Halloween and our first day trip to the beach

Since Claire's school is an American one, they do celebrate Halloween. She dressed as Hello Kitty and got to participate in a big school assembly. All the elementary kids dressed up and did a fancy walk to music in front of judges, then prizes were awarded (candy and marshmallows). It was a bit overwhelming for the itty-bitties, but the older kids sure enjoyed it. If I hadn't mentioned before, Claire loves to pretend to be a kitty and has for four or five months now. She says we have two kitties here: Bailey kitty and Claire kitty.

Our Hello Kitty with her Hello Kitty

We heard while we were on our trip in the U.S. it rained non-stop for two weeks straight. Good time to be gone! Everything was pretty soggy when we got back, but we've now had four days straight of NO rain, so things are drying out nicely. We're moving into "summer," a.k.a. the dry season, which is roughly November through April. It's pretty breezy, which we hear signifies that Christmas is drawing near (they call it the "Christmas wind"). Speaking of Christmas, since there are no holidays between Independence Day (September 15) and Christmas, the stores are all completely decked out already. Full-on lights, decorations, things for sale... And we thought it started early in the U.S.!

Taking advantage of the fantastic weather this weekend, we took our first day trip to the beach on Saturday. We drove to a small town near Jacó called Punta Leona and visited Playa Blanca, which is only about 90 minutes from our house. There's a hotel there where you can pay for day access, so we not only got to use the beach and bathrooms, but lunch was included at one of the restaurants, we visited a butterfly garden, and Claire got to use the playground and pool. She enjoyed the pool a lot more than the beach because it didn't have any waves.

Buried in the sand at the beach

"Look, Mommy - I'm floating!"

There are a bunch of pictures from our beach trip here. Unfortunately, I thought I took some that I apparently didn't, including some of a family of pizotes (coatis) on the beach looking for food and some of Claire building sand castles. The pizotes were like Costa Rican raccoons, except that we saw raccoons there, too. One pizote even made off with a chicken breast from the outdoor restaurant during lunch (they really try to keep them away from people food, but they're tenacious). We also saw about six scarlet macaws flying overhead and roosting in the trees - they were just gorgeous and impressive (and noisy!).

I managed to catch one scarlet macaw in flight - so cool!

The end of October marked six months here for us - it's been a great experience so far! I bought a fresh pineapple the other day, and wonder why it took me six months to do so. It's cheap and ridiculously delicious! (We've bought two more since.) We already feel spoiled with the warmer weather versus what it would be in Kansas City right now. (Not to rub it in or anything. Come visit!)

The Spanish Summary:

La escuela de Claire celebró Halloween con una asamblea. Claire vestía de Hello Kitty, porque ella es una gatita (dice ella). Por cuatro o cinco meses ella ha sido una gatita – ella dice que nosotros tenemos dos gatitas: Bailey gatita y Claire gatita.

Cuando nosotros estábamos en los Estados, San José tenía lluvia por dos semanas sin parar. Nooo, gracias. Fue un bien tiempo para viajar… En este momento el clima es como verano – más caliente y con viento (“el viento de Navidad”). No hay feriados entre el Día del Independencia y la Navidad, entonces todas las tiendas y los mercados ya tienen decoraciones para la Navidad. ¡Y pensamos que la temporada comience muy temprano en las Estados!

Nos aprovechamos el clima maravilloso este fin de semana y fuimos a la playa en sábado. Visitamos Playa Blanca y Punta Leona y usamos las facilidades de un hotel: la playa, los restaurantes, las piscinas, el play, y un jardín de las mariposas. La favorita de Claire fue la piscina, porque no hubo las olas. Hay fotos aquí.

Hemos estado aquí seis meses en el fin de octubre – ¡lo ha pasado una experiencia maravillosa! Compré una piña fresca otro día – ¡que rico! Compramos dos más. Sentimos chineados con el buen clima, especialmente con las temperaturas en Kansas City en este momento. (¡Visitenos!)