Abundance

I am so ridiculously blessed by my friends. Thanks girls for a great night, and for making me feel so celebrated and loved.

Everything is going to be in Spanish next week. Yikes!

So (it's my new years resolution to start every blog post off with SO. Well, not really but if that was true things would be looking really good at this point!) I'm heading back to Costa Rica in 6 days. Holy woahhh! 6 days! How the crap did these last 4 weeks in los Estados Unidos de América go by so fast? Like really really fast. My time at home has been so rich...richer than I could ever describe. I have spent almost all my time surrounded by family and friends, knowing that I will have plenty of time to be alone (and watch tv) when I return to CR. My life here seems to be so normal. And by normal I mean I can actually order food here with out having a mild panic attack. And...I'm not confused 94% of the time. Yeah, my life in the US just isn't as funny...well, there was that one time on New Years Eve when a teacher from my high school was at the same party...yeah, that was funny.

I'm very much anticipating my return to CR though. Home is definitely comfortable, where as Costa Rica is still, even though I've been there for 5 months, on the opposite side of the comfortable spectrum. I now fully understand the meaning of a foreign country. I am super excited for everything coming up this Spring...or I guess it's considered Summer in Costa Rica now. Huh, that could get confusing. Anyways, I am way hopeful and expectant in the ways the Lord is moving in kids lives at Lincoln and CDS through Young Life and Wyld Life. And shout out to Dani and Gloriana...I can't wait to see you girls! :) There is so much going on in the next 5 months and sometimes it makes me sad to think that June will be here before I know it. My friend Susan is coming out to visit me in March. Sus is fluent in Spanish. Fluent as in she spoke Spanish before she spoke English, and I'm going to make her to order all my food for me when she comes to visit! And....we have Wyld Life camp in April, which on a scale of 1 to Awesome, is going to be Sooo AWESOME!!! And....I'm flying back to Kansas City for a week because my BEST FRIEND is getting married!

Well, there you have it...all my thoughts on leaving home and going back to the Rica. I still have 6 days left here though, which means I still have time to drink in lots and lots of English.

Adios for now mi amigos!

Home Sweet USA!

So I've come to conclude that my life here in the States just isn't as funny as it is in Costa Rica... I actually know how to do things here, and I'm rarely confused throughout the day. It's great really. Everything about being home in the last week has been so so wonderful, well, except for that time I got pulled over.

Welcome back to America Lis.

Here's the sitch.
A couple nights ago I met up with two of my favorite people, Sami and Cori. Later that night when I was leaving the brewery I pull up to a red light. I was turning right, and mind you there were absolutely no cars in sight. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. I stop at the light and then turn. There was a cop up ahead that I saw after I turned. Totally saw him and totally had this thought run through my head..."I wasn't speeding, and I don't have any headlight/break lights out... he's not gonna pull me over." Wrong-O. Homeslice, was hanging out in the median, and as I pass by he flips a U, and there go his lights. Son of a B!

I roll my window down and he goes "Mam (which is kinda annoying that he called me mam because he was maybe 3 years older then me), I pulled you over because when you turned at the light back there, you pulled into the farthest lane of traffic. Is there a reason why you did that?" I wanted to cuss-are you freaking kidding me? Is there a reason why I did that? Ummm yeah. There were absolutely NO cars in sight and the "farthest" lane that I turned into was the second lane over. Come on dude, who doesn't do that? I was just annoyed at this point that this was really going on right now?

Oh wait, it gets better. He asks for my license and registration and mind you I haven't driven this car, or at all for that matter in 4 months. I was rummaging through every paper in my glove box, which there happened to be an excessive amount of expired registrations, but no current registration. How freaking convenient. He tells me to keep looking, takes my license and says he's going to "get started." Crap, get started-that totally means I'm getting a ticket. Oh and...I don't have current insurance on me either and my license plate tags are expired too. Awesome. At this point I don't have a whole lot going for me...other than some charisma.

I've never pulled the whole crying thing to get out of a ticket before, but I was so flustered and kept thinking I was gonna get slammed with a $300 ticket, and next thing you know tears are coming down. Five minutes later the cop comes back to my car and says "Mam, do you know there's a warrant out for your arrest?" I instantaneously reply "A WARRANT???" He then says, "Oh, I guess that isn't a funny joke!" Oh. My. Goodness. I almost punched him in the face. No dude, that joke isn't funny. Nice try though. After he made that joke I thought immediately to myself, wait a second, since Mr. funny guy is crackin' jokes does that mean I'm not gonna get a ticket? I was so right...thank you Jesus! He told me that there's no reason he should be letting me go free with out a ticket, and that he could literally impound my car and take me to jail due to the fact I was missing current registration, license plate tags, and insurance. Ooops...yeah, my bad. But he let me go... with out a ticket, and he just told me to take care of it ASAP.

I drove home listening to Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" on repeat. It's good to be home!

EMMMERICA!

I'M HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mal Pais with lots of Coloradans...and John who secretly wishes he was from Colorado.

Oh man. Ok, so we just got back from Mal Pais yesterday. Kate had 6 (yes 6!) friends fly in from Colorado, and we went to the beach with them for a couple days! The Colorado crew consisted of Kathleen, Chambless, Harpel, Hoover, Bella, and Thomas. The beach was so great. It's always nice to get out of San Jose, but it was such a refreshing couple of days being around people who had a fresh excitement about Costa Rica. They appreciate the smells, the food, the culture...they loved everything really, and it was so good to be around them. And...they are freaking hilarious.

We stayed in rancho's at a surf hostel. Oh you aren't sure what a rancho is? Well...it's a room with a straw ceiling and ONLY 3 walls. Not 4 walls, 3. There are really great things about having only 3 walls-like being able to watch the sun rise over the ocean. And then there are some not really great things about having only 3 walls-like having intruders in the middle of the night. Yes, intruders. Don't be alarmed, it wasn't a person....it was a CAT! A freaking cat! So, the second night we were there Kathleen woke our room up in the middle of the night with a loud horrifying scream. She flew into Kate's bed frantically, and said "There was a cat it my bed, and it was like spooning with me." A freaking cat...in her bed...spooning with her! What? She scared the cat with her scream, and it left the same way it came in...threw the open section of the room where there typically would be the 4th wall.

Then about an hour later we hear the girls in the next rancho over (the rest of the crew) scream! Little Oreo (that's what I named the cat) found it's way into their room, and woke Hoover up by licking her face. They literally threw it out of the room, no mercy with stray cats, but it kept coming back....and licking the other girls faces. Oreo came back into their room like 5 times before it finally stayed out. And then... the next day we got back from the beach and guess who it is taking a little nap on one of their beds....Oreo. Little punk! Seriously, the nerve that cat had. The nerve!

Other highlights of the trip...

-We all crammed into "Large Marge" (John's car). There were nine of us in a 7 passenger car, and then the whole ENTIRE roof was filled with a surfboard and backpacking backs! It was legit.

-I had maracuya cheesecake! Maracuya is passion fruit and I'm kiiiinda obsessed with it, and determined to try it in every form possible. So far I've covered juice, smoothie, pie, ice cream, margarita and cheesecake. Holy crap, I love that stuff!

-We played lots of ping pong, and I almost peed my pants like 12 times.

-I learned how much tooth paste to use while brushing my teeth. Yeah, turns out I've been doing it wrong the whole time, and would always have a foamy beard coming from my mouth. The amount of tooth paste the show on tooth brushes in commercials is really deceiving. You really only need a little. Who knew?

-Our hostel had a sweet pool, and we played lots of pool games which Kathleen always won.

-Oh and we totally got a coconut down from a tree and drank the coconut water! We saw some local do it after he got done surfing and then Kathleen was all "Hey, I wanna coconut!" The whole endeavour was pretty hilarious!

Thanksgiving, New Moon, and Christmas decorations- what more could I want?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. No, people don't typically celebrate Thanksgiving in Costa Rica, but you better believe we did! The Suwyn's had us over for a Thanksgiving feast, and it was so great. Between all the Young Life and Vida Joven staff there was probably about 25 people there, and it was a lot of people's first Thanksgiving...ever! So fun! We have so much to be thankful for!
Yesterday Kate and I went to see Luna Nueva...aka...New Moon! Ohhh Twilight, how I never thought I would like you...and then I got suckerd into it, and I kinda like you now! :) Holy crap, it was ridiculous. I don't think I've ever been to such a hyped up movie before. For reals, there was a HUGE line wrapping around the movie theater an hour and a half before the movie even started. What??? I'm pretty positive every Costa Rican girl between the age of 11-15 was there. They screamed. Literally, screamed. When the movie finally started...they screamed. When Edward and Bella kissed...they screamed. When Jacob took off his shirt to wipe blood from Bella's face...they screamed (I may or may not have let out a little yip when this happened too! Homeboy is hot) And my favorite part was the way the movie ended...and everyone screamed really loud!

My host mom is so gringa. Well, not really, she's totally tica, but she didn't start putting up her Christmas decorations until last night (after Thanksgiving even though peeps in CR don't celebrate Thanksgiving)....unlike every other Costa Rican who started decorating in September. Yes, September. You think I'm exaggerating, but seriously many people and businesses had their Christmas decorations up in September. And early September matter-of-fact. Luchy was setting up her Christmas village last night and almost wet myself I was so excited. My mom has a Christmas village too and for a second in time I felt like I was at my own house! I tried to tell Luchy and Lisa (mi host sister) about the time my Aunt Becky snuck into our house while we were all gone. She bought little cowboy and indian toys, (see picture below!) and knocked down the people in the village to make it look like cowboys and indians attacked. My whole family thought it was hilarious, but I don't think Luchy and Lisa got it. It was worth a try!

After Luch, was done setting up the village I made her stand by it, and I took a picture. Pretty sure she thought "there goes my crazy host daughter again, making me pose for awkward pictures," but whatever! I love her. I mean seriously...look at her. How could you not love this woman?

OH and Luchy told me last night when she was decorating that the most important Christmas decoration in CR is the nativity scene. I checked out the nativity scene this morning, but it looked like something was missing. Little baby Jesus...where are you? I thought maybe someone stole little baby Jesus like I used to do when I was a kid, but then I learned that they put Him in there at midnight on Christmas eve. Don't worry, no one stole little baby Jesus! Phew!

I have a confession...

I'm going to let you in on a little secret if you didn't know already- I don't know Spanish. I know shocking right. That's not the confession though. I live in Costa Rica, but I definitely don't know Spanish. I mean...I know some, but not a lot by any means. And my friend Tony, well, he knows a lot of Spanish because he's from Costa Rica. He works for Vida Joven (that's what Young Life here is called if it's not at International schools.) Anyways, he dabbles with English, and for sure knows more English then I know Spanish. After we left the office one afternoon the both of us we walking to the bus stop. We had a very simply and basic conversation in which he told me I need to speak more Spanish. I am totally aware that I should speak more Spanish, but I was thinking DUDE, I don't know Spanish. I just said "ok" though because that was way easier!

Fast forward a couple days. Tony sends me a little instant message via Facebook. I am what one would consider a resourceful person, so what do I do? Glad you asked. I went to Google Translate and translated every word he said from Spanish to English. And then I typed what I wanted to say to Tony and translated that to Spanish. Brilliant I know! So we had a full blown conversation...in SPANISH!!!! BOOYAH!!! Thank you Google Translate. I was pretty excited...until...a couple days after that. I was talking to Jessie and telling her how frustrating it is knowing such a limited amount of Spanish. She was all "but I talked to Tony the other day, and he said your Spanish is really good!" Ohhhhh mother! Frick. I knew that Facebook Google Translate convo would sooner or later catch up to me. Dannnngit! I casually avoided Tony for a good week. Not really avoiding him, just avoiding conversations with him at all costs.

BUT this afternoon Kate, Tony, and I were all at the office hanging out while Jessie was finishing up some work. Tony said "Let's have Spanish class!" as if it was some brilliant idea, but really it just made me want to cuss! HE THINKS I KNOW SPANISH...BUT I DON'T!!! CRAP! So. He kept asking us questions in Spanish. Kate was sitting across from me which was hilarious, because she knew about the Facebook convo Tony and I had had, and the fact that he think my Spanish is really good when in reality it is pretty much non existent. Tony kept asking a zillion questions, and I giggled my way through this really painful Spanish conversation one mispronounced word at a time. Dear Google Translate, I currently have a love/hate relationship with you. Love always, Lisa.

p.s. My host mom is blaring Christmas music right now as she cooks. Again, just another reason why I love this woman!