Introducing

After 6 months of living in Costa Rica and 3 of them in our new home.  I am finally going to introduce our family and town to you.

First off, our familia Tica:

Meet our host parents, Papa M and Mama I.

Ending a day of fishing with a bonfire. 

Oh, yea, Papa M is an artist.  See?

One of our Tico brothers and his family lives with us.  These are Host Bro #1's kids.  

Oh yea, they are hardcore typical dancers. 

Meet La Lisa, the house's guard puppy.

We also have two other host brothers and their families that are our neighbors.

 Now here are two reasons for being here...

the Hubs spends his time here at the bilingual.

This is where I spend a good portion of my time.  The MEP regional office of Santa Cruz. 

But Santa Cruz has much more to offer.  It is home to about 20,000 people.  Has two Catholic churches, a methodist church, and few that we haven't figured out just yet.  5 major grocery stores, 2 bus stations, a lot of little tiendas, 4 electronic/furniture stores, a large variety of restaurants, a park, and two plazas.  And few fresh fruit stands/store where I can buy some tasty fruit, like these....

My favorite fruit, mamon chino.  Google how to eat them.

With Peace Corps we have had wonderful opportunities such as spending time with the president of Costa Rica.  

Since living in another country we have missed younger brother's college graduation, two of my best friends moving, two other best friends' first baby, the start of high school senior year for baby brother, my favorite Sonic drink, favorite food in general (gallo pinto can only be eaten at every meal for so long), and other things like driving and air conditioning.

However, it has brought new things, like meeting seeing the president, meeting people from the national MEP office, starting classes, learning a new language (I just declared today that I have a grasp, however small, on Spanish), building relationships, getting a haircut from me for the first time, and exploring another culture.  

The next six months will bring another haircut for the Hubs, visit from the Hub's family, a week long training in a nice hotel with the rest of our group for a week, the actual start of new projects, first major holiday miss for me, a visit to the States to celebrate my favorite holiday, a (hopeful) opportunity at facilitating workshops on a larger scale, and who else knows.  

Hope you have a great weekend!