Will the "real" Jungle Cruise please stand up! Part 1 of 3

Two-toed sloth (Madison tells me it is the two-toed because of it's "plain" face - see other sloth photo) Grey-necked (something - can't remember) - extremely rare! We were priviledged to see it at all (Madison wants to pluck it because it reminds her of a chicken...hmmm...)

Biggest darn crocodile we saw that day - and we saw plenty!
Strawberry Poison Dart Frog (some held it, then washed their hands afterwards - not thinking I want to hold something that secrets a heart-stopping poison thank you very much)
The "alpha" male howler
The three toed sloth (see it's spectacled face - isn't it darn cute?!)
The girls having a blast!

Pink spoon-billed (something - NOT a type of flamingo - they just eat the same diet as a flamingo which causes the coloration of their feathers)
Pelicans in a row (have you seen Finding Nemo?!....*bloop*.....NICE!)
type of heron in flight
A Jesus Christ lizard (yes, that's it's name - it can run across the water for over 50 feet). This is the male lizard, the female is quite unremarkable.

This first blog entry is for the animals we saw during our trip. Part two will look at the plant life, and part three will be completely dedicated to the turle hatching, complete with video! Stay tuned!

The entire time Madison and I were on this trip this weekend, I kept thinking it looked so much like Disneyland. What?! I know - that's what you are thinking. But the reality is, it was SO incredible, I kept thinking it couldn't possibly be real! But there we were - riding in a boat through some of the most incredible scenery I have ever seen (and that's saying a lot - I've been to a LOT of places!). I have so many pictures, but I am going to narrow them down to a select few.

This was a two day trip for Madison and I while Mike was out of country to a leadership conference. We had the privilege of travelling to Tortuguero - where green sea turtles return every year to lay their eggs. There is a huge conservation effort going on to ensure the survival of this incredible species - and it's a huge success!! Our tour guide is a certified egg/hatchling handler, and he gave us the rare opportunity to "escort" newly hatched turtles to the sea. Yes, that means both Madison and I handled newly hatched turtles. Please enjoy the ride with us.

The green Jesus debate

Don't touch your monitor....don't adjust those dials...yes, Jesus is green!

One of the first things we noticed, over 6 weeks ago, when we first came to our new school were the murals painted around the children's school. Rainbows, Noah's ark, etc. However, the one that really had/has us puzzled is the green Jesus. No, the color on your monitor isn't wrong, and no, they didn't run out of paint, and no, it's not that they didn't have "flesh" colored paint. We are still trying to decide why He's green...the only thing we have come up with is this - there is a term for children of missionaries. Actually, there are two. The first is MK (Missionary Kid), however, the newest one is TCK (Third Culture Kid). The explanation is this - you are American, but not in America, you are living in another culture, and although you may be entrenched into it, you still don't become Honduran (in our case). So, kids tend to develop another culture completely - hence the name third culture kid. There have been books written about this phenomenon. Anyway, I say all that because during our orientation week, someone was giving a talk on TCK's. They explained it this way - your primary culture is "blue", and your new "host/home" country is "yellow" - and since you are a child of both cultures, you are mixed, and become "green" - so we are thinking that perhaps Jesus is painted green because He is a God of all cultures, and they wanted the kids to be reminded of this?! The debate goes on, and I don't know that we will ever get a real reason why He's green, but the bottom line is He IS a God of all cultures, but I just KNOW He isn't green!

Scuba

Who's that girl with the tank on her back...it's me...it's me...

Hey there - in the midst of learning Spanish, living in Costa Rica, trying to cook everything from scratch - we do manage to eek out a little bit of fun time. There are some students from our language institute that have banded together, and are taking PADI instructions from a local Costa Rican gentleman. This weekend we had our two confined water dives. This is where we learned most of our safety items - flooded masks, swimming without a mask, removing weights removing and putting back on all of our equipment, etc (all at the bottom of a 12 foot pool). This is a 5 week class in which we receive 2 hour classes and a test each week. We are 4 weeks into the class, we've done our confined water dives. All that is left - we have 1 more class, then in two weekends we head out to the ocean for our open water dives. We have 2 dives on Saturday, and 2 dives on Sunday. Mike and Madison will be going with me - they will be swimming and playing on the beach while I dive. We are looking at getting both of them certified next trimester.

Church

Getting spiritually fed has become part of our weekly routine. We have chapel at school twice a week - it's in English - worship music (I play twice a month), a small sermon (sermonito?!) - we go to a local church for service, (all in Spanish), then come home and have a family study followed by downloading a sermon from Piper, or SOPC, or other resources. Here is a little taste of the church we attend:

A taste of home

We received TWO carepackages this week!!! The first one was from my mother-in-law - it contained (most importantly) three ponchos!!! We all used ours time today - we had the most torrential downpour (aguacera) - lightning struck in the middle of town! The tree in front of the mall that Mike went to was struck and fried by lightning! The second craziest storm we have been in. We also received lots of jelly bellies - a GREAT treat!

The second carepackage we received this week (how lucky are we?!) was from our good friends the Hoffman's. It included Starbursts, M&M's (dark chocolate - COOL!), beef jerkey - and two great books you may have heard of: Un pez, dos peces, pez rojo, pez azul (One Fish, Two Fish, Red fish, Blue Fish), and Huevos verdes con jamón (green eggs with ham - although it isn't Sam-I-Am, it's Juan Ramón...). AWESOME!!! I've already red them twice! And they make complete sense to me - even if I didn't already know the stories - good to be confirmed in our language acquisition! YEEHAH!! Emily Hoffman was kind enough to send a (very funny) note inquiring if it was raining or not :-)

Thanks so much for the goodies everyone! You don't know how far a taste from home goes - it goes a LONG way!

oh be careful little mouth what you say...

You know, besides learning about the culture, and learning to speak Spanish, you also need to develop a sense of WHAT you are saying, and HOW you are saying it. Let's take a look at a few examples.

1. You are late to a party - please be sure to say "lo siento estoy tarde, yo embarazoso" (I'm sorry I'm late, I'm embarassed) because if you say "lo siento estoy tarde, yo embarazada" you would actually say I'm sorry I'm late, I'm pregnant. What one letter can do!

2. We are very excited to be in Costa Rica, so we would say "Nosotros mucho entusiasmodo vivimos en Costa Rica!" (we are very excited to live in Costa Rica), make sure you don't say "Nosotros much excitado vivimos en Costa Rica!" - seems to be right - exicted, excitado?! Well, let's just say it's not THAT kind of excited...

3. And you go to a hotel and your husband calls down to get some extra towels, so he asks for "toallas" (towels), make sure he DOESN'T ask for los paños (towels), because THOSE kind of towels are used by women once a month.

4. And you love your mother dearly, so instead of calling her the formal "madre" (mother), you lovingly call her máma (breast), so make sure you call her mamá (watch that accent!)

5. Finally, you also love your father dearly, so you don't want to call him "padre" (father), so you call him pápa (potatoe), so make sure you call him papá (watch that accent again).

There are so many other lovely examples, but some can't be said in mixed company. So enjoy these, and don't be excitado or embarazada if you call your mamá a máma, or your husband picks up some toallas from the store when you really needed paños. Adiós pápa!

Spanish from a "veggie's" perspective

Pobre Tomate! Gotta love it! 'nuff said!