Finally! An Update.

Wow, where to start.  I have a lot of pictures to post but first things first.  We will not be going to China to teach English.  As a result of our physicals for the application, I found out that I have breast cancer and there is not enough time to complete the treatments before Sept.  We are hoping that they will accept us again next year.

Next, what came first, Costa Rica or the Kitchen Remodel?  I am thinking Costa Rica so I am posting some of the pictures from our trip.  A lot of them were taken with my camera (which is not the best) and so do not do justice to what we saw.  The country was very diverse.  Some of it was dry and not so pretty but the rainforest and other areas were beautiful.  We had a great time. 

We arrived in Liberia late in the evening and proceeded to try and get several taxis to take us to our hotel.  When two of the taxis arrived close together and we kept waiting and waiting for the third, we thought our limited Spanish may have gotten some us lost.  Thankfully, they finally arrived and we settled in.  We gathered early the next morning in the open air reception area.  The hotel was very peaceful and the included breakfast that was very good..

This animal is a Coati.  I had seen quite a few when I was in Costa Rica before but this was the only one on this trip.

I never saw a monkey but we did see lots of different kinds of birds. 

 

 From Liberia we headed for Montiverde.  There were 10 of us in two mini-vans.  You can see the van in front of us through the dust.  We had a two hour ride on dirt roads to get to our destination.  It made for a fun ride.

Half way to Montiverde, the driver pulled into a driveway up in the hills.  It looked like someones house but turned out to be a gas station.  We thought we were back in Micronesia.  They filled the tank one gallon jug at a time.

This was an important notice that we found in several of the bathrooms of our hotels.  You do not put toilet paper in any of the toilets in Latin American countries.  They all have a trash can next to the toilet to drop your paper in.  A very hard habit to break!!  And actually kind of a yucky thing to do.

This was our room at the Poco A Poco - Little by Little.  Small but comfortable and good AC.  No good place to gather and play cards though so we had to try and rig some lighting and play on a small table on the balcony just outside the rooms. 

No matter where we go, we will always find the good ice cream shops!!

MONTIVERDE CLOUDFOREST

 

ZIP LINING IN MONTIVERDE

 

 

From Montiverde we had another two hour ride in the mini-vans on dirt roads again.  At the end of the road, literally, we came to a lake where we carted all our luggage down to a boat, loaded it on and then had about a half hour ride across the lake.

On the other side we had to haul all our luggage off the boat and then carry it up an embankment to a waiting bus - at least we were all in one vehicle now and it was a paved road.

We were now in Arenal.  This was our first view of the Arenal Volcano.  It is usually shrouded in clouds.  I was there with Jonathan and Margo several years ago.  The one thing we wanted to see was the top of the volcano.  We were there for several days and I think we saw most of it for about 5 minutes.

 

This was our bungalow room at the resort we stayed in in Arenal.  It was very spacious, clean and COOL.  Loved the air conditioning.

 

This picture shows the view from our front porch.  The three days we were there, we saw the volcano clearly each morning.  A man said he had been coming for years and this was the first time he had seen the top of the mountain.  We were very lucky.

There was a very nice dining area where we had buffet breakfast every morning.

                     One new experience we had was white water rafting.  This was probably the highlight of Arenal.  We had signed up for a tour that would have taken only a few hours but the water on the rivers is released from a dam and they were not releasing water that day for the river we were scheduled for.  The tour company switched us to another river that was several hours away.  It turned out to be a much

better ride than we would have had.  We were on the river for several hours.  It rained here and there but did not matter because we were already soaking wet.  On the way back to town, we stopped at a restaurant and had a wonderful buffet dinner.  All in all, a fantastic day.

 CLOUD FOREST BRIDGE TOUR

We spent one afternoon doing a canopy tour of the Arenal Cloudforest.  There were 12 major suspension type bridges.  It was an interesting and beautiful walk.  
 Nice pathways through the forest.

Quite a variety of bridge types.

Happy Hikers!

After the Bridge Tour, we headed for the little town of Arenal.  Wayne and I had seen enough after an hour or so but everyone else wanted to stay and have dinner.  We hopped a taxi and headed back to the hotel where we explored the seven different levels of the hot springs.  The highest level was the hottest.  I skipped that one and waited for Wayne in the next level down.  I thought it was hot enough.  We gradually worked our way down the seven levels.  Each was progressively cooler and cleaner.  You end up in a shallow pool that gives the effect of a beach.  Very nice and we enjoyed talking to all the "old" people we shared the pools with.  There was a tour group of really senior citizens! 

After our Arenal experience we headed for the West Coast of Costa Rica.  It was another long bus trip but this time we were all together and it was paved roads.  Along the way we made a stop at a waterfall that was obviously very popular.  We could not believe how many people were there.  To get to the falls you have to go down a somewhat steep, rocky, dirt path.  People were sailing down the path with ice chests, bikes, you name it.  We took about a 5 minute look and then headed up the hill again.  Definitely too crowded to enjoy.

 Next stop was for lunch.  We ate at a very large, outdoor restaurant that was just on the side of the road.  Genie ordered a virgin pina colada and we kept wondering why it was taking so long.  When they finally brought it out we could see that someone had obviously been spending a lot of time sculpting her work of art.

Our last stop was Puerto Hermosa (or something like that).  It was on the coast but the area was hot and dry.  The beach was hot, dirty, smelly and crowded so we spent one whole afternoon just chilling out in the pool.  From pool to table to play cards!  My idea of a nice afternoon.

 We found this cute little outdoor rib place run by a couple who moved here from Canada.  They used to vacation here and liked it so much they decided to stay for good.

 We hired a boat for a three hour tour.  No pier so it was fun trying to get out to the boat and then in it while it was rocking with the waves.

We stopped at an island that was supposed to have monkeys on it.  Surprise! We did not see any.

We did see a termite nest though.

And we saw some trees that had a very interesting defense mechanism.  Those are actually sharp thorns on the bark.

Next stop Salt Lake City.  We left the rest of the group at the Liberia airport and headed back to SLC to pick up our car.  We had planned on staying there for several days but it was somewhat anti-climactic and we were ready to get home.  We attended Music and the Spoken Word at the Tabernacle, a Sacrament Meeting in the Joseph Smith Building and then tried to fill in the rest of Sunday.  Monday morning we visited my Auntie Caye in Provo and then headed for home.


Now on to the kitchen remodel.  I wish I had before pictures to post along with these but I am to lazy to go back through all our pictures and find some.  We had remodeled the kitchen about 15 years ago but this was a much more dramatic change from what it had been.  

 The first thing Wayne did was to tear out the sofits and install canned lighting.  It opened the kitchen up and gave it a lot better lighting.  He took off all the doors and drawers, sanded and painted the cabinets white.  We had new doors and drawers custom made.  Above the stove, we raised the cabinet and took it all the way to the ceiling. Below the stove Wayne put in drawers instead of the doors.  The bottom one is very deep and holds large pots and pans.  He also did a shallow drawer just beneath the cooktop which holds all the utensils.  It was just wasted space before.

The microwave was installed up higher and gives more open space above the stove.  I can now fit very large pots on the stove with no problem.  We installed double ovens which I love. 

 I love the offset sizing of the new sink also.  It is so much easier to fill large pots with water and to wash those large pots.  The faucet is one of those that pulls out and is magnetized so it goes back in very nicely.

We left three cabinet doors open in the middle and had ripples glass installed.  Looks very nice.  Quartz counter tops and all new hardware. 

The remodel took several months but it was well worth it.  Wayne did a fantastic job and I am so happy with everything.

We have pictures to post of our trip to Costa Rica but I am waiting until we get copies of the pictures from the rest of our travel group. I know that there are some shots that we did not get that I want to include. So all of that will be coming by the end of the month.

Until then, I will report on the first part of that trip. We drove to Salt Lake City for our first Micronesia Guam Mission reunion which was held on March 30th. We left Thursday and spent the night at the Rio in Las Vegas. We had a beautiful room - huge with a wall of windows looking towards the strip.

There was only one slightly strange thing about the room.

If you look closely at the picture you will notice that the square inside of it is actually a window. It is kind of a strange feeling when you are using the bathroom, you hear a knock and look up to see someone peering in at you. Not quite sure why they thought that needed to be included in their decor.

We left early Friday morning thinking we had plenty of time to reach SLC with a little extra time but the perpetual road construction from Provo on slowed us down and then I took a detour to avoid the traffic. Mistake! We arrived at our hotel at 5pm and just had enough time to clean up, run by the store for goodies to take with us and get to the reunion by 6:30. It was a long day but we were so glad that we went. There was a really good turn out and we were able to visit with so many of the senior missionaries that we served with.


Unfortunately, we did not get many pictures but we did get one of our favorite couples, the Westergards. Next time we will be a little more diligent with the camera instead of the talking.

The next morning we left our car parked at the hotel (Hyatt Place near the airport - we highly recommend it!) and we flew off to meet friends in Houston on our way to Costa Rica. Stay tuned for more on that.

China Here We Come

This is a picture of the Bund in Shanghai, China. This is going to be our new home in about five months. We have been accepted to teach English in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. We visited Shanghai when we toured China in 2008. It is a fascinating city and we are very excited to be able to do this. I may not be posting much on this Blog now but just wait until September!!

January in Melbourne

December 1 our grandson, Thomas, turned 8 years old. Because we had not been home last Christmas, we asked if Thomas' baptism could be bumped to January so we could spend the holidays at home. The baptism was scheduled for January 6th and so we scheduled our flight to Melbourne for New Years Eve. The week before we left Jonathan found out that he had to go to Malaysia for work and so the baptism had to be done on Jan. 2nd. We arrived about 1pm on the 2nd. After a 1 hour drive from the airport to Jon's house, we had a few hours to freshen up and then headed to the church.

We had a very small group - Mom, Dad, brother, sister, 2 grandmas, a grandpa, the Bishops Counselor and Thomas' friend and his family. In Australia it was summer vacation time and most everyone was out of town. No matter, Thomas got baptized and the next day Jonathan left town.

Since we spent a month in Australia, we have a LOT of pictures. I have taken a few of the 400 shots to show our activities during our stay.

Since Margo's mother was also visiting, we did a little sight seeing while Jonathan was gone. The kids enjoyed feeding the birds.

I was actually quite surprised that Caroline let me hold her. This was shortly after we had arrived and she had not warmed up to me totally yet but she was more afraid of the birds than she was of me.

The pan of bird seed was actually hard to hold when the birds landed on it and so you see Lucas in the background looking at the pan he dropped. For someone so small it was a little scary when so many birds tried to get at your seeds.In the area where the birds were there are some really nice trails so we went for a little hike after feeding time.

After Grandma Martha went home, we headed to Brighton Beach for a little sun and fun.


They have a row of these cute little "cottages" along the beach. They are the size of a large shed and sell for around $250,000. We saw several open up while we were there and it is just a one room fancy storage area. People keep there beach chairs, tables, etc. in them. It does give you a shady area to sit in though.

While there, the chocolate pudding bandito made an appearance.

On the way back from Brighton Beach, we made a stop in St. Kilda. This is a cute little beach town with a long pier. We walked out to the end of the pier and back behind this restaurant there is a rocky walkway. In the nooks and crannies of the rocks were some surprises.

The kids spotted this little penguin. Since we were there mid afternoon, most of the penguins were out to sea hunting food. This was just a baby, waiting for Mom's return.

After we had been in Melbourne for about a week, we headed for the Great Ocean Road. This was our Christmas present from Jonathan and family. We took the train into the city and got on a tour bus for the day.

The major attraction of the Great Ocean Road (at least for us) is the Twelve Apostles.

Because of the wave action against the cliffs, water eroded the land and left twelve formations standing on their own. Some still stand as majestic as ever while several have eroded down to small bumps.

We had the opportunity to take a helicopter ride out over the water to view the Apostles. For someone with a fear of heights this was some ride!

Further up the road we stopped at Loch Ard Gorge. There is a sad shipwreck story that goes along with this area. Wayne hiked down to the bottom while I enjoyed the beautiful view from up on top.

At our stop for "tea" in the afternoon we sere surprised to find this offering at the ice cream shoppe. For those in the know, I think that you will agree that Vegemite is NOT a flavor I would want in my ice cream.

Our next adventure was a two day trip to Sydney. We stayed in a beautiful Marriot Hotel right near the Sydney Opera House. Our first afternoon there we just walked around the harbor area.

We actually walked up to the Sydney Harbor Bridge and walked halfway across. As we were walking, we saw several groups of people who had paid $200 a piece to climb up to the very top and walk across. They had to be clipped to a cable since it was so windy. I was just fine doing our free walk on the pedestrian walkway.

This is the picture of the Opera House that we took from the Harbor Bridge.

The next day we did a tour of the Opera House in the morning and then did the Hop On Hop Off bus the rest of the day.We got off at Bondi Beach long enough to take a picture and buy some lunch. This is a popular surfing area. It also appeared to be a popular sunbathing area.

When we were on the bus they would point out some of the interesting art sculpture that you find all over Australia. This car was actually one of the sculptures in the middle of a roundabout.

There are some beautiful old buildings throughout the city. This is the Queen Victoria Building which has been turned into a shopping mall.

Our last morning in Sydney we walked over to the Japanese Gardens for a very peaceful morning. Quite an amazing place right in the middle of the city.

We found Iguanas in the gardens.

The next week we took a trip out to Phillip Island to see the penguins. There are burrows in hills near the beach and after the adults have been out getting food all day there are hundreds who come in from the ocean to feed their babies. There are bleachers on the beach for people to sit and watch them come in. It was quite fun. We were not allowed to take pictures though so nothing to show for our evening there.

Before going to the island, we went to the beach to play until dark. Because a lady was killed in an accident on the road to the island, we were unable to get to the planned area. There were undercurrents and strong waves at the beach we did go to so there was no swimming but the kids had fun in the sun anyway.

There was one area that had a lot of rocks and it ended up being a good place for the kids to play in the water. There were some really interesting formations in the rocks from erosion.



One day, we took the train in to the City. We had planned on going to the Queen Vic Market but unfortunately, it was Wednesday and the market was closed. We had a good time anyway. We had a little shop we had gone to with Margo last August and we wanted to go there again but Margo was not with us. It was in one of the little alleyways that are all through the downtown area. We had an idea of where it was so we headed off in that direction. Surprise, surprise. We actually found it. Along the way, we also found an alley with some of the graffiti that the area is known for.Wayne thought he looked a lot like this guy!

A few days later Jonathan and Margo left for Thailand. We began 10 days of babysitting the grandkids. Since Jonathan has a company car, we were not able to drive so Wayne did a lot of walking to the grocery store and anywhere else he could find to go to. He learned the bus routes and we took the bus to church, he took the boys to the movies one day and he and the boys went to an area where they could hike to the top of a hill.

The day they did the hike, the boys wanted to go on the train also.Ice cream helped to pass the time. We also let the boys play their DS's whenever we used the public transit. It made them much more willing to go places.

This was taken on their hike. There are some really pretty places to hike which are not that far away. Wayne would take off several times a day and just walk for two hours. One day he decided to walk to the ocean. It was about 12 miles away and took him 6 hours or so to get there. Once he got to the beach he took the train and bus to get back home.

Our other mode of transportation - walking. This was the day before the parents returned. We took the kids to the miniature golf place. It was about a 25 minute walk. The kids did great.


Look closely and you can see the stick bug on the club.


Random Pictures:

The kids loved to make pig faces. This was the sliding glass door but we saw them doing it on the shower wall too.



No shrimp on the barbie but Wayne did get kangaroo steaks to try one day. He wanted to cook them while Jon and Margo were gone and I told him he needed to wait until they were back because I did not think much would be eaten. It is a good thing he waited because the kids and I would not try it and the rest of them took one bite and decided it was too tough and not good.

This is the way the boys spend most of their time. Their lego collection is something to see and they are very creative with all those pieces.


Grandpa and a walking buddy.

A picture of a picture. Jon and Margo had family pictures taken in the alleys in the City. They looked really cool and Wayne took a picture of one. We just hoped that the graffiti did not say anything offensive. It was a little hard to figure out.

We loved being with the grandkids and bonding but a month is a long time to be gone. We were happy to return and rest up for the next trip. It was good to be able to do a few tourist things this time and depending on what happens in the next few months we look forward to a return trip when we will check out a few more of the touristy things.