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.