A Touch of Frost

The air is clean and pure and oh so refreshing this morning. I missed out on a walk with Simon because my bed was so cosy and I sure regret it. Thankfully its not the end of the day! The dog just got back but Simon is not in sight so he must have seen someone to visit with. And here comes Simon telling me of the light frost we had last night. And you folks did not believe me that it gets cold here at night.

Well, a new year is in sight and with it comes all the newness with which we infuse the idea. I always like when Christmas and New Year are on a Sunday. It satisfies my sense of rightness. So to all a Good New Year!

This is just one of the views we are privileged to have in our back yard. We revel in it. On the left side in the background is Volcan Irazu. The other is way over in Heredia. This photo was taken from near the top of our road out of the valley. In reality it's a 15 minute drive uphill from our house.

The newest member of our family is Tigger. He's a Rhodesian Ridgeback, about 11 months old. We've had him a week. We've also had our Land Rover for a week. Simon's been babying it ever since. He played in it yesterday on a trip up Muerte, went 4x4ing with a friend. Our boys were so excited at the possibilities that meant for them next time.

Christmas was good, albeit a little different than snowy Ontario. Instead of snow, white flowers (and red and pink and yellow....) Instead of cold a hot sun and warm breeze. Instead of chickadees and sparrows, hummingbirds and, ok and sparrows. We were able to find a turkey and a box of stovetop stuffing (Sorry Mom--I didn't make my own this year.) The rest of the fixings also were in attendance. Our lights were on, the nativity set moved inside to rescue the remainder of figures from the dog. It was a cute set, the kids made it out of baker's clay. But the wise man tasted too much like a doggy biscuit. We had been keeping up Advent during the preceding month and so finished off that beautiful time with reading the Christmas story out of Luke. It was a really nice Christmas. But there were no people; no family, no friends, no neighbour even. So that made it feel not lonely, but very alone. But we've given up all pretenses of imagining it to be still Christmas week. Life has gone on. New Year's is tomorrow and I'll plan on making our traditonal New Years cookies. We have a volunteer arriving today for a month from Wales so we'll enjoy having him over and sharing the evening together.

The Aldridge Family Christmas 2005

Quetzal

We were getting breakfast yesterday morning when we heard a strange noise from outside. Looking out, we saw a number of quetzales settling down into the trees just a few feet out our side door. What a sight! We counted five in the end, and they stayed around for an hour. Incredible!

Hope your day has a beautiful surprise in it too.

One job i get to do is rescue cars that venture into the river. The camp's Chevy Surburban was attempting to cross but got the axel hungup on a rock. The little engine that could ( old Land Rover) could not pull the beast out. We had to winch it out. Six hours of fun in the sun and water.
When we get the new bridge I will be able to sleep better.
Cars rescued so far-Isuzu pickup, Honda 4x4 and Surburban.

Saying goodbye

We had lunch with friends today who are leaving Costa Rica after one full year of language school. It´s hard to say goodbye. But hey, we got some good deals on some of their stuff! But truthfully, it´s a little weird to think that when we returned to Costa Rica to start our mission project, many of our friends were getting ready to leave for their countries of mission. And, many of them have had plans change. One set were geared up to go straight to Venezuela. But with political problems came missionary problems and they are returning to the States for an indefinite time. Emotionally tough.

By the way, still waiting for the Land Rover. They´re saying maybe ¨manana.¨

Camp is closed now for Christmas until early January. Our cook´s last day is tomorrow. Anybody know of a Spanish-speaking cook interested in living in paradise? Call if you do, please!(Simon´s requesting French trained!)

1st and 2nd Dentist Appointments

From Bronwyn regarding her first traumatic dentist experience.
I remember getting my shots in my mouth and it really hurt. I cried and grabbed Mom´s hand. I couldn´t help crying because it hurt so much. And I got some spacers in my mouth only in between my top molars. And also I got some molds made of my teeth and some pictures of my teeth. And I´m having another appointment on the 21st of December.

Advent and fresh fish

I'm not sure if yesterday was the first day of Advent or the second. But for us it was the first. Without making a big deal of it Simon and I planned a nice meal, a little discussion time about the meaning of Christmas and of course lighting the Advent candle. We had an Advent calendar making session and in general the whole evening caused a great deal of excitement. Cai said "I didn't know we were going to have this big party!" It was a special family time. We had an interesting discussion about how important Christ is to us, with each person sharing their thoughts. We've never had family Advent preparations before so it was extra special. After supper had been cleaned up nobody wanted to turn on the lights (candles were burning nicely) or even leave the room. We got a photo album out and continued to enjoy our family.

Today, Cai and Keanan and the neighbour boys caught some river trout for supper. What a shock to be faced with 5 whole fish complete with insides. Cai helped immensely in the gutting and cleaning (despite a queasy stomach, he thought the guts were cool.) I'm not sure how we pulled it off but somehow we had a lovely trout and pasta dinner. It gave me an interesting perspective to eat fish that I had prepared from the scales in.

Tomorrow our truck should be ready! At least the latest we heard is that it will be, provided there were no glitches in the final check today. Now there's just the final bill....