes, but it could have been a whole lot worse! They left the window intact sitting on the ground next to the car. They took the stereo out without breaking the plastic surrounding it and left all the parts in the car so it could be put back together nicely –just a hole where the stereo used to be and some carefully cut wires. They left Patrick’s jumper cables and only took some wrenches, two jacks, and some tie downs. They could have just driven off with the car or even slashed the tires and the seats. So, all in all, we were lucky.

We had the neighbors call the police for us and they came quickly. Unfortunately, they didn’t do much other than refer us to the OIJ (basically the detective department) in Heredia. Patrick headed out to report the incident to the OIJ immediately. I stayed behind just in case the thief knew we would be leaving to report the theft and then decided to come back to hit the house. Patrick was gone 4 hours and it was very nerve wracking for me but I got a lot of gardening done!

Anyway, it turned out he had to wait one hour to report the theft. Then the OIJ inspected the car and the pane of glass which they dusted for fingerprints- which took one hour! Since they dusted the car they also needed to fingerprint Patrick which took another hour. The whole scenario seems quite funny since we know this is a typical theft and there is no way the OIJ will do anything with the report let alone the evidence. But, we thought we should report it as a formality if nothing else, since we are pretty sure our insurance will not cover theft of personal items. Oh well, who needs the daily radio news anyway?

Stay tuned tomorrow for the adventure of replacing the window in the car…

First soccer game

Azure’s soccer team had their first game Friday. The game scheduled for 3:30pm took place at the International Christian School.

Since we had no clue where ICS was located, Patrick and I decided to follow the team bus. We arrived at European School early hoping we were in time to see the team leave. We waited and watched and never caught sight of any of the players or the coach. Finally, Patrick walked down to the bus loading area to see what was holding up the team. Apparently, both the boys and girls team were headed to ICS for a game and only one of the two buses showed up to carry the teams there. Everyone waited until finally the coach loaded the boys into any available cars and we all tore off to ICS in Santo Domingo in a long line. The bus in first place drove awfully fast for the narrow winding roads but Patrick managed to follow ok.

Even though the team arrived late and didn’t get in much of a warm up, they played much better than I expected. The day was cold and rainy but the girls handled it well which I guess made sense since most of their practices occurred during major rainstorms.

Azure played center defense the second half of the game and the other team didn’t get an opportunity to score the entire second half since the girls from the European School managed to keep the ball in the offensive end most of that half. The score ended with European School winning 6-2. Patrick and I both enjoyed the game and are excited for the next one.

We watched the first half of the boys’ game but then headed out since it was already getting dark and we weren’t sure we could find our way home. Obviously we made it home safely but we heard the boys lost their game. Better luck next time.

Azure and Patrick worked on some more defense over the weekend and Azure looked much improved yesterday at practice. We are all hoping she gets more play time during this week’s game. I will keep you updated what happens against Santa Monica at home.

By the way, I do know it is futbol here in Costa Rica but it’s so difficult for me to refer to soccer as futbol when I love American football so much!

Bleaching the driveway-what are you crazy?

Our driveway is on an extremely steep slope. Basically, the drive up to our house is far too difficult to make not only because of the angle but also to go back down backwards is much more complicated than should be attempted for no good reason. This means, we leave our car at the bottom of the hill under the lower level car port instead of the upper one.

The hike up the hill a few times a day provides a good work out but also happens to be hazardous. Due to the constant rains, there are permanent grooves in the driveway from the run-off. From trial and error, we’ve determined that walking on the outer portion of the grooves could prove dangerous to your health. The outer part seems to be covered with something similar to slime and moss. So, to prevent major wipeouts or even pulling a hamstring, we stick to the inside of the driveway. We also make sure to keep the driveway clear of wet leaves by sweeping.

The last few months had brought so much rain that the driveway never found much time to dry and the inside part of the drive turned black and slick as oil. Finally afraid someone would end up in the hospital, I decided to scrub the driveway. I took a scrub brush and pail of bleach water outside. Then I literally got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the driveway. Not the whole thing (that would be almost impossible for me) but the key points that we continued to slip on while walking up or down the drive.

Yes, I’m crazy but at least the driveway is now safe to walk because before I bleached the driveway there were days I felt like a sober Bode Miller at the Olympics –way out of control!

Another hurricane and more flooding

I’ve posted about the hurricanes affecting us here in Costa Rica with major rainfall. Unfortunately, the rains continue and a major portion of Costa Rica has been declared natural disasters.

Only last week Azure’s class at school held a food drive for flood victims in Alajuela. This week hurricane Noel hit flooding our own neighborhood. The newspaper reported 180-200 homes in a community of San Rafael de Heredia were damaged. The homes were all in a single neighborhood and were flooded when the storm sewers failed to remove the large amount of rain that fell in such a short period of time. Patrick and I have actually been worried these past few days but so far we have been lucky. I feel awful for all the victims of the floods and mudslides here Costa Rica.

Our own home is trenched out between the coffee plantations. We aren’t concerned about the back yard since the original builders planted trees in a terraced affect. Luckily, the planting will prevent erosion and the trenching will prevent flooding. BUT, the side of the trench on one of the sides of the coffee plantation is beginning to collapse and some small trees have fallen into the trench. So far, nothing critical but we happen to live below a huge tree that will fall right into the house IF we get much more rain and the tree loses its hold…

I wish I had taken some photos Wednesday while we were watching all the rain rush through the trenches and running into the river but all I can do is tell you about the weather. Wednesday morning I emptied our rain gauge of over 3 inches of rain - the majority of which fell in only a two hour period on Tuesday. When we left to pick Azure up at school Wednesday, I felt excited because the sun was blazing hot so I figured it would be a great Halloween. By the time we arrived home at 1pm, the sky was almost black and the rain started falling. By 4:30pm the gauge once again had over 3 inches of rain water inside. The rain continued to fall all evening and was still falling when we woke at 5:30am Thursday morning. I wasn’t shocked to find the rain gauge was full at
5 ½ inches and each new drop just spilled over the side.

Good thing the dry season will be here soon! In the meantime, if anyone feels like doing a good deed, the people here in Costa Rica could use some help. Please make donations to the Red Cross. Thanks!
This is a photo of our backyard trench.

Halloween in Costa Rica

Well, it’s officially November and I still don’t know how Tico kids in Costa Rica celebrate Halloween. Patrick and I had been debating for weeks whether or not we needed to buy candy for little trick-or-treaters. Since Azure had a school party and we wouldn’t be home most of the evening anyway, we opted not to buy any. Besides the fact that we went to Hipermas last week to buy Halloween items and they had Christmas decorations everywhere but nothing for Halloween. We purposely chose Hipermas thinking if any store would carry Halloween items it would surely be one related to Walmart - but zip!

Azure’s party was a touch and go situation since we received over 3 inches of rain from 1pm until we left at 4:30. The bridge was slightly flooded again but I was determined to get Azure to school for her first Halloween party in a new country. So, I wasn’t surprised when we were one of the first families to arrive. Even her teacher admitted some of the roads were washed out which meant the party might be a washout. But, 30 minutes later the place was packed with kids running around and parents standing in the way…

Several classes had been in charge of creating a game for the kids to play like musical chairs, piñatas, darts (ones with sharp points even!), and mazes, etc. The kids were then supposed to get stamps in their passports which could be traded in for a cookie treat.

All the kids seemed to enjoy themselves and Azure “won” 3 cookies. Of course there were some left over so everyone enjoyed the extras. We arrived home safely and I never saw a single trick-or-treater anywhere along the route there or back.

By the way, I forgot to mention Azure made her own broom for her Hogwarts costume.

Happy Halloween!

I will post pictures from Azure's party tomorrow so hang tight and don't let the monsters bite!

Making Cookies

Azure brought home a note from school last week explaining to the parents that the school will be celebrating Halloween with a party. The children are requested to bring a dozen homemade cookies with them to the party.

I read this note with glee excited for Azure since we weren’t sure if the kids here in Costa Rica went trick-or-treating or not. But at the same time I thought, homemade cookies? Very cool and against everything we have learned about the American school policies. I remember when Azure first brought home a note from school back in the States explaining that kids would be allowed to bring treats to school to share for holidays and birthdays but NOT homemade items. I had felt a sigh of relief since I hate baking but at the same time I felt sad for all those children who would never enjoy homemade chocolate chip cookies at school.

So, being Azure (those of you who know her know what I mean), we endured several days of her looking at every recipe she could find for baking cookies. Finally, we decided on a recipe of my Great Grandma C.‘s rich sugar cookies. I remember these cookies from my childhood as being thick and soft and melt in your mouth delicious. MMMM! I could only hope ours would taste as good.

After some trouble finding the correct ingredients, we were set start. We began mixing the ingredients and the mixer decided to overheat since the margarine wouldn’t soften enough. I ended up mixing everything with my fingers (which didn’t work too well). I worried that the cookies would be a disaster but figured it couldn’t hurt to bake them and find out.

Sunday we baked the cookies after allowing them to chill overnight per the recipe. Here was another dilemma since the card said to bake 10-20 minutes. That’s a huge timeframe! I set the timer for 12 minutes figuring that would be safe. The cookies appeared to be done at 10 minutes. We started singing “making cookies, making cookies” which was a twist on the song from Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas movie.

Luckily the cookies didn’t taste too bad but they definitely were not my Great Grandma’s cookies. Plus, singing that song reminded us that the movie would compliment the occasion so we watched it during dinner.

Azure enjoyed baking the cookies so much (and Patrick enjoyed eating them) that we have decided to buy a new mixer and make cookies more often. There goes my diet!

The guy living in the attic

I’ve thought about writing this story for several weeks now but never felt the time was right since it never really had an ending - until now. So, please indulge me on this one since it is part learning to cope with a new move and part silly story (but entirely true).

The very first week we moved into our new house we began hearing noises. Now all houses have their strange noises but some of these we couldn’t identify. First we needed to adjust to the sound of the metal roof. During all times of the days the roof makes different sounds –adjustments to the heat during the day and cool air in the evenings, fruit falling from the trees, animals scampering, etc. Speaking of fruit falling, the sound of the thud on the ground is something that still startles me!

But clearly the sound we heard one particular night appeared to be scraping from the other side of the wall close to the floor of the second level family room that we happened to be using to sleep in until our furniture arrived. The sound occurred near our heads since we were laying on the floor reading. I immediately began pounding on the wall and floor thinking that the mouse on the other side of the wall would be frightened enough to leave until we had a better opportunity to “get rid of it”. Well apparently the rodents here in Costa Rica do not frighten easily.

A few nights later while sleeping, I heard the stairs creak. Convinced that someone broke into the house I ran through the house searching for the intruder. After searching everywhere, which was easy since we still only had dirty clothes in the house at the time, I didn’t find a thing. Patrick giggled and insisted it must be the mouse. Whatever! A mouse could NOT have made the stair creak (by the way the stairs are VERY creaky when Patrick and I walk on them and not so much when Azure uses them –hint –weight).

So, that evening I determined we had a “guy living in the attic”. This guy theory would explain why we heard all these strange noises and why things were always misplaced. Especially clean clothes and cookies J

In the meantime, Patrick decided it was time to investigate the attic. I seriously was terrified for him. I kept envisioning the squirrel from the Christmas Vacation movie that attacks the family and leaps at Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s face! I love that scene yet wouldn’t want it to happen to Patrick while he was up in the attic and by rats teaming with rabies! I waited patiently outside and watched through the window. After safely exiting the attic, Patrick admitted that he found no signs of any rodents in the attic. Yet, we continued hearing scratching noises.

Finally, he decided he better put some poison in the attic. Unfortunately, we still heard noises and even though we tried banging the ceiling the noises continued. Patrick said we must have squirrels in the attic and sought to find a solution. One lady suggested mothballs. She swore that squirrels hate the smell.

We bought two boxes and Patrick headed up to the attic. By this time, I didn’t panic anymore when he headed into the attic. But, a few minutes later I thought the world was coming to an end. I looked up and Patrick had missed a step and his foot went through the ceiling just like in Christmas Vacation! Well, not quite but almost. Luckily only one foot fell through and he was okay. If he had lost his balance completely, the fall to the tile floor could have been deadly.

So, the story ends with mothballs in the attic and no further scratching. Yeah! Plus, a lot of busy work repairing the hole in the ceiling… Bonus would be that we get to pick new color paint for the living room. But that is another project for another day.

Fall Here in Costa Rica

I was under the impression that the weather here in this part of Costa Rica would be Spring-like all year round. This sounded good me. Actually to the entire family since we were anxious to leave the Minnesota winters behind us. Even Summer in Minnesota never was quite perfect with the high humidity and army of mosquitoes which made it difficult to enjoy the evenings outdoors.

Fall has always been my favorite season. I’m not sure why except that as a kid I would always look forward to playing in the leaves and of course I anticipated Halloween even more than Christmas. But I truly enjoy the weather of Fall, too. I love the crispness and the heat of the sun on my face even with the chill in the air. Some may say that Spring is the same but I disagree. So, I expected to miss the Fall season dearly.

Well, I am happy to say that this past week has been very much like the Fall I love so much. In between all the rain (1 ½ inches yesterday and 1 ¾ inches the day before) the sun has made the cool air feel wonderful (for a short period of time). I even get to wear my favorite long sleeve t-shirts without over-heating!

I have been doing a lot of gardening and the leaves are falling from some of the trees in the yard. Yet some of the other trees are starting to blossom which I admit is all too confusing to me but I definitely enjoy the mixture.

Tackling the Mold

Within the past few weeks, we have been trying to get a handle on the mold problem that has crept up on us. Patrick noticed the “plague of blackness” first. Honestly, I thought he was imagining the spots at first. Having moved from the upper Midwest, I have only seen the green form of mold before this move. Now I know it also has a more subtle black color that can be deceiving at first glance. Some of the mold I believed to be dust but upon further inspection and Patrick’s insistence, I gave in to my fear and had to admit that we have a problem.

The biggest concern turned out to be Azure’s bedroom. Even though we had initially cleaned all the walls in the entire house with disinfectant before the furniture arrived, Azure’s bedroom wall had turned black. Not entirely of course, but enough that Patrick had to hard scrub two walls. Then he changed out her light bulb from the energy saving then to a 60 watt. So far, it seems to be helping.

The strangest place that we have found abundant amounts of mold growing has been on the back of the tv. The hardest things we have found to clean and somehow prevent the mold from growing on again has been our shoes. Patrick’s Birkenstocks were horrendous.

The best thing we can hope for would be to keep better control of the mold by opening and closing the windows at the appropriate times of the day (which is harder than you would think because of all the rain) and getting more light in the rooms and closets.

Wish us luck!

How about some more photos from the Independence Day festival and parade (which I promised to post for my Mom a long time ago)!

Laptop repaired

We finally have our laptop back. Yeah! We went down to San Jose last week after receiving an email saying the laptop worked. Turns out they replaced the entire system board - which is cool since it works better than ever now.

When we arrived at the shop, I turned in our receipt and waited a while. Finally, a woman arrived with the laptop and told us to turn it on. It seemed it took a while to boot up but all was fine. Then Patrick signed something and we left. Simple as that. None of the hidden charges that we were worried about and no hassles at all. We are very lucky that we found complete warranty coverage here in Costa Rica and are very pleased with the result.

I’ve been meaning to post these photos for a while now, but never got around to it…
This MotMot enjoys some of the fruit in one of the trees in our yard.
I’m proud to show the first bunch of bananas we enjoyed – these were picked right in our yard from one of the trees behind me.

Still hanging in there and enjoying life

I know it´s been a while but we still haven´t gotten our laptop back from the repair shop and now our desktop has ¨died¨. Otherwise, things are going well.

We met Azure´s teacher for a conference today and she had high praise for Azure´s adjustment to our new life.

Nothing else new to report. Same old same old. Rain, learning Spanish slowly, and as always Patrick has been dodging cars, motorcycles, dogs, and walkers on the roads!

I hope to have more time to email everyone soon!

Happy Independence Day, Costa Rica!

Saturday September 15th Costa Rica celebrated it’s Independence from Spain. Azure’s school invited parents to enjoy a kid’s parade followed by a program of singing, dancing, and refreshments Friday morning. Each elementary class performed something different. Azure’s class performed a traditional Costa Rican song on the ocarina and then sang a song. Patrick and I had been listening to Azure practice her song on the ocarina for weeks but when the class started to sing, I was shocked. Azure loves to sing and this was the first time I knew about the song. She told me later she had been trying very hard to keep it a secret. Nice job, Azure (she can never keep secrets)! I enjoyed the entire program!

Saturday the three of us walked downtown because we heard every town in the entire country would be having a parade at 10am. We arrived in town shortly before 10am and were lucky to catch the beginning of the parade. After 90 minutes into the parade with no end in sight, we decided to head to the church. We all loved the parade but it seemed almost every school in the entire area attended which wouldn’t be so bad but they all played the same song on the drums and wore almost the same costumes. The strangest part - which I feel inclined to share because I need to know from the readers if this is something that happens everywhere or just in Costa Rica - the kids were roped off with parents holding the ropes and walking alongside the kids. They literally blocked the kids making it impossible to get good photos! Why? Only a handful of schools didn’t do this…

Sunsets

After all the storms these past few weeks, we finally had two days in a row without any rain. It seemed very strange indeed. The best part as far as I was concerned were the gorgeous sunsets. I love sunsets which you can probably tell by the header photo. Anyway, since nothing much else is happening here, I thought I would share my most recent photo.

Azure would like me to let everyone know that the next blog post will be regarding Independence Day so stay tuned!

It’s always something…

I feel bad that once again I have dropped the ball and not kept up with my blog. Hopefully you’ll understand when I explain that we haven’t even been to an internet café since last week Tuesday. I will however recap for you our past week.

I’m sure everyone heard about Hurricane Felix? Well, we did feel the affects of that storm. We were hit here the hardest on Monday afternoon. The drive to get Azure after school was interesting considering we drove through one street and I was positive the water would start to flood into the car, We made it safely to the school but the on drive back home we noticed a van full of students stuck in the ditch on the same stretch of road we had just passed. Needless to say, we turned around and took a different road home.

Wednesday we planned to pick Azure up at school at her normal 12:15 early release time and head to the US Embassy to get our passports renewed. After enjoying a quick lunch at Campio Pollo, a local fast food chicken place, in San Jose, the heavy rains turned to hail! I don’t think they get much hail here in Costa Rica because half the cars on the road pulled over and stopped. The guy in front of us actually got out of his car and grabbed a handful of hail! We weren’t sure if he thought he was going to show his buddies once he got home or just wanted to touch it (since no one was in the car with him)… Azure didn’t get it since she knows it just melts immediately. Anyway, we found out the Embassy only processes passports from 8am-11:30am!

Okay, so it’s always something. If it’s not one thing it’s another. Our hot water heater was leaking at it got to the point where we had to replace it. Thursday we went to the local hardware store to try to explain what we needed. After some time, everyone understood one another and we purchased the “new” hot water heater and the pieces of pipe we needed. A plumber recommended by the hardware store told us he would be by later that day to help with the install. He didn’t show and so Patrick installed it by himself. Good thing is that we now have a larger tank and therefore more hot water! Yeah! Thanks, Patrick!

A funny thing happened on the way to the ….

Thursday after leaving the internet café, we were all in a good mood. Laughing and joking until all of a sudden, our car alarm went off and wouldn’t stop. With the horn honking loudly and all the car lights flashing, we panicked. People passing stared but no one said or did anything out of the ordinary. Finally, Patrick turned off the car but it was too late. There was no turning off the alarm.

I kept praying a policeman wouldn’t pull up next to us asking (in Spanish of course) for proof of registration. Since we just received an email from our lawyer stating she had the document at her office and when would we like to pick it up, it was not in our possession. I was sure I would be making a call to our lawyer from the nearest police station!

I was busy standing on the corner trying to push all the buttons on the key chain when Patrick screamed, “hand me my tools”. Azure dug them out of the back and passed them out to Patrick. He screamed, “Pop the hood” and then next thing I know Patrick was removing the battery cable. Sure enough, the alarm stopped. Convinced that the alarm would start again the second he made the connection, I tried to cover my shock when he started the car and we drove home, nervous but all laughing again. Until…

Friday morning, sure enough, the alarm started again as soon as we pulled out of the driveway. After some hassle (of removing and reconnecting the battery cable) and screaming at each other, we all made it to Azure’s school with time to spare.

BUT, Patrick had to turn off the car so he could speak to Jeremy in accounting since he was helping us get a bank account started here (long story). I definitely was much more embarrassed when the car alarm went off in the school parking lot. Plus, Patrick removed and re-connected the battery cable SEVERAL times but the alarm just wouldn’t stop! I tried to stay out of his way and keep my mouth shut but I have to admit I wasn’t very hopeful about getting home. While pretending to read my book, mentally I went through all our options - call a tow truck, walk to the mechanics? What exactly were our options when neither of us could explain in Spanish what the problem was?

Finally, I noticed that there was a wire to the alarm cut-off that was not connected. I pointed out the potential problem to Patrick and immediately he went to work trying to connect the wire again. At this point, the school guard figured he better check with us to make sure everything was ok. Again, we can’t speak Spanish so Patrick tried showing him the loose wire and just said “esta bueno”. The guard appeared to understand and he walked away.

After about 15 minutes and lots of cursing, Patrick started the car. No alarm sounded this time (which was good because it probably went off 5 times before). We left the parking lot with a wave to the guard and my fingers crossed. Even though Patrick pronounced the situation permanently resolved, I asked if we needed to stop at a mechanics on the way home. He firmly said “NO!”
He was right. It’s resolved and the car doesn’t even beep anymore which was not the case when we purchased it 2 weeks ago. At that time, we used to have to wait until the car alarm started beeping then push a little button to signify it should stop. Now when starting the car, Patrick can push that button before the beeping even begins. Therefore, in the end, this experience actually resolved a slight problem….

Wow!