Baby Showers

My dear sister, Tonya, planned a virtual shower for me online. It was so cute. My girlfriends from all over the United States visited a web site where they could guess the gender of our baby, suggest bilingual baby names and take quizzes about the unique details of our coming child. Many of my dear friends sent gifts to my parent's house so that they can bring them down to Costa Rica when the baby is born. I was so touched by this gesture of kindness.

Another party was being planned that took me quite by surprise. When I entered a friend's house to run an errand, I was astonished to see 25 of my fellow students and neighbors gathered to shower our child with love. The ladies had gone to great extent to bake special dishes and were very generous to provide many special gifts for the baby. They of course played silly games where each woman had to tear off a strip of toilet paper that she though was the size of my very pregnant belly. When we sold or gave away all of our belongings about 8 months ago, I specifically remember wondering, "how are we going to get all the things that we need for a baby in Costa Rica?" We weren't able to move all of the items we had used for Reagan. I just had to believe that God had provided for us once and that He would provide again. Little did I know that He would use an online shower and a surprise party to stock us with diapers and baby-wipes and cute clothes for our coming baby. Thank you to my classmates, neighbors and friends who planned that special morning.

Bryan is in town

Mark's best friend, Bryan, came to see us for a week. He's fluent in English, Spanish and also in Chinese. With some strange stroke of fate, he sat next to a Chinese woman on the flight to Costa Rica and spoke Mandarin with her for 3 hours before landing in Latin America. You can image the torment of his poor brain as he began speaking in Spanish with us when he arrived at our house. It was so funny to hear words come out of his mouth in all three languages until his brain finally settled on the correct idioma. While we were in school Bryan investigated different parts of San Jose, and also visited a rain-forest park complete with toucans.

Christmas Time

A few days before Christmas an impromptu party was planned at one of the student's house: 60 people showed up. I guess that shows that many of us had no plans and needed a way to celebrate the holiday together. We enjoyed fabulous traditional foods and enjoyed the company of many other people who had no family in town. On Christmas Eve, we made a construction paper nativity with Reagan and let him glue down the characters as we told him the story of Christmas. He loved hearing again and again how Jesus was born in a barn and was laid down to sleep in a manger. The next day we were able to skype with family and Reagan opened various gifts via skype from his grandparents and aunts and uncles.

The beach

At the end of the school semester we traveled with three other families to a beach for some relaxation. One family had completed their language training and was moving on to Ecuador for medical missions. We were very sorry to see them go because they had become close friends. Our days at the beach were full of sunny skies and blue water, a great way to wind down from four hard months of studying.

Thanksgiving

We were so blessed to have our dear friends, Michael and Heather with us for Thanksgiving. We celebrated by spending 3 days at a nearby volcano. Alas, the volcano stayed shrouded by clouds the entire time that we were there and we never saw even a peak of the cone let alone the glowing lava. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful time enjoying the hot pools which are naturally heated by the internal lava from the mountain. And Michael and Heather enjoyed an exciting (if muddy) zip line through the rain-forest canopy.