Rancho Construction

This is what we've been waiting for! The Rancho; our covered patio that we can enjoy the view to the sea during the rainy season. The rancho will connect our coffee patio to our garage. In the first picture you can see our little patio and the space over to the garage that will be filled in.

Ourarchitect, Celso, designed the rancho and obtained some of the permits in the fall. John obtained the remainder of the permits in our municipal town of Hojancha and ground was broken on January 21st. The artchitect was on hand for consultation and our lead guy, Randall provided the materials list.

The crew technically started on the 23rd I think, but John had already started digging out the wall and area for the columns. This is the fastest crew around and on day 20 we are already at the roof stage. Amazing for here; simply amazing!

You can see from my look standing on the roof that I'm nervous but the view was fabulous!

Well, a bit more progress has occurred. I'm updating this on March 24 and you can see that we've been working on the bottom level; digging out the earth and finishing the columns. The cone roof is now finished and the new front entrance has started. We can already cross over to the garage from the house and it's just so convenient. The fun for me will be picking out the new furniture -speaking of which I will post a picture of our new table on the sun patio. It's beautiful if I do say so myself!

Here is a picture of the broken tile floor being laid out. We will have a large star in the center of the columns and a smaller one behind it near the front entrance. A small alf sun is planned for the back door entrance. The view from below is quite spectacular and should blend quite seamlessly once the painting is complete. The photo of Josue shows the last of the old tile floor being removed from the old coffee patio.

The tile floor is now complete and the new front entrance as well.

Polly and Donna's Escape from the Frozen North

What a great surprise! In late January, my sister, Polly and one of my best friends, Donna hopped on a cheap charter and came for a week long visit to CR.

Our itinerary was very full and the week just flew by. They arrived on a Monday night to Liberia airport which is about an hour and a half from our house.

Here's a couple of pictures from Tuesday evening when we had sunset celebrations at our Samara lot. We then went onto a lovely dinner at our friends, the Shepherd's who live very close to our Samara lot.

On Wednesday we had girls day at Barragones beach. No sighting of Mel; it was an extremely quiet, private day on the beach.

Donna and I went shopping on the Thursday to Nicoya while Auntie Polly was the substitute gym teacher for the boys that day. This evening we joined our friends Mary and Fred and a host of other folks for a cocktail party at Las Palmeras. By now, the girls' heads are spinning from all the people they have met and their names!

On Friday, both Donna and Polly took the Wingnuts Canopy tour - see them getting ready to be harnessed up with their cute tour guide John. That evening we had friends over for cocktails and then had dinner at Shake Joe's on the beach; compliments of Donna.

John took Donna on the Saturday to Isla de Pajaros in Palo Verde National Park where she saw many species of birds. As they are migratory in nature, many of them will be gone by March so it was a great opportunity to see them. Our family went in December so here are a couple of pictures from that tour. Polly and I had ladies lunch with Sherry on Saturday and that evening we all went to Rancharlo's for dinner and to hear our friend, Franz play his saxophone.

Sunday, Donna and I went down to Carrillo beach for the morning and that evening we all went to our neighbours for the Superbowl party.

Monday morning was pack up time (you should have seen all of Donna's shopping - she's a real asset to our economy here!) and then off to the airport.

The week went by too fast but it was so terrific to see both of them even for a short while.

Visit to Barragones Beach

We all decide to venture to Barragones Beach where Mel Gibson has property. Lucky for Jim and Yvette, they got to see Mel as he came down to the beach on his quad to check on the set up for his evening beach party. I'm not sure what happened to our invitations but we didn't get them!

The picture of Bryce and Tina is right next to where they were setting up for the beach party. The boys enjoyed the surf and built a "crab emporium".

We were also lucky enough to see the Howler monkeys as they passed over us in the tree tops.