We’re Here!

After a tumultuous week packing up our house, moving Mara over to Peter’s place, and some crazy airport delays, we finally got to San Jose and the comfort of our favorite sanctuary, the Hotel Aranjuez. Here’s Alia toasting our arrival with a chocolate muffin, while Maya monkey rests comfortably on a Heliconia.

After a relaxing few days in San Jose, we hauled our (for us) massive amount of luggage (3 suitcases) up the mountain to Monteverde, to great-aunt Sue and cousin Richard’s beautiful house in the forest.

Even after the last, bumpy 18 kilometers of unpaved road, we all arrived safe and sound.

A few days after our arrival it was already time for Alia’s first day of Kindergarten! We were all very excited for her to start at the amazing Monteverde Friends School. The walk to school through the forest is quite a contrast to last year’s drive through the city to get to her old school.

Her bilingual Kindergarten class is structured differently from other bilingual classes we’re familiar with, in that they teach one week all in Spanish, and the next in English. We were very proud that Alia took right to the bright, airy classroom, and didn’t seem fazed by the fact that the first week was a Spanish week, and that she was one of a very few native English speakers.

Alia is definitely a fan of the half-day format of her new Kindergarten, which gives us plenty of time to explore the forests around us. So far we’ve climbed in some strangler figs, foraged for wild bananas, and frolicked with Blue Morpho butterflies.

We move in to our own house on the 20th of August, and will be posting again soon!