Sunset at Makanda by the Sea

Today's puzzle brought to you by Amy's iPhone because I LOST, *#%*$#*, my CF card with the pictures from that night on it. Here is Amy's shot of me taking those pictures, though.

This was the evening that we checked into the Makanda by the Sea, and decided right away that we didn't want to go any where else in Costa Rica that would require all day traveling on a public bus, night time temperatures in the 50's , lots of rain and fog, and renting of boots for wading through the mud while hiking. No sirreeee!!!!!! Give me perfect sunsets over the ocean,

the perfect terrace and the infinity pool to view them from,

fresh, cooked to order breakfasts delivered to my door every morning,

Fresh flowers and cute little towel creatures on my bed every evening,


my own private cove for swimming,
Fascinating jungle creatures cavorting in the trees around the perfect terrace,


and delectable dining on the deck of that gorgeous infinity pool.
And just for good measure, let's throw in a massage on my terrace while we watch that sunset.


To me; that's a no-brainer!! But I will put Monte Verde on the agenda again for my return to Costa Rica. We'll just do clouds, rain, and mud before we go to paradise.

News from Costa Rica

I have two guest bloggers today: My daughter, Amy, who is no stranger here, and Eugenia Alvarado, daughter of our Hipanic pastor, and fellow team mate on our mission trip to Costa Rica. We have been living and working this week at a children's home called Roblealto. First, let's hear Eugenia's thoughts on the events today:
"Today is a sad day...the children are on their way home for 2 weeks (mid year school break in Costa Rica). The sad thing is that most of them are going to bad situations (that´s why they´re in the children´s home). When we went to the slums, it was incredible to see where some of them come from - no one should ever be allowed to live in such conditions! The sweet, beautiful, clean, happy kids that we have seen this week will go home to their dysfunctional families and who knows what the next two weeks will be like for them. Some of them took their two weeks worth of food because the children's home knew they would not get any food from home. Some of the stories we've heard have been incredible - their family conditions, abuse, etc. (the good thing is that the children's home helps the parents to be better parents by educating them, but still....) -about 15 kids had to stay in the children's home because they had no where to go home to. Two big buses pulled up and they will take the kids to San Jose (the capital) where their mom and/or dad will come to pick them up. As the director called them they got on the bus, our whole team was crying like babies!! the kids were crying out the bus windows, some of them are not coming back, some coming back after spending hell back home, and hopefully, some of them will have a good time. One of the home parents are leaving after 6 years of serving at the children's home and today was the last day with their teenage boys. The teenage boys were crying so hard, it broke my heart! It was incredible...it is so hard to describe with words what we have experienced this week.

Yesterday we hosted a farewell party for the kids. We made them hamburgers and had a clown show that dad (Pastor Alvarado) invited. it was a wonderful time. The children made cards and gifts for us and we watched a slide show of pictures they had made. As the children walked out of the gym we handed out stuffed animals.

On a happier note, tomorrow we are heading to another province called Cartago and we're going to go to a house who fosters about 30 kids plus their own biological children. We're having a program with those kids and their church children at the church with clowns, candy, music, Bible lesson, etc. Then we're going to have dinner with the foster family. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we're headed to Arenal volcano and then to Manuel Antonio National Park Beach."

And now, a pictorial addition from Amy's new (eat my heart out) iPhone.
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to display any pictures of the children on the internet for safety and privacy reasons, so this gallery is a little random.

Self portrait in the airport while we were waiting for the rest of the team to arrive.

The Dining Hall doors

Green stuff grows everywhere here!

Hiking around the property early in the morning.

The view from our home, The Bonanza Casa. In the foreground is the gym, in the distance is San Jose and the mountains beyond.

Juancito, or "Little John," who is the maintenance supervisor, and our boss here.

Your Blog host for the day, Amy and Eugenia, at our worksite.

Designed By Amy

This post is lovingly lifted from Amy's blog.
How awesome is this!! Amy designed a beach house for me. Click on the drawings to see them enlarged. I Love, Love Love it, and I Love, Love, Love you!
I just completed a drafting class where my final project was to design a house based on a concept. The inspiration I chose was the pattern that water leaves in the sand in a tidal pool.
I designed the house for my mom to be built in the Outer Banks of North Carolina - a favorite location for both of us. The picture below (not taken by me) is one I used as a reference for the house shape:



Here is the floor plan. The house is 2 levels, with the second level overlooking the first level - loft style. The main living area is an open floor plan with a wall of windows on the East side looking out to the ocean. There is a double sided fireplace that serves the dining and living areas, and it has waterfalls pouring down the 2 sides that don't have openings for the fire. There are 2 bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. The bathrooms both have entrances from the outside so that guests returning from the beach can enter directly from the deck. There is a small office off of the kitchen. It has no windows so that the light can be controlled for editing photographs (my Mom is a photographer). My mom loves to have people over, so I included a large dining table and extra seating at the kitchen island. The second level is the master suite. It has 2 sundecks, a walk-in closet, and a large custom bath.


This is the lighting plan for the house. I included lots of recessed lighting for overall fill. In the kitchen there are wall-mounted sconces and pendant lights over the island. Two chandeliers hang over the dining table, and cable lighting hangs over the living room. Upstairs there is a chandelier in the water closet and over the bath.



On the left are elevation drawings depicting the North and East sides of the home. On the right are section drawings - as if we sliced open the home to look at it.



Here is a detail image of the N-S section. I designed a custom chandelier that is shaped like coral, and clear glass pendant lights and sconces that are shaped like nautilus shells. The fireplace is stacked stone.



This next view is an axonometric projection. It is a sort of 3 dimensional rendering (all based on measurements to scale) and probably gives the best "feel" for the house. The second floor has been lifted up some to show more of the first floor - the dashed lines show where it connects.


Detail of the 2nd floor:



Detail of the fireplace and living room:


This project was a ton of work - but in the end it was very satisfying. It was exciting to see my ideas come together into a plan.

Thoroughly Mod

Today's puzzle brought to you by Amy. Thanks, hon!

Here's another shot from Steve and Sara's wedding by Amy. Do you see what I see (besides the stunning bride?)

Back on Blogger

"Sail Away" puzzle compliments of the lovely, talented Amy Renzulli. I was so on vacation during McPherson beach week that I hardly lifted a camera.

What a lot of living has taken place since I fell off the blogging wagon a couple of weeks ago! Besides beach week, I've been to Jason's graduation from Parris Island and Steve and Sara's lovely wedding in boiling hot Tennessee.
Here are the McPhersons, growing soft in their old age. It was too hot to go outside for the family portrait!

OK. So I did take a couple of pictures one day when the sky was interesting:

And Amy got the sea oats which were especially beautiful this year:

And here is the newly minted Marine:

We are all bursting with pride!

Finally, a teensy-weensy preview of the sweet wedding:
Gorgeous bride by Amy:

Just one of the many fun ring shots. They deserve an entire posts of their own.

TTFN!!

Scrolls

I don't think I've put this one up before. This has been a handbell intensive week getting new music for the spring semester started, so I haven't been taking any pictures lately. But Amy has something good to see on her website: a beautiful birth slideshow. The baby's father is my friend's son, who is in Iraq. He was able to hear his son's arrival via cell phone.

Rich Pup

What a cutie! I snapped this little pup's picture while we were picnicking in Palm Beach.

My daughter, Amy, had the blessed privilege to attend and photograph the birth of my friend's grandchild last night. Here is little Brian Michael and his mom.

His dad, Brian is serving in Iraq. I know that this family will be thrilled to share in little Brian Michael's birth through Amy's eyes. Read all about it on her blog: AmyRenzulli.com

Kudos to Amy

WHAAAAA . . . .I want to go to Wyoming!!
Amy, Thank you for sharing your inspiring images and majestic memories of your vacation in Wonderful Wyoming. Bravo!!!
You have a standing invitation to hijack my blog anytime! She took all those lovely images with a digicam, too. Amy, I can't wait to see your growth now that you have some serious tools to work with.

It turns out that one of my favorite wedding images was actually Amy's shot: This sweet moment of Matt and April was caught by Amy.

Sorry for the mix-up, sweetie!

Amy's trip to Wyoming, Part IV

Mom is back, as you can see, but I have more pictures from my trip that I still want to share. First of all, thank you so much to Paula in Fredericksburg for your nice comments. I'm so glad that you have enjoyed my posts.

Okay, hang on, because I have a bunch of pictures and I'm going to get through them all. To start off, how about some animals?

I have never seen a fox like this, and certainly not one walking around in people's yards with her babies, but Wyoming is apparently the kind of place where this isn't so uncommon. The first time I saw her I thought she looked kind of mangy and scary, but when I got a closer look at her I came to see her more as beautiful in a very wild sort of way.



Yes, this is a house that she is in front of.


In Yellowstone Park, buffaloes have the right of way:



On the way home from Yellowstone, in Grand Teton National Park, a bunch of cars were pulled over on the side of the road and a ranger was there. My first thought was that there had been a car accident, but when I got closer, this is what I saw on the other side of the street:



And just to show you how close these bears were:



Here are a few more shots from my walks around the neighborhood:




These horses were way across the field, but when they saw me taking pictures they headed over to say hello. It was the sweetest thing, although I was pretty sure they were hoping I had some carrots stuck up my sleeve - they kept trying to nibble my sweater!




I wanted a picture of myself with the horses, so I held the camera behind my head and took this shot. I think it's kind of funny how much my hair looks like the horse's mane.



Here's some sweater nibbling:



I guess my sweater didn't taste very good:



Some more pretty closeups of plants and flowers:






On one of our last days, we headed up to the hills for a hike. Have you ever seen those signs that say "WATCH FOR FALLEN ROCKS"? This is why those signs say that:



This is the "fallen rock" that got stuck under Dave's car (I'm sticking my foot on it to show its scale):

We had to jack up the car and then rush in between cars coming up the hill to get the rock out from under the car. What happened was: we were in a long line of cars behind a slow moving truck and we didn't have much following distance. The car in front of us swerved and missed this rock, but we weren't able to do the same, so the rock got wedged under the car. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to have caused any major damage, and Dave has driven from Wyoming to Tennessee without problems.


This trip was in June, but we had fresh snow - totally crazy!




This is Johnny, my forever-young husband, throwing snow balls:



Bob, our wonderful, gracious host, is an avid fly fisherman. While we were staying with him, we went to see a documentary film that featured the Cutthroat Trout. I've recently gotten into doing watercolor with espresso, so I painted a picture of a Cutthroat Trout on a thank you note for Bob to express our appreciation to him.



And one closing photo. This was my last sunset in Wyoming:


You all have my best. I now return the hijacked blog to the very competent hands of the Deputy Minister of Fun. She is sure to show you a good time!