Wednesday

Just a brief blog to document what we did today.  Another early start....Headed out of town and out in the country to visit the butterfly farm.  Then back on the bus for our trip to the Botanical gardens.  Lunch at a quaint little town and then off to the dairy processing plant.  It was pretty warm today, but the evening is pleasant.  Fernando ordered Pizza Hut pizza and we all sat outside on the picnic tables to eat.  Phillip ran to a minimart and bought some Imperials to drink.  Even though Costa Rica is the same time zone as Arkansas, they are not on daylight savings time, so it gets dark earlier. The area in the front courtyard has been on of our favorite places when we are stationed at the hotel.

We leave at 7:00 in the morning and will visit a sugar can mill on the way to the coast.  It is about a five hour drive to the coast, so it will be nice to break the trip up.  We will spend the rest of our trip at an all inclusive resort.  Friday is our adventure day - zip lining, horseback riding, rafting and swimming in a natural hot pool.  Saturday is a beach day so that we can rest up for the trip back home on Sunday.  Hard to believe that we are nearing the end of our trip....

Another INTERESTING day...

We left very early this morning, headed to the countryside.  We visited another coffee plantation today (CoopaDota), but we were able to tour the processing facilities at this one.  We donned hard hats and toured the entire plant. It was so interesting to learn about the entire coffee production process.  I will never complain about the price of coffee now that I know what is required to get it to the stores. There is a cafe at the production facility and we all enjoyed various coffee drinks.  They had a special drink just for the upcoming "holidays" so I tried that one and it was delicious.  To the people of Costa Rica, Easter is a holiday as significant as Christmas.  The children are out of school for a week and they have parties, parades, etc.

We had lunch as a Costa Rican home.  Two ladies provided the lunch, served on a covered patio in their backyard.  It is "summer" all year in Costa Rica, but it is not hot.  It was very pleasant under the eucalyptus trees with a cool breeze blowing.  After lunch we visited a small family-owned business that produces honey products, a beautiful catholic church and then back to the hotel.  We're tired tonight, so we had a quick dinner.

UNBELIEVEABLE!

We have spent the day hiking in the Rain Forests of Costa Rica with white-faced monkeys swinging in the trees overhead.  AWESOME!  Words can not describe and photos could never do justice to the experience.  However, I will post lots of pictures later :)

We started out this morning to the Poas Volcano.  The weather was cloudy and we couldn't see the crater, but we enjoyed the hike up the mountain.  We also made a stop at a coffee plantation.  The weather and altitude of the area make this the perfect place to grow coffee - and Costa Ricans love coffee.  Then we went to the La Paz Waterfall Gardens.  It was beautiful!  It houses the largest butterfly farm in the country.  The experience was so calming.  You are in the huge area that has netting overhead.  They had soothing music playing in the background and these huge, colorful butterflies would land on you.  We also saw a butterfly being born.  Afterwards we went through an exhibit with animals native to the area and then headed on our hike into the Rain Forest.  Now keep in mind that this is a rainforest and it rained most of the day.  However, we didn't let it bother us.  No raincoats or umbrellas - we're tough!  The experience in the rainforest is up there with one of my favorite lifetime experiences.  I now TOTALLY understand why people say that a scene is so beautiful that it is "breath-taking"....this was!

We are here!

We arrived last night around 11:00.  It was a long day...Phillip and I had to get up at 4:30 to get to LR.  Actually, it was a good travel day, no flights delayed and we had plenty of time to make our connections.  I will be posting pictures later.  The internet connection is very slow at the hotel.

Had a blast today.  I love traveling with these kids - so much fun!  They are all very polite, and lots of fun.  Fernando took us around town today.  We walked the entire day and saw the Central Market, the National Theatre and the National Museum.  Afterwards we did some shopping, when back to the hotel for a while and then out to eat dinner.  We have an early day tomorrow - heading to the volcano!

Costa Rica

I am taking a group of students to Costa Rica during Spring Break.  There will be two other professors on the trip and 17 students.  We will be blogging about our adventures at the following blog:

Costa Rica

A day at the Zoo with Evan!

Melissa had some things to do in Little Rock on Thursday, so she and Evan drove down and stayed with us.  It has been a long time since Evan has been to the Little Rock Zoo and the weather was perfect for a trip to the zoo on Friday, so we headed out first thing.  Everybody's favorite exhibit was the Penguins!

After visiting the zoo we headed to Pei Wei's (Evan loves Chinese food) for lunch and then headed home.  Since we were still thinking about those cute little penguins, we rented Mr. Poppers Penguins!

Jayden's 10th Birthday Party

Jayden celebrated his 10th birthday on February 12 at the skating rink.

Beautiful day!

50 degrees and the sun is shining...makes you want to stay outside!