Claire's first day of school

Claire started school today! As previously mentioned, her school is called Yimboré, and is a daycare-type place for kids age 6 months to 5 years. She's in the Pre-Kinder A room, which is for kids between 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 years old.

Yesterday we went by to register her and they happened to be having a birthday party in her new room. She got to sit and have cake and juice with her new classmates, which was a great introduction. This is her with the kids and Teacher María José.

It's apparently the law in Costa Rica for school children to wear uniforms, so she now has three sets of gray polos, red shorts, and red socks. We also pack her own snacks and lunch, so yesterday we bought her a little Hello Kitty backpack and lunch box because, "I really like kitties." This is her with María José when we dropped her off this morning.

She initially didn't want us to leave today, but then she saw the toys and dove right in. She had a fantastic day, and we got a very sweet note from her teacher:

She was happy, smiling, and very dirty when we picked her up - all signs of having had a fun time.

In other news, we didn't have any luck buying a car today because the Tico (Costa Rican) who was supposed to go car shopping with us had a conflict this morning. Instead, Graham and I went to a big used car happening this week just to look around. It was nice to see what's available and what we might pay for it. Basically, take the Edmunds.com price and double it. Ouch. Darn import taxes. We hope to hook up with our contact tomorrow to do some actual shopping.

A few more cute Claire pictures from the last few days:

We went out for pizza the other night at Pizza M y M - muy delicioso! Claire has a new favorite drink - Tropical Uva. (Grape-flavored Tropical, kind of like Snapple.)

Pizza M y M also had  a fun playhouse that was just girl-sized.

 "Mommy, I like our couch!"

Graham and Claire playing futbol in the center of Belén. Most town squares have a big church and a soccer field - this is the Iglesia de San Antonio de Padua. Claire loves the fountains - reminds her of Kansas City.