Well, it’s Wednesday Dec. 21 and it’s only a few days until Christmas – four to be exact. Most people right now are doing their last minute shopping or waiting for a few remaining deliveries from UPS, FedEx and the like.

It’s amazing how fast each Christmas goes by. It seems just like yesterday that Sophie was experiencing her first Christmas. Now she is 18 months old and seems like a completely different person (in a good way, of course).

I hope that as each Christmas goes by the love in our family gets stronger and stronger for one another, and just like how most good times go, we say, “Wow, it’s already over?” or “It’s already Christmas again?”

That’s all I want for Christmas this year.

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Maritza our housekeeper said today that she thinks that the last rains of the rainy season have gone away, and that there will only be “mucho sol” now. I’m looking forward to it. However, even though I’m not a big fan of when it rains for four or five days on end, or when it’s foggy and gloomy for a week at a time, I do like the rain. I like going to sleep here and listening to it bounce off the roof of the house. And how every now and then the walls will creak in the night as a gust of wind tries its best to blow us away.

The last couple of days when we drove home through the hills and valleys outside of San Ramon toward the house that we are renting, we smelled fresh flowers even though the windows were rolled up.

I wonder if it’s because the flowers are ready to come out and play now that the rainy season is over too.

Today Sophie did just that and it was so much fun. She and I stepped outside and went straight over to our favorite orange tree. We’ve been pulling oranges off of it for many weeks now. The only ones that are left are up really high. In order to grab them I have to put Sophie on my shoulders and then jump. She loves it and lets out deep belly laughs as my feet move away from the ground.

Far on the other side of the yard there are some homemade benches that are set up on top of some cinder blocks that sit under some tall over-hanging trees. Today Sophie sat in my lap and we listened to the rustle of the wind through the leaves and ate three oranges, in the coolness of the shade. They tasted good and were very tart and sweet.

It was fun. I hope I don’t forget that!

Well, we bought our first Xmas tree in CR and it is actually bigger than our one in Chicago. It was 1/2 the price and even rotates…brilliant…though not so brilliant this year when we don’t have a  bunch of ornaments yet and can’t get away with decorating one side-lol. Anyway, I went around snapping some pics of what our weirdo family was doing while daddy was setting up the tree…not normal.

Da tree

Daddy setting it up

Chitta keepin busy

Bethhhy exercising as usual

Sosi fake sleeping under bubblewrap

Sosi fake waking up under bubblewrap

Voila! Finito!

We have since had another and both were just amazing! We buy them at the weekly Feria for about 80 cents each! Considering they last us about 2 days, we’ll prob start buying two at a time now. Mmm…mmm…good.

We found a great little cafe that has 1/2 price entrees Mon-Fri and a strawberry milkshake that just may have converted me into a milkshake lover. It def. has Sophie convinced. It was so thick that you really had to work to get it up the straw and little miss thing had no problem getting busy. Naturally we have already gone back and got her another one for her 18 mos bday. I have a feeling this will become a weekly treat.

Ah let me have a taste!

Hmm, sweet, thick, creamy...

I got this...where's yours?

We finally visited Escazu (aka the Beverly Hills of Costa Rica). It was full of Americans, huge buildings, chain restaurants, malls, etc. I felt like I was back in the US for a few hours. As nice as it was to see all the familiar places, it was just as nice to leave them and go back to the quiet little town of San Ramon. Still it is good to know that a bit of US exists here and is accessible for whenever i have the urge for Outback, or Pizza hut, Victoria’s Secret, Mac…hmm I dont think i saw a starbucks…guess I’ll have to go back to investigate (and maybe do some shopping)-lol.

On the way home we sat in the worlds worst traffic jam for about 20 minutes. Luckily Will weaseled us out pretty quick and we just drove past looking at the pile of cars going absolutely no where. Amazing how we could exit the largest and most modern mall we’ve prob. ever been in, and then sit in traffic due to one broken down truck on a too narrow bridge…just seems a little backwards.

Anyway, on the way home we found a Walmart Supercenter which was AH-mazing! I was never such a Walmart fan in the states b/c the one in Chicago was in a meh area…but entering the brand new walmart here was a little bit of heaven. They had all the brands I couldn’t find, a huge selection of cheeses that I’ve been missing, and toys galore. It was brand spankin’ new, super clean, not crowded, and enormous!! I guess Santa will be making another trip to Alajuela.

All in all it was a very productive day. I found pretzels, chicken broth, and normal cheese (my how priorities have changed)! Oh and even artichokes! On our way home we decided to order a pizza and Will was going to pick it up after he dropped off Sosi and I at the house. Poor, poor daddy. After a full day of driving in and out of San Jose, he went to get the pizza which is about a 5 minute drive from the house, and ended up sitting on the road stuck behind another broke down truck for 2 hours!!! It took him longer to get a pizza 5 minutes away than it did to drive all the way to San Jose. I dont know what the deal is with trucks breaking down here, but to make matters worse, after waiting 2 hours, a police officer offered a piece of very valuable advice that prob. would have helped ohhh i dont know…2 hours prior. He showed Will (and all the other drivers stranded) a dirt road that was right behind him and lead him right up to the road to the house all within 3 minutes. Bahaha. Will left to take the dirt road and then the car in front of him got stuck in the mud and had to have 5 guys get out to push it. Gotta love it. Huge modern 3 story mall with Cartier, Ralph Lauren, etc. and dirt roads to take you home. It is all part of this adventure we are on, and though our pizza was ice cold and Sophie waited up past bedtime, it is all worth it. Slideshow below

So after the car gets stuck in a ditch, we get home to a lovely present from Chester…the cats bring us dead mice and Chester brings us dead armadillos…wonderful. When we pulled up to the house we saw huge black birds circling the yard and Will said, yup something is dead. Thanks Chester (hurl).

Well we had our first off-roading experience in CR. I guess it is some form of initiation b/c it seems everyone gets stuck at some point here. We were on our way home from Villa Blanca breakfast when the car just slowly slid into a mud ditch. It was so slow that i was sitting in the back asking Will why he was pulling over, and he was like, ummm I’m not…lol. A few minutes later i look at Sophie and she is higher than me just chillin out. The passenger side of the car was stuck in a pile of mud and after a few failed attempts to get back on the road, Will decided to get out and see exactly how stuck we were. Apparently a farmer heard the engine an struggle and came out to see what was going on. Lucky for us he said “uno momento” and came back with a big ole tractor and a huge chain to hook up to our car. It literally took all of 5 minutes and he pulled us on out and we went on our merry way. The guys were super friendly and said people get stuck there all the time, so apparently they knew just what to do!

Well our little princess is officially 1 and 1/2. OMG! Where is the time going?! I have to do a full update on all her accomplishments but I am on hold with a bank right now b/c they screwed up on some deposit and I can’t fully concentrate. Sooo, here are some pics from her 18 months birthday! We took her to get a bag of her favorite popcorn and then went and celebrated with her favorite strawberry milkshake! We walked over to watch a parade but the streets started to get jam packed with families and I could see daddy getting clammy, so we headed out before the parade started. It prob. started an hour late (Costa Rica time) so I dont think we would have seen much anyway. Soph didnt seem to mind…she was too busy digesting her big ole milkshake. Happy Bday little Pookie, poo-poo, peekachu, sosi, iggs (each birthday brings more nicknames). We love you and are so insanely proud of you. Love your number 1 fans, Mommy and Daddy! XOXOXOXO