New Pets & People

There are some interesting animals around here in Costa Rica. Nothing seems to look "normal" to me and I'm always thinking it has the possibility of biting me and giving me some jungle disease. Several months ago I posted a blog about our little frog named Agua that Emma loved and carried with her everywhere. Well, shortly after that was written, Agua just disappeared from his little cage. Don't know where he went...he was just gone! Emma was so sad.

Well, the next day we found this in our garden...

Pretty awesome right? Luckily we didn't touch it but just scooped it up and put it in the now-empty little cage. When I looked it up, it's called a "stinging caterpillar" and those cool little hairs all over it will sting you pretty badly. Awesome. I guess we'll just look at it then. Well, the next day, it was gone too. There is probably some animal that hunts down things in our little cage, so maybe we shouldn't put them on the front porch anymore.

The Gaults went to the beach the next weekend and brought us home 4 hermit crabs. The kids love them! Of course, Jack accidentally stepped on his and killed it the next day, but our other 3 are still with us. Their names are Hercules, Nutshell and Rocky. Emma took a picture here of Hercules. The kids forget to feed them most of the time so I can't believe they're still alive. Don't worry, they live on the floor in Jack's room and not on the scary front porch where animals disappear.

That sums up our pet journey for now.

On to new people...

We have people at our door daily selling things. And I mean all kinds of things and all kinds of people. Things like hot plates of food, eggs, knives, machetes, fruit, bread, perfume, and lots more. One guy showed up with a can of tuna and noodles and said he needed to come inside and cook them so he could eat. Yeah right. Then there was a mother and daughter selling these cute butterfly magnets for "quinientos"...I sat there a minute and struggled to remember what number that was. Luckily, the lady finally held up a 500 colon and I got the message. When she left her little daughter spoke in perfect English and said "thank you!". Ugh...now why didn't she help me out?!?! I'll never forget what "quinientos" means again though. Live and learn.




I had to include a picture from when Ivonne was babysitting our kids one day. Will and I went to lunch and came home to find all three of them playing Wii. Apparently the kids had talked her into playing MarioKart with them, and she laughed the whole time. So cute! We love Ivonne. She helps us out a lot in this Spanish journey!

And here is our new roommate for the next few weeks named Julianne. She is with us at language school but only studying for one trimester since she came here with a lot of Spanish already. She is a missionary from Virginia who is going to Bolivia in March. She was living with a Costa Rica or "tico" family for a while and then their house caught on fire from a bad computer wire. Since the living conditions became really difficult, we offered to let her move in with us for her remaining 6 weeks of school. We've loved having her here! Jack couldn't remember her name the first week she was here and always called her "the girl who burned her house down". Nice Jack. I'm sure that's how she likes to be known.

My kids wanted a dog...but we got them a Julianne instead!

We had a hair straightening party on Friday night so we were showing off our straight hair. Thanks to my friend Claudia for the 3 hour time commitment. Mine has gotten really long! Definitely time for a haircut when we come home.