Our First Weekend in Costa Rica

The last few days have been full of even more Costan Rican adventures!  We have been doing our best to get somewhat settled into life here and take advantage of our time with Chesney while she is visiting.   Here is a peek into what we have been up to!

Saturday

We decided to adventure into downtown San Jose!  We hit up the Artesian Market for some handmade souvenirs for Chesney to take home with her.  It is beautiful just like the one in Honduras.  We love exploring all of the handmade pieces to see more of the Costan Rican culture.  We met a new friend named Emilio who shared some good information with us about things to do in San Jose.  Josie enjoyed talking with him, too!

Josalina & Emilio

Market Shopping

After the market, we walked through more parts of downtown.  We saw Mickey, Minnie & Santa so Josie was super excited for that!  After taking a picture she said, “Mommy, I wasn’t even nervous for them!”  She was proud of herself, I guess!

Getting Fresca in a local market

Walking through downtown

Josie with Mickey, Minnie & Santa!

We ate lunch at a food court inside of one of their large department stores.  Here’s a view from the top of the store on the balcony of the food court.  Saturday was the “Festival of Lights” in San Jose.  We didn’t stay downtown for the festival because Bre & Micah told us that it would be extremely crowded … so we decided to skip that!

Busy Street!

More of San Jose 

Love each other (and fight like) sisters ... haha :) 

We made another Walmart run after we got back from downtown.  Here are some Walmart pictures so you can see what Walmart is like here.

Where's Waldo?!

Where's Waldo?!

Busy place!

Later that evening, we went to a local pizza place called Monster Pizza.  It was delicious!  And they just so happened to have the Festival of Lights on all of the TVs in the restaurant so we got to enjoy the parade after all!  It was similar to the Macy’s parade with marching bands, floats, and other forms of entertainment.  You could tell that it is something that they take a lot of pride in & enjoy!  We were glad to get to experience it on the TVs while we enjoyed dinner.

Stylin' with her glasses on at night :)

The rest of the evening was low-key ... but we did come home to a visitor!  As we walked in the door, he fell from the ceiling onto the couch.  Josie didn't know what to think!

Our first Gecko!

Josie "reading" her Bible to Chesney before bed

Bible story time :) 

Slept in her own bed ALL night for the first time
since we have been in Costa Rica!

Sunday

We were so excited to wake up & go to church in Costa Rica!  We had heard a few things about International Baptist Church in San Jose so we decided we would try there first.  We got up & left the house right at 10am in an Uber.  Talk about a big change from living 8 minutes down the road from Brookhaven!

 

First Sunday in Costa Rica!

Not having the family picture

Look closely & you'll see the reflection of our Uber driver's face ... haha 

It took us 30 minutes to get to the church with traffic.  We got to the church & asked for help getting Josie to her class.  I wasn’t sure what to expect because she has been thrown into SO much the last few days … but she kissed me and went right into her class like she had been going there forever!  (Those of you at BHF know that this is NOT a norm for her!)

We went in to find a seat in the service & immediately noticed that the church was filled with multiple ethnicities & cultures!  It was so beautiful!  During worship, all of the kids from children’s church were in the balcony so that they could experience it, too.  I LOVED that!  They did a beautiful service with songs & drama based on the account in Luke where the angels come to speak to Zechariah, Mary, Joseph & the angels.  It was an amazing service!

Inside of the church during worship

Drama about the Shepherds 

We picked Josie up from her class & she saw us through the window and started jumping up and down!  She ran out and immediately said, “Mommy!  I made knew friends!  But they all ‘spect me to ‘peak ‘panish cause I’m Josalina!”  We all laughed SO hard.  She didn’t skip a beat and went right into telling us everything that they did!

Proud of her craft!

We went in an Uber to a nearby mall to try to find a shower head for our apartment.  No luck!  Then we came home to eat lunch before heading to Parque La Copa for some volleyball!  All of that time playing volleyball with the youth at BHF didn’t help prepare us though.  The rules are all SO different here!  I stuck around for a little bit & watched with Josie.  We ended up heading back to the apartment after a little while because she was restless.  But Daniel & Chesney stayed and played volleyball for 3 hours!  They had a great time & got to meet a lot of people from our neighborhood.

Volleyball

After volleyball ended, we loaded up in an Uber for our first attempt at Japanese.  We found a cute little sushi & Japanese place a little over a mile from our apartment!  It was really yummy … and when Josie heard me say teriyaki when I was helping Daniel read the menu she yelled “DADDY! Did you hear that? They have teriyaki for you!  Do you want some?”  That girl knows her daddy’s heart!

We finished the night by playing Greed (a dice game that Daniel's family has always played!).  We are really going to miss Chesney so much.  She has brought so much joy to these first few days in country ... it won't be the same without her.

Monday

This morning, we went to ILE (our school) and toured the campus with Micah!  We were really excited to see the school & see where most of our time will be spent in the next year.

The campus is absolutely beautiful ... we are even more excited now!

We are waiting at the apartment now for the Internet company to come and get things set up for our wi-fi.  We are excited to have wi-fi to be able to Skype & FaceTime!  After we get that set up, we plan to run a few errands & head to the park for a little bit.  

This week, we will say our "see you soons" to Chesney, celebrate Daniel's birthday, and enjoy some down time as a family before Christmas Eve & Christmas Day services.  More pictures & stories to come soon!

Thanks for joining us on our journey.  It really means so much to receive encouragement & support as we begin our new life here in Costa Rica.  If you'd like to join our support team, please visit our giving site: yfc.givingfuel.com/32216 

Also, our Youth For Christ Christmas newsletter has been mailed out in the States.  If you would like to receive our newsletter via e-mail, please message us on Facebook or send us an e-mail and we will add you to our mailing list!

Hope you each have a great week!

dpeal@myyfc.org

lpeal@myyfc.org

D: +1 506 7131 6141

L: +1 506 7131 8403