Flooding

Last week we were celebrating the end of rainy season. This week we are mourning the death of 19 people who died last night in mud slides. Apparently hurricane Tomas is the culprit. We have had almost five inches in the past three days, and it is getting ready to start again.

We were on the way to school and the neighbor stopped us and informed us that schools would be canceled because of the disaster. Costa Rica has declared a National Disaster.

We were just bummed out because we missed our run yesterday, wow small bubble we live in.

In the meantime the U.S. delegate is heading to the Isla where there are continued conflicts over whose land is whose. Apparently the Nicas decided to dredge a little South and increase their holdings a little. Kind of a squatters right problem, which is not at all rare here.

The interesting part is the "pretend police" that keep showing up from Costa Rica. I am just waiting for the U.S to give the word for the 7,000 troops just chilling off the Pacific Coast. After all gotta keep those guys busy.

Don't Call Me White

My boys had a favorite song while they were growing up. I can remember the chorus, "don't call me white, don't call me white". Now why would anyone say that?

Read this quote:

"I'm tired of the title "racist" being rocketed towards anyone that feels people should only come into our country LEGALLY. I feel this way and calling me a racist will not scare me. My family and I lived in Costa Rica for a year...LEGALLY. We didn't go ANYWHERE without our passports...even to the grocery store! I didn't call any phone where I was prompted to push 2 for English, EVER"

Pretty outraged ha? Pretty sick of the whole illegal deal ha? You want to know a secret? They were illegal when they lived here! Yup I asked her when I met her if they did their leaves, well no but my hubby is a Tico so it is ok. No it is not ok, yes you are illegal.

When I reminded her of this after she left this message on FB she said "tee hee, I knew you would catch that Robbie". Ok then why the heck did you say it? Why in the heck did you even set yourselves up as an example of righteousness?

Yeah "don't call me white".

Gringa Feo?

We were invited to a friends birthday party this weekend. It was very nice and we enjoyed the company, well most of the company.

For some reason from the moment we moved here to Costa Rica three and a half years ago, there is one family in our circle that really does not like us. Actually they are racist and don't like anyone that is gringo or nica.

The thing is they don't even try to hide it. They will say really rude things to our family all of the time. Now these are not young people acting out of ignorance. They are the supposedly educated ones that should know better.

We are very good friends with their son-in-law and have complained to him several times of various offenses. O.k. for instance one time the "dowager" or mom of the clan, came up and started looking through my dreadlocks like she was looking for bugs. Her daughter laughed and told her to stop.

Think the really mean step mom and her really mean daughters in Cinderella.

In fact my daughter and her family will not even go to church with us or to any activity where this family is going to be. Which would be all of them.

For this birthday party I had brought a very good thai peanut noodle salad. Really good if I must say so myself. Hubby was in the dining room getting another plate of food and the dowager did not realize he was in the room. One of the other women in the room asked what the salad was. She responded that it was something the "gringa feo" brought.

Once she realized hubby was standing there she started back pedaling. For the first time she probably wished we did not know any Spanish. I walked in as he was questioning her about her comment and she was denying it. He just looked at me and told me what she had said. About this time someone had tasted the salad and they were all raving about it.

I have to admit it was weird they ate it on corn tortillas, but hey tortillas make everything better eh?

Back to my story. I was mostly just mad, but a little hurt. I am not used to grown women being so mean. Maybe I have been out of the loop too long and have not realized that people act like that. Please tell me it ain't so, people really don't act like that do they?

If so I will not go to anymore birthday parties for sure!

Friends and Visitors

Our visitors will be leaving tomorrow. This group has been a blast and we are sad to see them go. Tweeny worked hard to make sure they had fun and saw as much of Costa Rica as possible in budget.

It was great to have a fellow dreadlocker around to compare notes with. I have actually never been face to face with another dreader and been able to have a long conversation with them about their dreads. It is always interesting to find out why, how and when they began their journey.

We had such fun having them here that I signed us up for couchsurfing. We are officially a cs family and will host visitors now. It is great because they can read our profile and make sure they even want to stay here, and we can read theirs and make sure we want them to stay here.

Hopefully we will meet lots of amazing world travelers and find some new and exciting places we would like to go and visit. That list seems to grow longer instead of shorter though.

When these guys asked me what they could do to repay us for letting them hang here for 10 days, I told them the only requirement was they had to play me in a game of Scrabble. Yesterday we had our killer match of Scrabble and they let me win as they were supposed to, and life is great.

Distance Junky

I have decided I am a distance junky. Well I always knew I sucked at short races, especially sprints, but I am really loving distance. It is like I actually come to life about an hour of doing the sport. The only exception would probably be swimming, just because swimming back and forth is so darn boring. Oh yeah and the windtrainer or treadmill would also be the exceptions here, gotta be outside.

In the past when I have participated in sprint or even olympic distance triathlons I have not done too well. Unless of course there were no other old ladies there and then attrition comes into play for sure.

When I did Ironman Utah a few years back I actually placed in the upper third of my age group. In looking at my stats, because I do that and am actually pretty weird about it, I have finally figured out, don't enter short fast races.

My daughter always wants me to do 10k's with her and I refuse. It takes me 10k just to get warmed up and get the blood out of my stomach and into my legs.

Today I did a 9 mile run. For about the first mile I was thinking about how long this run was going to be. By mile four I was feeling pretty good and thinking how glad I was to be doing another loop. I was even able to kick it out a bit by mile 9, it felt sooo good.

When my daughter and I were training for Tamarindo marathon last year we so enjoyed our long runs. In fact we decided that after the race we would continue our long runs once a week. Needless to say we did not. Now that I have something to train for and am back on the long runs I am remembering how darn good it feels.

I am trying to talk my friend here in Costa Rica into doing the San Jose marathon with me in Dec. I think I will have to talk until Dec. to convince her!

More Robberies

Unfortunately our neighborhood store got robbed last week. He is the nicest guy. He speaks English and he and his wife lived in the States for a couple of years but have chosen to live here in Costa Rica. Gringos find it amazing that not everyone wants to live in the States by the way.

When hubby talked with Duglas, the neighbor that got robbed, he said that three other stores in the area were also robbed last week. What a bummer to see that kind of crap going down in your own neighborhood. He also told hubby that he was robbed of $400.00 and his wedding ring and some office supplies. The other stores suffered greater losses. One, the Cheena store on the corner had almost $8,000.00 taken. Of course everyone was wondering why in the heck anyone in Costa Rica would keep that much money in their store.

When baby and I stopped in at the store on the way home from school today things were a little different. You now have to shut the gate when you come in and there is a really tight spring on it to make sure it shuts and locks. He used to keep the gate open most of the time.

The good news was he still has rat poison. Yup that time of the year again. They are out and about. I looked out my kitchen window and scurrying across our car port was a big fat gray rat. EEEEWWWWWWW! You know I would see it the day hubby left for Nica. Of course when the cat is away the rats will play! The last time we had a rat problem was when hubby was in the Osa Peninsula working for two months. Our house is now stocked up and guarded against the nasty, nasty creatures. Let's just hope they stay outside this time around and don't set up camp in my stove again! EEEEEWWWWWWW!

Jalepenos

When we find good places to eat out in Costa Rica I love to share it with the world! I mean I can only think of three that we really have enjoyed, so that is not too much sharing, so this is important.

Jalepenos in Alejuela is the best Mexican food in Costa Rica! The owner lived in New York for 20 years after leaving Columbia and settling in Costa Rica. So the guy really knows how to cook Mexican food. He even uses real cheese and red sauce. He does use the local foods, we all do if we do not want to pay an arm and a leg, but he uses enough authentic Mexican sauces and spices to make it "real".

Spent the day venturing over to the eat out, and joy of joys the used English book store is right around the corner. A great day for sure. Now if we can just knock out the belly bug getting all of us right now it would have been a perfect day. Pretty dang close though.

I almost forgot the bestest part of the day. Finally checked out the new sports store down by the airport. Oh my goodness, I am watering at the mouth for a new bike! I mean to tell you those bikes were beautiful. I think I may have to settle for the really cute Mizuno running shorts I found, more in the budget right now. At least I know where to go when I am ready for my bike.

Still Safe?

I have always said that we would stay in Costa Rica as long as I felt that my kids were safe. After the past couple of weeks I am rethinking that one. Last night my teenager almost got robbed. It was only nine at night and she was with three guys. They were in our neighborhood which is supposed to be somewhat safe. I just keep tossing this one around. When my 22 year old got robbed I could say it was his fault. In this case they were innocent and doing what they were supposed to be doing. I am worried.

How would I feel if something happened and I had not listened to my gut telling me that it was not safe here? That or I could just make her keep her cell phone at home. The problem these days is robbers do not believe you when you tell them you have no cell phone. Especially if she opened her mouth and they heard her gringa accent. They would think $$$$ and she would be in trouble. Man we are so close to our five year goal, I will have to give this one some real hard thinking and pondering. Gotta protect the girlies!

Close Call

Last week there was an article in amcostarica about the new tourista law. We are perpetual tourista's so this pertained to us. The real bummer was that the law was not favorable to us at all. In fact we were seriously thinking about exiting because of the complexity of the law. The guy who reported the new law to the newspaper evidently "did not fully understand it" and there was a reprint today.

The new law is actually favorable for us and we were very relieved. We now only have to leave the country once a year, instead of every 90 days, and the other renewals can be done, (for a fee of course) at the airport. This is going to save us tons of money as well as time, since we no longer have to leave. We had gotten the leaved down to about $400.00 per leave, but now we don't actually have to do it.

Not that I don't love, love, love San Jaun del Sur of course who wouldn't? But when we are having classes, or the kids are involved in things, or we have nobody to watch the dogs, this is going to be so much easier.

So if anyone is thinking about moving to Costa Rica, now is the time to make that move :)

Wendys, are you freakin kidding me?

Today was the day to get the Christmas shopping done. Got it all done in one fell swoop at the Universal store, think Walmart. We actually had to go check out the new Wendys that just opened before shopping. Hubby commented, "I guess there is no reason to return to the states now, they have it all here in Costa Rica." I guess that lengthens our five year plan a little bit.

It is a little strange to go Christmas shopping in shorts and a t-shirt, not complaining just totally enjoying. Tomorrow is graham cracker gingerbread house day. We are trying to get the kids well and enjoy the holiday season. For sure have to fit in a pool day this week as the weather has been perfect.

The fireworks have begun and will continue until after New Years. Every night and tons on the weekends. I think we will go for a few this year, just an excuse to let the pyro in all of us out for a little bit.

Beauty

As I was running this morning I could not help but be very happy with all the beautiful weather and green around me. There was a light breeze, about 78 degrees and just absolutely beautiful out. I needed that just as I need my run every morning to keep me a sane mommy. How can any mother do it without exercise? Just getting out breathing hard, sweating and jammin down to my mp3 player, makes my day.

I keep saying I am going to do it and by golly maybe tomorrow is the day to go out and take some shots of my running route. I am just too lazy to carry the little half pound camera with me. I don't know why, I carried one on a belt for a whole marathon when we did cowtown marathon.

So stay tuned tomorrow for photos of a beautiful day for a beautiful run in Costa Rica.

Snow Storms Back Home

Flagstaff is getting slammed! They are up to 20" and counting. Times like these I am really thankful for my sunburn and broken out lips here in Costa Rica. Went on a nice warm run this morning in shorts and tank and had a great day in school.

Tomorrow we will be doing coffee scrubs in lieu of salt glows since our student has already had salt glows and never had coffee scrubs. And in Costa Rica you should certainly be doing a coffee scrub.

We don't drink coffee, but supposedly it is great for your circulation, and even gets rid of cellulite, we will see tomorrow. I invited Bekah over to try it out with us, the more the merrier and that way we can have more people to check it out on.

Off to fight the mosquitoes and try to get some sleep.

Beach Time

io
Happy days at the beach. Once again we had a great trip to Manuel Antonio to take our student and do some practice massages. It was a fun trip and it made her very happy she is about done and gets to go surf for a few days before heading home to work.

I was laying on the massage table on Friday while our student practiced on me, listening to the waves and the girls playing, and the thought came to me,"I have the best job in the whole world". I really don't think anyone could beat that for a hard day at work.

As the weather gets worse in the States it gets better in Costa Rica and we are very happy. It makes all the things we do without, or all the hassles we experience here worth it every winter.

LISTS

I am so ready to get moving and get to the beach! Mostly ready to run the hard earned marathon. We feel ready and have done the training necessary, now we just pray and keep our fingers crossed that the old body will cooperate and kick in when necessary. Which would be the whole 26.2 miles of course.

Since I am a little bored and a lot anxious I have reverted to my old self and started making lists. I have our food list, complete with menu for the whole trip. I have my clothing list, which should be simple, running shoes, socks, shorts, shirt and hat. I just like making lists. I also have the massage list since we have a couple of graduates working for donations at the marathon.

I really don't remember when I became obsessed with lists. Probably when I was a teen and they gave us long lists for camp etc. I really dug having everything written out for me telling me what to do, bring, prepare, etc. Took all the thinking out of it and just let me be really obsessive compulsive!

After moving to Costa Rica I decided to do away with lists. I need to exercise my brain and try to actually remember things and think about them. That is fine until I get nervous or excited, at which time I need the thrill of the list to get me going!
co

PRESIDENT ARIAS AND PORKY FLU

The President of Costa Rica is the latest victim of the porky flu as my kids call it. He evidently caught it on his big adventure on the new train from Heredia to San Jose. Really makes me want to try out the new train ha?

Our family has been going through something, not sure it is the real thing or another fake flu. I just know baby and hubby never get sick and they got hit the hardest with this one. All week on the couch and sleeping.

I guesss baby has not missed too much in pre-kinder, just lots more coloring and cutting, hope that does not mess her up too bad. The only thing she says she misses is her friends, normal.

So much for our lymph drainage. Oh wait we did not practice it on them, that is why they got sick, they did not get their lymph massage!

COSTA RICA HALLOWEEN

When we moved to Costa Rica almost three years ago, they did not really celebrate Halloween. Last year they had parties everywhere. We had pretty much decided not to bother with it and then felt bad because all the people around us were celebrating. This year we will be prepared.

I know it is only August, but this is the time to prepare for a really good bash. We don't like the candy here, but we do like a party, so we will get things ready ahead of time.

Two years ago we all dressed up, even the adults and had our party here. I was, of course a witch, and the kids still remember that. I was looking online and found this cool site with adult Halloween costumes I really liked the Wizard of Oz ones. We have the perfect dog to be Todo and could just dress up the whole family.

One of these days I will be prepared and not have to be a witch or a gypsie, which is usually the last minute preps. And of course the baby has to be a princess wearing her nightgown and putting her hair up!

ITS ALL ABOUT THE OUTFIT

It's all about the outfit,and this outfit is all about dancing. The only problem was they did the dance for their parents the week we were in Nicaragua. I offered baby to stay here and do her dance, but we were the main ones she wanted to do it for. I'm just glad looking at these pics that we bought the outfit, it was well worth it!

This is the traditional outfit for the Costa Rica celebrations. Last weekend they were celebrating the annexation of Guanacaste from Nicaragua. The girls all wear this and the boys wear white shirts, jeans and a bandana around their necks. They all look sooo cute.

LEARNING SPANISH

I am a little jealous. Actually a lot jealous. Last night baby was sleeping with us in our bed, she's only five :) In the middle of the night she started sleep talking, which is not abnormal for her. The difference? She was talking in her sleep in Spanish! We were so shocked we both woke up and started laughing. I think that means she is thinking in Spanish and pretty much has it down.

Today I was reading a blog this guy wrote about how easy it is to learn Spanish. We have lived in Costa Rica for almost three years and I understand Spanish really well. I can usually tell what is going on, sometimes takes me a couple of minutes but I get it.

Sometimes I think people think I am slow or something because I have not learned to speak in Spanish yet. They don't realize how my brain works. It does not work without touching things. I am a massage therapist, not a linguist. Not that I can't talk, I just need to feel things to learn them.

I would be curious to see how long it takes this guy to learn Spanish!

MORE ON SWINE FLU

I have one very disappointed daughter! Today the salud here in Costa Rica decided to extend the two week vacation another week. The reason? Trying to stop the spread of Swine Flu! Even though the sixth person just died, and no kids have died, nor have any healthy people.

She was scheduled to do her Costa Rica dance next week at the theme park. Like I said she is one very disappointed girl. Plus the fact that her teacher was on vacation the week before the two week vacation, that makes a month of one very bored girl.

I guess I could schedule a dentist appointment to break up things for her a little bit! Maybe just a picnic at the park. Her dad is teaching her to play chess, and that is adding a little excitement for her.

When the older kids were young and we were homeschooling Rick started a chess club for homeschoolers. One of our boys really took off and actually entered some contests. He was watching his little sister playing chess this morning and asked if we thought she would be good because she was Asian. I reminded him he is not Asian and he was a pretty darn good little chess player.

The problem is just getting her to stop giggling and pay attention to dad teaching her.

SINGER IN OUR MIDST

Take some time and give a listen to Melissa on the sidebar. She has an amazing voice and I love the song she sings. I was especially surprised because I did not know she was a singer, cool surprise. Our students never cease to amaze us.

We have had a student who is now sailing around on private yachts doing massage and being a stewardess. Wouldn't that be cool? The best part is her boyfriend is a captain so they sign on together and get to see all kind of cool places together.

Another student is preparing to take his National Exam and put himself through a Physical Therapist program doing his massage.

Then of course we have a couple of students right now who actually live here in Costa Rica and plan to incorporate their massage into their businesses here. One is doing an distance Naturopath program and will use the massage with that. The other is considering a fitness center, which would be a great hit in her neck of the woods.

I just feel really fortunate to get to know and work with all these awesome people and teach them the art and science of massage. I can't really think of anything I would rather be doing than sharing something I love with a bunch of really cool people, pura vida for sure!