Costa Rica / Volunteering 
Apr 16, 2010 7 Comments Recently, we paid a visit to an animal rescue center near La Fortuna, Costa Rica called Proyecto Asis. Our kids can never seem to get enough of animals, and this seemed like a good opportunity to not only see them, but interact with them, learn about them, feed them, and even clean up after them. And it was a blast! The drive toward La Fortuna...
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Costa Rica Apr 05, 2010 10 Comments Today we had the awesome experience of visiting both Poás volcano (the one we smell from our house), and the La Paz waterfall gardens, where we got to hold toucans, blue morpho butterflies, and red-eye tree frogs, take a ride in a painted ox cart, eat old fashioned Costa Rican treats, and see lots of other animals. What an incredible day! If you ever have...
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Costa Rica Mar 28, 2010 4 Comments The highlight of our trip to Nicaragua was actually in Costa Rica, just 2 1/2 hours from our house in Grecia. We took a detour on our way back home to see the rainforest in Monteverde. It’s actually quite close geographically, but you have to drive up a steep dirt road for almost an hour to get there. This trip made us very glad we...
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Costa Rica Mar 27, 2010 4 Comments On our way back from Nicaragua, we saw a sign for a zoo called Africa Mia (My Africa) near the town of Liberia, Costa Rica. We didn’t know anything about it, but had some extra time, so we thought we would check it out. Africa Mia has over a dozen different kinds of African animals, including zebras, giraffes, bongo, ostrich, and more, many of which...
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Costa Rica Mar 27, 2010 7 Comments Because we’re living in Costa Rica on tourist visas, we need to leave the country every 90 days in order to renew our visas. There are so many different rumors about what the actual laws are concerning these visa runs, and no one seems to know the answer for sure. (Well, many think they know the answer, but there are a lot of contradictory opinions)....
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Costa Rica Mar 19, 2010 9 Comments Today we decided to take advantage of having a car (yes, we finally got one!), so this afternoon we drove to a nearby town called Zarcero. It’s about an hour away from our house in Grecia, and has some beautiful topiary gardens in its central park reminiscent of Dr. Seuss trees. On the way there, Emily was getting a little car sick, so we stopped...
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Costa Rica Mar 13, 2010 6 Comments After weeks of looking for cars, filling out paperwork, dealing with required lawyers, setting up a corporation, waiting for wire transfers, waiting for plates, waiting for repairs, and lots of red tape, we… still don’t have a car… Before we moved here, we were told it’s difficult to get things done in Costa Rica – that everything moves at a slower pace here. And I...
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Costa Rica / Family Mar 12, 2010 5 Comments This week, my mom sent us a Spring/Easter package which contained some cards, candy, books, stickers, and more. We’ve been enjoying all that was inside the package, but we’ve had an unusual amount of fun with the cardboard box it came in. When you don’t have a lot of toys laying around, and you’re stuck at home because you don’t have a car yet (more...
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Costa Rica Mar 04, 2010 6 Comments There is a waterfall about 15 minutes from our house by foot. The walk there is through various trails and meadows, with some nice sights along the way. We finally took the opportunity to visit the waterfall last week for the first time, and loved it! Our gardner, José, led us there, and also brought along his wife and son (very sweet family). You have...
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Costa Rica Feb 14, 2010 6 Comments We’ve been living in our house in Grecia, Costa Rica for over a week now and are starting to feel more settled. The plumbing issues have all been fixed, our Internet is working, and we’re starting to get into more productive routines. Now that we’re “living” here, more than “vacationing”, we’re finding ourselves settling into many of the habits we had before we left (ie....
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