A Costa Rican Christmas

So as most of you know, Charlie and I had the opportunity to spend Christmas and the New Year in Costa Rica with my family. It was absolutely amazing!! We have a lot of pictures we want to share with everyone so a slide show is forthcoming. For now here is a little summary about what we saw and did. Let me start off with all of the wildlife we saw. I'm not talking about seeing animals in a zoo. We saw all of these animals out in the wild: sloths, monkeys, coati, marsh crab, toucans, iguanas, crocodiles, caymans (part of the croc family), howler monkeys, parrots, frogs, geckos, a boa constrictor!, bats and every giant insect created! Our first couple days were spent by the beach in a town called Manuel Antonio. This is where we had most of our beach time and saw a lot of animals. The hotel we stayed at had this amazing ocean front view and we would wake up early to hear howler monkeys outside our room! Christmas was very untraditional. We went zip lining through the jungle. One cable was over 2500 feet long and 200 feet above the ground! During our trip we saw three volcanoes, two which are still active. Arenal volcano is the most active volcano in Costa Rica. We were lucky enough at night to see lava flowing down the mountain! That trip was really cool because the volcano's geothermal heat warms a large area of hot springs which we were able to enjoy. We visited waterfalls, museums, a couple trips to San Jose and took a river ride down the Sarapiqui. As for New Years Eve, we went out to dinner and played games and resorted to the fact that Costa Ricans spend the night with there families and there wasn't much going on. Then midnight hit. We went outside and the entire valley, filled with millions of people, was exploding with fireworks!! Fireworks are not illegal in Costa Rica and you can shoot them off where ever you want. There were so many fireworks that off in the distance it looked like lightening! Unfortunately this description won't do it justice, however it was one of the coolest sights we have ever seen! However, once the fireworks died down, there was the deafening sound of ambulances. The day before we left Charlie and I went by ourselves to go white water rafting down the Pacuare river. It was so much fun and a lot more intense than we expected. Plus the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. All in all, it was a wonderful trip. We would recommend that everyone see this beautiful country. Plus the people there are so nice! Thanks Dad and Jan for a great trip!

Thanksgiving 2008

Well I know it has been a while since our last post but with end of the semester assignments/tests and the holidays, Charlie and I did not have a spare second! Now I have a couple days before my last semester (yeah!) starts, so I will catch everyone up on the last couple months. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Charlie's family in Idaho. Charlie's parents rented this beautiful cabin near McCall and we all hung out, relaxed and enjoyed each other's company. Plus Stacie told us the fantastic news that she is pregnant!!! We're sooo excited for her (and Trav)! It was nice to see everyone and we miss our family very much. It would be nice to have another get together soon! Here are some pictures.

So here is the story of the fox. This fox came into the yard of the cabin and the boys kept feeding him. We left a pizza outside on the front porch and this little guy got caught digging into it. The fox was pushed away and the pizza was taken inside. Mr. Fox must have not liked the fact that we took away his dinner because he came back and took a crap on our cooler that was also on the balcony!! It was hilarious and disgusting all at the same time!!

Here is the beautiful cabin we stayed at.

Happy Halloween!!

The best looking Napoleon Dynamite and Sarah Palin there is!!!

Charlie Video

Hilarious!!

Brynlee Mae Spencer

Our cute niece Brynlee is finally here! She is so precious and we already love her so much! We can't wait to meet her in person and give her a huge kiss!!!

GO BIG BLUE!!  

I can't believe that it has already been 1 year here in AZ.  We are about to enter yet another year of school!  It wasn't that long ago that I was applying to get in to school and doing a lot of praying and then, Ta-Freakin-Da I am in my second year of PT school!  It has been such a wonderful year not only in school but life here in AZ.  This new school year brings a whole new list of challenges for Mel and I.  This picture is my campus in Mesa, but it only shows the main building.  This is where I will be spending countless hours of studying, practicing and learning how to be a Physical Therapist.  This summer I completed my first rotation as an intern, and it was such a neat experience.  I was finally able to use all the things I learned about for a year on real people!  This next quarter is a busy one filled classes like neuroscience, spinal conditions, integumentary, neuro conditions and a couple of rehab classes.  Its a good thing I have such a wonderful wife that brings me dinner when we have long nights at the library. 

This is where Mel is going to be spending a lot of her time for the next few months again.  She didn't get much of a break having to take summer school to finish more quickly.  She is going to be staying busy taking classes in pursuit of her Psychology degree.  She is taking a number of different classes including a couple of classes dealing with the environment, a personality psych class, calculus :( all on top of being research assistant in the psych department, and making sure our house doesn't fall apart.  She is however grateful to have the opportunity to finally finish what she has worked so hard for; a very expensive piece of paper, aka a Diploma.  I would also like to add that since Mel has been attending ASU she averaged over a 4.0 in all her classes!!  She is going to kill me for putting that in here but I love her so much and am very proud of her and her accomplishments.  I just wish I was able to scan in her letters from the Dean on making the Dean's List each semester.