Half Empty or Half Full?

Sorry for the blog delay. I don't really have a good excuse, except that life seems to have gotten sort of busy lately. Yes, yes, I know it's all relative.

We're officially past the halfway point now. Six months into our 11 month sabbatical. We're on the other side of the hill. Or wave. Or something.

Six months in and things have definitely picked up around here. Take the "family business" for example. My !Que Rico! duties used to be confined to marketing. Meaning I created a facebook fan page and occasionally posted items of interest on it. But now business has picked up substantially and I spend evenings cutting out tiny little circular labels and painstakingly taping them onto tiny plastic lids. I'm also in charge of ice making and with the increase in delivery demands I have to make ice ALL the time. It's exhausting. To top it all off, I have recently had to participate in the actual making of ice cream! And I don't mean just as the official taste tester. No....now you might find me slaving over a hot stove stirring stirring and stirring and stirring chocolate. Whose idea was this whole ice cream making thing, anyway??

On the plus side, we have officially entered into the exciting world of BARTER. I've never had a barterable skill before (who wants to trade a massage for a wetland restoration policy?) and I have definitely been missing out. We trade ice cream for all sorts of awesome things now. Ice cream for organic kale, homemade fruit leather, cheese, boxing classes, a beautiful sign. At up to four batches a day the possibilities are endless....


In addition to selling (and trading) ice cream, I have decided to cast aside all fear of abject failure and humiliation and teach Zumba. That's right, you read it correctly. Zumba. While Ian and Sadie got their visas renewed in Nicaragua, I flew to Portland for a lovely weekend with good friends and one very long day at the "Diva Den" to get licensed to teach Zumba. No, I'm not going to explain what it is if you've never heard of it. And for those of you who have heard of it, don't even think about laughing! Class begins next Saturday - I expect to see all of you there. In the meantime, here's a preview:

Oh, and we've become property managers. The couple who was managing the property we are renting picked up and moved to Italy, leaving us to manage our own property, as well as the former property managers' property. Throw in another house on the hill that we are responsible for opening and showing to potential buyers and, voila, we have a drawer full of keys.

In addition to ice cream and Zumba and property management we are involved in many ways with Sadie's school. I'm on the environmental committee and Ian is on the community committee and also heading up this year's talent show/circus. The school is absolutely totally fabulous and I only mention our involvement as an excuse to bring up the school so that I can share this cute video:

Del Mar Academy Nosara Costa Rica from projectgfs on Vimeo.

Extra curricular activities also keep us busy. All three of us take boxing class now, at different times during the week - women's class, men's class, girl's class.


Ian still takes spanish lessons and sometimes yoga and I am occasionally found taking a "body sculpting" class when I'm not boxing. Sadie still loves her once a week surf club and swimming club begins next week (she gets yoga class at school - the fabulous school). Recently we also found a great afternoon drop-in kids art class. At a bar. Fun for everyone. Yesterday Sadie even got to go horseback riding. Here is the trailer for the upcoming movie of the adventure:




We're so busy but we have so much yet to do here!!

Yes, we've taken myriad classes, met great people, traveled to two other countries, become part of a very large Nicaraguan family, started a business, experienced a change of season, learned how to get a downed phone line repaired and where to get natural peanut butter. We've watched lots and lots of monkeys, we've seen hundreds of turtles lay eggs and watched thousands of babies hatch, we've read lots and lots of books, we've seen countless beautiful sunsets, we've captured (and released) dozens of bugs, we've seen several scorpions and one tarantula. We've even (finally) found a decent beer - Costa Rica's first craft brewery is now available and our fridge is stocked with two cases.

But...we haven't driven down the coast road to Montezuma, we haven't seen the volcano or the cloud forest, we haven't even kayaked up the Nosara River. Two of us haven't zip lined and none of us have tried stand up paddling or been fishing. Heck, we haven't even been on a boat! I haven't learned spanish and I still can't open a coconut with a machete. And we definitely don't spend nearly enough time these days walking on the beach or lying in a hammock.

The glass is definitely half full, but I have a feeling the next five months will fly by at an alarming rate. So much to do, so little time....