Towel animals, mobsters and mosquito bites

It does not take much to impress me, and here is proof. Every day we were at Jaco they would do the coolest little animal designs with our towels when they cleaned our room. Given that pink puppy is Elizabeth's favorite buddy - it was no surprise that this little towel dog was her favorite. Also of no surprise is that the more we tipped our maid staff, the more flowers and more elaborate designs we got made on the bed.

Here is another thing that was moderately humorous and a little terrifying to me. So we are looking to buy a car so we can get around. Obviously my personal checks are worth little down here unless I'm willing to wait months for them to clear. Also, most places will not take large charges on a credit card. Financing is out of the option as interest is outrageous down here for used cars (think 20%+). Lastly, to wire the money using western union would cost an additional 5% for the wiring fee. So...what do you do? Cash. I've never felt a) more like a mobster in my life and b) happier to rid myself of US dollars when we bought the car today.


Last thing for tonight, some amazing pictures of mosquito bites. Now I know all you folks back in the US are saying...'Little bites...no big deal...we got them those thare things too!' Well, each bite produces something equivalent to a hive sized welt on your body that last for many days. I've shown a picture of Elizabeth's leg where clearly some bored insect went to town. The sad part is, they have them all over their faces too. They seem to be worse in San Jose than they are in Jaco - not sure why that is.

Beyond random pictures for the day, things are going great. Our ever changing move in date saga for our apartment seems to be settled. We can move into our house anytime we want to starting tomorrow! I think Christy and I are going to take a load of bags over there tomorrow and check the place out. However, we likely will not move in until Friday or Saturday when we have our car and close things out in Belen. Also, as mentioned before, we finished paying for our car which is a win.

Things I am reminded of today

1. Be only slightly alarmed when the security guard is running down the main drive, walkee-talkee in one hand, gun out in the other

2. Number one is likely a false alarm even if there were gunshots in the direction of Belen the night before

3. Lemon trees have thorns

4. Lemon tree thorns are big and can draw blood

5. When blood is drawn, it hurts

6. Just because you do not see a banana tree on the property, does not mean it does not exist

7. Because of point six, don't assume the security guard is stealing bananas from someone else's property when he walks by with a branch full of 50 bunches of bananas and starts to harvest them with a machete. (The banana trees are on the very back corner)

8. The sun is hot and can burn you - quickly - and thoroughly when you are outside, bald head and all, for three hours

9. You can shake orange trees to get down oranges

10. ALWAYS heed the advice of the security guard (the one you did not trust in point 7) when he comes running towards you, yelling, when you shake the orange tree. He isn't saying 'do not take those!'...he is saying...'Do you see the beehive the size of a football in the tree above you?'

Back from Jaco

We made it back in one piece from Jaco - and as much fun as the beach was - we are happy being in San Jose. I can go back to eating 2000 calories a day instead of feeling like I need to 'get my money's worth' of melted processed cheese on fries and nightly burgers. After reading the last blog post of Elizabeth, I wish I had brought my camera to the beach the final day we were there. Dead in the sand left over from high tide was the skeletal remains (with some minor decomposing still happening) of a blow fish. Instead of just letting lie, of course I carried it on a stone saying 'EVERYONE! Come look at this!!!' Christy was not even impressed enough to come look at it - she really missed out.

God was good to us on so many levels this week. We originally thought we had to wait until May 1st to move in to our new place. Then we found out last week that we would probably be able to get in about a week early. Today we found out we'll probably be able to get in on about Wed of this week which means we'll finally be able to unpack our bags and begin to get settled. All we need to do is pick up our van sometime early this week so we can drive down there. Also, we had Wheaton Bible Church commit to supporting us during our time down here which places us about at full support for our trip!

La Palabra is off tomorrow (it is a national holiday) which is good as it seems that all the missionary teachers down here could use one day to relax and catch up on the school work. The school hired a new Bible director to replace the one that quit unexpectedly last month - and it seems that he is doing very well. They are still short several English teachers, so we are praying that God will help fill those positions quickly to ease the burdens on the teachers that are here.

Thats about it for now. No funny stories today, but I'll work on it starting this week. We are going to try and get our drivers license for Costa Rica this week - If it is anything like it is in the states, I'm sure that will be a gold mine for blogging.

I've turned into a pufferfish

I think Elizabeth has what I will call the 'Nana' gene (by Nana - I mean Christy's mom). Christy's mom might be the slowest eater (Christy wanted me to say 'Time to savor her meal') save for maybe my own grandpa - its a close race. There have been several nights since we have been in Jaco, where if either Christy or I stays with her for a while (e.g., 45 minutes after a meal), she WILL eat all the food on her plate. Tonight, she had more food than I did on my plate, ate it all, and then ate ice cream too. Then she wanted a hotdog and a frozen strawberry daiquiri - NA of course. At the end she informed me that she had so much she turned into a puffer fish. Yikes.

Our new home (till the end of the year)

I've shown these pictures to a few already but I figured I would put them out on the blog. The Hyundai Starex van is our new ride. It is a 12 passenger van like I posted before - but it is about the size of a US minivan. The picture on the left is representative of ours - they look almost exactly the same. The MAJOR difference is ours has more bling on it (read: faux chrome around the trim, lights and the gascap - it is sweet). An example of the back two seat configuration is seen on the right. Basically - the trunk is a row of seats and the back seat and middle seat have fold down seats as seen in the picture.

I have a few shots of the place we will rent while at language school. It is a 3 bedroom 2 bath house. It has a washer which is nice (no dryer). No hot water (just little electric heaters on the shower heads - very common in Costa Rica). It has a nice place to park the van out front which is great. I wish their was razor/barb wire - but it should work just fine. It is only about a 15/20 minute walk to school in the morning and it is very reasonably priced.

The backyard of the place we are renting. We have no 'lawn' - but there appears to be a nice little patio to put a hammock on. If that is left there, we will take it down immediately so the kids do not get killed.

Small bedroom 1

Master bedroom w/ bath

Small bedroom 2

Living area

Kitchen shot 1

Kitchen shot 2

Front picture 1. That guy is Lynn, our big brother from school. He has a VERY thick Mississippi accent - so I'm sure this Spanish conversation with the Landlord is amusing :)

The front 'yard' area. This will be a great place to park the Starex.

And all I want is Pizza Hut...

We are staying at a hotel where we get all of our food included. We get absolutely great food breakfast, lunch and dinner. I can also get chips, fries, cheese, burgers and hotdogs whenever I want. And all I am craving right now is the Pizza Hut across the street...mmm....Pizza....

Jaco Beach

Christy and I have been at Jaco Beach (pronounced Ha-Ko) the last couple days having a nice time. Jaco is not known as the 'nicest beach in Costa Rica' by any stretch - it is however about the closest Pacific beach from San Jose which is why we decided to go there. Down town Jaco is really no different than any-beach-town USA except that maybe it is a little less developed (that is changing) and it is not as safe. By that I mean you just should not be out at night really and if there is no need to carry much cash or your passport - don't. For the most part, people come here because it is incredibly close and also because they have great waves for surfing. We are staying at an older Best Western hotel that has served our purposes just fine. In the front they have this little toy car like you usually see outside of grocery stores for that the kids can ride for some amount of change. The kids LOVE just being in it - even if we do not have a 100 colones (20 cent) coin to make it go.

We have been getting a taste of the different animals in Costa Rica almost from day one. When we were staying with the Befus' there was an amazingly beautiful - and loud - bird that started going nuts every morning at about 5:45. Also, there are different sounding Cicadas than I had ever heard before. Here by the beach, there are lizards everywhere which for a midwest boy for me who only ever saw salamanders in window sills is pretty exciting. Can you find the one on the picture in the left? I almost stepped on it while it was resting on the sidewalk and it dashed into the grass, they are so well hidden there. The other one on the right is much easier to see. This one is only a little over a 1.5 feet long, but there are a couple that are well in excess of 3+ feet just tooling the grounds. I also saw one run today - and they are surprisingly agile and fast! If one ever started chasing me I would not even know what to do. In my estimation, man to lizard in a hand to claw battle, lizards are by far higher on the survival of the fittest scale.

What good would blog entries be without me making fun of some signs? One of my favorites one is on the left. I'm not even sure what this sign means. In case you do a U-turn please run into the pacman shaped 'C' ? Watch your step on the tripper-thingy as you enter the door and remember to turn around as you pass through it? In all honesty - I think it means use the stairs in case of emergency based on where it is placed - but who would even get that? Another one that Christy and I liked was on the right. If you have guitars, drums, harmonicas - hey - no problem. But you'd better not be playing trumpet on the first floor! What it should actually say is, 'No playing any instrument loud because it might distract the guests at the hotel - and that is OUR job when we play loud dance music until midnight on the weekends. Thank you.'

One thing that is very evident here is God's amazingly beautiful nature. One of the best way to see that is in the sunsets. I asked Christy the other night 'I wonder if the locals ever get tired of the sunsets...' and two seconds later a local hotel guard came over and said something in Spanish that I could interpret from his hand signals and voice as 'Take a look at that sunset - it is amazing'...that answered my question. And to be fair, who would? I snapped a couple pictures so everyone could see. The picture on the left shows one side of Jaco Bay mountains as the sun is setting. Where the 'clouds' appear to hit the water in the distance you can actually see more land which is a very large peninsula. The picture on the right is a similar one with the kids looking cute. Sammy has his favorite bucket and lizzy is enjoying a stawberry icee drink. She's actually enjoyed MANY of those over the last few days :)

To give you a little different view of the beach I took a snapshot of the other side of Jaco Beach. There appear to be some amazing mansions up on the cliffs in the distance. The waves are quite large here and I have enjoyed body surfing in them even though there are signs that say 'Drag your feet to avoid getting stung by the rays in the water.' The right shows the hotel. Don't be deceived, we are not staying in the large luxury condo building, if you look just below and to the left of the life guard / security guard tower - you can see a little sliver of the old Best Western that we are staying in :) However, that large building right next to the hotel shows you the massive development going up in this area. Ramada is building a five building complex that will be a resort/hotel/condo area. Also, there appears to be another huge hotel project going up about 1/2 miles down the beach. Lisa Befus told us that welders are hard to come by in the central valley where San Jose is because they have all come out to the beach to work on the large hotel projects up and down the Pacific coast.

Totally unrelated to the beach, we appear to have found housing! This is a huge answer to prayer. The Prather family (our big brothers at the language school) toured two houses in walking distance to the language school for us on Saturday and after a brief phone conversation we have chosen one. It meets almost all of our requirements and we are looking forward to making it our new home over the next nine months as we gear up for language school. The move in day is May 1st, which is two days AFTER language school orientation starts - but honestly we are so happy to have a place to move into eventually that the wait almost is not that bad. Luckily, we can just stay with the Befus' until the place opens up.

Let us know how you all are doing and how we can be praying for everyone. Talk to you soon!