October

The month of October is always one of the longer ones and this one was no exception.  I can't decide if it is long because there is very little to make it go faster, if it is because it is the two months before the much anticipated Thanksgiving and Christmas, or if it is because it has 31 days in it.  Either way...

During Columbus Day, Gera surprised me for Mother's Day (August 15th here in CR) and we spent two nights at a nice hotel near Arenal Volcano.  Getting there was an adventure because it was literally behind the volcano, up gravel roads and through a section with no electricity.  The view we woke up to in the morning was worth it.  We spent the day hiking through the national park and although it was rainy and cloudy in the morning, the sky cleared up and we had some great view of Arenal.

On our trip home, we saw a bunch of signs for Lands In Love advertising fallafal.  Having wanted to try one for a while, we stopped to check it out.  Gerardo was not too impressed with the vegetarian menu, so we were on our way out when we saw a second-hand clothes store next door.  It turns out that all of this was part of a non-profit organization to help abandoned dogs and cats.  Upon further inquiry about adopting a dog, we were interviewed and introduced to this wonderful creature, Tara.

She had been abandoned by her owners two weeks before.  The vet estimates that she is about 2 years old.
Two weeks later we went to pick her up.  The girls were super excited and she has been a great addition to the family.

Waiting to pick up Tara

Introducing Tara to her new family.

We've got a lot to learn about taking care of her yet:)

She has been a wonderful dog and fits right in with the family.  Although she is very fast and agile, in the house she is so calm.  She sits in her bed, never barks in the house and rarely barks outside.  Katy and Elena love her and are learning what it means to take care of her.  She doesn't play very well, so we are working on that, but the best of all is that she is potty trained!!!!

Of course the end of October brings about Halloween.  Due to the lack of our candy buckets, I had this great idea to recycle the gallon jugs into our own candy buckets/jack o lanterns as pumpkins here are imported and quite expensive.

tearing the tissue paper

glueing the tissue paper on the cut gallon jugs

 

cutting out the face and viola! the final product

The girls were all dressed up as Tinkerbell (Katy) and a Packer's cheerleader (Elena). Mommy took them as Daddy was off on his final business trip for work.