We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day doing the Hille traditions, with the exception that it was warm and sunny here instead of snowy and cold. We ate a Christmas Eve dinner together and then opened gifts that night. We all took our turns secretly filling each others’ stockings with gifts we had gathered over the past year, and then Jordan, Rusty, Jenna, David and I fell asleep out in the lounge area upstairs watching “Elf”, for another Hille Christmas Eve tradition. Christmas Day we woke up and all had fun opening our stockings, and headed out for a hike late morning (not a normal tradition!). Everyone made it to the waterfall and we took turns carrying the kids so they could experience it too.
The day after Christmas some of us took off on another short hike to see more of the cloud forest here in the valley. We saw some beautiful birds along the way. Anthony Chamberlain and his family, plus some extended family (11 total) came in the afternoon to stay overnight as well. It’s a blessing that we have a big building and can host lots of people at a time, so friends of ours can feel free to bring their families to see this part of Costa Rica.
On the 27th we got up early and left QERC, with a stop at our friend Mirian’s house for breakfast again and some more good looks at the quetzals. From there we headed on to Manuel Antonio, where we spent the rest of our time with the Hilles. After a quick lunch, David and his parents and Rusty and Jenna took off to do a zipline, while Jordan and I stayed back with Gracelyn and Gabriel. While we had fun playing in the pool and taking naps, the others were 
flying from tree to tree. They came back with hours of stories and convinced Jordan and I that we might even be up for it someday.
The next day we got up early and headed into Manuel Antonio National Park. Right away we saw iguanas and an agouti, and after hiking around a little bit we saw white-faced capuchin monkeys and a number of 3-toed sloths. After hiking up to the lookout, we spent quite a while on the beach swimming in the ocean. Once we felt like we were hungry enough to leave the park, we headed back to the hotel. As we 
were hanging out in the afternoon, Jordan spotted some squirrel monkeys on the rooftops. We headed over to check it out and a nice family gave us bananas to feed to them! That night we ate dinner at a restaurant that was made out of an airplane where we were able to see the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.
Friday we got up and left, and stopped near Jaco beach to take a tram ride through the jungle. It was a beautiful view, and one last hurrah before reaching our final 
destination of San Jose. For our last night, we went to Fogo Brasil, a Churrascaria. David and I have been to a Churrascaria actually in Brasil and we were excited to experience it again. It’s an all you can eat buffet, and the waiters will continually bring out different kinds of meat until you tell them you’re full. It was a fun way to spend our last evening together.
The Hilles left on Saturday, and David and I found ourselves back at QERC alone once again. New Years came at an interesting time for us, as we were kind of looking forward to some down time and sleep! We were able to make it to midnight, and finally found a channel on TV around 11:30 that was showing New Years celebrations. Today it was back to work, as we have some new and exciting changes happening here at QERC. In just one week, 12 students from Southern Nazarene University (SNU) will be arriving in Costa Rica to spend a semester studying abroad. They will spend the majority of their time here at QERC, and will be joining LASP (the program David and I studied through 5 years ago) for certain activities and excursions. Before the students come, we will also be hosting a group of 18 students from Arbor Spring University to spend a couple days here at QERC. So, David and I are finding ourselves with quite a bit to do in the next week! We are excited to see these new changes take place at QERC and are thankful that we can be a part of it.
May God bless every one of you as this New Year begins!
2 comments:
Hello Hille's! I just stubbled across your blog on accident. It's good to see you. Even if on your blog. Looks as if you're doing well. Look me up next time you're in Idaho.
Finally had time to catch up on reading your blog--it was good to read all about your many different experiences! And you have some really great pictures posted of you and the Hille family. I love the one with the binoculars!
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