Chilly and sunny with a chance of showers

Confused?  We are too!  The weather here lately is confusing.  We wake up to sunny, but chilly mornings; our space heater is much appreciated in the early mornings.  By mid-morning the sun is very pleasant and warm, even though the temperature is usually no more than 22 °C or so.  By early afternoon, the clouds have moved in and then it pours rain!  We’ve had a few days without rain, but it often rains for a couple of hours in the afternoon—we could use some umbrellas!  Has the rainy season started early this year, or has it just been a wet couple of weeks?  I'll let you know by next week.  In the meantime, we’ve learned to plan our days accordingly: outdoor activities in the morning and early evening; indoor activities during the afternoon.    

When it’s sunny…..

Caleb enjoying his breakfast outside on a Saturday morning.

Caleb and a little friend playing with the hose in front of our cabin (we got wet!).



Claire and Brianne playing school together.



Teeter-tottering in our yard with school friends.

When it’s rainy….

During hours of afternoon rain, the kids have played a lot of Lego and Playmobil in their bedroom; boxes from our recycle bin often go missing.

Caleb designed a dog house so their stuffies would have a place to sleep and stay out of the rain. The duct tape we brought along has come in very handy!

We are also having conflicted feelings lately:  we are happy being here, but we are excited to be going home soon, as Claire aptly stated it recently.  Personally, I feel we’ve seen and experienced all that we possibly could have expected on this trip, and therefore feel ready to go home to Canada on April 28^th.  I think Vern feels the same way, especially now that his teaching commitments at the research station are completed.  Frequent afternoon rain reinforces these feelings for us.

The other day, after a heavy rain, our vehicle’s leaky sunroof released a downpour of trapped water right on Caleb’s head!  All wet and in tears, he emphatically told us how terrible “Squeakers” really is, and reminded us of how much he wants to go home.  Poor little guy.  

The kids have spent countless hours happily playing in and around our cabin over the past few months.  They’ve enjoyed the plentiful free time to play, but are also talking more about “when we get home…..”.  They are looking forward to playing with Tundra.  And they are missing their friends and school—Claire just received a package of hand-written letters from each of her grade 3 classmates!

So it’s confusing.  There are things we won’t miss when we’re gone….a questionable toilet, a leaky sink, a squeaky vehicle, bumpy roads, the tiny card table we’ve been eating our meals on, the rain.  But no doubt, there are many more things we will really miss when we’re gone…our community of San Gerardo friends, cloud forest right outside our cabin door, beautiful tropical birds in our yard, amazing hikes, trout fishing (and eating), funny Spanish blunders….the list goes on. 

A blue-gray tanager.  Claire’s favourite bird because she loves blue. 

......Indulge me, as I send out another food quiz. We have been living in a country that grows a lot of food for export, and it's been interesting for us to see the food we eat at its source and often in a more “raw” format.  I hope you find it interesting too.
If you can tell me what the two “edibles” are in these photos, you will win a bottle of Costa Rican Lizano sauce! Trust me, your plain, white rice is begging for this sauce.  Here’s your hint: many of you happily consume both of these every day, sometimes even together.   

What is this factory processing?