Quick Update!

A couple things...

-Jon got here safely and we are leaving tomorrow for some travels before heading back home.
-I GOT A JOB!! I will be returning to Costa Rica after the holidays to work at Sojourn! I am very excited about this (and so were my students). :)
-To improve my Spanish I will be moving in with a Tica lady who I met today. She is wonderful and I think we will have a lot of fun.

Thanks for your prayers...my future became much clearer in the last 24 hours!

Hippies and Futbol

Peace.

So Friday was "Blast from the Past" day at Sojourn. Being the fun and involved teachers that we are, Kate, Tricia, and I dug through our closets and swapped clothes until the perfect outfits were achieved. Thanks to Kate's jewelry collection our looks were completed. Our neighbors Steve and Diane were doing a photo shoot for us when Steve was inspired to go hippie as well. Needless to say, us girls were quite the hit at school and the children loved it. :)

Kim, Kate, Peggy, Me, and Tricia

I am SO inspirational.

To add even more excitement to the weekend we discovered that Sunday San Jose's futbol team, Saprissa, was having a promotion. Ladies wearing purple (the team's color) would get a free ticket! Clearly we had to go since we had bought Saprissa jersey's a couple months ago. This is when the adventure began. We bundled up (yes, it can be chilly in Costa Rica), took a bus into downtown San Jose, and then grabbed a taxi to the stadium. On our way to find the ticket office we stopped so Laura could buy a jersey. Apparently a Tico newscrew thought this would be a great clip for the nightly news and started filming us. Being the dignified Gringas that we are, we broke into uncontrollable laughter and quickly fled the situation. So we make it into the ticket office and Trish and I go to the counter. I tell the man in Spanish that we all have purple shirts and need free tickets. He tells me that we can only get in for free if we go in with paying men (a small detail the website failed to mention). But, gracias a Dios, at the ticket counter next to us were 4 Tico hombres listening in on our conversation. They quickly offered to get us into the game. We, having no other option, started laughing and agreed. Thus began a night of lots of Spanish, laughing, and yelling "gol" and "vaya, hombre!" It was a good time. And Saprissa ended up beating Liberia 5- 0.

Costa Rica never fails to offer me fun times and new adventures. Life here is always full of surprises. It is sad that I will be leaving in just 2 short weeks (November 28), but I still have lots of travels and even a Thanksgiving meal to enjoy before I fly home. And...Jon comes on Friday!

Please continue to pray for future decisions as I start to finalize plans for January and beyond. There is still a lot up in the air, but God has a plan...He just hasn't shown me yet. :)

Fun Times, Trick or Treaters, and a Lot of Rice

Buenas! This week has been packed with cultural experiences and Spanish practice...always a good thing! Sunday we had a combined birthday fiesta for Tricia and Kim V at the neighbor's house. We ate Tres Leches cake (delicious!) and spoke lots of Spanish with our Tico neighbors. Monday Tricia and I spent the evening at Carlos and Clara's house practicing conversational Spanish. It was so fun! On Tuesday us girls had another fiesta at Kim V's Tico family's house for her birthday. We ate lots of pizza, some chocolate cake, and basically made fools of ourselves in front of her Tico family. They loved us (we know this because they invited us over again!). We even played the Spanish version of Scrabble! Wednesday and Thursday were low key...lots of planning and work to get done. However, I did complete my garden and it looks beautiful! It has been my project these last few weeks.

Friday was, of course, Halloween. While not much celebrated in Costa Rica some of the gringo families were ready for a taste of home. So the children dressed up and went to Halloween parties at each others' houses. Some even stopped by to trick or treat at our house. :) (My students are Batman and the gypsy)

This weekend was a good one. It is an amazing feeling to go to bed without setting the alarm for 5: 15 in the morning. Gracias a Dios for days to sleep in! After the feria on Saturday us girls hopped on a bus and headed to Moravia, a small town right out side San Jose that has tons of artisan stores. We explored the shops and got a head start on Christmas shopping. I bought some beautiful things and it was great to get out of San Jose for a bit! On the way back we stopped in downtown San Jose for some more shopping and sight seeing. We are getting to know our way around the city fairly well now which makes it much less intimidating. We ended the night with some Chinese food and a grocery store run.

Today I learned how to cook Costa Rican food! Clara had us girls over for a cooking demonstration. We made arroz con pollo, ensalada de papa, and arroz con leche. Steve and Diane came over to enjoy the feast with us. Everything was delicious! I was very proud of myself for a whole day of Espanol and being a real Tica in the kitchen.

It is crazy for me to think that I fly out November 28. It is certainly coming quickly and this makes me very sad. Around the 2 month mark is just about when you start to really feel comfortable and really start to deepen friendships...and now I am leaving in a few weeks. No bueno. Please pray for me as God makes the future clearer. Because right now, I have no idea where He is going to take me. :)

PS- I forgot to mention that we redecorated the house and hung up Christmas lights! It is looking to homey and festive over here! (and perhaps a little ghetto, but we do the best we can...)