Centipede Kisses for Andrea

on Saturday, May 9, 2009

OK, the title of this post refers to the fact that this morning I woke up to a centipede (3-4 inches long) crawling on my face! We have purchased mosquito nets to protect us from bug bites at night, but unfortunately ours fell on us in the night and we were too lazy to get up and replace it. I won't make the same mistake again!

What a week we've had! Here are some highlights:

  • We bought a car: a white 1999 Isuzu Rodeo. It seems to be in good condition and should serve us well. The rules of the road in Costa Rica are: whoever has the biggest vehicle has the right of way, and you don't hesitate, just GO and expect people to get our of your way! We won't use the car often, but it will help us get across town to friends' houses or on trips outside of San Jose for now, and later to get to work. The car buying process was quite an ordeal (added bureaucracy), and we're very thankful that we had Edwin (a Tico friend) to help us through it!
  • We ALL started school! We learned after our arrival that the kids and I didn't HAVE to wait for August to start as we had previously thought, so we turned on a dime and enrolled me in the language school and the kids in Sojourn Academy on the first day of orientation. It's been a shift in expectations, but a very good one. It will shorten our time at the school, Seth and I were placed in the same class so we can learn together (we really enjoy competing with each other), and gives the kids something to plug into right away to find new friends and have something to do besides bounce off the walls in our cozy house!
  • Our spanish classes started on Wednesday, and we can already tell we'll be learning SO MUCH. Please pray that we'll be able to learn quickly, eliminate our bad habits (and Mexican words that we picked up in KC that aren't the same in Costa Rica), and that the kids will adjust to going to school every day instead of one day a week. We're trying to get used to homework, schoolteacher expectations, etc. and it's quite a hustle to get the whole family up, dressed, through the one bathroom that we share, eat breakfast, pack lunches and walk to school by 7:30 am!
  • Seth and I are experiencing our first bout of "mal estomago" (intestinal unhappiness). Please pray that it will pass quickly (figuratively speaking, of course).
  • Sean and Jenny Evans arrived in Costa Rica yesterday, bringing four boxes of stuff that I left with them before we came. What a help they are to us in getting settled and having what we need from home to make a life here! They will spend some vacation time near Arenal (an awesome continuously erupting volcano to the north) and then we'll get to spend some time with them next Thursday before they go back to KC. We're excited to see people from home already!

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has give us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ through the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade -- kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1:3-5

Blessings,

Andrea

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