Costa Rica, cont.

Sara worked on Tuesday, so I had Simon to myself for several hours. Well, Patricia was there, but I pretty much had Simon the whole day and let her get on with her work. That child is a hand full! He is a 1 yr old with a mission, and he can't wait to do it. He loves to push buttons and play with anything electronic, which he really isn't allowed to do so he gets a little frustrated when you pull him away from the entertainment center, but otherwise is perfectly content to play with his toys. They have a cute toy that has a big magnet on the back, and several smaller pieces that go with it that also have magnets. They keep these on the fridge, so he has something to play with when you're in the kitchen. This would work great, and he does often play with it, but he really loves appliances. So, if you're going to open a hot oven, you have to be sure of where he is, and if you can get it open, take out the cookies, and close it before he gets there. He is the fastest crawler I have ever seen! You can always tell when someone starts the dishwasher, washer, or dryer because he makes a beeline to the kitchen or laundry room.

Over the next several days we spent a lot of time just hanging out, and I got to spend a lot of time with the boys. Malachi and I played castle, and "I'm invisible so you can't see me, but you think the castle must be haunted, cause I'm going to make a lot of noise.", board games, coloring, hide and seek, and watched a few movies together. I had a lot of fun and I miss him so much! But, Sara and I also went to the mall and Simon had his first haircut, and we went to the spa where a friend of hers works. Sara got a pedicure, and I got a facial. I've never had one before, I've got to say that my skin was great afterwords, but I'm not sure I'll ever do it again. It kind of hurt!

I got a tour of the embassy. Very nice!! Both Sara & John work there, and we timed it so that after the tour, John took us to lunch. We went to this little, tiny place across the street from the Embassy. I think there were about 7 tables, and the front of it was wide open. They make roasted chicken there, in this big brick walk in oven, and they use chopped up coffee trees to fuel it. It was the BEST chicken I've ever had. It was so tender, and it was so good.

Over the course of the week I learned that I had a lot of their life in Costa Rica wrong. Yes, they have a big house, and a housekeeper/nanny. They live in a gated community, with guards who patrol it after dark, and they have good jobs. But, except for the housekeeper, it's very expensive to live there. 1 lb of bacon costs $7.00. 1 lb of butter costs $8.00, and a tiny little container of real maple syrup costs $30.00. And that's at Costco!!! Patricia is the housekeeper, and Tico's are used to not making much money, but S & J decided to pay her more than the going rate. She has 2 children, and she does a great job taking care of the house and kids.The average income for a Tico is the equivalent of $5,000.00. I think life must be very hard for them.

John left for his trip to Equadore, and we had dinner at the house of some co-workers of Sara. They had a small dinner party and the food was great! And so was the company. It was a very pleasant evening. That was Friday night. Saturday morning we went to the farmer's market. The produce there is fantastic! It's so incredibly fresh. There were a lot of people there. I had told Sara that I wanted to go to a market where people sell their wares, but that's in downtown San Jose, and that's not the most pleasant place. The traffic is a nightmare, so Sara didn't want to go, and I don't blame her. We went thru it, briefly, on our way back from the waterfall, and it had teeny, tiny little streets, most of which were 1 way, and the streets were typically short. I could see it being very easy to get lost there.

I'll leave the waterfall for my next blog. It deserves it's own blog. And, so does the trip home. That was wild! You're going to love it!!

P. S. please pray for Malachi and S & J. Malachi has had a LOT of seizures since I left. He had them the whole time I was there, but they were never more than 3 in a day (If I'm remembering that correctly) and they were all small seizures. He had no grand mal seizures. But, he has had 8 small, and 2 large seizures, since I left. I think that's right. Sara? Am I remembering that correctly?