Feliz Cumpleanos Tara

We are now feeling a bit more settled in Nosara. Though this is only our third day here, we have already hosted guests at our house. Our Tica friends Macho and Lucia and two of their three kids, Victor and Ana-Karin, came to visit on Saturday, driving 7 hours from their home near San Jose. We had a great time with them on the beach both yesterday and today. We can see why Nosara is acclaimed as a great surfing spot. There are huge waves, a perfectly sandy beach, warm water...everything you need. We swam at both high tide and low tide and the kids had a great time riding the waves.

Macho and Tae

Ana-Karin braiding Riley's hair

On Friday, our first full day here, we did a bit of exploring. Baker, Riley, Tae and I grabbed lunch and ice cream at Robin's, a little place owned by a woman originally from Falls Church. Later, all five of us drove to the kids' school, Del Mar Academy, but the rain came pouring down in buckets as we arrived and we satisfied ourselves by looking at it from the parking lot. We will go again tomorrow or Tuesday to see the classrooms and meet some teachers. Instead we made a trip to the Super Nosara--the local supermarket. Costa Ricans (and I think a lot of other latinos) have done great things with the word Super. Not only is the word used for true supermarkets, but it is also used in making 7-11 style places seem really great. Close to our house is the Super-Mini. Same class of word as Jumbo Shrimp, I guess.

Costa Rica is just great for wild animals. Where we are used to seeing squirrels and crows back in Virginia, here we are becoming accustomed to--but certainly not bored with--iguanas, monkeys, and pizotes. The last is an animal that seems a mix of a racoon, an anteater, and a monkey. It has a monkey's long tail, a racoon's body, and an anteater's long nose. Peter Pizote (as we have named him) is in our backyard all the time. An Iguana--still unnamed--lives in the clay tiles on our roof. And, on our short walk to the beach we now always see monkeys--the trees are just full of them. Did I mention the crabs? Tons of those too! And today, some cool birds in our yard. No idea what type they were.

"Peter Pizote" on top and The Iguana on the bottom. (We will take name suggestions for him)


And, of course, today is Tara's birthday!! She is currently celebrating with a nap. Tonight we will go out for dinner. The big kids made her beautiful pieces of artwork and I put together a mix of latin love songs for her, including one called Senora de Cuatro Decadas (Woman of Four Decades), the only song I am aware of that has lyrics including the words "abdominal fat" ("grasa abdominal"). She was more of a fan of Contigo Aprendi. - Me too!

We'd love you to contact us on Skype. Just search in the add contacts tab for my name (first and last) and you'll find us. If you don't already have Skype, you can download it for free at http://www.skype.com/.

Pura Vida!

Tara with her 3 favorite people! (I am a close 4)