Happy 1 month Adele!

Sarah: Adele turned one month old on Wednesday. At times it feels like she's been a part of our lives for much longer than one month, and at times it feels like I have no idea where the time went and she should still only be a week old or so. It has been a good month - one of joy as we hold her, laughter as we watch her make funny faces and noises, and one of little sleep. :) Unfortunately, Adele has not quite mastered the concept of sleeping at night and being awake during the day.

Our small community of San Gerardo de Dota has really welcomed their new member and taken her under their wing. We've had a number of community events to go to and Adele ends up being the star of the show wherever we go. She is getting her share of being held by many different people and listening to a combination of Spanish and English all day long. It is a fun and new thing to be treated so differently by our neighbors now that we have a baby. Everyone looks out for us and is extremely friendly, even more than they were before.

Tuesday night we attended our first Posada of the year. This is an event I kind of think as comparable to Advent, only it's a Catholic tradition. 10 days before Christmas the Posadas start, and take place at a different house every night leading up to Christmas Eve, when there is a service at the church. At the Posada, people take turns reading portions of the birth of Jesus, followed by lots of recited prayers, and singing Christmas songs in between. On Tuesday, the first Posada was held at Efrain and Caridad's house, and there was a great turnout. The priest gave a brief but nice message on the meaning of Christmas and the importance of the holiday before the scripture reading and singing began. We dressed Adele up in her first Christmas outfit of the year, bundled up, and joined the community for the special event. Adele did great, and slept through almost the entire thing with the exception of a few grunts and squeals.

The last couple of days we have spent in San Jose on a few different missions. In preparation for the semester program which will begin on January 4th with 10 students, we have been taking inventory of all of our kitchen supplies and bedroom linens and towels. While in San Jose we headed to a number of different stores to price items, and ended up purchasing lots of new supplies for QERC. Our second mission was to get all of Adele's paperwork in order so that she can travel with us for Christmas. This has been a long process, and one we were afraid wouldn't be completed in time for our travels. However, on Thursday we were able to finish the process and we now have Adele's Costa Rican birth certificate, a US passport for her, her US birth certificate, and permission from the Costa Rican Immigrations office allowing us to leave the country with her. We have learned a lot about the process of having a baby in another country! Finally, we ended our trip into San Jose with a Christmas party with the LASP staff, which was a lot of fun and great to again show off Adele to our friends here in Costa Rica.

The pictures in this blog are a few of our favorites from the first month of life with Adele.

Projects

Sarah: Now is the time of year that David and I are trying to get as many projects finished before the start of the semester program in January. There were a few big projects we wanted to accomplish this fall, and were somewhat dependent on getting the money approved for those projects, picking up the material for the projects, and coordinating with the workers who would be working on those projects with us. Naturally, the accumulation of all of that happened the week of Adele's birth. So, we were slightly delayed as everything was put on hold while David and I began the process of figuring out our lives as parents.

Within the last couple of weeks, we were able to get all of the material out here and our workers began to work on a few of those big projects. One exciting project to see come to fruition is the installation of 2 solar hot water heaters that will be able to provide hot water for QERC without the use of electricity. This has been one of David's dreams as QERC's hot water tanks slowly began to fall apart, so the approval of these solar hot water systems was very exciting. It is one more way that QERC is heading in the direction of being sustainable in the way we use resources. Since we have an unlimited supply of water, the elimination of electricity in our water use cuts back a lot our use of energy.

There have been a couple of workers who have been here every day working on a couple other projects for us as well. One is the construction of a car port. With the purchase of our new car, we decided that in order to take better care of the car and eliminate the wear of the weather we experience here, a car port was a necessity.

Another project is the construction of a covered laundry structure to dry clothes. Before we had clotheslines up outside and encouraged the use of drying clothes on the line, but with the rain that falls every day (especially during the rainy season!) it becomes more difficult to dry clothes in that manner. Now with a covered drying area, we can eliminate the use of our dryer - with the exception of Ana, who often has to turn laundry over quickly with groups that come through. It will be another way that QERC is able to practice good conservation ethics and use less energy.

Welcome Adele Marie Hille

Sarah: Well it's time to announce the birth of our new daughter, Adele Marie. Two and a half weeks ago on Friday, David and I went into San Jose with our bags packed. We knew it was 2 weeks early, but we wanted to be prepared in case the doctor said we needed to stay close to the hospital....which ended up being the case. After a minor freak out by both of us, David and I walked around in a daze the rest of the day, as the reality of the situation was hitting us hard. We stayed with our friends Trevor and Laura over the weekend, and had another routine doctor's appointment the following Monday.

As we were waiting for the doctor, I began going into labor. As one of our fears was the fact that we live 2 hours away from the hospital, we were extremely thankful that we happened to actually be IN the hospital when labor happened! The doctor checked me out, and then sent us down to admissions to check into the hospital. After that everything went (relatively) quickly. My contractions got closer together and much harder, and it was only a matter of hours by the time we settled into the maternity ward to the time little Adele made her appearance.

Now granted...I'm NOT going to say it was easy. :) But, everything went so smoothly that we couldn't have asked for a better delivery (I guess I could have asked that it wouldn't have hurt so badly!). David did an excellent job keeping me calm and sane, and the other doctors and nurses in the room did a great job of yelling encouraging words and directions in Spanish. It was a pretty surreal experience. Adele Marie was born at 7:27 on November 16th, and weighed in at 7 lbs., 18.5 inches long.

The following day my mom (who just couldn't wait) jumped on a plane and came to visit for a week. It was her first time visiting Costa Rica and we were happy to show her our lives and our home, and were extremely thankful for an extra set of hands and her knowledge as a mother as we were trying to figure things out during our first week as parents. It was great to have her here and introduce her to our friends and support system in San Jose and in our community.

We also had a number of visitors in and out of the hospital to welcome Adele to the world. It was great to feel the support of friends during such a special time. We were especially grateful to Trevor and Laura, who let us invade their house as we were waiting for Adele to join us, and also let us crash at their place right after she was born. When we brought her back to our community of San Gerardo de Dota, we were also welcomed by our neighbors around us. It now is quite common for someone to stop by and see Adele, and fight over holding her. Last weekend lots of the women threw us a surprise "tea" as well - which is what they call a baby shower in Spanish. It was really sweet - lots of balloons and streamers, and really good food. We also got more presents - mostly blankets, since Costa Ricans seem to think babies are ALWAYS cold and need to be bundled up in warm blankets all the time.

Now David and I are settling back into some sort of a routine as we're still figuring out what our lives are going to look like with a newborn here at QERC. It's been a fun change though (besides the fact that Adele is sort of confused when it's night and when it's day), and we both really enjoy spending lots of time just simply staring at her. She's super cute trying out all her new facial expressions and her vocal chords with her grunts and squeals.

Pregnancy update

Sarah: Well it's officially November, which means we have reached THE MONTH that our little baby girl will be born! Things have continued to go well for us, and I have been feeling great. And by great I mean there is nothing out of the ordinary that needs to be complained about - I'm definitely bigger, slower, a bit more uncomfortable, I grunt more, and don't always get the best night of sleep...but that's all normal, right? This first picture is of me at 32 weeks.

As our time is coming closer and closer, we feel like we are scrambling a little bit trying to get prepared. The nice thing about living in another country in a small one-bedroom apartment is that we can't spend any time on fixing up a nursery (since we don't have one) and it doesn't take much time to organize things (since we don't have the space and thus don't have a lot of baby clothes and accessories). So while we feel "prepared" for this baby to come, we've been working a lot on getting things in order at QERC and for the semester program. We can recognize the fact that our lives WILL change after having a baby....we're just not sure HOW. :)

So back to baby. We have decided to name her Adele Marie. That was one of our top two names and once we started thinking of her that way, it just seemed so right. It is exciting to have it finally decided and start imagining what her personality will be like to accompany her name. In Spanish her name will be Adelia, or even Maria Adelia as the full name. Many Costa Ricans use their middle name as their main name, and Maria is a very common first name - especially here in the valley where we live. So little Adelia will fit right in! This second picture if of me at 34 weeks (enjoying the special parking offered for pregnant women in Costa Rica!).

In preparation for little Adele's arrival, we picked up a crib from our friend Laura at the bakery here in the valley a few weeks ago, who is lending it to us while we live here. We were extremely grateful for the offer and upon setting it up in our bedroom felt a bit of a reality kick settle in. (The TV will eventually be moved...and we do have a mattress to put in the crib!) Next came the washing-the-baby clothes ritual, which our housekeeper Ana was quite excited to take part in. Since our weather has been unpredictable, she constructed her own makeshift clothesline in one of the bedrooms upstairs to hang the clothes up to dry. Ana had been begging me for weeks to let her wash the baby clothes, and once I gave her the go-ahead, she got right on it as she "ooohed" over every small piece of clothing. When it came time to take the clothes off the line to fold them, she called up her 9-year old daughter Karla who had been begging to come help organize the clothes. However, when it came time to actually put the clothes away in their own organized fashion, I told them I'd like to go ahead and do that (much to their dismay) - because I'd like to play with my own daughter's clothes too!

We've also had a couple of doctor visits in the last month, and he seems to think everything is progressing very well. At this last visit I was almost 36 weeks and he said that Adele looks like she's right on schedule to be born toward the end of November. We're still hoping she might decide to make an appearance a little earlier...but are extremely happy she is developing so well. The ultrasound guy kept saying every part of her was perfect - "su cabeza está perfecta", "su tamaño está perfecto" etc. The most fun for us on the ultrasound was being able to see her open and close her eyes, open up her mouth and stick out her tongue, and suck on her fingers. She continues to move A LOT as she rolls around all over my stomach and tries hard to stick her little feet up in my ribs whenever she gets the chance.

Also this last time in the city, our friends at LASP threw us a baby shower. It was really special and thoughtful, and we are very thankful for good supportive friends here in Costa Rica. Our good friends from LASP Trevor and Laura are kind enough to let us store some things at their house in San Jose so that when we stay with them for about a week up until the due date, or however long we will stay with them after Adele is born, we will be as prepared as we can be. This last time in we brought our pack-'n-play, our diaper bag full of supplies, and some extra personal items and toiletries we could afford to leave there for the next few weeks. Finally, this last picture is from today, and I am 36 weeks and 4 days along.

Meet Meredith

Sarah: When we returned to Costa Rica from our trip to the States at the end of September, our new intern arrived at the same time. We were excited to be able to promote the internship position after having such a positive experience with Peter last year, and even more excited when one of our former students and friends, Meredith, applied.

So, meet Meredith. We first got to know Meredith during our first year down here, during the first semester program SNU ever did at QERC. She was part of the guinea pig group - the group that was able to hold onto their class schedule from SNU while living at QERC for the spring semester. To supplement their SNU workload, QERC joined up with the Latin American Studies Program (LASP) for certain aspects of the semester in order to give the students more of a cross-cultural experience. Meredith enjoyed her experience so much that semester that when the following year rolled around, she actually decided to participate in our second semester program. As the program was developing and becoming more of a formal program with actual classes IN Costa Rica, Meredith was able to take advantage of the opportunity to study again at QERC with new classes and new experiences and hardly any overlap. Through both of these semester programs (8 months total!), we were able to get to know Meredith very well.

When graduation hit for Meredith and she was still contemplating what to do with her life (and still is!), a year-long internship at QERC seemed like the perfect fit. Meredith is using this year to figure out which venue she wants to pursue and she is able to put to good use her passions while being a great asset to furthering the development of projects we have going on at QERC.

While Meredith is here for almost 8 months, she is both developing her own projects to work on as well as fitting into projects we already have going on. She often works outside in the sunny mornings to help David with the native plant demonstration around the building, and he is grateful to have the extra help. In the afternoons she has been helping with the development of the museum. We are thrilled to have an extra hand around here and are extremely hopeful that with her help we can get the museum in a very presentable state (one that we don't have to say is "in progress") by the beginning of the semester program in January. These are two projects we have been working on basically ever since we took this job and we have high hopes of seeing them to completion this year!

One project Meredith is developing is basically an audit of the sustainability practices here at QERC. She is picking apart each aspect of energy and products being used at QERC and developing ways we can be more environmentally conscious of our actions. We are excited to hopefully implement some of her suggested changes already this year, and suggest long-term changes for future years.

Once the semester program starts in January, we will rely on Meredith to take on some staff responsibilities to help take the weight off our shoulders. We are thankful for her help and glad that she already has the experience of two semesters under her belt in order to step up and take on a new role during the program. Aside from all the work that Meredith is contributing to QERC, it's fun for David and me to have someone around to interact with and spend our evenings with. :)

One other exciting thing for us to share is how we have created our own version of a CSA here in Costa Rica. A family that we've gotten to know quite well that live in the next valley over have a very impressive farm that is completely organic. Every time we visit them we are overwhelmed by their generosity in loading us up with fresh fruits and vegetables. We were just there visiting a couple weeks ago and asked if they would be interested in selling us a basket of fresh produce every 2 weeks. The idea is that they would drop the basket off at the truck stop at the top of the hill every other Friday afternoon, and we would leave the money and pick up the basket the following Saturday morning. They were excited about the idea of supplying us with whatever produce they had on hand, and of course we were thrilled with the arrangement as well. This past Saturday we picked up our first basket and were dumbfounded at the array of fruits and veggies we received - many of which we'd never even seen or heard of before. This load only cost us around $12.00! The family was kind enough to even supply us with some recipes for some of the food we didn't know what to do with. We are excited to continue with this new arrangement!

El Botanico

David: A very important part of developing quality research and education at QERC is having talented and motivated partners who are interested in progressing the conservation mission of QERC. Over the past year SNU has developed one such relationship with a researcher/ professor from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Bruce Hoagland is a faculty member of the OU Geography Department and coordinator of the Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory (www.oknaturalheritage.ou.edu). Around here I introduced him as un botanico y un experto con orquideas because botany is his area of study and he is indeed an expert on orchids. Bruce spent two weeks here at QERC in February as exploratory time to see what possibilities there might be at QERC, and most recently he just departed a few days ago after spending two and a half weeks with us working on several projects. The two and a half weeks that Bruce just spent with us were full of a lot of field time, hard work, and good company. We had three main projects to work on: 1)QERC orchidarium 2)aguacatillo phenology study 3)QERCnet weather stations.

Being that Bruce is an orchid enthusiast and orchidologist by trade, the vast numbers of orchids found in our forests here in San Gerardo de Dota kept him on his toes. One of his ideas that will support our efforts of both education and research is the construction of a structure to house orchids that have fallen from their epiphytic homes and land on the forest floor. The orchidarium, or orchidario in Spanish, will be a home to place those fallen orchids and use them as an educational tool. Their close proximity to our station also will allow students and researchers to conveniently study flowering, fruiting, and pollintating of the species we will have represented. The picture above shows the beginnings of the orchidarium. Upon Bruce's next trip in Janauary we will erect the final structure to provide nice shade for the plants. The picture below the orchidarium is of one of our prize orchids that is flowering at the moment.

The aguacatillo phenology study is one that you should be somewhat familiar with as I've written about it in the past. Bruce is coming along side QERC to help us organize and streamline this study in order to produce some long-term assessment of how the topography and climate of our location affect the flowering and fruiting cycle of these important trees. You probably remember that the quetzals are very much linked to the fruiting cycle of these trees. Bruce will be a very important partner for the future in analyzing the data that has been collected over the past 15 years and ensuring that the research and monitoring moves forward in the right direction. So while he was here I was able to give him an introduction to the many trees that we have relocated in the past year. During the time we spent visiting the trees we brainstormed methods and protocols for how the data collection should be done. One bit of information I learned is that new tree growth coming off the main trunk that creates a secondary trunk is officially called a "sucker." As you can imagine we saw some skinny suckers, big suckers, and even a group of suckers. The situation would become tense when one of us would sternly state, "Watch out for those suckers!"

The QERCnet is a very exciting research infrastructure project that has been developed cooperatively between Bruce and SNU. If you are familiar with the topography of San Gerardo de Dota you know that the mountains are steep with many ridges creating many small valleys and elevation changes very quickly as you move around anywhere. As the QERCnet is continually developed more and more, independent climate monitoring stations will be set at intervals of 25 meters of elevation change in a way that would resemble someone casting a fishing net over the topography of the Chacons private forest preserve. The long term value of this for QERC has many applications in research. We will be able to see patterns in the movement of air and moisture through the labyrinth of contours in the mountains. We'll start piecing together information on the climate of micro-habitats which will undoubtedly aid in explaining why plants grow successfully where they are growing and why animals are choosing space to use utilize. One other very exciting application is that the current line of equipment we are preparing to install will start in the primary forest and move down into an area of successional growth that once was pasture land and is reforesting itself. As data is collected over the years we will be able to see how the reforestation process slowly changes the climate of the land. It's commonly known that clear-cutting natural vegetation will affect the weather cycle and it will be very exciting to be able to track this change over the years as the forest returns to normal, which could take up to 200-500 years. So there is the idea, and while Bruce was here we spent many, many hours wielding machetes in order to bushwhack our way through vegetation to find the optimum placement for these upcoming 7 stations. We made very good progress and hope that by the end of January all 7 stations will be installed and collecting data.

And finally, in the spirit of orchid enthusiasm, we leave you with some orchid pictures that we snapped at the Lankester Botanical Gardens which we visited with Bruce on his way back into San Jose.

To the States and back again

Sarah: About a week ago we returned to Costa Rica after yet another trip to the United States. We spent the majority of the month of September traveling to different parts of the U.S. doing some recruiting for our spring semester program.

We began our trip with about a week in Oklahoma at Southern Nazarene University, and our time was very full with lots of meetings, planning sessions, classroom speaking engagements, student meetings, and reuniting with our former students who are still on campus. The QERC program has developed enough and we've recruited enough over the past few years that this year (the 4th year for the program) we could really see a difference - instead of trying to encourage students to participate THIS year, we found ourselves encouraging the freshmen to plan the QERC semester program into their college schedule. There are already a handful of SNU students signed up and ready to participate this year, due to the reputation of the program and our recruiting efforts in past years. The meetings and planning sessions also went extremely well and the program continues to develop and become even more organized with each semester.

Being at SNU is always a fun time to reunite with our friends - both those on faculty and also those students who are still around. We enjoyed a barbecue and a number of lunches with the faculty and had a good time of sharing what progress is happening at QERC, and our evenings were filled with dinners out and hanging out with former students by playing Rock Band, Wii, Nuke 'Em, and Go-Karts.

Though this particular trip to the States was strictly business and no scheduled family visits, my parents made the long drive down from Iowa to meet up with us one weekend while we were in Oklahoma. Even though the time went fast with them, we were really appreciative of them making the effort to see us while in the States - it makes the stretch between summer and Christmas seem not quite as long! (I have a feeling they made the drive partly due to the fact that the next time we see them we will have their granddaughter in our hands and my belly is growing steadily at this point!)

From SNU we traveled out to Point Loma Nazarene University, in San Diego, California. This quick trip (2 1/2 days) was also very full - more meetings, more recruiting, and student gatherings. Point Loma's campus is beautiful and it's always fun to walk around and be able to see the ocean from campus! We had some great positive feedback from the faculty, and they are very excited to share the program with their students in the hopes of getting their school involved either this year or next year.

From Point Loma we headed up to Nampa, Idaho, where we spent the next few days at Northwest Nazarene University (David's alma mater). This visit included more classroom speaking engagements, and of course more meetings. Last year we had one NNU student involved with the program, and due to his excitement about the program upon his return to campus and also due to the faculty support, the student response was overwhelming. We should see at least a few students participating in the program this upcoming spring, and freshmen are already planning it into their schedules for future years.

Being up at NNU is always fun also because it gives us an excuse to meet up with some friends who live in the area. We had a great time reconnecting with old friends in the midst of our productive time on campus. And as we planned having a weekend at NNU, David's parents and his older sister and her 3 kids drove down to meet up with us. Like with my family, it was a short time, but well worth it. We were thankful to see them and be able to spend some good hours of quality time together.

From NNU, we traveled over to Chicago, Illinois, to Olivet Nazarene University. This was our first time recruiting on their campus and our first time of actually introducing the QERC semester program to their faculty and students. The faculty seemed to be very receptive, and right away the student interest was high. Though we were mainly looking to set the stage for involvement in the years to come, we are fairly hopeful that we may have student participation from Olivet as early as this spring.

From Olivet, David headed back to SNU for some wrap-up meetings and I headed to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to visit my sister and her 5-week old baby Asher. It was fun to meet my new cute nephew and also spend some good quality time with my sister and her husband. As my due date keeps getting closer and closer, it was a little reality check to see what life with a newborn is like. :) I was really thankful for the time I had to spend with them while Asher is still a young baby!

Finally, I flew from Chattanooga to Oklahoma and met up with David, and we had one last night in the States saying goodbye to students and packing up our things to head back to Costa Rica. While our time in the States was both very productive and also very enjoyable, it is nice to be back in our home for a much longer stretch of time as we have lots of work to be done in preparation for January...and that whole giving birth thing. This picture is of me at 32 weeks.

The British Invasion

David: It's an el nino year and that means a rainy season that is drier than normal. It's always interesting how we want what we don't have. Here we are experiencing these beautiful sunny and rainless days at QERC in the middle of the rainy season and yet we can't help but catch ourselves sometimes thinking that we wish it was raining. I think that the rain somehow places us in context of the time of year and maybe we just feel like something is off.

Despite the oddity of it we truly have enjoyed the "good" weather. For the month of August we have been able to get a lot of work done outside on both grounds-keeping projects and field biology projects. We had a backhoe on our property to help us level out a few spots that were causing some water runoff problems. The mass moving of all that dirt has given me the excuse to level off a few other areas on the lawn that will be good places for expanding our native botanical gardens, a project we hope to wrap up this fall. A little more rain would help us out with that.

I spent quite a bit of time in the field working on the QERC aguacatillo phenology monitoring project. The aguacatillos are the trees that provide a good majority of food for our quetzal population. The name literally means little avocado and that is basically what they look like. QERC has been monitoring the flowering and fruiting cycles of hundreds of these trees for over a decade. The project needs a little revitalizing in order for us to continue properly monitoring the trees, so our work was to relocate all of these old trees that were once tagged and mapped. Once they were relocated, they were photographed, GPS coordinates were taken for their location, and they will be re-tagged with a more updated system.

We have had an assistant helping us with some of these projects during the month of August. Aidan is a British high school student who set up an independent research experience with us here at QERC. He stayed with a host family in our community, worked with me in the mornings, and worked on his personal research in the afternoons. For the majority of our three years here we have enjoyed the mixture of people who have worked with us at QERC and the diversity of positive experiences that has brought us. Aidan turned out to be a little different story. Normally we wouldn't take the time to talk about a negative experience with someone we have worked with but these stories are just too bizarre and funny not to share. And it shows a little bit of the reality of our daily lives as well.

So one night around 8:30, Sarah and I popped some popcorn and were headed upstairs to put in a DVD. I went upstairs to get the DVD going while Sarah was getting the popcorn. All lights were off and I was rounding the corner from the stairs when I saw a flash of someone darting into one of the bedrooms. So naturally I frantically ran downstairs as fast as I could, came into the apartment, and slammed the door shut behind me.

I told Sarah that I thought someone was upstairs, and she thought I was kidding until she saw that my face was completely white. We were locked in our apartment, contemplating what to do, and figuring if it was indeed a robber he was probably gone off the balcony by then like any good tico who wants to steal but not get caught. So I grabbed a shovel that was outside our apartment door and we cautiously opened the door to the rest of the building. We systematically checked around downstairs and noticed the back lab door was still unlocked, which meant technically someone could have been in the building. We checked all closets, storage room, bathrooms, etc. downstairs before proceeding upstairs. Once upstairs we saw that the door to the bedroom I had thought I'd seen the guy run into was open, causing more reason to be alarmed - it was becoming more and more real that someone had been upstairs.

So I called out "IS ANYONE UP HERE?" and no answer. I walked into the bedroom, shovel ready, and at first glance didn't see anything. Then I noticed a blanket crumpled up inside one of the shelves (shelf size shown in reenactment photo) and upon a closer look I saw two legs through a hole in the blanket. I left the room and whispered to Sarah "Someone's in there. I can see them". So I called out again "IF ANYONE IS UP HERE YOU BETTER COME OUT NOW!" and still no answer. Finally, in one last hopeful thought, I yelled "AIDAN? IS THAT YOU?" All we heard was a whimpering "yeeeessssss".

His excuse was that he couldn't sleep at the family's house he was at, so he somehow thought it would be a good idea to sneak over to QERC, sneak upstairs, and watch some movies on his computer using his headphones and keeping the lights out so we wouldn't notice. I told him he was lucky we didn't have a gun because we thought he was a robber! It turns out he actually crawled out the bedroom window at his host family's house. When he returned to the house and sneaked back through the window, he woke his family up and they thought it was a robber too. Well, in the end he lied to both us and the family about why he was out, how he got out, and what he was doing. Deceitfulness and lying were recurring themes with him during his time at QERC.

In the end, Aidan earned himself an early departure from QERC and San Gerardo de Dota when we discovered that he had been stealing from us. Based on what turned out to be accurate suspicions, we searched his bags at his house one morning while he was working. We found a slough of QERC lab equipment, souvenirs, and art supplies. It turns out he had been systematically stealing from us for weeks. I went back to QERC, told him he was leaving, and we had him on a bus to San Jose within two hours. This is why it's easier to work with quetzals. :)

The good with the bad

Sarah: Well we're definitely back in the swing of things since our summer trip home. Seems like a day or two after we got here, it felt like we'd never left and we were back to working hard, practically non-stop. We've been doing lots of work outside - weeding, yard work, land maintenance including having a backhoe come in and do some leveling, and David's been working on projects in preparation for researchers and professors and students to come down. On top of that, we're preparing to do some recruiting for our semester program, and the semester program alone takes a lot of prep work and time!

One exciting thing since we got back was that our friend Pam, her husband, and a few friends came on vacation to Costa Rica and spent a little bit of time in the valley here with us. We studied with Pam here in Costa Rica 7 1/2 years ago, and have only seen her a handful of times since then, so it was great to spend some time with her again. This picture is most of the group up at Laura's Bakery, visiting with Larue (Laura's cousin's husband). Pam is next to Larue.

Last weekend was also very eventful. August 15th is Mother's Day here in Costa Rica (last Saturday), so on Sunday we were invited over to our friend Nancy's house for a big lunch to celebrate. Nancy is our cook during the semester program and she's become a good friend to us over the last 8 months. We had a good typical Nicaraguan meal, cake, and spent a good part of the afternoon just sitting around chatting. Nancy and her husband Clemente have 3 kids, Belen (8), Angelica (3), and Brittany (1). Pictured here are the adorable Belen and Angelica.

We also have some sad news to share. Our friend Laura, who owns the bakery up the road and has been a good friend for us for 3 years now, has been diagnosed with cancer. It's melanoma (skin cancer), but unfortunately it is internal and has already started attacking her lymphatic system in her body. It's fairly serious at this point already, but Laura has been in the hospital this week getting a pet scan in order to find the original source, and to have surgery to remove as much (or all) of the cancer they can. We don't know the results of the scan yet, but we do know that the surgery went well and that she has responded positively. Please keep her and her husband Mario and daughter Erica in your prayers!

And to end with some great news, my sister Emily and her husband Greg had their first baby this week! Thursday, August 20th, Asher William Ford entered the world weighing in at 8 lbs. 5 oz. and 21 inches long. This is the first baby on my side of the family, and we are all very excited for them!

Summer Lovin'

Sarah: Our apologies for our long absence from the blog. We spent the entire month of July traveling in the USA visiting family and friends, and are finally back in the swing of things here at QERC.

Our time in the States was relaxing and of course went by too quickly. As much as we love Costa Rica, we miss our friends and family and soak up the time we have with them. We spent the first half of July in Spokane, with David's family. The first week was the Hille family vacation up at Loon Lake, where they rent a cabin each summer. David's parents, older sister and husband (Jordan and Rusty), and their 3 kids were with us the majority of the time, and his younger sister Jenna was able to come spend a long weekend with us. We enjoyed our time as a family and spent much of our times keeping the kids entertained. :)

Our second week was a busy week in Spokane. David's parents recently moved into a new house so we enjoyed getting to know the new home, and they now live down the street from Jordan and Rusty so we saw their family almost every day as well. The long summer days that we are not used to provided some good time to eat dinner outside and visit until late. We also had David's 10-year high school reunion, which was fun as he was able to connect with many classmates he hadn't been in touch with for years. On one Sunday we had a baby shower that was great for us to be able to get together with lots of people we otherwise may not have seen! And we also took a 2-day trip over to Montana to visit the University of Montana, where David may have a potential of being a grad student at in the future. We were able to stay the night with Jenna, and were accompanied by Matt Chitwood who had flown over from Portland to spend a few days with us.

Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures from our visit to the States I'm realizing! I suppose that could be attributed to us having so much fun with friends and family in both Washington and Iowa that I didn't even stop to think about taking pictures.....right?

Following our 2 weeks in Spokane we flew to Des Moines to spend the second half of July with my family. My dad had taken off a week of work to hang out with us, so we enjoyed visiting some nearby areas to walk around. And being that it's summer, my mom only worked in the mornings, so we enjoyed pie time and movies with her. My youngest sister Rachel had just gotten back from an internship in Mississippi and was jobless, so we also had lots of time to hang out with her - playing Wii, feeding the ducks at the pond, lounging by the pool, and playing games that David made up outside. My other younger sister Katie lives near my family and works in Des Moines, so she was able to join us for Wii and outside games during her free hours and days. As a family we took a trip to a Kansas City Royals game and had a few evenings of playing Scene It.

We also had a baby shower in Iowa and were extremely thankful again for the gifts people gave to help us stock up on our necessities in a few months. It was a great time for me to see some old friends and family all at the same time. I'm also happy that one of my dearest friends Theresa lives near my family, so we got to see her and her husband Jefferson and their new baby James a number of times.

And finally, as we were traveling back to Costa Rica at the end of July, we had an unexpected bonus. We had the opportunity to catch a later flight out of Atlanta, which meant we had a long enough day in the Atlanta airport that my sister Emily and her husband Greg were able to drive over from Chattanooga and visit with us for the afternoon! Emily is also pregnant with her first baby and due in just a couple weeks, so it was fun to spend some pregnant time together.

So here we are, back in Costa Rica. Today was a beautiful sunny morning with a rainy afternoon, and all seems normal. The first morning back I saw both a quetzal and a toucanet outside the kitchen window, as if welcoming us back home.

And....

We're having a girl!

To heaven and back

Sarah: Last week we had the privilege of visiting one of the most beautiful places in all of Costa Rica - Playa Conchal. We have good friends here in Costa Rica, Trevor and Laura, with whom we get together every couple weeks or so in San Jose. We go out to eat or cook at their house and always enjoy a nice evening of chatting and spending time together. We've never taken a trip together before, unless it was education related through the Latin American Studies Program (where Trevor and Laura work) and a QERC collaboration. A few weeks ago we were out to eat with them and they had just returned from visiting this paradisical Playa Conchal and mentioned that we should all go up there together sometime. Upon further discussion we realized that trip had to happen soon, or it never would. Since David and I are only committed to staying in Costa Rica one more year, and LASP has semester programs in both the fall and the spring, we took advantage of summer break and made the trip happen.

We stayed at Reserva Conchal and had planned on renting a condo for 3 nights. There were good offers going on, like 20% off and breakfast included, and once we showed up we found another offer for a 4th night free. It took about 10 minutes to decide that we wanted to stay an extra free night at the place! The condo was very nice - 2 bedrooms, 2 bath, air conditioning, and a small porch off the back where we could see the ocean down the hillside below. Though as nice as the condo was, we spent most of our time on the beach and by the pool!

The owners of the condos pay a monthly fee to give them access to the club house, so we took full advantage of the club house pool, spa, and restaurant. The pool was perhaps the nicest pool I've ever seen, and most of our days were spent in and out of the water, relaxing, and reading. We also took advantage of the spa area and indulged in massages one day. Trevor and David also realized they really enjoyed sitting in the sauna at different times over the course of our 4 days. The jacuzzi and pool area inside the spa was dreamlike, and during times when the sun was beating down above us we sat in the covered area. The restaurant was extremely reasonably priced with excellent food, so we took advantage of the free breakfast and at enough in the mornings that we only had to snack on leftovers for lunch. We also tried out a couple of restaurants in the area and had delicious seafood throughout the week.

So besides the nice condo, the stunning club house, and excellent company...the beach was also unimaginable. The waters were the bluest I've ever seen, with a white sandy beach and pristine forest all around. We enjoyed some beautiful sunsets, and the water was so warm that we could swim in the ocean while watching the colors change and the sky darken above us. Trevor and Laura had actually gotten married on this beach at sunset years ago, and it was fun to be back with them. All in all, it was the kind of vacation we could only dream about, and we are thankful that we currently live in a country where we could make that dream a reality.