Stuck in Lodi, again

We're home!!!!

We need a frequent flyer plan, like now

On the eve of our vacation I did some calculations on how many miles we'll travel on our trip. Webflyer has a mileage calculator that came in handy. Here's the breakdown:

Leg	Miles
SFO to JFK	2580
JFK to DUB	3170
DUB to ATL	3930
ATL to SJO	1630
SJO to ATL	1630
ATL to LAX	1930
LA to Long Beach	17
Long Beach to Catalina	35
Catalina to Ensenada	146
Ensenada to Long Beach	166
Long Beach to LA	17
LAX to SMF	373
Total	15624

SFO is San Francisco, JFK is New York, DUB is Dublin, ATL is Atlanta, SJO is San Jose, Costa Rica, LAX is Los Angeles, and SMF is Sacramento.

I was a little surprised that it's farther from Atlanta to San Francisco than from Atlanta to Costa Rica. I knew it would be quite a trip, but 15,624 miles? For comparison, the diameter of the Earth is 7,926 miles. The circumference is about 24,900 miles, so by the time we return we'll have traveled 62.7% around the entire globe in 3 weeks. Wow. What a blessing. Where's Passepartout when you need him?

SoCal

Landing at LAX last night reminded me of Randy Newman's song, "I love LA". Jeff leaned over and asked me if I've ever been so happy to see Los Angeles before. ;-)

As happy as we were to see other countries we are equally happy to be back in our country and on VACATION!! Jeff and I have a little song and dance that goes something like this; "We're on vacation, we're on vacation"... I'm not showing you the dance. :-) Now, our minds can be in neutral, our bodies can start to relax and time doesn't need to be a focal point. Jeff can put his job on the back burner and we can spend time together during the day doing whatever we want to do. Aahh. God is good!
We will not have internet access after we leave this hotel and board our ship so we won't be posting during that time.

Victoria - you are so kind to us!! Thank you for your offer. From one auntie to another, I love ya!!

Joanie

Would you do me the honor of letting Nana know we are doing fine? She can't keep up with our blog but I do want her to know how we are and all.

Can't sleep, too excited

Jeff is wrapped up warm and sleeping soundly (and quietly, thanks to his C-PAP) but I am too keyed up to sleep because of our coming back and our vacation cruise. I love it when Jeff has time to relax and not have his mind on a million details at once.



We do get a few English speaking channels on TV and right now I am half watching a wretched movie with Dennis Quaid entitled, “The Day after Tomorrow”. I usually like Dennis Quaid movies; not this one. Anywho, I’m just killing time so who cares what’s on. ;-)


Ok, well enough ya-ya for now. Maybe I’ll blog some more later; maybe I’ll finally go to sleep.

Last night in Escazu, Costa Rica

We are really looking forward to our cruise on Monday. Jeff has worked very hard and it has paid off, praising God!!


Now we leave tomorrow morning; Jeff's taxi driver is coming to get us at 7:30am our time. Can't wait to get back to our beloved USA!!


Last night pix from our micro-balcony:

Your emails

Some of your emails are getting through but I think some are not as well. I just received a returned email, that I had sent 2 days ago. If our emails are not all getting to you then I can assume not all of yours are getting to us. If you would like, send us messages via our blog, clicking where it says, "comment"; otherwise we will talk to you when we get back to our motherland, Lodi.

Other than the fireworks and decorations we see here and there, I don't feel like we are anywhere near December 25th, as we have had our room's air conditioner on for the past week. My internal season-clock is way off. I truly feel like it is summer. Coming home to Christmas and New Year's is going to be very weird. ;-)

In Costa Rica, every night in December they have fireworks going off all over the country in honor of Christmas. We have been watching them from our micro-balcony and they have been lovely.

Mom's 29th Birthday... Please call Sharron Perry and wish her a happy b-day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!

We will celebrate once we are back! We love you!

Renée and Jeff

I forgot...

...to add that McDonalds, Subway and other fast foods deliver to the local hotels! What you learn from other cultures.


PS - listening to K-LOVE online and Bing Crosby is singing, "White Christmas". I'm glad because with the weather it does not feel anything like Christmastime, even with all of the decorations I see here. Honestly, I feel like its summertime and my brain can't mesh that fact with the reality that it IS Christmastime. :-)

(BTW, in Costa Rica, due to the Catholic influence, there are so many Nativity scenes and so little Santa Clause. Jeff and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. The real reason for Christmas comes through in Costa Rica. We wish we would see more of this in America, instead of reading stories of people suing over Nativity scenes in yards, etc.)

Costa Rica on a Wednesday morning

Hello everyone!

We are still in Costa Rica and are looking forward to flying back into the US to go on our vacation cruise! I am so glad Spanish uses the same alphabet as we do, it makes trying to read and understand everything here easier. Also, where we are staying, much of the staff and surrounding stores and restaurants have English speaking people. That, I didn't expect and have been happily surprised by it. I figured if one goes to another country it is the responsibility of the traveler to learn the local language and since we had a week and a half to get ready for this trip, we didn't have time to learn a language.

Jeff is doing so well with his first class. Today the first one ends at noon and the second class starts after lunch and goes until Friday. I am so very pleased because one Intel class that was taught in Malaysia was a disaster and now New Horizon of Sacramento is going to fix it by redoing it. They are requesting Jeff! His reputation is now global. We are hoping they don't fly Jeff to Malaysia but instead do a virtual class from his office, which his bosses would prefer due to costs of travel.

Except for that, not much happening... Jeff is gone and I stay around the hotel or the nearby shops because I don't feel confident of my safety if I go much further. There are security guards everywhere here, 24 hours. Yes, that's good that we have them but why we need them is what concerns me. :-)

Oh... we are having fun with the local currency, Costa Rican colones (sounds like: ka-loan-ays). They come in 10,000, 20,000, etc. notes and then you have the coin which is huge and heavy. I really love that tipping isn't required here. The price you see is the price with tax and, if eating out, a tip already added to the bill. You pay what you see. I love this system!!

Please email us (really, Renee) if you are so inclined. You have no idea how much I miss everyone; but I am grateful for this once in a lifetime opportunity and am thanking God for it all. Fair warning to my babies in my life, Paige and Madison, you are going to be swallowed up by my love when I get back! And I might not let go for a week!

Bye for now.