Costa Rica: La Fortuna

Letter to the familia:

6/5
We just got back from Arenal Volcano ( an active volcano, although there hasn't been any lava flowing from it since December). It was amazing!!! We went with our friends Sarah, Victor, Jen, and Tanner who live with us at Alijandro's. We rode on a bus (the gross, old, no ac kind, I didn't dare touch the seat head rests) for 5 hours (it only cost $4 a person) and got to La Fortuna which 

is where we stayed at a hostel. It was a really nice hostel, we stayed in tents like the kind you can stand up in, they even had outlets in them and a light. There was a really nice pool and restaurant that wasn't too expensive. The food was the best we have had while in CR. On Friday when we first got there we went zip-lining, which we got video of and pictures of  course. And then we went to Baldi Hot springs, which are springs that come from the volcano that have been made into a resort. It was paradise in there. The pictures we have don't do it justice. There are 25 pools and 3 water slides. It is all warm/hot water. And the coolest part is you can relax and look up at the volcano, it is so beautiful there. And then we ate dinner there at a buffet it, was pretty good. The next day we went water rafting, which was great fun, even though Tyler wanted to fall out and he didn't. Then we relaxed by the pool until our night hike. We had a guide take us into the rain forest at night and we got to see lots of cool animals that he spotted/ caught for us to see. We saw several frogs, a viper snake, a sloth, a few lizards, and a whole termite nest. We also saw a rubber tree and got to play with the bark, so cool. Oh and Tyler ate some termites. This morning we packed up our stuff
and headed for a waterfall. It is pretty large, but you can swim at the bottom, which most of us did. There were tons of people there so we didn't stay too long. Then we headed back to San Jose, of course the bus we were on broke down on the way, but they sent another one pretty quick. We got home ate some kind of rice with veggies and tuna in it, which was not so good, very fishy. And our juice tasted like cough syrup. No more good food :( Last Wednesday we went to the movies and saw Pirates of the Caribbean. It is played in English with Spanish subtitles, or you can go to see it dubbed over in Spanish. All of the pastries and stuff here don't have much sugar, so they are kind of bland too. I hope all is going well with you guys. Tyler is using his Spanish A LOT, it would be really hard if he didn't speak Spanish. The pic of Marta was cool. I'm so proud of her for doing that. And as for skype, we can try to set that up, I don't think we have an account. We love you all. Take care!

Clare&Tyler

Zip lining was fun until the Tarzan swing when I got pushed off a ledge by one of the guides. Sorry no pictures of my frantic face on here.  

Baldi Hot Springs- The water is naturally heated by the volcano. There are also huge nasty bugs around here. Some that can swim in the hot water. Besides the bugs I loved this place. 

Arenal Waterfall - The water was so cold, but Tyler still got in. Oh and we had to
go down about a mile worth of stairs which means we had to go up them too.

Costa Rica: Casa De Los Ninos (The House of the Children)

We sure love these kids! We had a lot of fun with them. I wish I could go back and see how they are doing. It is incredible how different my circumstances were growing up compared to these children. They sometimes go to school, but it is not enforced. They live in shacks that look like they will fall down any moment. Many of them wear the same clothes everyday, all of which look very used. Inside the Casa the tables and benches are made of tile, which is extremely slippery when it rains, which is almost every day. The children could not comprehend that I didn't speak Spanish, but somehow we still were able to communicated well enough that I could play with them and have a good time. Tyler enjoyed playing with the kids a lot except for when they cheated at Uno which they did every single game. The workers (usually about 3 women) all volunteered there, most of them did so in order to get a free meal for themselves. Jorge was the director and he even was a volunteer and would come every single day. He cared so much for these kids and did his best to teach them manners and be a good role model to them and at times be someone for them to answer to when they were not behaving. He did not allow any cussing, stealing or fighting. He also did not allow any males over the age of 16 to be there. We loved our time there and we both agree it was the best part of our trip.
Here is another email sent to our families:

5/31
So yesterday was just wonderful but very tiring which you could probably see by my lack of grammar and spelling. Something I forgot to tell you... it rained here harder than I have ever experienced rain before. Only for about an hour but Tyler and I got stuck in the rain walking to the bus stop. Our shoes were soaked through even though we bought umbrellas.  Another thing that is somewhat disturbing is you cannot flush toilet paper down the toilet. The pipes are too small and so it will clog. Every bathroom has a trash in it that you put your used toilet paper, gross huh? There is no such
thing as pedestrians have a right of way here. The driving is crazy and you pretty much cannot expect a car to slow down for you. This morning I was awoken by a lot of talking, like A LOT...it could have been in our room it sounded like but no it was right outside our widow. The walls here are paper thin you can hear everything through them. Well anyways I go to look outside our window and there are like 20 taxis covering the street and all the drivers standing around chatting. I had no idea why either. OH by the way this was 2:30 in the morning. Later Tyler and I found out that a few houses down they have parties sometimes and so the taxis wait to see if people need rides. But they have no consideration for people sleeping. They finally left around 3.
The food here is alright... its nothing gross or fancy, pretty bland though. We had hot dogs for the meat in the stew. Lots of rice and black beans. Even the punch is different. The milk it cold, but it lasts for for well over a month, kind of weird. For dinner tonight we had rice with black soup(its like bean broth or something) and then there are hard boiled eggs that are in the soup. Interesting, but bland still. Today it rained the majority of the day, but just lightly. We went to the grocery store this morning and found out the some things are more expensive here than in the states like shampoo it cost like $5 for a smaller bottle that what you would normally get. Cereal is also around $5. Crazy huh? of course we are in a nicer part of the city which makes it more expensive. We were able to get ice cream pops for 25 cents though. The children today were a little different. Some that came yesterday weren't there which is too bad. Tyler and I realized how much these children need guidance in their lives. We tried to play Uno with them but they are cheaters and play by their own rules and it is just chaotic. Even in dominoes this one boy cheats all the time, its really sad they can't even enjoy an honest game, they really try to get away with anything they can. The Uno cards and a set of dominoes were both stolen by the end of the day. It was too bad. But we still enjoyed seeing the kids smiling faces and try to help them show respect for one another.
That's it for today. Love from Costa Rica!

Clare&Tyler

Costa Rica: The Beginning

In late May of this year Tyler and I headed to Costa Rica for 3 weeks. But this is not where this story begins. Since the year before I had been bugging Tyler about going on an adventure. I really really just needed to use my passport. My goal was to get us to Europe and for months I planned budget trips to Europe that still cost over $6000. That wasn't going to fly with Tyler so we made a compromise. We decided to go somewhere closer, for an extra week, and to volunteer during the trip.
So May came around and I was so excited. We graduated at the beginning of the month from the University of Utah in Community and Consumer Studies. Yes, we both graduated in the same degree and both were on the Dean's list and Tyler had honors. We moved down to Saint George, UT for a couple days and then left from Vegas, connected in Florida and then landed in San Jose, Costa Rica. Here is an email we sent to our families the first day:

It has been an exciting and eye-opening first day. I woke up at 5 this morning because that is when the sun comes up. One of our walls in our room is all widows so you can see how this is something to get used to waking up to. We are staying with Alejandro and his son Felipe who is 9. We live in a very nice middle class home. It is all gated and we have a our own room with a lock. There are other volunteers that are staying here to. One couple who just left today is from Hurricane, UT and then another couple who just came today is from slc both are LDS. We had orientation this morning then in the afternoon we went to Casa de los Ninos. The children are not orphans, but they are severely impoverished. There families are mostly from Nicaragua and near their homes are places that have problems with drugs and such. The little building we go to feeds the children a meal in the afternoon and gives them a place to play safely. We play with the children and help serve the meal and clean up. I was nervous at first because I couldn't speak with them, but the children are so kind and friendly and just wanted me to swing the around, I even won at a game of dominoes. Unfortunately, the director of the program said we couldn't take any pictures right now. So hopefully we will be able to later. Some of the kids we even found out are LDS, that was a lot of fun to connect with them on that level. I'll write more about CR tomorrow. Love you all!
Clare&Tyler

This is the place we stayed for two weeks while volunteering.
The walls are paper thin and the floors are all cement.
But it is the nicer part of the city.

Happenings This Last Week

So far my employment has been great at Loma Linda. I realized how important my role is ( I have my own part-time assistant that is a doctorate student from India who does copies and errand for me, not that I have needed her yet)  and yet these last four work days have been relatively boring. The girl I am replacing named Grace is in her 30's, has four children and is married. She is also in nursing school. Her father recently passed away and her mother has a terminal illness. Her husband was just told he might have liver cancer. This woman can't catch a break. Yesterday her husband had surgery to see about the liver cancer. Well he doesn't have it instead it was kidney stones, thank goodness. But while in the hospital waiting for her husband to get out of surgery she gave herself a minor stroke!!! So far I have had about 2 hours of training with her because she hasn't been here. That is why I am somewhat bored. There might be things for me to do, but my boss doesn't know how to train me on anything because Grace did it all. So instead I have been getting to know people and familiarizing myself with the confusing building. Everyone is so nice and helpful. The only thing I haven't liked so far is their jewelery policy. Yesterday Dr. Z pulled me aside very nicely and told me about it. So I guess Seventh Day Adventist don't believe in wearing much jewelery and dangley earrings are a definite no no. She said it might be able to slide if I wasn't in the Dean's office, but that I should be very conservative with jewelery, so I can only wear studs. Anyone that knows me knows that earrings are pretty much the only jewelery I wear except for my wedding ring, so I was pretty sad to hear that.  But I guess it would be like a non LDS member going to BYU and realizing they can't wear tank tops or flip flops. Every religion has its reasons.


Well I got all my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving, I don't think I have done that before. I'm pretty excited to decorate and for Christmas music. Yes, I have withheld myself from listening until after Thanksgiving. Although, Tyler and I did go with our good friends the Frei's to a Christmas tree lighting at the Grove in LA. I guess they were filming a concert there that was broad casted during the Christmas tree lighting which we got to witness parts of. But mostly we just saw Mario Lopez redoing his intros to the artists and the chit chat between them after the artist sung. They even had fake killer snow. If you breathed it in you started coughing like crazy. But at the very end they had fireworks which were so much fun.

After talking with the Frei's we were kind of sad. They have had non stop visitors since moving in August. Maybe it is because they are actually in LA. But we haven't had any friends or family come to visit since we moved here.(Tricia, Pat, and the little girls did come to move us there so I'll give them credit for that).  So if you want to come to Redlands, CA please let us know. We do have an extra bedroom and couch and we are not that far from LA and the beach and Disneyland or even from San Diego. Oh and we would love to have you!





Very unexpected...

No I'm not pregnant. But here is a good story: On Wednesday I went to an LDS employment seminar thing to find more ideas about getting jobs. While I was there I learned so much, but one thing they told me is that I should own a suit to wear to interviews. I have tried on suits and I really don't look like I belong in them. They are for business women and I am too young and look like I'm playing dress up. But yesterday I decided to go look for one again and brought my friend Tia along. While we were in JCPenny I got a phone call. The lady said that they needed to schedule a physical and TB test and then a final sign on meeting to do paperwork. I was totally confused but decided to go with it because I thought it might be some kind of interview. I start making an appointment and jotting down addresses and then I tell her I'm confused. 

Me: "Is this for a job? Because I haven't actually been hired by Loma Linda, I only had an interview, but I was never told I got the job. I mean she said she would call me last week, but she never did."

HR Lady: "Hold on"

(I stand there outside of JCPenny thinking they called the wrong person and how bad I feel for her that she is going to have to tell me that she made a bad mistake)

HR Lady: "Well Clare you have just been hired, congratulations  and welcome to Loma Linda!"

Tia came out by this time and I jump all over her because I'm so excited. I couldn't wait to get home and tell Tyler. It really is one of the biggest blessings in my life right now and I'm am so grateful for it. I know Heavenly Father has given this opportunity to me even though I know there are so many deserving people that need jobs at this time, I know I will never take my employment for granted again.

So here are the details:

I am Administrative Assistant to the Associate Dean, Dr. Zimmerman, in the Allied Health College at Loma Linda University. It is about 10 minutes away from our home which is another huge blessing that I won't have to commute far away everyday and be stuck in traffic and pay for a lot of gas. I will be working where Tyler goes to school so we can meet up easily. I'll get awesome benefits because well Loma Linda is all about health and taking care of yourself. The building where I'll work is right next to the Drayson center (gym) which I have free membership to. Every Friday I get off work at 2 because of their Sabbath. Last but not least I'm getting paid a lot more than I ever have before.

It really is such a relief getting a job. I know I also learned a lot from being unemployed for so long. Life is looking great right now, especially because I don't have to buy a suit after all   :)

Nothing Too Exciting

I've been waiting for a good reason to blog again. Mostly waiting for good news from a job, but nothing. I figured I should write anyway to start a habit of writing. So here is what we have been up to:

Midterms -- Tyler got A's on all of his midterms. On one or two of them he got the top score. Believe me that week was stressful and no fun for me either since I barely got to hang out with him. But it all paid off. He sure is a smart one.

Halloween -- Tyler and I carved pumpkins with our friends...twice. First with the Davidson's and again with the Larson's. Sorry no pictures of the first time. We had a lot of fun at both and there were no injuries thank goodness.

Baby Blessing -- This last weekend Tyler and I went to my parents home for our nephew AJ's baby blessing. It was such a nice weekend having all the family there and enjoying everyone's company. We even were able to get some family pictures done which I'm sure will be posted soon.

Disneyland -- Tyler decided that he didn't need to study yesterday so once he got out of school and after we jump started his motorcycle we headed to Disneyland. The drive only took 45 minutes to get there and it was the perfect day to go. We went on almost all the rides we wanted to and the wait times were pretty minimal, we even walked onto some rides. The longest one we waited for was Star Tours but it was worth it because during the ride I was the Rebel spy that Darth Vader wanted captured it showed my picture (a very candid one) up on the screen. It was so fun. We also watched Captain EO. What a weird short movie with an incredibly weak plot. We met up with our friends Amanda and Tyler Tatton and their two kids Hadlee and Calvin. They are quite the bunch to hang out with, we are glad they think we are cool enough to let us tag along.  Except I think Hadlee has a crush on Tyler, which means I have some competition with a cute 8 year old. Once the Tattons had enough of us we decided to go over to CA Adventure and do some rides over there. We went on the Ferris wheel first and decided to go on the swinging gondola which was fun and exciting last time I went on it with Tia. This time it was still fun but the other couple in the gondola with us were two high school aged boys that were gay and one of them wouldn't stop screaming because he was so scared. I have nothing against gay people, I would have found it just as annoying if it was a teenage girl screaming the whole time. But it gave Tyler and I something to laugh over when we got off, because we normally don't hear guys scream that high or  make as big of deal over being on a ferris wheel. I wish we had a video camera and taped him. CA screamin was open and we went on that for the first time. I really really liked it. It is a great roller coaster! I recommend it to first time roller coaster riders as well as veterans like myself.

Here is my wonderful chauffeur and me driving around the pleasant area.

We had a fancy little sports car. Tyler was very excited except you can't pass anyone. Oh and he was determined to get it off the track.

Here is Hadlee and Calvin.

We totally made them go on all the scary rides with us. They were troopers.

 

 Well that about all we have been up to. Oh we both got callings, Tyler was called as a Cub Master and I was called as a CTR 7 primary teacher. I won't say I'm excited about the calling, but I'm willing to do it the best I can.

This is for you Andrea :)

I probably haven't set this up quite right yet, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Since we have moved from SLC to Redlands, CA I have had plenty of time on my hands since jobs are nearly non-existent. However, that doesn't mean I don't have anything to do. I have been baking a lot more and trying to be crafty. Both are more expensive than I thought unfortunately.

On Monday I got a job interview and I feel it went really well. I just forgot to ask when I should hear back from them and now I'm just waiting impatiently for a phone call. I also have had a lot of time on my hands so to think about what I want to do with my life. I have been pretty against going back to school until recently I have had inspiration that I should. So now I am looking at grad schools and their programs. It's too bad CA is so broke because tuition went up so much, but the program I am looking at is from Boston University online. And the program of choice is...drum roll please...Masters of Social Work. I know there are a lot of cons (and pros) about this field, however, I feel it is a good fit for me and a job that I can do part-time as the kiddos are growing up (don't be expecting them any time soon). I can also do the program part-time which would stretch it to being 3 years instead of 2. Now I just need to figure out a few more things like if I should apply for the next semester (May) or wait a little bit and work for awhile. I'm sure everything will work out how it is supposed to.

Other news...I have started running. Even as a kid I hated to run and I still do. But my body is getting used to it now and it's not so bad anymore. I try to run 3 times a week. I can run up to 3 miles with a few walking breaks now and I can run 1.5 miles without stopping. I know this isn't that great, but it sure is a start. Now for some other things related...I want a dog. What more motivation do you need to go running if you have to exercise your dog daily? I really want a Weimaraner or a Vizsla, they are similar breeds.

Weimaranar

Vizsla

 

However, I feel like we should wait until we have a place with a yard before we can have a dog especially a big dog. Speaking of dogs let's move on to one we are all familiar with: Goofy. No we actually haven't seen him yet, but I'm sure we will now that we have season passes to the Happiest Place on Earth. My friend Tia and I went a couple weeks ago because Todd(her husband a D2) and Tyler were both busy at school. We went on the carousal with a couple that were on their honeymoon from Mexico, they asked us if we were married to each other. It was a funny and almost awkward situation.