It has been a busy couple of months since I last posted. I still can’t get over how time just slides by and I don’t even notice. We have been here twenty months and definitely feel that this is home. I was most sure of this when I noticed that I was sitting in the outdoor living room watching the birds and listening to their songs and I didn’t jump up immediately to go get my camera to get “just one more shot”. That is not to say that I don’t still take lots of photographs – I do – but I don’t take as many 
In March we had two sets of guests.
Friends Betty and Bill 
from Spokane, Washington were here for a few days and we had a great time once again. We didn’t do a lot since they were here just a few days but we had a great time and ate some scrumptious food!
My niece Caitlyn and her friend Sophie came for a week a few days after Betty and Bill left and they were wonderful guests! They both turned thirty in 2011 and they wanted to celebrate so they came to Costa Rica They spent a lot of time on the beach and did a lot of wandering around. They also went to the local Waldorf school and observed the Waldorf experience here in Puerto Viejo. We also went to the waterfall 
and to a cacao farm 
that a friend of mine owns and learned how to make chocolate
from the cacao pod. Pretty cool!! I was sorry to see them go…………..
We had our first (fantastic) experience with the health system here a couple of weeks ago. Tom suspected that he had a bleeding ulcer as he had had that affliction a couple of times in Colorado. Since we are now members of the national health plan, we went to our clinic a couple of miles away. They saw him immediately and sent him to get lab work done. When we came back, the doctor said we had two options. We could go to Limon, which has a basic hospital, and be reassessed to see if they would do an endoscopy or, if we could afford it, we could just go directly to the emergency room of one of the private hospitals in San Jose. Since Tom still has money in a health savings account, we went with option two. Before leaving the clinic, however, they gave him an IV to help stop the bleeding and relieve the pain.
The next day, we set off at 6:00 a.m. as it is a four hour drive to San Jose. We arrived at 10:00 a.m. at the emergency room of Hospital La Catolica
and were seen immediately. The nurse did the initial intake assessment and then the doctor came in and said that we should go ahead and get the endoscopy done to see if there was still bleeding. So, off they went. They put Tom to sleep, did the endoscopy, determined that the bleeding had stopped, biopsied the ulcers, and took him to recovery. The doctor came in shortly after Tom woke up and gave us the pictures and a prescription and said we could go home. We were on the road by 12:15 and home by 4:30. It was amazing – the best hospital experience we have ever had. And – it cost $150 for the hospital and $250 for the doctor!! The main difference between going the private route and the public route would have been the additional time it would have taken – probably a couple of days. At any rate, Tom is back to abnormal and feels great!
In other news – we have had to replace our wood floors with tile. I was so upset initially because the wood was so beautiful. 
However, termites and mold ate away at the floorboards and there was a danger of the floor caving in. So – we called our wonderful carpenter and jack of all trades and he came and fixed it all – with a lot of help from Tom. We now have beautiful tile floors that can’t be eaten up. 
I have to say, it is beautiful and so much easier to keep clean and free of dog hair and dirt. So all ended well…………
Other than that, we just keep keepin’ on. It has been rainy the last week or so but we welcome the rain. It was hot and dry for a few weeks and our trees and plants were pretty parched. Today is absolutely beautiful – not a cloud in the sky and the sky and the sea are bright blue. Life is good
Blue crab in our garden
Yummy chocolate made from scratch
More bananas from our yard
Sofi and Kaya enjoying the sun
Ibis by the ocean
Neighborhood turkeys enjoying bananas
Costa Rica Dog Lover 