dia cinco!

wow i can't believe we've already been here for 5 days. we have homework pretty much every day, or at least jayne does and i help her... i don't get homework! we also have an oral exam every thursday, then a written on fridays. so tomorrow will be our first exam! ah! and instead of studying... i'm updating my blog... bad idea. but oh well! i don't think it will be too bad!
our internet wasn't working for the past few days, but today Amira called and made the people fix the internet ha ha it was funny.  so here are some of our pictures from the last few days!

there is graffiti all over the city. it's so colorful and wonderful and i love it!

to add to my collection of doors around the world

probably  my favorite house thus far in costa rica. you can't see much of it here... but trust me, it's adorable

this is ILISA. the school that we go to every day para aprender espanol 

just riding the bus... we take the bus everywhere and we even know our bus driver. his name is don Luis and he is the nicest person ever. he helps us get around and tells us which stops we need to get off on. he's the best!

so this rabbit was super popular in mexico with my kids last summer. especially Martin. he used to draw this rabbit all over his homework and whenever he got one of my whiteboard markers he would draw this on the board. he called it 'raggin rabbit' ha ha i laughed really hard when i saw it on one of the buildings here

the money here is so colorful and awesome! $1=500 colones... i feel rich paying with $2000 or $10000

i also kind of feel like a pirate carrying around all this gold! arg!

este es nuestra casa!

this is what we got for lunch today... it was delicious! not sure why jayne is doing that with her face... the restaurant wasn't that sketchy

this little creeper is in the mall. you can ride on a little car that he is leaning over... creepy 

we discovered that there is a church at the end of our street! woo! we're definitely going to go here at least once before we leave costa rica

so you have to be really careful while walking around. not just because there are crazy drivers who would choose to hit you and keep driving then have to slow down for you, but because there are random holes all over! this one had a good 7-10 foot drop... ouch!

jayne thought this tree looked like a finger... it kind of did so i took a picture... but it doesn't really look like one anymore ha ha

el dia numero dos

hoy fue muy divertido... today was our first day of school. we had to be to the bus stop by 7:20 en la mañana! muy  temprano! pero, esta bien. we had a short orientation and then split up into our classes. today was basically a review which was nice... the only homework i got was to talk to Amira (our host mom) about typical costa rican food ha ha easy enough! after class, we went on a walking tour of the city. very helpful. i think we know our way around pretty good because we went through the whole route twice and it's really easy to remember different places, so i don't think we'll get too lost :)

i only took two pictures today... oops. but these show the view from our school. neat.

costa rica is a cool place

vamos a costa rica!

After a long flight to Dallas, and then another to Miami, we finally made checked into the airport hotel (yes... we actually stayed in an airport at a hotel, and it was nice too!) The hotel was a little weird thought, because it almost felt like we were on a cruise ship or something... super quiet, and we only had that one little window, which was actually two really thick windows.

 This is the long hallway we walked down to get to our room...it was never ending

 the view from our little window of the airport!

 And we made it to Costa Rica today! after a good nights sleep, we boarded our last plane. Once we landed, we went through customs, found our bags, and were welcomed to this fine country by tons of taxi drivers who wanted to take us anywhere we wanted. but we walked around them and found our group. Freddy, the nice man who drove the big van, pointed out all sorts of things in Costa Rica. He also explained that while we are here we must remember... pura vida. that is what Costa Ricans are all about.

This is our bedroom...

 dinning room...

 bathroom...

 living room...

 patio...

 and kitchen...

Today we're just relaxing... but en la mañana we start school! yea for learning spanish!

all in a month

well it's been a month since i last posted... and lots has happened!
lets start with grams. she turned 80! so old ha ha but we had a lovely family dinner in her honor at the lion house. yummy rolls.

hayden found my mustache mints. such a cutie with a stache.

 fuzzy picture, but i love it. such a small couch for so many people.

 i made mom try papusas! yum! and she actually liked them. yea for el salvadorian food

 we all happen to be wearing white dresses to church, so we had to take a picture!

 and then mush our faces together. ha ha

 and then we drove all the way to beaver just to see the eclipse. and it was neat!

emma graduated from 9th grade... actually she 'advanced' ha ha

 and henry graduated from preschool!

last weekend i flew up to portland to hang out with my dad... it was fun! we started out in portland and drove all the way down the coast to san francisco.

we went to this place called voodoo donuts. this is what their most famous donut looks like. ha ha it had raspberry jelly inside too.

 we even went to the beach, even though it was freezing!

 tree hugging in the redwoods.

 the trees were so HUGE that we went inside one. seriously... these trees are super, mega giant!

 we drove through a town in california called eureka! they had some of the cutest houses ever!

 then back in the redwoods again, we actually drove through this tree! GIANT!

 we stopped in willets on the way to san francisco and saw lucy! here she is driving her golf cart named flo. cause it has purple flames ha ha ha

 we rented bikes once we were in san francisco and literally rode them all day, all over the place. here we are riding across the golden gate bridge. cool!

 we found a cool art museum in golden gate park. this was one of the coolest pieces in there. it's a church made completely out of gun parts! so neat.

 and this was my favorite. i just love chairs.

 here are the seven sister houses. and this is the park where they filmed the first part of full house! love that show, and these houses. so cute.

 and this was dad's favorite part. lombard street. the curviest street ever! we actually walked our bikes up the other side (ridiculously steep) and then rode them down! so cool! i'm pretty sure i got in about 5 or 6 videos and pictures of random people on the side of the street cause we were the only ones riding down on bikes! ha ha

we also rode on a trolley.

 it just so happened that we were in san francisco for the golden gate bridge's 75th birthday. ha ha good timing. so we got to see a pretty great firework show off the bridge. lucky us.

 then the last day we just wandered all over town again and we happened to walk past this cool building. it's the art palace.

 we walked down pier 39 too. it was pretty windy and kinda cold, but super fun!

 and this guy is my favorite. i have this obsession with taking pictures of doors everywhere i go. which is a lot of places. so i have a pretty good collection going. well we were walking back to the hotel, getting ready to fly out and we passed this guy on the street, and guess what he sells?? pictures of doors!! he's from cuba so he has pictures from all over cuba of these cool doors and old cars. so i got one and then had to get a picture taken with him too. he was so cute, and had to make sure that his lovely little sign was in the picture too. he even took his hat off for the picture.

una fiesta para Shelene!

me and Lindsay worked hard making the treats and decorating our rep room!

piñata cookies! either snails or whales... they are delicious!

Shelene loved her party!