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Tate bounded off to school this morning, quite hungover from the festivities of the previous day, but nonetheless very excited to see her friends.
On Mondays Brice and I head to the bank to take care of business; and then we make the requisite stop at the grocery store.
Brice has been acquiring coins, and he has become a bit obsessive about them. At just about any given moment of the day, you can find them in the palm of his hand. He even likes to make sure that they are by his bed when he goes to sleep. (Perhaps he's been following the stock market with some concern). In any case, a palm full of coins can be a bit tricky to manage. And the grocery store was no exception. The "Super Mas" has those little kids shopping carts with (get this) four swiveling wheels. It's out of control to begin with and so put a 1-handed-steering-2-year-old behind that cart and see what happens.
We spent the remainder of the day listening to Brice inquire about his pinata candy. (Let's just say that we're anticipating a visit from the Pinata Candy Fairy any day to whisk away the candy in exchange for some sort of non-edible goody).
Tonight was a "back to school" meeting for the parents at Tate's school. As the meeting was parents-only, the kids stayed behind with Gary, Catalina & family.
Tate's school is a really wonderful place. Their approach seems to be quite modern and progressive, and it would be a school that I would feel quite comfortable sending Tate to for many years. The meeting and presentation was of course entirely in Spanish, and I can follow along well enough, but by no means can I pick up on every detail. Most of the meeting was devoted to more long term planning, so it really was of not much consequence to us. All in all, I was happy to be there to show support for Tate and the school.
Over time, I've had the priviledge of meeting some of the parents of Tate's friends, and they've all gone out of their way to make us all feel welcome. This evening was no exception. We met Rojelio, Hannah's dad, when we were shopping weeks ago in his store in Manuel Antonio and he recognized Tate. His English is very good as is his wife Sofia's, so he helped fill in the gaps of the night's meeting. The two of them were quick to offer me a ride home after the meeting. Tate has a best friend, KiKi (we thought is was "Christy", but have since figured it out), and apparently the feelings are mutual. Kiki's mom was kind enough to brave the language barrier and introduce herself to me. Kiki adores Tate and was so delighted last week when Tate gave her a (left-over) Hello Kitty Valentine. Everyone seemed to be excited about the invite that I extended to come over and play / swim. And I think the plan is for later this week... we'll see. Tate is very excited to have her friends over to her house. It's also very fun for Brice, as he lacks the social opportunities that Tate enjoys.
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Tonight was our dinner out night for the week. It's been seeming to help us to get through the long five-day school week to have a little fun right in the middle. So I gave the kids their choice of restaurant, and they chose the "one with the fountain": our favorite breakfast place "el Patio". On the way there we made a couple stops in town. One stop was at the clothing store.
This clothing store is sort of a dream realized for Tate. For the last year or so, she's been formulating this dream in her head about opening up a store of her own to sell the clothes that she makes. Her plan is to also have an apartment upstairs where she will live. Brice is also included in this plan, and his idea is to have a bike store two blocks away from Tate's store, "turn here, and then here", he says. Of course now their intent is to open their stores up in Costa Rica.
Brice and I had been into this store in Quepos before and they indeed make all of the clothes right there in the back room. Brice got a pair of shorts and we decided to bring Tate back there one day, so tonight was the night.
It took about 30 seconds for Tate to take in the whole store to realize that this was just about the most perfect place for her to be in that moment in time. Tate's been asking for "strapless" shirt / dress / anything, so I inquired if they had anything "strapless" and voila she presented to us a most beautiful sundress and introduced us to the woman who made it. Tate marched herself right to the dressing room and in two shakes she emerged wearing the dress and heart melting smile. Done deal. She wore both the dress and the smile out the door.
The walk to dinner from there and the walk home solicited almost constant affection and "que lindos" from passers-by. Tate now knows what they're saying about her, and she delivers them a beautiful smile in response. As I was tucking her in she said something like, "they thought I was so beautiful". And we talked about how it made her feel to hear people say such nice things about her. We also talked about how different it is here than in the US as far as how much more open people are here to expressing their feelings. She professed that she likes it here better. And then we decided that Brice likes the US a bit better as he prefers for people to keep their comments to themselves.
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This is a picture that Tate drew for her teacher, Marisol. She copied the images from a Costa Rica Wildlife booklet that we have. With some bias, I have to say that I was pretty impressed. Tate's teacher, for whatever reason, spells her name T-E-T-E, so that is how Tate wanted to spell it for Marisol.
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Another weekday, another day at school for Tate. We wait for the bus on the steps beside our apartment in the morning. The bus arrives at 7:15 am.
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We've been enjoying the colony of caterpillers that have been munching away on this passiflora vine near the swimming pool.
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Our good friends Dennis & Debbie, from Mount Shasta, arrived in Quepos this morning. A little hot and tired from the overnight flight from LA. They rallied in good form though, and joined us for a trip down to the weekly farmers market before we all enjoyed siestas during the heat of the afternoon.
It was so wonderful to see familiar faces and hear news of all of our friends at home.
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Dennis and Debbie headed off to hike around in Manuel Antonio National Park early in the morning, and the plan was for all of us to meet up later in the morning for some beach time.
So far since we've been down here, we've managed for the most part to avoid the beach on a weekend. Today, being Sunday, was as crowded as we've ever seen in. And contrary to what you would think, the crowds actually bring out more wildlife than on a quiet day with few people. On the beach, we pulled into a shady nook only to be greeted by four iguanas. One was of the bigger variety, the kind that is a bit freaky for Brice if it gets too close.
The animals are sensitized to humans, and as we watched a woman feed an iguana a 1/2 loaf of Wonder bread it was obvious why we found ourselved surrounded by our spiky little friends when we pulled out our snacks. I impulsively sprinkled a bit of sand at an iguana who was approaching too close, so of course Brice took every opportunity with his sand shovel to fling a load at whatever iguana happened to be nearby. The iguanas hung out with us the entire time we were there (about 3 hours).
Brice makes quite an impression when we are at the beach as his routine when he needs to pee is to totally strip down, run to the water, stand ankle deep, spread 'em and whiz it all out. I keep thinking that nobody will notice... but everytime there is a chorus of adoring commentary from everybody on the beach nearby. It ends up being a big show.
When the kids and I hit the water, we were greeted by several other kids who wanted to play. This attention from the other kids was constant and very fun for everybody.
The kids really enjoyed swimming with Debbie; I always appreciate having an extra set of eyes and arms. Tate was working on some bodysurfing (all by herself), and she was actually having some success with it - the timing is the trickiest part. Brice was trying to bodysurf, but he prefered to surf himself into the oncoming waves.
On our way out of the park we saw one monkey swing down out of the trees and grab a watermelon rind next to a napping beachgoer. As we were watching that monkey, we then saw the trees around us come to life with about 10 other monkeys. It was quite a scene as the monkeys were trying to score goodies from the tourists (some of whom were all to happy to oblige). There are signs that say "Don't feed the monkeys", but clearly there's no enforcement as we so witnessed. Seems as though the photo opportunity is worth more to many people. The monkeys were dangling and swinging only just a few feet from our heads. When Brice started to get nervous we headed on out and took the opportunity to talk about the reasons why people shoudn't feed the monkeys.
Dennis & Debbie treated us to a fun dinner out at El Avion, the restaurant that is built around this old cargo plane.
I snapped a photo of the kids as they were sleeping later that night; Brice's foot on Tate's cheek was too irresistible.
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