I'm still here :)

Hi everyone, it's me, I'm back.  I haven't forgotten about you all, it's just been really crazy lately.  I'll just start from the beginning and give you the cliffnotes version of the last few weeks. 

The last time I blogged was about going ziplining in the Monteverde Cloud Forest.  We got home from that trip on Sunday, March 1st.  I found out the next morning that my grandfather had passed away.  Apparently he had been sick for a couple of weeks, but I didn't know that, and the news was quite difficult for me being so far away and not being able to visit him one last time.  For my sanity and peace of mind, I decided to fly home for the weekend to see my family and to attend the funeral to get a little bit of closure.  So that Saturday, I was on a plane home to CA.  Almost as soon as I landed in LA, I was busy getting errands done and visiting people.  I spent Sunday out at my family's restaurant.  They got invited to the Nixon Library to receive some fancy award for having an amazing restaurant.  They got all dressed up and went to the reception while my mom and I ran the restaurant for the day.  I actually didn't do anything but babysit my cousin, Lex.  My mom did most of the real work :)  Here's my family all dressed up for the party:

Uncle Jeff, Aunt Cindy, cousins Josh and Katie

The funeral was on Monday morning, which was a little chaotic, but we made it work.  Before I knew it, I was back on a plane to Costa Rica.  I left Tuesday morning and had all of my flights screwed up, and didn't get in to San Jose until about 10 pm.  But I did get to watch a beautiful sunset from my window seat:

I finally made it back to my house at about 10:30 pm Tuesday night.  I literally dumped all my crap out onto the floor and repacked for science camp.  I had to be at school the next day at 5:30 am to get my kids ready to go to camp for three days.  I was already exhausted from traveling home that weekend, and I was not happy about being at school before everyone else was even awake!  But everything worked out fine and I made it to school on time.  Then Wednesday morning, our bus left school at 6:30 am with 44 elevel-year olds and three adults (one of which still has a malfunctioning foot).  

CAMP.  WAS.  EXHAAAUUUSTING.

Field trips were so much fun as a kid.  But they are so much work as a supervisor!  My kids had a great time and loved the trip, but I was so ready to leave by Friday.  We spent three full days in San Carlos, where the kids got to do all kinds of cool things.  Here is some of what they did and what we saw:

Yup, that's our bus driving through a river to get to the Maleku Reserve

Hiking into the Rain Forest to visit the Maleku Indians

My students dancing with the Malekus

The Malekus taught us some words in their language

One night, they cleared the ground and made it flat to set bait for animal tracks.  They sifted fresh dirt on top so it was soft enough for the animals to make tracks.

At this place, the students learned about recycling and composting.  Then they got to paint a picture frame made of recycled paper.

On this day, the kids got to feed cow tongues to gigantic crocodiles!

They even got to eat termites.  Some liked it better than others!

We saw lots of cool wildlife

And on the last day, everyone got to hold baby crocodiles!

There were beautiful wildflowers flowers in San Carlos

We got home from camp Friday night around 5 pm.  Once again, I dumped out my bag and re-packed for another trip.  On Saturday, we left early in the morning to go to Arenal.  This is the most active volcano in all of North, Central, and South America!  We spent the day lounging in the hot springs and relaxing.  It was a nice way to unwind from camp.  

The drive there, beautiful scenery

Arenal Volcano

Lake Arenal, this lake provides a majority of the electricity for the entire country

Lunch before the hot springs!

The resort was absolutely beautiful!  Sadly, we only spent one day here.

After spending the day relaxing, we drove back that same night.  It was such a great day.  We took a private microbus there and back, which was amazing.  Since it was just our group on the bus, we all had so much fun goofing around and being silly!  

Sunday morning, a few of us went to this International Baptist church we found fairly close by.  The entire thing is in English, which is great.  I'm not really used to the Baptist style of church, but it was so nice to hear a sermon in English!  

That afternoon, Serena and I went with her host parents to an orchid festival in San Jose.  I have never seen so many beautiful flowers in one place!  The festival was held in a huge multipurpose room that was jam packed with people and orchids.  I took a million pictures, but here are some of the good ones:

This one's my favorite

And finally, there's last weekend.  We decided it was time to just go to a beach and chill for the weekend.  So, we headed 7 hours north to Playa Conchal.  There are only a handful of beaches in the world like this beach, so I'm glad we went to see it.  Instead of sand, this beach is covered in tiny shells.  The entire beach is like this, which makes walking with a broken foot a little challenging.  The shells are not as sturdy as hard-packed sand.  But it was beautiful.  We stayed in a hostel in Brasilito, which is right next to Conchal.  There's only one hotel in Conchal and it costs about $400 per night!  Luckily, the walk from Brasilito to Conchal was only about 15 minutes.  

Playa Brasilito  

This is how we feel to be living in Costa Rica!!

Even though it's sunny, it is really about 7:30 pm.  There is over 16 hours of daylight at Conchal.

The sun finally went down around 8 pm

We made friends with Don Juan

It's a little hard to see, but those are shells, not sand

Another amazing weekend with wonderful friends!

The longest bus ride in the world!  Not really, but seven hours is a long time!

Beautiful country

School has continued to go well.  I started my take-over last week which is why I've been so busy.  My students drive me crazy some days, but most of the time, they are good!  They seem to be comfortable with me which makes things a lot easier.  I can totally understand how a bad student teaching experience can ruin someone's idea of teaching.  I don't know what I would do down here if I had a bad placement.  Luckily Westmont does an amazing job of placing us with the right people.!!  Thanks Dr. Tucker :)

Well, I think that's about it for now.  This weekend we are going even farther North to the Nicoyan Peninsula.  I'll post pictures this weekend!!  

How are you all doing?  I miss getting to hear from each of you on a regular basis.  Send me updates about things are going, ok?!?!

xoxo

Don't Run Your Legs!!

After several weekends of being stuck inside with a broken foot, I finally ventured outdoors with nine other students teachers this past weekend.  We went to Monteverde, which is in the Cloud Forest and is famous for its Zip Lines.   I didn't really realize that I had been fairly bored until I got the chance to travel this weekend.  We decided that ziplining was a low-impact activity that I would most likely be able to do with my foot still recovering.  So many amazing things went down, so I'll just start from the beginning:

5:00 am:  Wake up (waaay too early), eat breakfast, call taxi and head to the bus station.  The nice thing about Costa Rica being so small is that you can take a bus anywhere.  The busses are cheap and go everywhere, but they do leave SUPER early.  

6:00 am:  All ten of us pile on the bus and find our assigned seats.  After we all got seated, the bus driver explained to us that the safest place to keep your bag is underneath the bus in the basement storage area.  If you want to keep your bag with you on the bus, they are not responsible for it.  We all decided that we would hold on to our backpacks instead of storing them underneath.  

Hannah and I were bus buddies because we were the only two that didn't feel comfortable sleeping on the bus.  This will be an important decision later on....
6:30 am: Bus leaves San Jose and heads for Monteverde.  When we all got on the bus, we picked people we wanted to sit next to based on what we would do for the 4 1/2 hour drive.  Hannah is one of the student teachers from ASU that I've gotten to know pretty well so far.  Neither of us were going to sleep on the bus and everyone else was, so we sat together to keep each other company.  

7:30 am:  more driving...

8:30 am: even more driving...

9:00 am:  By this point during our ride there, we had stopped several times to pick up other people on the side of the road and there was standing room only.  Hannah and I were still awake while everyone else was asleep.  This guy had gotten on the bus a few stops back and was looking a little shady.  At one point, he was standing next to a girl from our group who was sleeping and was staring into her bag.  We woke her up and told her to hold on to her bag in her lap.  About ten minutes later, we saw the guy grab another backpack and run off the bus and immediately into a taxi.  A man who was riding in the front of the bus chased the guy off the bus and yanked him out of the taxi.  A couple of guys held him down and got the backpack back.  Then we sat and waited for the police to come and arrest him.  Although I was nervous to have seen a robbery right in front of me, I felt reassured that a good citizen stood up for the girl who got robbed and fought to get her bag back.  I am really glad that I decided to keep my backpack in my lap the entire ride.  And I'm also glad that Hannah and I stayed awake to watch the bags of those who were sleeping!!

While we waited for the police to get there, we saw some horses grazing the land on the side of the mountain

Another view from the bus window.  That is the Cloud Forest

9:30 am: Bathroom break, Sun Chips and Fresca for breakfast!!

11:00 am: Arrive in Monteverde after a very long bus ride.  Luckily, Hannah had been here before and knew about this awesome hotel.  We didn't make reservations before we left, but they had enough openings for us.  The hotel was called Tree House because it was built around this really old tree that is all crazy looking.  But it's not an actual tree house.  

This is the base of the tree.  It goes up all windy and crazy for four floors. 

Night shot of the Tree House hotel

We got this room that had seven beds, two of which were double beds.  Since there were ten of us together, Hannah, Sage and I squished on one of the double beds.  But it was really cool that we could all stay together.  

2:00 pm: check in to hotel, eat amazing pizza for lunch, get ready for intense zip lining!  After we were all settled in the hotel, we changed into pants and jackets for zip lining.  It was super hot outside, but the zip lines are in the Cloud Forest, which is...well, cloudy, wet and cold.  Next, we got on the shuttle and headed to the top of Monteverde.   

"Show me your excited faces!" (Sage, Rachel and silly Hannah)

Dressed and ready for zip lining! (Serena y yo)

Sexy, no? (All ten of us)

2:30 pm: Begin zip line adventure.  We began by walking up to where the trails began to get a safety demonstration.  The guides were really funny and were joking with me about doing all of this with a broken foot!  After the safety demonstration, we all walked up the first few flights of stairs to the first platform.  The first line is short and slow so you get a chance to feel it out before it gets crazy.  After that, they get increase in length and speed.  Some were so long that for a good portion of the line, you couldn't see the other end!  

On our way up to the first line

The view from the first platform, the Cloud Forest

"Cross your legs", not to be confused with "Close your legs"

3:30 pm:  More zip lining!

Hannah tried the running man on one of the lines, and the guides didn't like that.  The rest of the day consisted of us quoting "Don't run your legs!

Mas Serena y Yo 

4:00 pm: Tarzan Swing!!!  Close to the end of the trip, there is this huuuge swing that they call the Tarzan swing.  You basically stand on this platform and the guide pushes you off.  Of course we all had to try it, and it was hilarious watching everyone do it.  Take a break from reading and watch Hannah on the Tarzan swing (http://youtube.com/watch?v=1_Rxm0sfjRs).

Me getting ready to do the Tarzan Swing!

4:30 pm:  By this time, we had been zip lining for about 2 hours and had come to the final line.  I had heard stories about this last line, but it was way more intense than I was expecting.  It was by far the longest and highest line of the whole day.  It was so long that we had to go in pairs because the wind was too strong.  We needed the weight of two people to keep from spinning around and around!!  Hannah and I did the last one together.  Since she's taller than me, she was behind me and was controlling our speed.  This left me a free hand to take a sweet video!  Watch us on the last zip line here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Ly6AzQbfw).  

The hike up to the final platform

Heather and Sage doing the last line as a pair

We made it without dying!!!

5:00 pm: End of zip line adventure, walk back to main lodge, observe pretty flowers.  The last zip line put us almost at the same place we started.  We only had to walk for a few minutes to get back to the main lodge.  Along the walk, we some some really beautiful flowers.  

6:00 pm: Drive back to the hotel, eat yummy pasta for dinner, play games in our hotel room.  After a long day of zip lining, we got cleaned up and went out for dinner.  The town is very small, where everything is on one street.  You can walk through the entire town in approximately 4 1/2 minutes.  There isn't much to do unless you want to go the one bar and drink all night.  Instead, we headed back to the hotel and played cards and charades.  

11:30 pm:  Lights out!

5:30 am: Wake up (toooo earlyyyy!!), pack and head to the bus stop.  Have I mentioned that I am not a morning person?  I hate waking up at all, much less at an ungodly hour.  But I did get up early enough to snag this cute picture of Serena.  Her head was entirely off the bed...that can't be comfortable!!

6:30 am:  Grab breakfast to go, find bus buddy, begin loooong ride home.  The bus ride home was uneventful and went much faster than the ride there.  Hannah and I sat together again to watch out for everyone's backpacks.  This time, we took pictures of the awkward sleepers, and Serena takes the prize again.  At least she was totally protecting her backpack!

9:30 am:  More driving....

The view of the sun rising over the Cloud Forest.  God is so Good!

11:00 am:  Arrive in San Jose, walk to two different restaurants to realize that everything is closed on Sundays, walk to Megasuper to buy lunch, have picnic on a basketball court.  The nice thing about taking the early bus home is that you get home very early.  We were home by 11 am, which left us plenty of time to get homework done and go to bed early.  We tried going to two different places for lunch before we remembered that it was Sunday, so we went to the grocery store and bought stuff for a picnic.  It was the perfect end to an amazing and fun-filled weekend.  

Sage, Jessica, Hannah and Serena

I've decided that I am really going to miss the ASU girls when they leave in May.  They have been such a blessing so far and I have loved their company.  I wasn't really sure what to expect from the ASU group, but we have discovered that out of all 14 of the student teachers, both ASU and Westmont, 10 of us are Christians.  How amazing is that?!?  We've started a weekly Bible study to stay connected in the Word and to challenge each other to grow deeper on this trip.  God continues to amaze me with His blessings.  I couldn't have hand-picked a better group of people to share this experience with!

Amazing country, amazing weekend, amazing friends :)  Could you ask for anything else?

xoxo