Lately...

We have been out of school, on the Christmas trimester break, for almost a month now.  At the beginning of the month, I could barely fathom how the time would pass.  Turns out that we had a good break, exceedingly relaxing, and we're already to get back to classes next week.  (well, except perhaps one girl and one science class... we'll cut her some slack...)

In the last month, we've wandered around San Jose, watched movies, read books, and slept in.  We rejoiced in Christmas celebrations.  We made new friends and we renewed old friendships, too. 

But the highlight of the month was having our first visitor.  I promise, if you come to visit, I'll be this happy to be with you, too. She was a great sport- it's probably not so easy to travel with our group of 7!  She will always be welcome to join us.

We journeyed to Monteverde, the cloud forest of Costa Rica.  Beautiful!  More shades of green than I could even begin to describe.  More shades of green than even a camera can capture.  We saw cheese being made.  We went to a bat exhibit.  We saw an amazing sunset.  We ziplined through the cloud forest!  (whoa!  I was sure I was going to crash into the tree every single time!!  I didn't.  phew.)  We saw the amazing colors of birds and of flowers.  We played games and ate good food.  

We made it to the beach at Jaco.  And spent a great day at the La Paz Waterfall Gardens, but I forgot my memory card there- no pictures.   Thankfully, we have a lot of memories, and some friends with cameras!

And, oh yeah, we spoke some Spanish too!  :-)

For more photos, check out this album on Picasa.