Costa Rica is Knocking at Our Door

It's here, or almost here. Costa Rica. Wow, it seems like we have been waiting forever for the day to come, and here it is, sneaking up on us. On Tuesday of next week we will be flying to Costa Rica, but before that happens we are busy wrapping up our last minute preparations for the next two years of life.

We are in Iowa with Chris's family as we make our final preparations. We've set up a Drop Box account to conveniently share photos with friends and family (if you're interested let us know), printed off and filled out the necessary forms for loan deferment and staging registration, set up a Skype account to keep in touch with family and friends, updated our iTunes libraries, printed off photos, and purchased a chair. No lie, we bought a chair this past Saturday at the flea market (it was $10 and Chris's parents graciously agreed to keep it for us), it is lime green and we plan to turn it into a rocking chair in our future life (the one where we have our own home again)we will most likely reupholster it as well so it actually goes with our furniture that is being stored in NC). We also have the little details to take care of as well, laundry, packing, you know...squeezing our lives (minus that chair) into suitcases.

(The Hall Family)

This week has been crazy, but then so is life in general. The preparations for this next adventure began a long time ago, perhaps when we first started contemplating the application process for Peace Corps; but these past several months have been stuffed to capacity and trying to jam preparations in with work, spending time with family, playing Wii, studying spanish and running has been a bit overwhelming (playing Wii was really there to keep us from going insane). Thankfully in the midst of all of that we were able to spend some time with Ashley and Zack in January while Ash had a brief break from school, it was wonderful to see her one more time before leaving the country.

(The Hansen Family)

On Valentine's Day we took a trip to Chicago - OK, so it wasn't really a Valentine's trip as much as it was a Chicago is kind of on the way to Iowa and we have some pretty awesome friends that live there. We stayed with Jeremy and Kim for a couple of days and enjoyed the sights (i.e. food) of the city. On our last day in town we ate real (vegetarian) hot dogs and got incredible sushi from a local fish market. The sushi is important to note because 6 people ate for less than $50, when does that ever happen with sushi, and good sushi too!

(With the Howes) (Our Amazing Sushi Platter)


(With Our Hot Dogs)

So, I know it's not much, but it will have to do for now. We will have our lives stuffed into our backpacks and sweet Patagonia carry-ons come Saturday evening. Sunday we will fly to D.C. (and hopefully spend some time with a friend there), Monday we will have our staging event, and Tuesday we will fly to Costa Rica. Let the craziness continue!

Here's to a whole new adventure - life in Costa Rica!