So we do get smarter....

Tonight the Mrs. and I were having one of those deep conversations that we love to have with each other (a.k.a., I was re-packaging chicken and she was finishing the dishes). Suddenly she turns to me and pronounces that she is having deja vous. In the process of her sudden motion she spilled some water out onto the counter and looks at me...followed by this:

Mrs: "That happened too in my deja vous"
Rob: (pause - aaaaand....nothing)
Mrs: "In my deja vous you told me 'Way to go' and I told you 'yeah, like I meant to do that'"
Rob: "So I am getting smarter"
Mrs: "I guess so"

Just proves that practice makes perfect...even when you are not aware of it.

Also, we finally got our Air conditioner installation completed....only took 12 days. Of course today is like the coldest day of the year here....so being a man and all...I still turned the one in our master to the lowest setting to see what it could dish out...

Finally, Payton's eye is finally starting to look a little better. I think Jen has been taking pictures...once she downloads the pictures I will contemplate putting together a photo-time journal of the rise and fall of the cyst....gripping stuff I know!

Facebook Saved My Marriage

First let me start by saying that I am not a huge fan of the "social network" websites...since you know..."being social" and sitting in front of a computer do not really go together if you ask me... BUT, today I got an email from that woman who lives in my house....and you would never believe what it said....it said that "we were friends"!!! Holy smokes. I decided to up the ante and list her as my wife...and guess what...it sent her an email asking her to accept ?!?! And low and behold she ACCEPTED!! As you can plainly see...we are now officially married as per the wibbly-wobbly-web! I am so excited...now I am hoping that this turns into another honeymoon night.....THANKS FACEBOOK!

Little Miss Payton....

Just a quick update to let everyone know that Payton's procedure went just fine. We were at the hospital CIMA by 5:30 am, by 6:30 she was with the doctors, by 7 we she was done and by 8:30 we were paying the bill. Turns out that not only did we have a pediatric ophthalmologist and a pediatric anesthesiologist....but we also two pediatric doctors (our normal one and the one that we ended up seeing since our normal one was out of the office when we originally took her in for her eye). So I have to say that we had at a minimum 120+ years of experience in the operating room...discounting the nurses! I think she was safe ;-) In the end it only ended up costing about $700 (pre-insurance since in CR you have to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed) which works out $5.83 per year of experience in the room ;-)

Here are some pictures of the little trooper pre and post-op. When she came out of the operating room and her anesthesia started to wear off....she was uncontrollable. They say that kids feel like they are drunk for about 15-20 minutes after, this disorients them and most kiddos cry. I remember that Kade was fairly bad after his ear surgery but this was "Son of Chucky" bad! Finally after about 20 minutes she started to settle down ... and from there she quickly returned to her normal independent self. In fact, when we got back to the house she refused to let me open the front door....she had to do it herself ;-) At least we know that no "piss and vinegar" was removed with the cyst!!! Thanks to everyone for all the great thoughts and prayers.

Well the verdict is in...

After 2 hours at the hospital, we finally were bounced to a pediatric eye doctor who spoke English. She looked at Payton and immediately set an appointment for Thursday morning. Seems that little miss Payton is going to have her first minor surgery in Costa Rica. They think it is a chalazion ( a cyst in the glands within the eyelids - drawing on left) so they want to sedate her, then go in through the back side of the eyelid and remove the cyst and capsule. Maybe in the states we would be a little more calm about the whole ordeal....but being here, as usual, ensures that everything interesting.

While we were waiting (and waiting and waiting) at the doctors office, Kade finally lost his patience and said the following:

"Where is our doctor?" followed by a stern "Who's in charge here?!?"

Well stated Kade....your mom and dad were thinking the same thing! And where did you learn that ;-)

G-MEN!!!

Give me a break! Talk about a terrible game to watch as a fan. I thought Jen was going to get out the defibrillator after that TD was called back for "holding". And again I had to watch the whole thing in Spanish. Even the Spanish commentators (who generally do not add a lot of commentary value) commented several times about the officiating. Anyway...good game Rhonda :-)

Speaking of the Giants....today over dinner (home-made chicken noodle soup...and I mean home-made...Kade and I even had to make the egg noodles), the fambly was entertaining me while I tuned everything out and watched the game. During a break in the action Kade turned to me and asked me "which of the Giants are your friends" since I liked them so much ;-) It was very cute.

After dinner, I painfully put the Giants game on hold (since I was recording it with my media center) and we all went up and did the bath, PJ, book, bed routine. I got to put Payton to bed tonight and while we were reading books every time she saw a river or lake she would point to it and say "agua"...I think we need to start working on her English. Then we picked up another book called "Toddler Two Step" and there are two kids in the book that look like Payton and Kade. Every page she would point to each one and say "Patin" and "aid". Again...very cute. As you can see, she has developed a large bump under her eye...we are a bit worried and plan to get her to the doctors quick...but she is still smiling!

So it has come to my attention that some people were still wondering what was the answer to my question a while back regarding the Giants and the Packers. Well, at the time it was simple...they had both come off victories on the Detroit Lionesses.....but now...it has more meaning...they just happen to be the only two teams left standing in the NFC! If we were still in Fort Collins I can bet you that we would be having a party with the Scaffidi's this Sunday...although I am not sure John would enjoy the decorations ;-)!

I also ran across this article today which came to me as part of a Giants news update....What the heck? Rhonda, are all cheese-heads this crazy? And where is Farzad? I saw this morning that Duluth wasn't going to get above 0 degrees....he must be burning all of his global warming pamphlets to keep alive up there!

Upset that his 7-year-old son wouldn't wear a Packers jersey during
the team's playoff victory last Saturday, a Portage, Wis., man
restrained the boy for an hour with tape and taped the jersey onto
him.

Mathew Kowald was cited for disorderly conduct in connection with the
incident with his son at their home in Pardeeville, Lt. Wayne Smith
of the Columbia County Sheriff's Department said. Pardeeville is
about 30 miles north of Madison.

The 36-year-old Kowald was arrested Monday after his wife told
authorities about the incident. Kowald was taken to the county jail
and held until yesterday, when he pleaded no contest, paid a fine of
$186 and was released.

I want to know....how do they come up with a fine of $186....and is that really a fitting punishment for something like that? I think they should strap this guy to a chair and make him watch the Dec 23 game against the Bears at least 5 times.

Some random things on my mind...

First I will start with a rather scary topic...all those pictures on the wibbly-wobbly-web are being searched/patterned/cataloged. Soon, you will be able to search by a persons name and get all the pictures of that person on the web...just imagine the possibilities....both good and bad. Here is the link: over here. The worst part is that someone else can put YOU in the database without your consent...


Second, I know that this one is a little old now but it struck me pretty hard and I have not been able to shake the thought. A week ago there was a little incident in the Straight of Hormuz. You see...a few speed boats went out and almost got themselves blown up due to getting just a bit too close to some US Warships. There appears to be a bit of a difference in the audio that the US and Iran presented...we'll let that just add to the mystery. BUT...the thing that struck me immediately was the similarities with the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It sent shivers down my back...given the fact that the US may have had the motive to bait a confrontation and pulled a play from the old Vietnam playbook. Let's hope that there was no nefarious purpose to the incident on the US side. Let us also hope that there was no nefarious purpose to the incident on the Iranian side. Some people theorize that they may have been testing to see how the US would react to a high speed boat attack to better plan a future attack. Let's hope not...but in the meantime...I suggest A. J. Squared-Away stay on the guns!

The last one for tonight has to deal with gasoline. I think we have all struggled to understand if that high octane gas really does the body good. Well, I saw this on Yahoo a week or so ago and clipped it out. Seeing as how gas in Costa Rica is like $4.50 a gallon...and we drive two rental cars...this ain't much of a debate for us...the cheap-o stuff goes in. But what about those nice USofA cars that you are driving...verdict is in...go cheap unless your car sucks. Maybe this post should have gone on the personal finance website...oh well.

Gotham City Cake

Holy Cow Kade: As come of you may have already heard or seen...this year's theme for Kade's birthday party was Batman. I have to say that so far...4 appears to be the magic number! Kade was crawling out of his skin for both Christmas and for his birthday this year. It makes it soooo much fun....and so worth the extra efforts. Jen went all out with the decorations this year bringing a little bit of Gotham City to our home. From the almost life size Batman pinata...all the way to the giant thought/exclamation bubbles on the walls....when Kade came down the stairs he lit up like a xmas tree! And of course...having set a tradition with making a special cake for the kiddos on their special day (remember the sledding hill cake and the M&M powered train cake)...this year's creation was a Gotham City Cake! It was especially difficult this year since in Costa Rica you can not just go down to the store and find whatever you need. This time it took a lot more planning and many adjustments to the plan as we could or could not find things. Anyway...here she is:

As you can see...there are many details this year. Notable items:

• The Batman figure was flown in from the states
• The water tower is a mini-Pringles can sitting on candy sticks with cellophane inside to look like water
• Starbursts for windows (they were a bit heavy and started to slide down...cut them in half first next time)
  
• Grape bubble gum tape for sidewalks
• Gummy bears for people (note the red one committing suicide...he is the one Batman is swinging in to rescue, the green one going over the waterfall and the two yellow ones making out under the bridge)
• Goldfish swimming in the river...which is white frosting with blue food coloring and blue sugar crystals on top
• The road is made from some type of wafer cookie they make here in CR
• The lamp posts are a lemon flavored cherry that Jen found at the store...they actually taste pretty good...even though no one would try one

Jen posted many more pictures of the whole event which document most everything that happened. As you can see...the kiddos all had a great time and so did the parents! I also captured a bunch of the festivities on our new HD camcorder (Canon HD-10)...but more on that later....all I can say is "WOW". When you plug it into the HD capable TV....WOW!

On a separate note: Today I got a phone call from the whif whilst at work. While thoughts of car accidents raced through my mind...I was amazed at what she had to say. Apparently today Kade just decided to write his own name. Kade had asked mom to write his name and she said "No, you are 4 now so now you have to write it yourself". So he went silent for a little while and then came back and said "Here!". And this is what it looked like:


Not too bad for his first time. To be honest....it looks better than some of the work I do! Way to go Kade!

Hillary the Great

Everyone was surprised at the surge Hillary made in NH. Seems like a repeat for the Clintons.... bad in Iowa and good in NH. There is a lot of speculation that the two things that helped her was the snipe that Obama took during the debates ("You're likable enough Hillary") and the already famous crying incident.

About the crying incident....the other night my lovely wife and I were watching the nightly news and the crying video came on. While we were watching...and Hillary started into her "emotional" moment...I suddenly hear a grumble from the whif. "Oh no....don't do it...don't cry...oh no...there she goes...this is exactly why people think women can't be president ;-(" I find it ironic that a woman that never showed emotion while her husband was cheating on her repeatedly would suddenly break down over such a simple thing. Staged or not....it helped her in the short term....but what about the long term? Do you think the feminists are still in her camp?

On a separate Hillary note...I saw this today and was flabbergasted! I certainly hope that this is out of context...because anyone who legitimately says "No woman is illegal" is down right loco. Can you imagine it Obama said that "No black person is illegal" or if McCain said that "No crusty old white man is illegal"....jeez...what is this world coming to! And the guacamole metaphor is just funny in my opinion...

In broken English, one woman told Clinton how she wasn't making money as a broker anymore. "I have no income at all," she said. "So how will I survive?" Choking up with emotion, the woman said, "In my neighborhood, there are brand-new homes, but the value is nothing. I'm glad you are here so I can tell you, because you're going to be the president, I know." A man shouted through an opening in the wall that his wife was illegal.

"No woman is illegal," Clinton said, to cheers.

Summing it up at the end, Clinton said, "We've only talked to a few people, but each of them talk about some part of the problem we are confronting. This is a problem that is only going to get worse if we don't address it." Clinton said unscrupulous lending leads to bad mortgages, which lead to foreclosures, which lead to people with nowhere to go and vacant neighborhoods that can go rapidly downhill.

"We treat these problems as if one is guacamole and one is chips, when ... they both go together," she said.

I feel better

Arena Trek or "American" Graffiti

This weekend was a pleasant surprise. First of all the G-Men didn't choke in the first round like every other year...which is nice...but more importantly we finally got back out and hit the CR roads for a little adventure. The trip this weekend was spurred by none other than the looong trek for sand (Arena) to complete the kiddos sandbox.

Instead of the usual trip down to Pioneer Landscaping Material in the long lost green truck...the preparation started mid-week. I needed to consult with a few colleagues to even figure out WHO sold good sandbox sand. We finally decided that it would be best to try SICORSA/VICESA. Haven't heard of it before? Doesn't roll of the tongue quite like Home Depot? Well maybe because it is the glass company that makes all the glass bottles and containers in Costa Rica. As luck would have it...it takes pretty high quality sand to make decent glass...so off we went. The directions go something like this: Take the southern San Jose bypass, go through all the roundabouts until you get to Zapote. Take the Zapote road and make your way to the highwat to Cartago (it is marked). Then go up the big hill and down the backside of the hill. There will be a major turnoff on the left for Cartago...don't take that...go straight. Go 2.5km (although my original directions said 1.5km which was the first reason to stop for directions) until you see the El Guarco gas station. Turn right. Go 3.5km until you get to Quebradilla (ya know...the unmarked town). Turn right when you are in Quebradilla (you actually want to turn at the Sarcovi sign but no one told us that gem), go 2.5km down that road and it should be at an intersection across form a school. That final road was a mix of road and dirt and lots (I mean lots) of local looking at us with a high degree of "you don't belong here - are you lost?". Jen was getting nervous....kids getting restless after the 1 hr drive! Unbelievably we made it to the place and after about another hour of really bad Spanish and a bit of $$ haggling...I managed to score 8 sacks of high grade stuff! Turns out the guy who loaded the 50kg bags (yes that is 110lbs) was from New Jersey...but my Spanish was better than his English ;-(

Anywho - with success under our belts we decided to continue on our adventure (since we were so close to Cartago) and picnic at the long fabled Orosi Valley. Now the drive to Orosi is remarkably easy by Costa Rica standards. Once you are in Cartago there are signs to Paraiso and from there signs to Orosi. We stopped at a picnic/view park which was perched on the South side of the valley. It really turned into a nice break for us all as it really was very pretty and the weather was spot on. The kiddos and I even got a little playtime in before we made the trip back over the hill towards San Jose. Oh yeah...I actually went into San Jose by accident and it took me about 20 minutes to get us back out...huge props to Santa who just happen to leave 2 compasses in our stockings this year! Way to go Santa...you may have just saved our marriage....seeing as how it is not a very good feeling being lost in San Jose!

We finally get home and I lug the 110lb bags (with Kade's assistance of course since it is not ergonomically correct for one person to carry 110lbs) back to the sandbox. In they go...and I did not see the kiddos for another hour. Money well spent if I do say so myself! Tonight after the Giants game we decided to make the sandbox a real Costa Rican fixture....so I grabbed the spray paint cans and we really made it look local!! Maybe I can convince Pefi to buy it as a work of art ;-)

PS: Jen, I did not download the pictures from the camera...I just grabbed a few. Don't worry, I understand that I am still not allowed to download any pictures to your computer ;-)

Speaking of large creepy-crawleys...

Here is what Jen and Aralis found in our kitchen on Friday. You know that Jen was calling my cell right away on this one! In the end, they called a neighbor over to kill it....apparently they ended up dropping a paint can on the guy....what a way to go. I estimate it at about 3 or 4 inches based on the fact those are 12 inch tiles...but Jen estimates it at 5-6 inches ;-) I should also add here for the record that a few weeks ago we had a scorpion in our garage. Gotta love Costa Rica!


On a separate note: Jen busted Payton recently picking her feet and cleaning out all her toe lint. Heavens knows where she picked up that little habit !!!

Are you kidding me???

I was **NOT** going to do ANY commentary on the Iowa caucus because in the grand scheme of things there are better ways to spend our time...but...jeez...did you see the final tally?

I was not so amazed at the spanking that Clinton took since Billiam didn't fair to well in Iowa either. BUT...look at Giuliani...3%? Wow - that is a long way to fall...even Ron Paul kicked his arss 3:1. I guess the floating cross worked in Iowa ;-)

As Kade would say "Holy Cow"!!

A few weeks ago Kade and I were playing in front of our house [Jen is commenting as I type...she is adding that we do not have a front yard and that we have to play in the street and avoid the cars which are flying around] - [Rob rebuttal: we live on the end of a cul-de-sac]. Anyway, I noticed something that looked odd on the front of the house so I walked over to take a closer look. Much to my amazement this is what Kade and I saw:

The biggest walking stick I have ever seen...the thing was about 6-7 inches long...for reference the bricks in the background are standard bricks (which are 2" x 8"). Kade did not understand what I was telling him "this is an insect Kade"....until I touched it and it moved...he immediately jumped back...it was a good chance to tell him about how things adapt to survive. I am thinking that lesson was quickly filed far behind Superman, Lava Monsters and the Backyardigans!

7 inches is about the longest anyone would see in the USofA but definitely not in the world...maybe I should have kept it, framed it and put it in the living room ;-)

What is the Largest Living Insect?
The largest living insects are Giant Walking Sticks from the (order Phasmida). This bug can grow to up to thirteen inches in length making it surely one of the longest insects in the world. The record holder for the longest insect goes to a specimen commonly found in Western Malaysia and Singapore called the West Malaysian Pharnacia Serratipes and it reaches an amazing length of twenty-two inches. There are approximately 3,000 tropical species of walking sticks, with only 10 species living in North America.

Although principally tropical and Asian in distribution, walking sticks are also found in the temperate regions of Europe and North America. One species, Megaphasma dentricus, is the longest insect in the United States, attaining 7 inches in length. The Malaysian Walking Leaf (Heteropteryx dilatata) is another very large insect to add to that list. Females of this species can be very large, up to 6.5 inches long which makes them half an inch short of being the longest insect. Framed walking stick insects are available in a variety of species for the discriminate insect collector.

Aaaand we are back!

After a break at the beach, we are finally back and settled back amongst the loads of toys. Jen is already working overtime wading through the toys and purging the misfits ;-) It just doesn't help that Kade's birthday is the day after xmas....we are still opening gifts every day and we have ANOTHER party next week where he will get even more...I guess Jen can right off another night next week purging again! Anywho... the holidays were interesting for us this year. We spent Xmas day at Playa Flamingo in a nice little condo overlooking the water. It was a radical change from the typical CO xmas that we have gotten accustomed to. Instead of playing in the snow xmas day...we were walking along a beach (Playa Azucar --> Sugar Beach) which we found after a rough drive on some questionable roads. Jen was giving me the "I don't think so" look for the last few kilometers.

Jen posted a whole bunch of pics of the activities...which you may have already seen (album 1 and album 2) but here they are anyway. I will leave you with just one picture...Kade helping to build his new sandbox. It makes the papa proud to see his 4 year old with a saw! Jen did ask me after seeing the pictures "Where are his safety goggles?"....hmmmm.... good point... "Probably with his fathers...wherever that is".