Día dos en paraíso

Well, we got a lot of feedback on day one...most of it commiseration from folks who have been international as well. As Jen and I expected, the AutoMercado experience was basically on par with others' experiences...but not so much the glass door....I still don't know how much that one is going to cost.

Today was better. I got up with the kiddos and was able to cook them a normal breakfast since we endured the grocery store yesterday...scrambled eggs w/ cheese, bananas and milk. Jen got to sleep in for a little while...that was a good start ;-) Then I took Kade over to the new house to do the walk through and final signatures...we now have our keys to the new casa. Unfortunately, that took about 2 hours...and Kade pooped about 15 mins after our arrival...good thing I had the right stuff ;-) Then it was back to the hotel for lunch which actually ended up being bologna sandwiches because it looked like ham and was labeled "jamonada" which is close to ham..."jamon". Score one for AutoMercado. Oh well, the kids liked it.

Then we decided to lay low the rest of the day and take a breather. So we headed over to the local mall (Multiplaza) just to cruise around and check things out. It was a really nice mall (much nicer than the last one we visited in Cariari) and it had lots of little play structures for the kiddos all around. That was a nice break for us. Then we found a train...yes a real train that runs around inside the mall. It was 350 colones (about 75 cents) for each kiddo...they had a blast, definitely a hit! Then we decided to go native for dinner and hit the food court to get some Taco Bell and a fruit smoothie. Before leaving the mall we decided to look at the toy store for plastic play structures (for our own backyard). They were pretty expensive...about 250,000 colones (about $500) for your standard plastic playhouse. Its going to be worth it...we just have to chose what we want to get.

Finally we took Jen and Payton over to the new house. The highlight was supposed to be a few phone calls back to the states courtesy of Joiphone (our VOIP provider). Unfortunately, everyone could hear us but we could not hear anyone...not so good for two way conversation. So we packed it up and headed back to the hotel to put the kiddos down. Once we got home we got emails and messages (on the Joiphone line) from everyone we called. They were all calling back to let us know that they could hear us...thanks...I think that means that I have my router setup to block the port that Joiphone apparently uses for incoming voice data. I will have to check on that tonight.

For those of you keeping score...Payton only threw up once today so she must be getting better. She also got her 7th tooth on the bottom. Also, my eye has not fallen out of my head yet but it is still pink and itchy...

I also added two other pictures are from our hotel room at Villas Del Rio. We were lucky enough to be put on the top floor of the hotel (6th floor) which has provided us with some pretty good views. You can see part of the hotel in the lower right corner of the last picture (tan with brown roof).

Tomorrow we are going to try and keep things simple again as that appears to work (from a sanity perspective) pretty well. G'night.