All doped up

You know its concerning when you come out of the doctor with not just one medication you need to take to get better, but four. Yikes. For the past two weeks plus a few days I've had a cold which has developed into a crazy cough that I can just not shake. Each evening, I lose about two hours of sleep while I hack a lung into the sink. Needless to say, for the first time in a long time, I'm actually willing to take antibiotics to help my body fight this thing. The doc told me I have bronchitis and he is concerned if we let it go to long it can develop into a chronic cough. So, now I have antibiotics, expectorants, anti-cough stuff....AND....to top it all off I got a shot in my nalga today that is supposed to reduce inflammation of the bronchial tubes. Which brings me to another episode of...

Its not BAD...its just different.

When you need a shot of something here, there is really no need to go to a doctors office. You buy the vial and syringe at a farmacia (if you can find one that carries the medicine you need - it took me five to find everything today) - and the lady behind the counter gives it to you at the little tienda. Very strange. Nothing bad happen, the needles are all take and toss individually wrapped and sterile, the lady was so gentle I hardly felt anything. But, that does not prevent it from being just different enough from the states to be very very strange.

Costa Ricans love them some salchicha

Salchicha. It sounds like something that would be awesome - like some sort of really fancy sausage. However, do not be confused. Salchicha is simply a hotdog without a bun. (Amusingly enough, hotdog is translated directly as 'perro caliente' in Spanish). Do not get me wrong, I'm not a hotdog hater - however - I certainly do not eat them very often - if ever. So, you can imagine my horror when I saw this add in our front gate. Does anything look more disgusting to you then this? Salchi Pops - mmm. Just when you thought Pizza Hut could not out-do themselves, they always come through....

You've been there before

You don't eat breakfast. You had a small lunch. Its starting to get late and you you are hungry. You love pizza and do not get it very often. You stare at the three sizes....you don't even acknowledge the first two because towards the end you read 'Eliminator' as the last size. Its simply gravy that when you buy one eliminator, you get the another entire one free. Then, as icing on the cake, you impulse buy spicey buffalo wings as well. Needless to say, more than half of our already too small freezer is full of pizza and I feel moderately ill. On this evening, Dominos wins the battle, yet again.

I wish I could report that we are all healthy besides the pizza overeating, but, no. Christy got over her pink eye in the left eye on Monday which was nice, but then caught it in her right eye. Thankfully though she managed to chase that out with some antibiotics. Elizabeth and I both have colds and by Christy's increasingly low voice, she is either taking HGH or she has the same thing we do (PLEEEAAASSEEE be the second).

I have a few more pictures. A couple below show the kids and I having a fun activity last weekend - washing the car. I asked them if they wanted to help me. They assured me yes, but the did nothing of the sort. None the less, it was fun to spray them with the hose for a bit. I have also included some pictures from the traditional dance put on buy several of our teachers at language school. It was really great to see....the pictures don't do it justice, but you can get a small taste of the event from friday.

The 'anti-help' as I like to call them. Every time I finally got the car clean of soap, they soaped it up again.
The real brains behind the operation. Did you forget that I dented my van 2 months ago? I didn't. There is the orange dent from the gate in the picture.

This water is cold....why am I out here?

Who wants to be a billionaire?

Times in the U.S. and around the world can be pretty scarey. Oil is expensive, food is expensive and how we might afford things in the future is uncertain. However, when I read arcticles like this, it is a reminder to me that as bad as things are, we are still in a different stratosphere then many other people. In the picture you can see the 500 million-dollar-note in Zimbabwee. They just added a 100 billion-dollar-note to keep up with their 2.2 million percent inflation. 80% of their population lives below the poverty line and they have shortages of basic goods. Puts it in perspective, no?

Little glimpses of the past...

It seems to me that sometimes when I am missing the U.S. more than usual, little things that made me laugh back there often cheer me up. Today was one of those days. Believe it or not, it was not the 'Chuck Norris is so...' email that circulated back maybe 3 years ago - I'm saving that one for another day. Today, rather, it was an email that my brother sent me maybe....hmm....seven years ago that I cried when I watched it. At the risk of losing more prayer supporters I'll embedded it below. You have to use my lense. I grew up playing Ikari Warriors, Street Fighter (I,II,III, Hyper, Versus Capcom, IV, Super Hyper, etc) and also other competition martial arts style games. This little short makes fun of everything that was both stupid and unfair about those games, and thus, makes me laugh. This game actually looks about as fair as the original Star Wars Return of the Jedi arcade game for those of you that can think back that far. I'm thinking specifically when you are flying on your vehicle through the forest after the imperial storm trooper - yeah, thats right - crazy hard.

As I was trying to transfer some files...

My computer told me the file would take a while. About 77 years....its going to be a long afternoon. I need to contact my friend who works at Microsoft and tell him it is crazy that this message would ever come up....ever.

Another week in paradise

Generally, a slow week except for the following:
1. Sammy got a fever right before his birthday
2. Christy got Pink-Eye on Thursday
3. I caught a cold this morning
4. Someone t-boned our car back in the states (in a parking garage!)
5. Someone hit my van on Saturday here in Costa

However, I want to turn a new leaf and be positive too:
1. Sammy had a great birthday
2. We had a date on Saturday as one of our friends watched the kids. It was nice to sit in peace and talk some without having our ears yelled in or me having to say, 'No no no no no no no'
3. Our landlord fixed the shower in our bathroom on Saturday
4. The person who t-boned my car in the US admitted guilt so it makes it easier with insurance
5. The person who hit my car here damaged his fender, but luckily only hit my tire which was fine

Besides all that happenings, things are good. I happen to have a lot of pictures so I've posted them all at once below here. The slideshow was an easier route, but if you want any individual pictures you should be able to pull them directly off the online photo album. If you have a slow internet connection or worse yet a dial up, this post will kill you. Sorry.

Lizzy gets more girl every day. She constantly talks about painting her nails or dressing up. In this short video, Christy has dressed her up with the new play silks and made her into a butterfly princess. Lizzy was pretty pumped. As a guy from an all-guy family, I don't get it.



Sammy's birthday was last week, he had a great time. We were hyping it the whole week before - so when July 16th finally rolled around, he was pretty excited. Christy, as usual, made the day very special with cake and many fun homemade gifts. I got him a soccer ball that had Nemo on it, but I had already given it to him the month before so they kids had two balls to play with instead of just one. Roxana got him a cute outfit and also a toy car that moves and signs on its own. I hope it runs out of batteries soon.



Christy did not go to school on Friday because she had to go to the hospital to get her eye checked out. We thought Lizzy might have pink eye too (was a little red and she was rubbing it). Thankfully, she did not. She enjoyed the day because she got to stay home from school and play with mom and Roxana.



Here are some shots we snapped this morning just for fun. Its a lazy day now. I am sick and Christy has pink eye - so we listened to church online and played some.