I don't have too much more to tell in addition to what Becky's already said. Mostly just that I love the Willoughbys :) They are some of my most favourite people in the world, and i'm soo happy to be with them for two weeks!

Here are some more pictures from the past five days:

Zach, Becky, me, and Laura. Laura's a friend of the Willoughbys, and we were celebrating her birthday. We beat the snot out of the adults that evening in Pictionary - no contest.

This is us with a lovely view of the Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak behind us. Looking at different cameras, obviously.

Terri, Zach, and us sitting on top of buffaloes.

Some deer we saw walking around the Garden of the Gods

As three of the last five days have been vacation days, we haven't been up to much work yet besides painting. Some upcoming projects include baking cookies, cleaning, buying new playground equipment, work in the kitchen, and possibly some more painting. So, basically a lot of prep for summer is the gist of what we'll be doing.

The Willoughbys are pretty good about taking pictures, so that explains the sudden onslaught of photos. We're also in a safer place where we don't feel so awkward about pulling cameras out. Hope you enjoy the photos!

colorado therapy

yes, it's me AGAIN!!
i won't say much, because i'll let kenrdra tell what's been up (if she ever gets back on the blog!), but i just must say how much i've been enjoying being here. they are so great here, SO much fun to be with. they treat us well :) the "work" they have us doing here (so far) has been painting. we have been painting silhouettes on the walls of the staff dining room and.. well you'll see the pictures. i am really just wanting to write about how much i am enjoying it. some of you might know that i fancy myself an artist, but i haven't done any kind of artwork since..well too long. no REAL artwork since last summer. very sad. anyhow, it's not like i'm doing anything freehand, or even that requires all that much artistic ability. all we are doing is painting in the lines. but to be able to do this mindless painting has been absolutely therapeutic for me. just time to think, or NOT think, whichever i just let my mind wander and i totally get lost in it. i have no idea how much time passes, and before i know it they are telling me to put my brushes down and take a break, get some lunch. i love painting.
i love this kind of work!
have some pics:




(btw, i added a few extra photos in the previous post, if you haven't seem them)

and here i am on the plane. planes are so boring. i always bring a book, ipod, journal, and such things to do on the plane. but somehow, planes just suck the fun out of everything. even movies. i don't know if it's the movies they choose, or if it's, again, the work of the fun-killer that just makes all movies just...bleh. we just finished one with john (and joan) cusack with a kid who was or thought he was a martian - ??? yeah...it wasn't cute. *bleh*
so that's the mood i'm in right now. i really don't feel like blogging either, but..i took out my computer to find something interesting and..just decided to write about it.
oh, here's something: how about i write about how much i hate american airlines. crappy planes, crappy service, crappy food... the stewardesses are always so rude. i've never had a positive experience with american airlines. psh..
ok, so this woman sitting a few rows ahead of me has gotten up no less than 20 times in the past 3 hours that we've been on this flight. it's getting ridiculous, no one could possibly drink that much to go to the bathroom THAT many times in such a short amount of time. but what else could she be getting up for? she's not the only one, people are all up and about on this flight. it's kinda getting annoying. if one more person's butt hits my arm while they're walking down the aisle, i might have to tell someone off. the stewardesses don't seem to have a problem doing it, why can't i?
sigh...two more hours...

anyhow, if the whole "i'm on a plane" didn't already help you figure it out, we've left costa rica... part of me was ready to go, but it still made me sad to say goodbye to my new friends. what a fun group!! they were so great.
yesterday we had a little farewell party.. *sigh* goodbyes never get easier. trust me - i've said ALOT of goodbyes in my life. but i do have some new friends to boast of :) and who knows, maybe i'll see them again some day. i hope i do.

but now we are on to new things, which is also exciting! we will be in colorado springs for the next 2 weeks before we are off again, this time to the philippines!! should be a fun time. i've heard alot of good things about the people we're visiting in CO. friends of the mccrackens. should be good!

right, well i'd write more, but my battery isn't lasting. i'll post this when i get to colorado and i'll even add a few pics of our last day(s) in CR.

our last day with our friends...



me and celeste - isn't she huge??

this is our leaving costa rica rainbow. we could see both ends, but i this is the most vivid pic i got. call me corny, but i take it as a promise that we will see our friends again.

Catching Up

Yes, I know I've been very neglectful in my blogging, but as Becky has rightly said, there is not much to blog about when most days are pretty much the same.

Now, that being said, this past week has had some new and interesting things thrown into the mix. Therefore - something to blog about! Last Thursday was our last day of English classes. What better way to end an English class then to watch an English movie? :D We set up the projector in the main room up at the Casa Grande and watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with our students. Lots of laughs, especially from us Grekas, since you just have to know Greeks to know how funny the movie really is. Nothing was funnier though, then when our two young male students started tearing up at the end (when Gus gives Toula and Ian the house), and the four ladies in the room remained dry-eyed. Needless to say, we laughed pretty hard at them, which was fine, cuz they laughed at themselves :D

So that was a fun ending to the English classes. From Friday to Sunday, we stayed with a Tico family, the Ugaldes, which, for me, was one of the highlights of our time here. The Ugaldes were incredibly hospitable and kind to us, who had never met them before, and they weren't shy about practicing their English with us. We spent most of the weekend with their daughter, Esther, who is our age and speaks great English. She and David (one of our English students, also her boyfriend) spent Saturday showing us different things to do in San Jose.

Our first stop was a museum which exhibited the lifestyle of Costa Rican Indians several hundred years ago - their traditions, their positions in the tribes, the minerals they mined. Interesting enough, but I liked the Rembrandt exhibit more.

A statue of an Indian warrior. Don't you think all of that gold would be unnecessary going into battle?


Becky, David, and I

Waiting for the best nachos in San Jose

The best nachos that finally came :)

The most recent addition to my ear :)

Aren't they cute... :)

For now, we are enjoying having Woody and Su back from Israel. House-sitting was fun, but it's nice to have people back in the house.

Five more days till Colorado!

-Kendra

Q & A

aaahhh yes, i know, i know.
i ask for blogging ideas, i get plenty of them, and then i don't follow up.
sorry

local info...hmm. well, the multiplication center is in a town called San Isidro. we are in the mountains and it really feels...country-home-ish to me, (but that might be because i have pretty much always lived in the city). the main people around from day to day are those who have their offices there, but there are a lot of different things go on around the multiplication center such as retreats, seminars, youth groups, bible studies, and of course english classes :) on the other side of the compound after a beautiful garden and a soccer field there are houses where several IT missionaries live. this is where we are at. we have been staying in woody and su roland's house, the leaders of all of teams of IT Latin America. they have been away for the past two weeks and we have been holding up the fort, house/dog sitting for them.

the people here are great. we have had some really great times, especially with our english class. we have not really connected so much to the gringas (north americans) as much as i would have thought, even tho we live next door to several gringa families. but this weekend we had the chance to spend some time in the home of some ticos and they were just so sweet and so hospitable. i am really glad we got to do that. (kendra will write more about that.)

the food here is so delicious! fruit is my favorite thing, and i think i've already talked about the papaya smoothie i have for breakfast every morning... honestly, that might have to be my favorite thing about costa rica - that is how serious i am about loving this smoothie. haha, anyways, there are always fresh juices with every meal, and there's always beans and rice, and often "platanos maduros" which is another one of my favorite things: fried plantains. so good! this weekend we went and stayed with a tico family and so i got to have some REAL, home-cooked, costa rican meals. so good! reminded me of hogme, just with a costa rican feel to it :)
and yeah, the ice cream here is delicious too! graneizado is some goood stuff. it's ice cream, and fruit, and powdered milk and condensed milk all layered into a cup to make a sort of sundae - sounds odd, especially with the powdered milk, but it is good. oh, and the powdered milk they have here has brought my enjoyment of coffee to a new level. i am definitely not leaving the country without some.
i wish i could say i have been cooking for us now that we have a good kitchen and a house to ourselves, but i haven't been. i have a few times (and it's been quite delicious!) but before su left she took care of all of our meal plans, most of which we have with our neighbors, the other IT missionaries. i can't say their exactly invites, because it's more a scheduled thing, whose turn it is to feed "las grekas" (that's what they call us :) i guess we are being well taken care of tho, so...no complaints.
the few times i have been able to cook, i was able to get a little taste of home - i don't know if i am just deprived from my mom's cooking, or what, but i was pretty impressed! (yes, i was impressed with ME!) just simple things, but still...home :) i've also made a few desserts for the class coffee break and stevie, the butloa came great - the whole tray went! (odd name, i know..it's a middle eastern sweet.)

ok, enough about food haha.

weather is GORGEOUS - i love warm and sunny. i am so thankful that we are here during the summer months where is always warm and sunny, because in their "winter" months, it is hot and humid and rainy - lots, and lots and LOTS of rain. rain and me don't get along and humidity and me...we are enemies. i love hot dry summers :)

ah and sandi asked about finances
honestly...i don't really know. i think i'm (we're) fine. but yeah, honestly i don't pay so much attention to my bank account. maybe it's faith, maybe i'm still a kid and too ignorant and irresponsible to pay attention to such grown-up matters. i'd like to give myself the credit and say i have faith, i know God has is all under control, but...i think it might be a bit of both.

i'm good for now tho, and i have no idea what the philippines will be like financially either, but i am REALLY really hoping that we have enough at that point to make one last stop in our journey.
you see, i don't know if we ever mentioned this but we are no longer going to kenya, as was originally planned to end our trip before returning to athens. with the civil war that went on there..just didn't work out. a little bit of a disappointment to no longer be going to africa. so now we are thinking and praying for a new place to open up for those last 3 weeks. it's more exciting this way, not knowing yet... :)

thanks again for helping me out with all the questions. i probably should have spread them out a bit and used them for a couple of different blogs but..oh well. too late! we are going through some changes now tho, so we should find more to report on.
i'm sorry if my writing makes me sound like i'm bored, or disinterested. it's just the writing that i am bored and disinterested in, not life!! but, i do need to get back in the habit of it, so don't let me slack anymore!

get by with a little help from our friends...

as some of you might have noticed, we have not been nearly as consistent in writing our blogs since we've come to costa rica. for some reason it just seems harder to blog about being here...we have about the same schedule everyday. unless you want to hear some of my lessons on irregular verbs..??? or, i think kendra is reading charlie and the chocolate factory in her class, if you're interested in some commentary on that. (that actually might be fun..)

anyways i was thinking if anyone had any questions or comments to leave, that we could answer it would help us out. maybe that could spur on some blogging ideas. that way i'd have blogging ideas, you would get your answers. interactive blogging - that's the idea!

thanks friends!

my dear readers,
i am so lazy. too incredibly lazy to write an update on what i'm doing. just not in the mood to write, i suppose.
WELL, i guess i could start with our weekend. it was really nice to have a beach getaway. Jaco is a beach about 3 hours from where we are in San Isidro on the pacific ocean side of the country. i have heard Jaco described more than once as the "Sodom and Gomorrah" of Costa Rica; the capital of drugs and prostitution. nice place, eh? it was not the nicest beach i've seen in my life, but we did find a nice spot a ways up from Jaco, away from the crowds and under some nice palm trees to relax. it was BLAZING hot and i loved it. the four of us (myself, kendra, and two other girls here) just hung out in the sun and cooled off in the not-so-cool water, ALL day. on friday we were there from 10 in the morning and stayed to watch a gorgeous sunset. i am the only one of us who did not get burnt to a crisp. on saturday we were met by 3 other girls from the team here who drove down for the day. we just chilled on the beach again, i got to surf a little, and then we went to these great waterfalls! it was just a little one but it was great cuz there were two layers to it with a pool on each layer. and you could jump from this rock into the pool, and you could slide down the waterfall. it was just really cool. somethign they would try to duplicate at a water park, but this was way better because it was natural.
my only regret is that I DIDN'T HAVE MY CAMERA!! no one did because we were all too afraid to bring our valuables. sigh...my poor camera missed all these GREAT photo opportunities.

ok, so that was pretty much the weekend. what a time difference it is between down on the shore and up here in the mountains! it is so windy and COOL up here. it was soooo nice and hot down there. i loved it! and now we are back here and back to teaching. i must say, tho teaching is not my thing (as i have said countless times) i am really enjoying it. not the teaching part, but just spending time with my students and talking - it's great. we have a lot of fun. they assured me yesterday that just being there and speaking all together in english is really helping them - MY TIME IS NOT IN VAIN!!
if i were being honest, i would have to admit that we haven't really connected with the team in the same way we had with the Oasis team, which has a similar feel to our own team, back in athens. we've gotten a wee bit lonely here. but that makes us all the more grateful for our "students" who we really enjoy spending time with. isn't it funny that nothing turns out like you expect it to...

me and my class

hello dear friends.
so sorry for the lack of updates. everyday life seems to sneak by without us doing anything to report on. or at least nothing that stands out as a MUST-write-about. and not right now, at 12:34 am. we are waking up at 5 tomorrow to head to jaco beach for the weekend and i am very excited. i will get to surf!! i love the beach. the only thing i'm a bit wary about is the numerous warnings i've gotten to be extremely careful there. apparently this beach that we are being taken to is known as the worst spot for crime. they will steal anything you take your eyes off of. i'm not gonna bring anything valuable so if they really want my flip flops that bad then they can just have them. still tho... the last thing i want to have to be as i'm trying to relax on the beach is careful.
anyways, i will be sure to give a thorough update on what's been up, as soon as i get back, as well as let you know what a gorgeous time i had at the beach. :)
good night all