Running

Nothing like a nice morning run to start my day. Apart of me felt like I was back in Costa Rica, and I missed it. As I headed out of my house (well, Kirby's house), part of me hopped to find the crooked, broken road, the smell of the earth, and the view of the mountains, and lush greenery of San Jose. But I was greeted with a new sense of connectedness to Ann Arbor. Main Street and Campus were quiet, still, and dark. It smelled like fall, and the air was crisp and cool. It was the kind of run that made me fall in love with Ann Arbor all over again. I am going to miss Ann Arbor when this semester comes to an end... but hopefully it will be a bitter sweet end with me moving on to bigger and better!

Aaaaand, I'm running another 5k this coming sunday morning. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm running with Kirby and Liz (from my program). I would like to start doing more races... next time I will do a 10k. My personal goal is to be running a consistent 10 miles as my long run, by Christmas. Right now my long run is 8 miles.... but I've only kept that consistent for 2 weeks. Hopefully I can keep that up.

The new place

Family Dinner

Homework party... this is how we spend

most of our time together.

Our Bathroom. I did the paintings on the right to match our shower

curtain that you cant see because the lighting is terrible.

Our Living Room- angle 1

Living Room- angle 2

I didn't think I would ever get the chance to live with Lara again, but it has been such a blessing. We don't get to spend a ton of time together because of our crazy schedules, but I look forward to the nights when we are home together. It was a fun project to decorate for this place, I know I'm not going to be here very long, but it makes it so much nicer to spend time at home when I like how everything is decorated.

Another fun thing about living with Lara and Sarah is practicing my cooking skills. I try to cook dinner for us at least one night a week. I have really loved this because of my recent decision to cut meat out of my diet. Last week was meatless meatballs- that were AWESOME!!! Better than the meatballs I have made with meat... Tonight I think I'm going to try and experiment with something new :)

Turrialba

So the last week in Costa Rica we spent in a very small rural community about 2 hours north of San Jose. It was the sort of environment I imagined I would we be before arriving in San Jose. I won't bore you with my journal entries from that week. I'll show you in pictures this time!!! (sorry I haven't up loaded any other pictures... I'll get around to it. I thought my blog was broken and wouldn't let me upload). I thought a lot about my Christian roots during this project. I also spent a lot of time thinking about what my dad taught me about charity and service. It was very humbling work, and I loved being able to do this project... and hold the babies. Enjoy!

-A

Front of the orphanage

The tiny room we slept in... on the cement floor

Setting up camp. Kirby and Alej playing tug of war.

Some of the adorable babies.

Pure Love

Notice the face peeking in the window :)

Some of the scenery of Turrialba

A little mischief

Adorable

Kirby Working

Beth Working

The house where we ate our meals

Walking to the woman's house that made us our food

The giant cake from our last day at the orphanage