Costa Rica Day 2

Day 2 In CR brought lots of excitement and fun. We began by going on a zip-line adventure through the rain forest canopy. The ride to the zip-lines gave incredible views of Arenal Volcano.There were 10 zip-lines in all, the longest being 900m long! One of the zip-lines went right beside a waterfall. It was simply incredible.
After zip-lining, we visited the Maleku indian village on horseback. One of the Maleku men told us about their tribe and showed us some of the masks that their people craft. Very cool stuff.
My steed was nobler than Dan's.

Later that night we went to this resort-ish type place near the volcano. There are lots of hot springs in the area due to the volcano, and this place sort of made a water park out of water from the hot springs. There were 10 or so different pools with different temperatures of water (all very warm). It was fantastic! One of the pools even had a waterslide, and 3 of them had swim up bars. It was one of the most relaxing and awesome places I've ever been.

COSTA RICA! Day 1

I'm going to attempt to give a day-by-day synopsis of our trip to Costa Rica, both for the sake of posterity and for anyone who is curious what the heck we did while we were there.

After arriving in San Jose and going through customs and immigration and all that good stuff, I only had to walk around for about 3 minutes before I found Dan, so that was great. We began our drive through the mountains to the town of La Fortuna. We stopped at great little restaraunt on the way and had a great seafood lunch.
And here is Dan inspecting our very first bottle of Imperial, brewed in Costa Rica.

We arrived at night so we found a place to stay first. We stayed at a place called La Posada Inn. It was a hostel and it only cost us $5 a night each! After cleaning up a little, we walked around the town and found a place to get some dinner and drinks.

Excitement of things to come...

I thought I'd take this moment to blog before the weekend gets too crazy with family and holiday obligations. Yes, obligations. I'll smile and act like I'm having a great time though.

This will officially be my first Christmas away from my family. Why? BECAUSE I'M GOING TO COSTA RICA!! I'm ridiculously excited, just in case you couldn't sense it from the previous sentence being in all caps. My parents were cool with it when I first mentioned it to them before I bought the ticket, but now they are trying to make me feel guilty about it (pretty sure they are just joking though) Either way it is getting on my nerves. The following list are some reasons I am excited about going to Costa Rica.

-Warmth
-Going to the beach, tasting the salt water on my lips.
-Awesome fresh fruit
-Seeing all kinds of crazy animals in the rain forest, including but not limited to sloths, monkeys, frogs, snakes, birds, leopards, and jaguars.
-Coffee
-Whitewater rafting in the jungle
-Hiking a volcano
-Learning about a new culture

There are more buy my laptop battery is about to die and I'm too lazy to get the power cord.

I do have a prayer request for this trip. I am arriving on a different flight than Dan and his sister (I get there about 2 1/2 hours after them). Pray that we are able to find each other easily once I get there. Other than that, prayers of safety would be appreciated. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Mutant Cats

Chalk one up for another pointless discovery in the world of science. Some researchers in Korea have cloned a cat that carries a protein called RFP (red fluorescence protein) in all of it's cells. When you shine ultraviolet light on the cats, they shine red. Freaky. This isn't the first time either, folks. There are fluorescent rabbits, fish, frogs, and even a monkey I believe. In all seriousness though, this actually is a significant achievement. They believe they can use the same technique used to introduce the fluorescence to the cat to treat and possibly cure certain genetic disorders. I hated cats to begin with...and now that they can look even more demonic, I hate them even more.

Dear Lord, Arf Arf.

This is quite possibly one of the cutest pictures I've ever seen. Yes I used the word "cutest." Don't hate. The dog looks like he is praying extremely hard. Maybe he really is. One of the greatest pleasures in my life is getting to pray with kindergarten and first grade kids at the Greenhouse. They have absolutely no reservations about asking God for silly things. I think that is something that is completely lost by adult Christians. We can ask God for ANYTHING, but alot of times we don't ask him because we think it isn't "important enough." I've resumed reading a book I started a couple of years ago at the suggestion of Callan. (Prayer by Richard Foster) Sometimes I get caught only talking to God when I need to ask him for something, but he wants to engage us in ways much deeper than that. We should talk to him as we would a best friend. Tell him frustrations, joys, praises, needs, talk about football with him. That would be fun..."Hey Jesus, how bout them Colts?"

Oh Sun, where have you gone?

Today I'm in a Jeremy Enigk mood. His music is good for this weather.

I think I'll move to the tropics someday. But then I wouldn't have good Jeremy Enigk weather.

On second thought, I can do without Jeremy Enigk.

Peace out, y'all.

Today it's gloomy.

The leaves are gone.
Cold is here.
No sunny skies.
December is not single person friendly. Maybe I can get a girl to just sign a one month agreement? Not likely.
It is amazing to me that on gloomy days like this, the Lord still fills my heart with joy.
I have much to be thankful for.