Thanksgiving trip

Sarah: Lots of time has passed since we last posted an entry! Which means, we’ve been busy and have a lot to share. :) As you know, we need to leave the country every 3 months to renew our visas. Our time was coming to an end in November, and as we were planning our trip out of the country, our boss in Oklahoma decided it would be worthwhile to fly us up to Southern Nazarene University to do some promotion and planning for the upcoming semester. The way it worked out, we were able to spend about a week at SNU and then drive up to Iowa to spend Thanksgiving with my family!

Our time at SNU was both busy and rewarding. David spoke in a number of classes, promoting QERC and the upcoming semester program, and we met with professors often to help plan what the semester is going to look like. We are thrilled with the way it’s coming together, and though we have a lot of work to do in preparation during the next month and a half, we are excited to have more activity out here at QERC.

This particular trip to SNU was also filled with lots of fun hang-out times, as we got to see 9 of our former 13 students who were with us last year at QERC for the semester program. Since we consider them to be good friends of ours, it was really fun to spend time with them – whether it was breakfast for those that were willing to get up early, random games in the biology department with those who showed up with cards, dinners and coffee together, and more games.

We started heading north a couple days before Thanksgiving, and were blessed to have a friend let us borrow his car to make the drive. We spent one night with some friends of ours, Rachel and BJ Keeter. Rachel was a student with us in the LASP program, and we really enjoy hanging out with her and her husband.

On our way up to Iowa, passed through Kansas City and picked up my sister Emily and a special guy she brought home with her, Greg. It was great to have the 3-hour car ride with just the two of them before meeting up with the rest of the family.

On the morning of Thanksgiving, we got together with some really good friends of ours, Theresa and Jefferson Silva dos Santos. Theresa was my college roommate and is still one of my very best friends, and she and her husband live in Des Moines. It’s always great to see them, and I love knowing that anytime we see my family, we get to spend time with Theresa and Jefferson as well!

Thanksgiving with my family was a real treat. We weren’t planning on being back in the states until next summer, and we weren’t planning on being with my family at all over the holidays. It was so neat and special that we were all there together to celebrate Thanksgiving, and even to be there to help “Christmasize” the house. I love traditions, so it was great to be there for my family’s traditions over this holiday – with lots of laughter, late nights watching “The Office”, a Thanksgiving dinner with some of my extended family, lots of jello salads, the hustle and bustle of buying and wrapping Christmas gifts, and decorating the tree. We all enjoyed getting to know Greg over the course of a few days as well! As an added bonus, we experienced some REALLY cold weather, complete with a decent snowfall! It’s been quite some time since we’ve been in snow, so it was fun to be exposed to a mini-winter.

On our way back to Oklahoma, we passed through Kansas City again. This time, we had found out that one of David’s best friends and college roommates, Chad Frosland, was in town. He was a runner for an ABC cameraman for the Kansas – Missouri football game, and stayed around long enough on Sunday to have lunch with us. We were thrilled that it worked out to catch up with him as well!

We are now back in Costa Rica, and are excited to see that the rainy season is coming to an end and summer is right around the corner. And for some exciting news, my younger sister Rachel’s volleyball team made it to the national tournament!! Though they lost in the quarterfinals, they had an incredible volleyball season and made it to the Top 8 for only the second time in the school’s history. And for some even more exciting news…my sister Emily is engaged!! Greg took the opportunity over Thanksgiving to ask my dad for permission to marry her, and proposed this week. We are excited for the two of them, and are thankful we had the opportunity to get to know Greg a little bit before the wedding!

The little things in life

David: Sometimes getting the little things done in life brings a great feeling of acomplishment, like cleaning and organizing your desk or getting all the bills paid. You know, the fun things. Around QERC this is definitely true for us because little projects take even longer, and this is not soley due to the fact that I seem to find pleasure in starting many projects and drawing them out as long as possible. Our projects seem to take longer because if we need a certain size screw it might be two weeks before we get to the hardware store and then finding what you need in San Jose isn't as easy as just going to the Home Depot. On top of all this, and I say this with endearment, things just take longer in Latin America and Costa Rica is no exception. If someone tells you they will have something completed for you next week there is a good chance it won't get done for three. That's just the way things are. Anyway, I say all this to tell that you that we are excited about this new "welcome area" we have created on the front of the building. You can see in the picture that we have an information board and some beautiful and welcoming signs. The big empty spot to the right of the information board is where a really nice and big trail map will someday go. The idea is that when guests arrive or random people are coming by to check QERC out they will be drawn to this and can go look at the information board to see what student group or researcher is at QERC and what are they working on. We also will have information about the interactive educational experiences that guests and tourists can explore like our native plant demonstration and natural history musuem. And then, hopefully, a nice trail map can better encourage the adventurous to get out there onto the trails and really see the beauty of the cloud forest. So, although it is a small accomplishment, we are excited about getting this up, finally.

And, you may notice that our information board currently says, "Bienvenidos Union de Ornitologos." This past weekend we welcomed the Costa Rica Union of Ornithology to QERC. It is an exciting relationship for us. They are currently planning a bird identification and natural history course for the youth of our region. We will host the course in January. We'll report more on that when it comes around. In honor of the Ornithology Union here is a picture of a Yellowish Flycatcher. Sometimes bird names are a lot simpler than you would think.