Christmas is coming soon!!

Just thought I would give a little update, on how things are going here in Costa Rica.

This trimester is winding down, we are ending our classes and getting ready for the new students to arrive.. My classes went really well this trimester and i have learned a lot of Spanish.. I think that i have learned enough to understand what is going on.. and to answer "Si" to every question that i am being asked.... But I am still having a hard time answering..

These are some pictures of the past recent events. A group of us from school went White Water Rafting in Eastern Costa Rica. Due to it being the rainy season, it was a perfect time to go.. We went to a river called Sarapiqui.. Our group with our guide is shown in the picture. We flipped over into the river twice. Once on purpose and the other time, because the river was crazy. It was only 30.00 a person. So very affordable and fun. The other picture is of the river. And the next picture is of the cable rides through the rain forest.. You can kind of see the cable. It was fun, to watch people come into the camp ground place from the air. The cable looks like powerlines, but actually it is what the people ride.. And to my family who is reading, you all will be experiencing a ride through the forest!!!!!!!!!

Lastly this is a picture of the poor state of food, Andy and I put a roast in the oven. I usally put it in the crock pot for like 4 hours with salsa on top. It is quick and easy. So, i thought it would do the same thing if i put it in the oven.. That answer would be a great big NO!!!

Any way, we go home to Iowa for 3 weeks on Friday. We can't wait to see everyone.. And to see snow!

Chelsea

Charlie Brown on ABC

Things I am grateful for... I have mentioned that here in Costa Rica they have ABC, NBC, and CBS... Thank the lord. Because i love the Amazing Race. But tonight i got to see "Charlie Brown Christmas".. It is one of my favorites, not only is the music awesome. But It reminded me how commerical, Christmas gets in our world. Especially if you come to Costa Rica, where Christmas stuff has been up since the beginning of October... Christmas is about Jesus Christ coming to our world, so humbly... So thank you ABC, for the reminder... Also i am so thankful that i get to see my family in 18 days..But who is counting...

That's all for now....

Christmas tree time

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to put up some pictures of our Christmas Tree.. It is 4 feet tall, and very cute. I packed our own ornaments, and our landlord provided this tree.. It sort of looks like a charlie brown tree, but we love it!!!

The next picture is of Andy, i wanted to show you the face that i see so often. This is how he looks while sitting in Phonetics class trying to say some Spanish Phrase, or this is the face he shows when the Hawkeyes are losing!!

Actually, this is just a funny picture and i wanted to put it on our blog.

The last one is of me, on one of the days when it gets cold here. I am trying to stay warm, with laundry that just came out of the dryer.

Anyway, We will be coming home for Christmas on December 14th and we just cant wait...

See you all then. Love Chelsea

\

How many hairs do you have left?

Let me start off by telling this story. My mom told it to me, and i thought that it was both inspiring and cute.

A woman woke up one morning to find that she had 3 hairs left on her whole head. She said out loud" Great, today I can make a braid". The next morning she woke up to find only 2 hairs on her whole head. She stated out loud "great, now i can have pig tails". The next morning she woke up to find only 1 hair left on her whole head, she then replied "Great, now i can make a pony tail." The next day she woke up she was BALD. She then stated"Great, now i don't have to do my hair......

The point of the story, is to be happy with whatever comes your way. To not complain..

Now that i have told that story, i will now lead you into one of the craziest trips I have ever been on..

Andy and I and 4 of our good friends here decided to leave the city this last weekend and go to Manuel Antonio, it is usually a 3 hour trip from our city...

I told this story to everyone on the way down, and they were kind of laughing and just having fun with my awesome story.. Little did we know that we were all going to be "Bald" after the trip.

First off, I told you that it takes 3 hours to get their, well we finally arrived at our Hotel 7 hours after we left. This would be due to the Bridge Picture. A 18 wheeler was driving over this CRAZY bridge and its front wheel, collapsed through.. YES, that is crazy. What is crazier is that we were only 20 minutes from our hotel. We waited for like 3 hours, and finally decided to drop off our RENT-A-Car in an auto shop, hall our luggage over the bridge and take a taxi... We had this idea, and so did the rest of the 2 miles of cars waiting to cross. So needless to say it was Insane...

We finally got to the motel, took a swim in the pool and tried to go to sleep.... Not knowing the next hair was about to go... Andy and I woke up at 1:45 to hear some Woman calling for her husband. She was lost, and had Broken her arm.She was from North America and some how fell at the restaurant and broke her arm. So i woke up, made Andy go out to help her. It was crazy, then we hear the ambulance pull up and she and her husband go to the hospital... Well, guess who returned at 3:45 am...Ohh yes, this time her husband was yelling at the taxi driver in English, that he had NO MONEY. He wanted the taxi driver to leave, and then return tommorow, so that he could pay him.... So, I instantly think, this Spanish taxi driver, probably has no idea what they are trying to say. I then asked Andy to go pay the taxi driver.Because it is 3:45 and i am exhausted... Finally we went to sleep...

Saturday came and we all went swimming in the ocean, it was sort of cold. But the group we went with was all having fun..... then we decide to try to find a bowling alley or something...

We found the coolest bowling alley..

It was two alleys, non-mechanical... We set up our own pins.. IT was So FUNNNNN.

And it was free...

So saturday, we lost no hairs..

Lastly we woke up Sunday, we all went out to take a nice swim, and i got stung by a JELLYFISH...

I never have been stung before, and it really felt like i had dried shaved, or got really bad razor burn.

Andy bought me a lime, and i rubbed it on my skin.. Then it was like nothing had even happened.

The rest of the day, Andy kept saying " Chelsea fightin the JELLIES" off of finding Nemo..

Then we drove home.

So i wasn't Bald coming home, and i say it was worth losing all the hairs. IT was crazy fun...

Very interesting...

Those other pictures are of some flowers and a crocodile, we saw on the way there...

Also Andy doing a flip in the pool.

Murder Mystery

Here are some pictures of this last week, it has been very busy... This is a cute picture i thought of Andy and I. My hair is finally getting longer.. Thank GOD...
THESE are some pictures of our friends Aaron and Charla Lee. This week my friend Amy and I hosted a MURDER MYSTERY DINNER at the school. This is Jimi Hendrix and Marlin Monroe. It was on Saturday Night and lots of fun.. Lots of the students came and dressed up as different Celebrities..
Here is Bob Marley and Janis Joplin..

These are some of my good girlfriends.. My friend Charla Lee again and Kelly Darabaris.. Charla was Marilyn Monroe, and Kelly was Mae West.. I was the host.
And, this is Amy Dickerson, we hosted the Murder Mystery...It was a lot of work, but well worth it..


I did not to get any pictures of Andy and I. He was in charge of pictures for me, and we never got one together. But i would like to say that he dressed up as Bing Crosby and even sang a little bit of White Christmas.. He looked very Handsome, i will try to find someone who has a picture of him..


Lastly i wanted to write you a story that i read in one of my Bibles, it really impacted me this week..
I have been trying to read through the book of Romans.
I have a commentary Bible that goes through verse by verse and then this guy kind of explains a little about the history and other stuff..

Romans 2:4 is talking about Repentance.

A woman ran through the airport. On her way to the gate, she grabbed a magazine and a little package of cookies. Boarding the plane, she sat in an aisle seat, one seat away from a man in the window seat. A few minutes later, hungry from her race to catch her flight, she opened her bag of cookies and took one. To her astonishment, the man in the window seat also reached into the bag, which was setting in the middle seat, and grabbed a cookie. Utterly amazed at his audacity, she stared at him, reached for a second cookie, and ate it. He looked at her and took another cookie as well. That left only one cookie, which the man took and broke in half, before giving half to her. The lady was dumbfounded. The behavior of her seatmate left her puzzled, angry, and hungry throughout the entire flight. But her greatest surprise came when she opened her purse upon landing-- and found her bag of cookies inside...

That's the way it always is! We're so sure that we're right- when in reality we don't have all the facts. In the day of Judgment, we will be shocked at how wrong we were and how little we know when the handbags are opened and all things will be judged truthfully.

I felt like this was perfect for me this week, i think that we all can learn a little something about this story, especially me. I do go into many situations were I think i know the best way and get offended or judge too quickly.. Any way, i thought that i would share for whoever out there...

That is all for now.

Andy's NIGHT OF SURVIVAL

OK here is a quick blog on how Andy's night of Survival went. He left last Thursday and arrived here... This is the Royal Ranger camp site for Costa Rica... Right next to it is the Dole Pineapple Plant.. Kind of cool..
Everyone stayed in these cabins, and they were okay. Except no screens are on the windows so that made it possible for anything to crawl in......
This is a picture of some of the guys from the camp out, they went on a midnight hike. Some of the guys fell down on the journey and got pretty muddy... Not Andy though, as we all know he is MR. Clean. When he came home, he looked a little Brauny due to the no shaving for 2 days, but he was just wet and a little dirty... Which is funny!
Here is Andy's crew setting up camp, Andy said the camp was okay. But when the rain came it fell down completely.. But he said they taught all the guys SURVIVAL Skills. For example: start a fire, chop wood, make a tent.. And I am thinking, why did they not call me to come teach??? HELLO, my middle name is Survival... Just Kidding..
Here are some pics of the wild life, Andy said that he woke up every morning to hear these Monkeys, Yelping in the jungle... Is that not Crazy to think about..

Andy made it home alive, he had around 10 bug bites, he had Fire Ants on his arm at one point. And he has a huge bruise on his leg from the fun round of midnight Paintball game they played..
You may be asking what i did during these 2 days... I spent the night with a friend and went shopping at the Market downtown. Also i watched a couple of movies, and made a paper chain.. The paper chain counts down how many days untill Christmas... Yeah, I am so excited to see my family and friends... Okay off to go read my Bible and possible look at Spanish...

Chelsea

Creature Comforts

Ok, this might be a pointless blog to some of you reading but, these are some things that i wanted to let you know I don't take for granted... These are creature comforts, this is only a few but the list could go on and on... These are things that I don't need.....but I do enjoy and I thank God that they are in Costa Rica.
This first picture is of Coffee Mate, Amaretto flavor. Here in Costa Rica, every one of course drinks COFFEE. I am a fan of coffemate with a little Coffee. So boy, was i happy when i saw Coffee Mate at the store.. It makes Coffee GREAT.
This is a photo of AXION. Axion means Action in Spanish. This is a type of cleaner for your dishes.. Here is the cool thing. This works AWESOME! It is a grease stripper, and i am telling you, nothing compares. I have used all sorts of dish soaps and this is by far the best. So my advice is head on over to LA Tapatia, in downtown Des Moines, and see if they sell this stuff. It is cheap and works wonders... THis is not really a creature comfort, but i wanted to let you all know...


This is a picture of Toilet Paper, for the last 5 weeks we have used a weird generic brand of T.P. from our local supermarket "Auto Mercado". But on Saturday we visited the store "PRICE SMART" it is quite similar to Sam's Club. At Pricesmart i noticed they had CHARMIN T.P.. and i said HALLELUIAH. Because yes generic T.P. does work, but i really do enjoy CHARMIN... As you can see in the picture their quite a difference between the rolls..

Next on my list is Dairy Products. I love Anderson & Erickson Dairy from Des Moines, Iowa. I pretty much love dairy, so coming here i was a little worried that the dairy would not come close. But i was wrong. Here in Costa Rica they have a large Dairy Company called Dos Pinos. Which means 2 pine trees. They are awesome. There milk tastes great, plus they have great cheese and many more dairy products. This is a carton of ROMPOPE. It is Egg Nog. And it is good to the last drop.

This is a picture of Shampoo that i brought from home. Here in Costa Rica they do have sutible Shampoo and Conditioner. I am just glad that i brought my fav. from home.. I am thankful for good Shampoo and Conditioner but, also for a shower. Behind the bottle is our Shower. They are HOT also. One luxury that we have in the U.S.A. that i took greatly for granted. Our land lord bought a hot water heater. Some of my other friends do not know this luxury....

So here are a few Creature comforts that i thought of . Nothing new has been happening. We have been studying and going to school every day... Andy is heading out on a Men's Retreat with all the boys from School on Thursday and Friday.. He will be camping out in the wilderness of Costa Rica. So be prayin that he does not get eatin alive by the mosquitoes or snakes. We all know how much he enjoys Snakes...

Happy Reading..

Butterflies in Spanish= Mariposas, what a pretty word.

Some fun photos from our 3 day weekend... We decided to take a one day tour.. We started off by going to downtown San Jose and hopping on a bus by 0600.. Yes it was very early. We picked up other amercian passengers. All together their was about 15 people. We went with 3 of our friends..

WE started off by visiting a coffee plantation.The first picture is of a coffee plant. Those are what they call Cherries. When they turn red, it is time to pick them. First they teach you about the process of how coffee is grown and then how it ends up. It was pretty interesting. Andy sort of thought it was lame, but it was 7 am. And we all know how much of an early bird he is!!!! They also served us traditional Costa Rican breakfast called Gallo Pinto. And i will be truthful, i have not been eating too much TRADITIONAL anything, due to the fact that i just don't want to.. But this was really good. I also did not try any coffee, if my friend Mary is reading, she will just die. Because she loves plain coffee from different countries. I on the other hand, would have given it a try if they had coffee mate Amaretto creamer next to it!!But they did not..

Next we went to the VOLCANO POAS it was okay, everytime we go to volcano's here we get tons of fog. So we can not see anything... Not the greatest.

Third we visited LA PAZ WATER FALL, this was so awesome looking. We started out by walking through an AVIARY with huge exotic birds. The video above is a Macau, getting on Andy's arm. We were in this gazebo, and he moved up by it, and being the brave person he was. He just let the bird hop on him..

It was really cool, i was a complete wussy, and did not want anything touching me.. Next we walked through a BUTTERFLY GARDEN and HUMMING BIRD GARDEN. Once again, the butterflies grossed me out. Everyone in the group was touching the butterflies and putting them on their arms, and even on thier faces!!!. The one picture is off a butterfly on our friends arm. I was so scared of them. One landed on my shoulder and I practically jumped on one of our friends to get it off of me. Also, they had like 900 butterflies just flying around. It was really kind of gross, but pretty. I know that makes perfect sense..

Next was a the FROG AREA, and SNAKE AREA. The frog area also was weird. You walk through this little room and their are tons of FROGS everywhere. I was getting a little nauseous by this point... Thank God we finally went off to see the waterfall.

Now, the waterfall was BREATH TAKING. Our camera ran out of batteries at this point. So no pics were taken. But it was a complete blast.It makes me realize how awesome God is when you see things as breath taking as waterfalls....How creative our God is, he creates such beautiful things as Waterfalls, and also creates freckles on faces.. Very detailed.

We had a lot of fun, lots of memories. And to our family who come visit, we hope to take you to all these places...

love you all, Chelsea

New Vocabulary

Andy went to a National Soccer game with some of the other guys from School. It was the Big game of the year, it was Saprissa againist La Leagua. I think i spelled la Leagua wrong. But oh, well. Anyway, here is some pictures from the stadium. This first one is the entrance to the stadium.
This is all the guys from School, and this is outside of the school..

This is a picture of the Saprissa Fans.. Now this is where it starts to get interesting. I did not attend this fun event. I choose instead to stay home and watch Extreme Home Makeover's Season Premiere in Hawaii. Which was amazing. I just sob when i watch that show.. Any way, Andy states that the fans were throwing toilet paper on the goalie area for La Leagua, the whole entire game... And they were chanting the worst cuss words, you can imagine.. So Andy learned a whole new Vocabulary, at the Soccer game!

This is the last picture of the game. Andy stated that during some part of the game, the Saprissa fans, pulled this huge banner out and proudly displayed it. You might wonder what it says, i will tell you. Then you ask yourself this question, are you this fanatic about some sports team???

The banner states: The day I die, I want my grave stone painted purple, like the color of my heart.........
This is because Purple is the color of the team Saprissa...

Now i have a family who loves Sports and really get into watching and participating in them. This is including my husband, father, brother, father-in-law, grandparents.. lots of family members.
I myself enjoy sports. But, to go as far as painting my gravestone black and gold. Because I am a Hawkeyes fan or a SEP Ram fan. I don't know about that...

Maybe I just don't get it????

Plus the funny thing is that in this game. They tied zero to zero... So it really makes no sense to me..

Anyway, we have had a good week..'
We miss all of our family, and love you all.
Talk to you later.
Chelsea

This week: Este Semana

This is just some funny things from this week...

Question number one: Where do all the birds go that migrate from the u.s.a., when it is migrating time?

Answer: To my land lords back yard!!! Yes friends, Costa Rica is a bird watchers PARADISE!!!

In the bird picture, i was taking a small nap, when these birds woke me up, and the worst part is that they are totally not afraid of me. These same birds perch outside our window at 5:00 am. They sing their song, and by 9:00 am. They leave.... It is crazy, and they sort of make me crazy, but it is sort of funny... I have video taped them, i will put that on so you can hear the crazy noise they make..

The regular pictures are from the weeks events.. We got our FIRST tests back and Andy placed number one in class.... He is a Genius... I posted them so you could see. But i can't get a good shot of his score, he scored 145 points, but i was not to far behind with 141 points...

Lastly is some pictures of our kitchen, because my mom has told me she wanted to see what it looks like.

Other than that news, not much else. I have been praying for my friends and family a lot. You all have been on my heart... I have been reading alot about Love in the Bible.. It could be a topic that i spend my whole life striving to be better at..... Jesus love is so inspiring to me....

Volcano Irazu

It was the weekend, and time to get out of the city.. You cannot imagine how much we wanted to go see something other than the 15 block radius we have stayed in for the last 3 weeks.
So Andy and I, and our friends Jeremy and Kelly Darabaras from Alabama all hopped on a bus and headed toward one of the many Volcanos in Costa Rica. Volcano Irazu.

This is pictures and some video of our trip to Volcano Irazu.. It is about an 1.5 hour trip by bus to this city of Cartago where the volcano is... This is a video of the weird animal outside of the volcano called a Coati.. They are sort of like Coyote's someone told us.. It was really odd looking. The rest of the volcano was okay looking. We arrived their at 9:35 am. And everything was clear looking. By 10:10 it was all the fogged over. So, the best advice was to go early.... Anyway, it was really cool to see, and we had lots of fun.

We hope to see some other volcano's. This was a volcano, but it had lots of crater's like the moon's surface so, it did not really feel like a volcano. They have other one's that actually look like real Volcano's. But are a longer trip away. So you need to spend the night at a nice hotel, and spend the day exploring....

Things that i miss..

okay this is a picure of our old apartment.. And it is under the category of things i miss, because it had a DISHWASHER!!!!! and i know it is lame to people who have never had this luxury item, but yes it is true i miss it....
We have been here for about 3 weeks, and we are missing our GRILL !!! i missed grilled food. I miss BARBEQUE RIBS made by my dad... I miss them alot... Rice and Beans for this iowa girl, are just not workin... They are okay,, but thier is only sometimes i am in that kind of mood.....
Okay, these are really bad pictures of Andy and I . But what we want to show is how much we miss our nephews... Ethan is on top, and Jaden is on the bottom....
We miss our family lots and lots. We can't wait to see them at Christmas.... And you better believe that i will be chowin down on some barbeque....


Here is a list that Andy and i have thought of, just some funny things we miss:
Chlorox Wipes
Era
Walmart/ Target/ Jordan Creek mall.
Famous Dave's
Carpet!!!!
Fall
a car!!!!
working at the hospital!!!
Reagen, she was my hairstylist..
DES MOINES
Starbucks
and ENGLISH, english church, english lots of things..

I enjoy learning a different language, but it has it days where i hate it too..
I am so thankful for the friends we have made and the other group of missioneries here. They are very encouraging...Also i am thankful that i am not doing this alone.. God is with me everyday, he is my strength and Andy helps me a lot... I think that he can tell, when i hit my breaking point...

Also, i wanted to add, this week we went to a movie theater called the VIP.
We saw the movie The Bourne Ultimatum. This might be the coolest movie theater, that i or Andy have ever been too. You buy a ticket for the movie, which was 4 dollars a person, and then you enter the theater. The seats, are not normal seats, they are LAZY BOYS... And then you order your food of the menu, and servers come and bring you the food. Plus the film is in English. With spanish subtitles.. It was the funnest experience...

Anyway, it has been a pretty good week. We had 2 tests today.. And we think that we did pretty good. Also we got to watch Survivor and The Office.. on our t.v. here.. We have the Denver, Co. channels in English...

That is all for now, From COSTA RICA