Mes de Patria

Patriotic month.

On the 15th of this month is Independence Day here, as it is in most of Latin America. The blue, white and red flags and decorations are showing up everywhere. Houses have decorations. The classrooms and hallways have accordion streamers and balls, flags and the shield of Costa Rica decoration. The street vendors have replaced or added to their wares of fruit, drinks, and cellphone accessories with flags of all sizes and the traditional candle-lit paper house lanterns.

All this week, La Palabra de Vida (and every other school around the country) is having almost daily civics assemblies with dancing, recitations, national hymns, and skits. Lizzy's class is participating in the assembly next Monday with a traditional dance. We decided to buy the full outfit, for the assembly, but also to take with us as a souvenir of our time in Costa Rica. Though not traditionally in the colors of the Costa Rica flag, this skirt is essential in the traditional dance. Lizzy was so proud of her new dress that she performed her dance for me (Christy)without music in the front yard. She takes her participation in the dance very seriously and has put much practice into it.

From Lizzy dancing

Getting Ready to Go

Hi…Christy here. I’m hijacking the blog and writing a post since it has been quite a while since Josh has posted. Josh is busy these days working on applying to grad schools, while at the same time still teaching, grading, and prepping for classes at La Palabra de Vida.

I, on the other hand, have been arms deep in planning for the transition that we are going to go through in just 3 short months…selling our stuff (since we are not shipping stuff home), packing bags to send home with people who have visited us or the school, figuring out what we need to do for Sammy and Lizzy for schooling in January, and making travel plans, while homeschooling (preschool) Sammy and taking care of my increasingly mobile funny-girl Kate (whose current favorite word to say is “tickle, tickle, tickle”).

My preparations for the move have made me realize some of the things that I will miss, some that I won’t, some of the things I am looking forward to, and some of the things that I am not…so here they are:

I will miss looking out of the window up into the Escazu mountains while I am washing dishes…but I am looking forward to having a dishwasher again.

I will miss the fact that my children are becoming bilingual…but I will not miss the times when I feel like my Spanish makes me sound like a toddler.

I will miss the open windows and doors with outside air flowing through the house…but I don’t think I will miss the little critters that come with having more open houses.

I will miss the beautiful weather here, I’m not looking forward to leaving during the best weather here…and arriving just in time for a cold Chicago winter.

I will NOT miss the geckos in the house. Although people like them for eating bugs, I do not like finding random baby geckos, cleaning up gecko droppings, or hoping that I get a chance to find them before Kate does.

I will miss having a clothes line…I know, this one might seem nuts to some of you. I might be glad to get rid of it if I had to line dry everything…but we have a dryer, so I only have to line-dry when I want to do it or have time for it. Hanging cloth diapers out to dry is one of my favorite household chores.

I will miss the fact that every time family comes to visit, we get to see a cool new part of Costa Rica….but I am so very excited that, for a while after we get back, we will to be able to see family almost every day.

I will miss the friends that we have made here.

I will NOT miss the sugar ants. They don’t bug us too much, but when you see a stream of them coming into the house, you kind of wonder what the kids left somewhere that they are going after.


I’m sure that Josh could add many things to both sides of this list….but he is going to have to add his own post to do it. We’re excited and nervous to be moving on to the next stage in our lives….curious to see where God is taking us.