Goodbye 2013...what
a year you have been! The best
yet! You brought tears, smiles,
joy, frustration, achievement,, and love.
January- We
started the year off right with our community’s feistas. Then the Hubs and I presented at the National
Teaching English Conference, celebrated the 50th anniversary of
Peace Corps in Costa Rica, and went with a small group to cheer on the Costa
Rican national at the national stadium later in the month.
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| One of the rides at the fiesta |
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| the Hubs and I at the 50th anniversary |
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| Vamos Sele! |
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| The crew who cheered |
February- I
had to say goodbye to a dear PCV friend who went home. And our group celebrated 1 year in Costa Rica by visiting
the active Poás volcano.
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| Before we said goodbye |
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| Poás volcano |
March- Uncle M came
to visit, and he took us to wonderful hotels as well as feed us delicious
food. We celebrated Holy Week with
parades and spent Easter with A and T at Brasilito Beach. The Hubs and I
started a community conversation club AND started tutoring a boy that goes to a
local bilingual school this month. Oh, and we dealt with an invasion of ants.
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| Zip lining with Uncle M |
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| Host niece in the parade |
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| My friend as Mary Magdalene |
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| Our landlady and her daughter |
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| Happy Easter! |
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| No matching outfits this year |
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| The massacre |
April- The Hubs
and I celebrated 5 years of being together with a dinner out at a favorite
local restaurant. We hiked a giant hill in Nicoya with one of our community
conversation club participant’s family, and had tech week with 3 new TEFL
volunteers. We also visited
another volunteer’s site. Spelling
Bee and my second round of MEP conversation clubs started this month.
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| We have been together for a long time, ask him |
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| We reached the top! |
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| They really did work that week |
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| Visited this beautiful girl and her site |
May- The Hubs and
I met saw President Obama! We also
battled a giant moth. And our
cluster had to say goodbye to two of our volunteers.
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| The man, the myth, the legend |
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| Proof we were there |
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| Much larger in real life |
June- We
celebrated 3 years of marriage at
our favorite hostel and beach. My
third round of MEP conversation clubs started, we attended our 1 year training
session in San Jose, and held a
baby shower for the other couple in our group (as well as said goodbye to them). And we welcomed 4 new volunteers into
our cluster!
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| Year 3 for the books |
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| Baby Nugget's shower |
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| MST (Mid-Service Training) became Mustache Service Training |
July- I had waited a
long time for this month. Semester
vacations…yes! July
brought the end of the institutional and circuit spelling bees, my family visited, and a trip to Nicaragua. To
end it we celebrated the annexation of Guanacaste from Nicaragua with parades
(that the Hubs was in) and rodeos.
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| These dominated the beginning of 2013 |
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| He is famous...in a parade AND on TV |
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| We zipped, ate, hiked, swam, snorkeled, and laughed |
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| The crew that dominated Nicaragua |
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| Beautiful view of the lagoon |
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| Eat my dust! I was the fastest volcano boarder that day |
August- I
presented at another English conference, we walked about 8 miles for the
Romeria, and the Hubs danced in his school’s talent show. And we had our regional spelling bee!
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| Apparently we could have taken a bus |
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| Speaks for itself |
September- We celebrated
Costa Rica’s independence with what else… but parades! And the Hubs started his English
bachillerato (high school exit exams) review course for seniors. We checked Machu Picchu off our bucket
list when we visited Peru and Colombia.
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| Isn't he cute teaching? |
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| We love parades |
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| Colombia salt mines |
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| Cuy in Peru |
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| Machu Picchu |
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| We hiked a mountain, no big deal |
October- The landlady’s daughter had her first
communion, Lumi had her last set of puppies which included Shadow (who we are
fostering), we hosted a Halloween party, and said goodbye to another
volunteer. And started my last
round of conversation clubs. Oh yea, I got stunk by a bee on my ring finger.
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| She is pretty inside and out |
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| Saying bye to S |
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| Please take any rings off if you get stunk on your fingers other wise your hand looks like that and your rings have to be cut off |
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| Happy Halloween! |
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| Shadow's brother |
December- We were lucky enough to get to visit the
States again for Christmas but we rang in the New Year Tico style back in Costa
Rica (grilling on the front porch and watching fireworks and payosos).
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| With the Hubs and his siblings |
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| Harry joined my birthday celebrations...we were excited to have him |
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| Proof my side of the family got together |
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| They won the jackpot |
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| Mr. Cars spent Christmas with us |
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| Tradition, we match every year |
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| Reading the letter Santa wrote back to Mr. Cars on Christmas morning |
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| He was excited |
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| We were definitely the oldest people at Elevation |
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| Proof Boomer likes his uncle |
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| The grill master |
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| Heading to the fireworks |
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| First picture of 2014 |
Hello 2014… you will include some big changes for
this nomadic family. We will be
ending our Peace Corps service in a few short months, moving back to the Hometown for a
small time, and then moving to where the Hubs will be attending grad
school. I will be going back to
work as a teacher and then applying for grad schools for the next fall. Can’t wait to see what else you have in
store 2014!
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Costa Rica? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Costa Rica in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez