Wonderful Trip to North America!

A quick two weeks home, but filled with family, friends and FUN!!
My oldest sister Nikki got married to my new brother Mike!! They got married on the North Shore, and it was beautiful!! It was just family, so small, but amazing. It was so wonderful to have all the family back together again!! I loved getting time to catch up with all my siblings, and to see my neices and nephew and how they have all grown!! That's when I know I'm missing out on time, because they grow up so fast!! But they are super adorable!

I also got the opportunity to go to my best friends wedding in Ontario!! I was a bridesmaid, and it was a privlidge to stand for her on that day! Sarah and Andrew got married May 5th, but I got to spend the whole week with them before the wedding. We drove down to Niagra Falls one day, and they are very beautiful! It was a great time to catch up from lost time, and to celebrate with them on their special day!

I rode home with a group that drove out from Minnesota/Manitoba to go to Sarah's wedding. We made a pit stop in Toronto, which was really fun, and also stopped at Niagra Falls (again!!). That gave us ample time to catch up being it was a 17 hour drive home, but it was well worth it!

Everyday that I was home home, in Monticello, I got to see my cute neice Myli!! She's growing up sooooo fast, and talking soooo much!! She now says my name, and calls me by it!! I love it!

Running everywhere to see friends was part of the trip, but a great part at that!! The little amount of time that I had with everyone was cherished sooo much!! Everyone was so encouraging, and happy to seem me too, it was wonderful!

As I said before I am now refreshed and ready to finish my time here in Costa Rica!! Thank you all for taking time to spend with me while I was home. Love you all and miss you already!! And sorry to those that I didn't get a chance to see and spend time with... but we'll have to do it in October for sure!

Erikson's Come for a Visit!

My Dad's youngest brother John and his family came for a visit to Costa Rica!!

John, Karen, Vanessa and Jack were looking for a family vacation destination, and since I was going to be here in Costa Rica for a year, they decided to come and see the country and see me!!
It was SOOOO fun to have them here!! We went to a museum here in San Jose, and just walked around a little and saw some of the sights that the capital has to offer!
I also got to go on a tour with them one of the days there were here! We went on a 12 hour tour of Costa Rica, which was really great! We went to a coffee plantation for breakfast, and then went to one of the volcanos here, it has one of the largest sulfuric acid craters in the world, this was volcano Poas, then saw a waterfall, and had lunch at a resort area here in the rain forest where we saw some rain forest animals! Then went on a boat tour in the rain forest where we saw tons of monkeys and other fun animals!

It was so great to have my family here. It had been awhile since I had see them all, and my little cousins are getting so big!! They were so encouraging to have here, and super refreshing!
Thanks for coming to visit me guys!! I love you!

Horquetas de Sarapiqui~

I had the opportunity to go live in the jungle/rainforest for 10 days, and it was increadible!!

There is an Alliance church there, and I got the opportunity to live with the pastors and to experience their church while I was there. I met a lot of people in the church by doing house visits!! Each day someone opened their house to me and had me over to talk with me, and then they served me lunch. It was so humbling, because a lot of these people have nothing. They have the house they live in, and are sincerely grateful for each meal the Lord provides them. I learned a lot from these people. I also got the opportunity to go to the pastor's son's school and teach English for a week or so. That was interesting, and very fun. It is a small school (of about 20 students), and are from preschool to grade 12. I had the chance to teach grades 7-12. Since I'm looking at continuing my studies in college with this major (Teaching English as a Second Language) this was a great opportunity for me to see what I would be getting into!

I learned a lot in the days that I was there. The pastors were very welcoming and giving. They take so much time for anyone that comes to their door, and that was so amazing to see. The people are very accepting and loving. Just life in general there is more slow pace than the busy city life that I've been living in the time I've been here.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I celebrated my 22nd birthday here in Costa Rica!!
It wasn't a huge deal, but fun none the less!! I had some of my gringas over for taco salad (my dinner of choice!) and tres leches cake that my host sister made!! We played games with my host family, and just hung out a little bit too!!

No pinata for me.... but honestly, that's quite alright with me!!

viaje a nicaragua!

The beginning of April, my co-gringas Ashley and Jessi, and I set out to Nicaragua for a short trip! The warnings of how "dangerous" Nicarauga was sparked our interest even more to check it out for ourselves. You see it's not more dangerous than Costa Rica, it's just that Costa Ricans have something against the Nicaraguans, so they think always say that Nicaragua is more "dangerous" than Costa Rica. And we needed to renew our visas anyways, so we headed North!!

This happened to be the week of Semana Santa, which is the week before Easter called the Holy Week, and EVERYONE in Latin America has this week off pretty much, so this is a huge time to travel! We knew it would be busy, but way busier than we thought!! We waited in line to get our passports stamped out of CR into Nicaragua for 5 hours! It was ridiculous! These are pics I took of the lines, they don't even do justice!

We arrived in Managua, the capital that night after a full day of travel, and our plans changed to the delay at the border, so we stayed with a friend of Jessi's that is doing their ministry in Managua, it was sooo wonderful!
Our plan was to head down to Granada, which is on the lake in Nicarauga, and we heard it was beautiful and colonial! So the next morning we went there and found our hotel that we had booked to drop our bags and then went exploring!
Granada was beautiful!! We climbed a church steeple thing and saw a sweet view of Granada at sunset, it was great! We also witnessed a semana Santa celebration from the top view, and later went and took a different picture! It was cool to see this cultural event!


The next day Ashley and Jessi were determined to find this lake that used to be a volcanic crater.... and it was the best decision ever!! Once we got there (another adventure!!), it was BEATUIFUL!!! We just swam and hung out there for the day, it was amazing! The best part of the trip in my opinion!

Then we headed back to Managua to catch our bus back to Costa Rica. It was a short trip, but very great, and wonderful to experience it with these great girls!