october 24

This morning it was a little hard to get out of bed, but when we did I followed Grant in 20 minutes of yoga. My hamstrings are so tight its sad. I place at least half the blame on the bed – the mattress is pretty sad. We had cereal with apple, tea with brown sugar and the last two sweet rolls we bought the other night. The beans that we started in the crock pot last night were ready. Turns out overnight on low in the crock pot is the only way to make beans. You don’t have to worry about it – they cook while you sleep. My throat, which was bothering me yesterday and this morning, also started to clear up as well. Work this morning was great. Grant and I started out the day looking for the frogs, and we ended up getting a treat because Snapper the snapping turtle was out of the mud for once. The box turlte, who is normally sitting in the water, was in the mud instead. Then we slowly raked the whole river walk, which was nice because we didn’t have to bring bags to carry the leaves to the compost. We could just sweep them onto the sides of the path. At one point towards the end, Grant spotted a plant that was absolutely covered with these red spiders. They have tiny round bodies that are bright red, and really long and skinny legs. They are kind of the costa rican version of a daddy longlegs spider. When we finished raking we got started on the vine trellis, but we got called to do English tours almost immediately. The first couple was from Belgium. But their enlglish was really good. I made it to the 3^rd atrium with everyone when Kendra called me for another tour with a German couple. They moved slowly, and once again I made it to the 3^rd gardin before I had to let Grant take over so that I could let kendra take her lunch. As soon as I got to the reception 2 little kids in ragged clothes showed up without parents. Of course, they didn’t speak any english and my spanish wasn’t good enough to figure out what they were doing. We traded words in spanish and english while going through the museum. I was stalling until grant finished with the german couple and could accompany the kids through the gardens. Eventually I figured out that they lived in the houses that back up against the side of the conservatory. They didn’t pay, but I figured it was okay since they were neighbors and they had probably been there a thousand times. Grant met them at the lab and walked with them down to the gardens. Turns out, they weren’t suppose to be there without their mom – oops. At least I didn’t let them down without grant. We had leftover rice and beans for lunch, then headed back up the hill. I got called for a tour almost immediately. I worked with a family of 5 from Maryland for about an hour. Their oldest son, aged 12, was FULL of questions, and we moved slowly because each kid had to see each thing. Just as I was about to leave them I got called to do another tour with two different couples. We went through the gardens a lot faster this time, but it was still a lot of fun. I love answering as many questions as I can as long as the people are interested. Adults are less entertained than kids, but some are fascinated by the conservatory. I finished with the tours at about 3:30, so I spent half an hour putting dirt in bags with grant. When we were walking home, Erika rode by on the back of a motorcycle and yelled something about soccer. Kendra, Leche and I went down to the indoor field. We watched on the side for a bit before the goalie waved me onto the court. It was girls versus boys (boys were 13-16yrs, girls were 16 and over) and no onew wore shin guards. Some of the boys didn’t even have shoes on! I didn’t wear gloves, and my tennis shoes were still wet from our walk in the rain the day before. Kendra rotated onto the field also, but she fell on her tailbone. It was really bad because she has the same back problem that Grant has. She was done playing after that. I stayed in a while longer before a girl rotated me out. We lefter after that. Also, Jonathan was there! He said hi, but he didn’t want to play because he said he wasn’t really a sports person. After soccer grant and I went up to Cabinitas to use their internet quickly. This time we ordered papaya and pineapple smoothis, which were way more reasonably priced. We made plantains, rice and beans for dinner. Tomorrow we’re making cookies.