Halloween and Torgugas!

This is the best Halloween I've ever had. Yet it was in Costa Rica with 90 degree weather, lots of sunshine, and carved watermelons instead of pumpkins.
Friday was the school Halloween party, and Ashley and I won Most Creative Costume. Suds and Shower. It was a blast. We made a fool of ourselves but it worked.

Saturday and Sunday I experienced the most amazing thing in my entire life. Mike, Kelsey, Tony and I took another adventure to Playa Ostional. It is a few hours away and we had to forge a few rivers to get there. Sea turtles are the most amazing creatures ever! They literally should be the national symbol for women. They are incredible examples of the strength females have. This type of turtle spends only a dozen of its years or so laying eggs, and she will lay about once a month during laying season. First she has to get her big booty up the shore using her 4 floppy flippers. (And most of them go WAY up onto the beach!) Then, do what looks like a breast stroke with her front flippers and digs a hole. She then proceeds to use her back flippers to dig down and scoop out a smaller but deeper hole to lay the eggs into. She then uses her back flippers and covers up the eggs, and while covering she rocks her body to 'pack' in the sand. After that, she rotates and uses flippers to smooth out the top sand and heads back to the ocean. I sat by a few during the process, and you can just hear them wheezing and taking deep breathes of exhaustion. Some take 5 min to get back into the water, while some take closer to 20 min.

Sitting under the millions of stars and next to this amazing creature made me really appreciate the things Mother Nature has given us. It's a shame only 1 out of 500 eggs will make it to adulthood. This creatures are soon extinct if we don't work to protect them. It doesn't help that there are hungry dogs and vultures picking off the exposed eggs.

It's Rainy Season?

It is supposed to be rainy season, but we have had much sun these past few weeks. I know it is important for Costa Rica to have these months full of rain, but I'm not complaining because my days spent on the beach are amazing. Being here for 3 months now still the effect of these beautiful beaches amazes me. The Pacific Ocean is amazingly beautiful. I saw my first dolphin on Monday chasing after a fish. I got my butt kicked by the giant waves at Grande and the powerful waves at Flamingo. Two of my swimming suits are now caked with Costa Rican sand.

I love Costa Rica .. Pura Vida!

Sweet Waterfall

On Sunday Mike, Kelsey, Amanda and I went in search for some cool waterfalls. We drove a little ways outside Liberia to a volcano. We hiked a bit, walked upstream, and then proceeded to jump into the bottom of a beautiful waterfall! It defiantly was one of the greatest things I have ever witnessed in my life. After swimming in the cold river, we painted ourselves with volcanic mud and sat in hot springs. Mother Nature has created magnificent things on our planet. It was nice to get off campus and enjoy adult company.

I am doing well here in Costa Rica. We celebrated our half-way mark a few days ago. I have begun taking over full-time teaching, with a slight break on Tuesdays and Thursdays since Tom is teaching Social Studies those days in Spanish. Seeing that I don't speak too well of Spanish, that would not go well. Though, I am a few weeks into Spanish lessons, and I am doing pretty well if I say so myself.

First Field Trip

Thermo Mania - Guanacaste

Monday we went on our first field trip! I woke up not feeling well so it could have been better, but we still managed to have a good time. We went to Thermo Mania about 2 hours away. It is a place in the mountains that have pools that are heated by the dormant volcano. The kids loved it! We are doing an unit on ecosystems, and this was a good chance for students to observe a Costa Rican ecosystem (rainforest).

We were going to stop and hike to a waterfall, but it started raining and it wouldn't have been nice getting all muddy. So we went to the movie theater instead! Incorporate Spanish in our lesson. (The movie was completely in Spanish with out subtitles.) So I sat next to Tom so he could translate it for me. It was something called ... Last Wind Bender or something like that. LAME really. Too SciFi for me.

After movie, we went to McDonalds (AutoMac)! It was everything and more!!! I wish I had a picture of me eating my first french fry! They tasted the same! (THANK GOD!) That was the first fast food I had in 2 months, and I probably won't have anymore for another 2 months.

Slow Sunday

I have been battling stomach aches all day today, as well as a scratchy throat. These are the days I miss the comforts of home.
Ashley and I did get out of the house today to hit up Playa Grande. It was our first time, and it really was beautiful. (Minus the gloomy clouds and misty rain.) I was looking out at the water praying to see a whale emerge from the blue, but NOTHING.
When I game back home Kim was out (she's the marine biology teacher here at CDS and she and her husband have been living here for 7 years or so) and I asked her if I was correct or not about whales. I thought I recalled seeing on Discovery Channel about how whales migrate during winter. She said "CORRECT!" The Humpback whale actually is migrating now. The pregnant mothers are here now having babies, then the males will come shortly after, then the teenage whales not yet sexually mature to mate. Then by March they all go back up north to Alaskaian waters.
Cross your fingers that I will see a whale in the distance one of these days. They have already been spotted at Playa Flamingo (and I go there quite often).

Happy Independence Day Costa Rica!

Today was our Costa Rican Independence Day celebration at CDSG. It was really soooo much fun. It was wicked hot, but I had much more fun that I thought I would have. We had to create a booth/game of some sort for our student to play, and I was going to do tug-of-war, but last night I had an awesome idea to do arm wrestling instead. It was really a hit! My class got into it, and so did the students from another school. We even had a few teacher battles. It was awesome!

I will say, I pulled it off. I beat my strongest student AND Ms. Kristin! I underestimated my own strength. I wanted to verse Ashley, but she wouldn't go for it.

We have Wednesday off of school, so I think Ashley and I are going to go across the street to a wicked nice place where one of her nice parents lives and sit by the pool to enjoy the day off. Thursday/Friday are observation days .. wish us luck!

Dinner Party

My awesome student Camryn and her family threw a dinner party for the teachers tonight. (Seeing that we don't have a car, Tom came to pick Tony and I up.) Camryn and her family are from Georgia so I had high hopes that it was going to have great food!
Was I ever so right!!!!! Camryn's mom is an amazing cook to say the least! For starters we had some appetizers that were so good. Some awesome guacamole and olives. For the main course we had chicken wings and ribs! The ribs were basted in none other than Dreamland BBQ sauce! Gotta love Southerners! I think I ate my body weight in food tonight! (Did I mention that Camryn's mom made me Asian co slaw special order just for me!?) It was defiantly a little slice of home.

All in all it was a great evening. Good food, good people, good places!

Pura Vida Costa Rica!