The Wedding

Sarah: The last couple weeks I have spent in the U.S. of A. My older sister, Emily, was married to Greg Ford this past weekend in Chattanooga, TN. I flew up about a week and a half early to be of help with last-minute details, and also for some good quality sister time and bonding time with my new brother-in-law. Emily and I had a great time together, with many long days of running errands and finalizing everything before the big day. She was my maid-of-honor, and I was her matron-of-honor. We realized it had been a good number of years since the two of us had spent some quality time together, and we took advantage of our time together with lots of talking and catching up! It was also great for me to spend time with Greg, since I had only met him once over Thanksgiving last year. To get everything done, Emily and I would get up in the mornings and figure out a plan of attack for the day, put our game faces on, and go strong until meeting up with Greg for dinner. It was a lot of fun to be there during the hustle and bustle of wedding frenzy.

The rest of my family drove in the Tuesday night before the wedding and we all helped out with projects like assembling the programs and tying ribbons on the bubbles. Wednesday night we had a Gosselink Family Night, complete with Italian sausage sandwiches, games, ice cream, and walking around downtown. Though that also marked the beginning of even more busyness, it was great to have my family around. David also flew late Wednesday night, and I was really glad to see him too!

Thursday night we had a Girls’ Night Out with Emily – dinner downtown, walking around and hanging out, and spending the night in a hotel room. It was good for her to catch up with some of her friends who were coming from out of town, and good for us all to meet each other, since we all play a special role in Emily’s life but don’t all know each other well. David went out to eat with the guys that night and got to meet the groomsmen and the other usher (David was an usher as well). Since Greg is from the south, most of his friends and family have a thick southern accent. David said at one point during the dinner he realized that he could have understood a conversation completely in Spanish better than the conversation going on with such thick southern accents!

Friday Emily had a brunch for all girls who had a role in her wedding, and then we headed over to the church to begin decorating. This took us all the way up to the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner, and then all of a sudden it was the night before the big day! Greg’s 13-year old son, Hunter, was his best man, so Hunter and I got together Friday night to write our toasts together. Neither one of us was too keen on the idea of public speaking, but it was good to sit and work on them together.

And finally, Saturday came and went. Everything seemed to fly by! Emily was calm, but very excited. I stayed the night with her on Friday night and she came into my bedroom Saturday morning jumping on the bed chanting “I’m getting married today!” It was bound to be a good day. Emily said later that everything was perfect – just the way she wanted it to be. That’s a good thing to hear from the bride, after she’s spent months planning and dreaming up the perfect day! The wedding was beautiful and Emily was a radiant bride. The forecasted rain even held off, and Emily and Greg were able to drive off in their new convertible!

After a fairly short clean-up time, David and I went out to eat with my family and hung out with them the rest of the evening. They left early the next morning, but David and I didn’t fly out until Monday evening. We ended up getting together with the other usher, Ken, and his wife Renee on Sunday evening. It was great to be able to hang out with them and form a new friendship with a really neat couple. And finally, after a very long night of travel (due to fog, we landed in Panama and sat on the plane for an hour and a half before getting cleared to go back to Costa Rica), we arrived back in the country early Tuesday morning.

Tropical Storm Alma

David: We recently were hit, and hit hard, by a storm that formed over the Pacific that gradually escalated into Tropical Storm Alma. Alma is the Spanish word for soul and this storm definitely showed a lot of soul to us. Here at QERC we sustained over 15 inches of rain in three days. At one point we had 4 inches in 2 1/2 hours. Other parts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua received more than that. The Panamanian-American Highway between QERC and Cartago was closed for two days due to trees and landslides but between QERC and San Isidro it is still closed because the highway is just flat out gone in certain spots where slides took the whole thing. Apparently there were several hundred people stuck on the highway between two landslides for at least 2 days without food.

Here at QERC we endured the storm with no major damage and we were able to watch a powerful display of the force of water. The Savegre Valley was a mess. The river was so high that between here and the trail to the waterfall the river was up over the road at three places. In fact, right across from QERC the river was over the road and pounding into the bank of the property across from us. Logs striped of any kind of foliage were careening down the water on the road. The river was touching the bottom of the Hotel Savegre's bridge, about 3 feet over Fernando's bridge at Los Ranchos, and it completely took away the last swinging bridge before the big waterfall. The river was so powerful that for about 5-6 hours straight we couldn't see them but we could hear boulders under the water being pushed down the river and pounding into other boulders. Every time that would happen the whole building would feel the vibrations of the impact. It was like hundreds of little earthquakes. At one point I was outside watching the river during the height of our rainfall and I saw an Alder get ripped down up stream and it was past me in about 1 second and gone. It would have been instant, or at least guaranteed, death for anyone that fell in that river.

The storm let up on Thursday night and on Friday it was beautiful and sunny so we got out to check out the damage around the valley. Our valley road, which is our only road in and out of here, was closed for about 2 days due to trees and one big and several small landslides. We were without power for 2 days.

At QERC we were close to a few problems. At the height of the storm on Thursday, water was draining off the back property down to where the rain gauge is. There was so much water coming down that it formed a creek about 4 feet wide on our back lawn. The creek flowed to the corner of the building and split going on both sides. At the height of the rainfall we had water on all four sides of the building flowing completely against the building at about 2 inches deep. QERC was literally surrounded by a moat. The only door you could walk out without directly stepping in the creek was our apartment door. I was really worried it would come in the doors but the level started going down once it was about an inch from the bottom of the door frame. That would have been a muddy mess to clean up. The stream that was split by the building partly just flowed down the front grass area and joined other water to create a creek flowing down the road past Rolando's, Carlos's, and down to Pablo's. The water that didn't flow down there rejoined on the west side of the building and all flowed off the embankment right across from our apartment. There was so much water running off there, and also one of the gutters from the roof exits from under the ground right there as well. Unfortunately, all of that water, combined with an area that Pablo says was a lot of back fill from construction, with no large tree on it, created a fairly significant landslide into the river. This was the scariest thing for Sarah and I. The landslide slowly kept growing as the storm persisted. It is now stabilized but it is only 15 feet from the edge of the building.

Return of the Finkenbinders

Sarah: Though the busyness of the semester program is now behind us, May has continued to be full of activity and visitors. A few days after the students left, Leo and Zana Finkenbinder came to QERC with a group from Olivet Nazarene University (ONU). As you may remember, it was Leo and Zana who have the long history here in the valley and were the ones who actually built QERC. They hadn’t been back to the valley since they retired a few years ago, and Leo has since come out of retirement and is helping develop an Environmental Studies program at ONU. We were excited to have them here to follow around and pick their brains on the history and science of this valley, and a bit nervous with their return since we had made quite a few changes to the place since they’d been here.

Our visit with them was wonderful – they were complimentary toward the improvements we’ve made and the direction we are going with QERC, and we were able to learn a lot from them about their visions they originally had for the building and the way QERC was utilized. As it turns out, many of David’s ideas for the place coincide exactly with the visions Leo had, so David was able to run a lot of ideas past Leo and receive good input.

It was also a very good and much-needed visit with the Chacon family for Leo and Zana. Because of the long-standing history with Leo and Zana, it is them whom the Chacons trust and respect the most when dealing with QERC. Leo and Zana were able to see David and me as a positive addition to the staff, and in return, relay that to the Chacons. We have felt like we’ve had a good relationship with the Chacons for a while now, but with Leo and Zana here, it gave that extra confirmation, and in some ways symbolized the passing of the torch from them to us. We look forward to Leo and Zana returning with more groups to QERC in the future to continue that relationship with them.

After the ONU group was gone, Dennis Siegfried came down with a couple of professors from Oklahoma Baptist University to do a quick tour of a few places in Costa Rica, with the hopes of setting up their own trip sometime. We enjoyed having them at QERC and brainstorming with them on ways they can utilize QERC in the future.

Right after they left, we went to the airport to pick up Ted Bader. Ted is a donor and major fundraiser for QERC and has been a part of the project since it first got started. We also met up with his son, Sam, and Sam’s wife Candace. All three are here at QERC right now enjoying some relaxation time and a break from their busy schedules in the U.S.

Field Research and the Empty Nest

David: For the second time in our lives Sarah and I are empty nesters. I have a feeling that someday in our lives we'll truly know what that means but I can honestly say we kind of know what that means. All of the SNU students returned to the U.S. on Friday the 9th, over a week ago. It hasn't been exactly quiet around here since but nonetheless it has been very different. Needless to say, they are greatly missed and we often think about how their transition back into the homeland has been.

After we all returned to QERC from the 3 week Environmental Science Concentration the students had 5 weeks to take one more QERC course, finish up there distance learning courses from SNU's campus, and finish their research projects. It proved to be a busy time for all but it was great to see them work hard and finish well.

The QERC course was Biblical Theology and Global Stewardship taught by a member of SNU's theology faculty, Dr. Marty Michaelson. In the end it was one of the most valuable learning experiences for the students and a great class to compliment the issues looked at during ESC. One book that was part of the student's text was called Serve God, Save the Planet by Matthew Sleeth. If you want a thought provoking read on God's call to be stewards of the Earth I'm sure every one of the students would recommend this book to you.

As the students were busy finishing up data collection I stayed quite busy with two research projects involving jays and bats. One of our students, Meredith, was implementing a survey of bat species at different elevations and habitats. As adviser/assistant, Meredith and I were partners in bat catching crime for a good four weeks. We spent about 2-5 hours on 5 nights a week setting up and taking down mist nets, patiently and impatiently waiting in the pitch black, untangling extremely angry bats with very sharp teeth, and identifying the captured bats to the species using a dichotomous key. Sarah joined us a few times and also was an integral member of the identification team back in the lab. The project turned out to be very successful and laid the ground work for more in depth chiroptology (bat) research in the future. In total we caught 11 bats representing 6 different species. The majority of them were insect eaters but we caught a few fruit eaters and one nectar eater. One life lesson learned while assisting on this project is that listening to jaguar vocalizations on your Ipod while sitting in the pitch black is not a way to become relaxed in nature.

The other project that I dedicated several hours to was the nest description of a bird called the Silvery-throated Jay. It is a beautiful jay species that is endemic to the Chiriqui Highlands of Costa Rica and Panama. It is a under studied species and no scientific records have been taken on their nests and breeding habits. While Scott Smithson was here for ESC he discovered only the second nest known to the scientific community. In order to do my part for science I took part in several observation sessions at the nest. The gist of the work included hiking 1.5 km into the oak forest and lying on my back for 1-5 hours taking notes on all activity at the nest. It was an enjoyable experience and over the course of several sessions I was able to observe a large array of activity that will hopefully be combined with observations from a few others and put into a scientific manuscript.

One final activity of the semester was a "debriefing / reentry retreat" for our five remaining students. Sarah and I know how important valuable closure and reentry preparation is to bringing a cross-cultural experience full circle and we were enthused to provide this for these students to the best of our ability. We were pleased to be able to take the students on a retreat to the Volcan Arenal area. It was a great location to relax, detach from QERC, and begin an important reentry process. Our goal was to help the students pull out the life lessons from the semester that they felt were worthy to take home with them and then begin giving them the tools to integrate those life lessons into their lives back at home. This can be a very challenging, but rewarding, process. Often those who have experienced a cross-cultural experience return home feeling as though they have changed, matured, and grown and then find it very hard to reconcile those changes to who they were before they left and who friends and family view them as now. The integration process can be painful but ultimately very rewarding. Anyway, we had a great time beginning this process with the students and hopefully they feel like they are more prepared for being home. We felt like it went very well.

Part II

Sarah: I’ll help pick up the story from here since I got to join the group for the last week of the travels. (See entry below for David's Part I.) After a day of rest and recuperation (and laundry!) in San Jose, we traveled to Ostional, a beach on the Pacific Ocean to learn about environmental and community impacts of nesting sea turtles, and also about conservation done by the local community as well as national organizations. Ostional is one of the two beaches in Costa Rica where an arribada occurs on a fairly regular monthly basis. An arribada, meaning “arrival”, is when thousands to hundreds of thousands olive-ridley sea turtles come up to nest on the beach over the period of only a few days. The reason these particular sea turtles take part in this ritual is unclear, and this phenomenon has only been occurring in the past 60-70 years. For the first 48 hours during an arribada, the community is allowed to harvest the turtle eggs, since these eggs have no chance of surviving with the thousands of sea turtles who will come after them and dig their eggs up in the process of digging their own nests.

Though we tried to time it right, we missed the arribada by only a few days most likely. However, we did go out with a local guide at night and were able to see the entire process an olive-ridley nesting. Two highlights for me were the sunsets on the beach (and David surving while the sun went down), and the howler monkeys right outside the window at the house we were staying. The family David and I were with had a bunch of mango trees, and the monkeys would sit in the trees all day, lazily eating mangoes. Every morning we were woken up by their loud roar, sounding as if they were inside the bedroom – which wasn’t too far from the truth!

From Ostional we went to a place called Casa del Sol for a day/night. This place is incredible the way they do all their cooking by use of solar ovens (good food too!). We learned a lot about being good stewards of the Earth and how to go about doing so. In the afternoon we were taught the ins and outs of composting, and were able to spend a couple hours helping build and turn compost piles. All of the dirt made from the compost goes toward their own gardens, where they grow their own foods and herbs.

Our last leg of the trip was spent in northern Costa Rica, on a volcano chain called Rincon de la Vieja. We stayed at an eco-lodge, with no electricity in any of the rooms. Here we studied volcanology, complete with a rough but very cool hike to the brim of an active volcano. When we finally reached the top and were looking inside the volcano, it was like looking at a fake backdrop. The lava was a bluish color, and we were only allowed to stay at the top for 15 minutes because of the sulfur gases. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life! During all the hiking we did over the course of a few days we were lead by a mountaineer who had lived in the area all his life, so he was able to teach us about specific plants and what medicinal or other benefits they had. We also got to see two eyelash pit-vipers up close and personal, and spend some time sitting in hot springs, where the heat is produced by activity from the volcano underground. And though we were all excited about our travels and everything we saw and did, everyone was thrilled to make it back to the comforts of home at QERC at the end of the class.

Whew!

David: Sarah and I just finished a game of 7 up-7 down with some of our students and this afternoon we watched some episodes of L ost. I know that this may not seem that exciting but it sure felt great. I have been going strong for over a month now and things are finally settling down a little bit.

The main reason for the busyness has been the Environmental Science Concentration. SNU’s eight students joined four students from LASP for a three week course studying tropical ecology and sustainability. I co-lead/co-taught this course along with Scott Smithson and Natalie Villablobos from LASP. I took part in this course last year and was thrilled to be a part of it again this year. The goal of the course is three-fold: 1) expose the students to the diversity of life throughout all of Costa Rica’s biomes (give them some “WOW” experiences in God’s creation 2) visit and observe several different and diverse approaches to conservation and sustainability 3) challenge the students to integrate their faith, personal life choices, and global environmental stewardship. It sounds like a big task but in reality Costa Rica makes is a perfect place for this purpose.

We started the course here in San Gerardo de Dota and QERC studying cloud forest and paramo ecology and looking at the Chacon family’s attempt at sustainability through forest conservation, ecotourism, trout farming, and agriculture. We left from here to south central Costa Rica in the San Vito area on the border with Panama. Our purpose was to visit a forest restoration research project being conducted by a researcher from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her project is attempting to look at restoration ecology for tropical forests in the attempt to aid forest regeneration. One reason her project stands out as different is that she includes a social aspect in partnering with local sustainable coffee farmers.

From the San Vito area we left for almost a week to the Osa Peninsula to study the lowland tropical rainforest. This was my 4th time to the wild Osa Peninsula and my 3rd time visiting Campanario Biological Reserve. Campanario is a special location where rainforest meets ocean and you think you can’t find anything that looks more like paradise. On the other hand it is hot, humid, and full of insects. Those are some fun things that come with some of the best tropical forests. There is some give and take. In fact, one our students was actually bitten by a boa constrictor. Talk about having a good story to tell the parents. Our time at Campanario was inspiring as always and for me was highlighted by having a very close and prolonged encounter with a sea turtle while snorkeling.

Before leaving the Osa we spent a night at Sirena Ranger Station in Corcovado National Park. Our main goal was to see wildlife since this particular spot is well known for an abundance of it. It lived up to its reputation. We saw all four monkey species, one sloth species, two species of peccary, crocodiles, coatis, an opossum, and three individual tapirs. And that doesn’t even count the birds we saw.

Visitors

Sarah: I have been putting off writing a blog entry because David has been in the process of writing one about our recent trip to Nicaragua, but so as not to wait any longer, I’ll write one now and let him backtrack later and catch you faithful readers up on our Nicaragua adventures.

We are well into the semester now, and after our trip to Nicaragua, 3 more students joined the original 5. We are enjoying the extra activity going on around QERC and are excited to see our numbers grow. Students have been busy working on research projects, classes from SNU, and finishing up their Applied Culture and Integration class here in Costa Rica. We had one visiting professor from SNU here for a week who helped finish up that ACI class, Dennis Williams. He has a long history here at QERC and it was great for us to talk with him about the progress and future of both the semester program and also other developments.

A bit of exciting news for me to share is that my dad and sister Rachel just spent a week with us here in Costa Rica. It was very special for me to have them here to show off where we live, hike around on the trails in the valley, and spend some good hot time at the beach. The first part of the week we spent here at QERC, enjoying the morning sunny hours, and relaxing the majority of every day. We all took a hike down to the waterfall one day, my dad and I hiked through the cloud forest one morning, and another day Rachel and I rode horses to the peak of some of our trails. Mostly, it was great to just have them here and be a part of our lives here in Costa Rica.

The second part of the trip we had even more company. Chad Frosland, one of David’s best friends from college, joined us at the end of the week. We all drove down to the beach together to soak in the sun and hit the waves. First we drove to the top of Cerro de la Muerte, the second highest peak in Costa Rica, and had a clear enough morning that we could just barely see both the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts. We were even able to see the waves crashing down at the beach at Manuel Antonio, which was exactly where we were going. We took another pit stop at a favorite stop of David’s, a swimming hole with a rope swing. He and Chad took turns swinging into the water, while my dad and Rachel and I took pictures and enjoyed watching the many Jesus Christ lizards on the rocks around us.

Finally we made it to the coast, which felt like paradise. My dad, Rachel, and Chad all felt like they were in heaven with the blue water, palm trees, and hot sun after coming from such a cold and snowy winter in the states! We stayed in a beautiful and comfortable hotel right on the beach, complete with a refreshing swimming pool. Most of the time we were at the beach we spent going back and forth between the ocean and the pool. :) One morning we spent inside Manuel Antonio National Park, and had the opportunity to see a number of coatimundis, agoutis, iguanas, a sloth with babies (from far away), and lots of white-faced capuchin monkeys up close and personal. We had some great monkey encounters as they jumped all around us, feeding on the trees, and crossing the paths on the ground in front of us. One even stepped on David’s foot as it was jumping across to the other side!

One afternoon Rachel and I got massages on the beach, complete with waves coming up underneath us. While we were relaxing, David and Chad rented boogie boards and hit the waves. Chad had never been boogie-boarding before, and they had such a great time tumbling through the waves and riding them into shore. Another highlight was watching the beautiful sunset a couple nights right over the ocean.

Our last morning we spend a few hours mostly on the beach, soaking up the last bit of sun we could before heading back into San Jose. On the (long) drive back we happened across a large number of scarlet macaws flying around and hanging out in a tree by the road. We also stopped at a river and saw TONS of crocodiles – I counted 27 at one time!

After our last dinner together, Chad and David drove back to QERC and I stayed with my dad and Rachel the last night and accompanied them to the airport very early the next morning. It was a sad departure, but a really great week with them. Chad just up his week here with us at QERC, and it was good to have him also experience our life in Costa Rica. We too walked to the waterfall, and David and he got some time up in the cloud forest. We enjoyed getting some quality time with him and were also sad to see him leave.

Another semester...

Sarah: Our students arrived a little over a week ago and we have had a good time getting to know them and seeing them adjust to their semester abroad experience. There are 5 students right now who will stay for the entire 16 weeks, and another 3 that will come down partway through and stay for about 9 weeks. We had a full day of orientation last week before their classes began on Tuesday. We are in full swing now, and they have Spanish classes every day, they are working on developing their research projects that they’ll work on the entire semester, and they have been going through some readings for an Applied Cultural Integration class. On top of that, all of them have at least one independent class from SNU to work on throughout the semester.

To get the students out of their comfort zone and get them interacting with the community, we have set each one of them up with a family here in the valley. They’ll eat dinner with their family a couple times a month, and conduct a series of interviews with them for a class that allows them to get to know that family on a personal level.

This past weekend we took the students into San Jose to familiarize them with the city. One of the highlights was going to a church service all in Spanish. The worship was led by our friend Alex Grant, a former staff member of LASP, who is a very dynamic Afro-Costa Rican and had a lot of fun dancing around and singing upbeat songs.

It has been a lot of fun to have the students around. Even though they are busy with classes and work, we still find plenty of time to play games in the evenings!

These pictures are of the completed newly-painted bodega (kitchen) and our library/common room with new furniture. All of these were taken before the students arrived, so it looks nice and new and fresh. :)

Crunch Time

Sarah: This is the time of the year when it gets pretty fun for David and me. During our rainy season is our slow time, and a time for us to continue to work on projects. Now we only have on week until the next group of students arrive to participate in our QERC semester program, and we are frantically trying to finish up a lot of these projects and program development to be completely prepared for their arrival! It is an exciting time of year – lots of tourists in the valley, many of whom come by our facility to learn about what we are doing here, and long days full of sun. Our “summer” has arrived.

One of the bigger projects we have been working on is transforming our bodega. This small building used to be a garage/storage area, but with our semester program last year it was turned into a small kitchen/eating area for our students. We were thrilled at that point to see it come together and turn into a kitchen, and this year we are taking it a step farther. To take away the feeling of it being a garage, we have torn off the garage door and built a cement wall and put in a door. Once that was complete, we began the task of priming and then painting the walls and the floor. Naturally, projects take a lot longer in Costa Rica, especially when our resources are a 2-hour drive away. We have made plenty of day trips into San Jose and will make at least a couple more before the students actually get here. We have already run out of both primer and paint and need to get some more before finishing that project. However, it is already starting to have a different feel as we can cover up the oil stains and cement walls.

Besides the bodega, there have been a number of small projects we are trying to complete before next weekend, and a lot of large projects that have to do with program development to create the best possible semester for our incoming students. We are excited with how it is all coming together.

On another exciting note, last week as we were driving into the valley it was already dark out. David and I both noticed what looked like a pair of eyes on the road, but were slightly confused because the eyes seemed pretty high off the ground. As we got closer, the shape became a little more focused, it was indeed a very large animal. Right in front of us was a tapir! I wish I could better describe what these animals look like – but they are sort of a combination between a large black bear, a small elephant, and a hippo. We knew they were supposed to be in our valley, but probably only a small handful of people have ever actually seen them. We were extremely excited to see it for a brief moment before it crossed the road and continued down a trail.

Christmas Winds

David: Merry Happy New Years Christmas! We are experiencing some Christmas winds. Our Christmas winds did not bring new and exciting love to us like it did for our friends in “The Holiday”, most importantly Jack Black, but it did bring my little sister Jenna. As Sarah had said, Jenna dropped down to Costa Rica for a short stint after serving at an orphanage in Guatemala called Casa Bernabe for two weeks. She got here just in time to spend some relaxing days at QERC followed up by a Christmas day trip to the beach. Christmas morning was extremely rainy and windy at QERC but by the time our 2 hour trip to Playa Dominical was over we were watching the sunset over the Pacific in 80 degree weather. Playa Dominical is an interesting and entertaining hotspot/ laidback town for expatriate surfers and vacationing Costa Ricans. We were able to find a nice little hotel to stay in and enjoyed the waves and fresh waterfalls the next morning. All in all we had little time with Jenna but it was very special to have her to ourselves for Christmas.




This time of the year usually is the windiest but last night and today we have had gusts of wind that were very, very powerful. Here is a good example. We have a 9th grader from Houston, Texas who is fulfilling an internship experience by doing a three week research project in partnership with QERC. His name is Zach and he is attempting to see if any morphological changes can be seen in amphibian species inhabiting areas affected by deforestation. Pretty good for a 9th grader, I would say. Anyway, we were heading up into the forest today to work on his survey quadrants when we heard the thunderous sound of a very large tree toppling to the ground and ripping down everything that was unfortunate to be in its path. In these tropical forests, tree falls like this open up the under story to sunlight which encourages pioneering plant species that love sunlight. The small little habitat created attracts all kinds of organisms that prefer this type of environment. So, a natural tree fall is great for biodiversity but bad for researchers that happen to be in the vicinity of a tree fall. Needless to say, a little while later my caution got the best of me and we decided that our work in the forest could wait for another day with less wind.

So…. Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to all of you that keep up with our lives. We appreciate knowing that you care about what we are doing and experiencing.