Murphy's law, new friends and electricity problems

Today Madeleine rode the school bus for the second time and uttered not one complaint.  The fare to her school is 200 colones, or 40 cents.  This saves us a round trip into town and is a much better use of time and money than driving.  All three kids had been instructed to wear regular clothes today, as all the school kids today were meant to help out working on a new building that will house some special education classes.  Sullivan (age 5) was honestly concerned because he can't nail a nail into a piece of wood.  It turns out that all his fears were unfounded as none of the kids worked on the new building.  We're not exactly sure what they were going to do and I was somewhat disappointed not to find out.  In addition, it was requested that each child bring a donation of 300 colones (60 cents) to help fund the building.

Sullivan inspects the new school building

More significant exam studying happened during the day and Erica started some contract work online.  She is enjoying the intellectual stimulation again after a hiatus for Sullivan's early years.  We delivered chicken and garlic to Madeleine's class for the much-anticipated tamales that will be made.

Several days ago, we'd invited one of Madeleine's friends and her family over for dinner tonight.  Today they confirmed that they could make it.  We were excited and eager to make some new friends, language barriers be damned!  As luck would have it, though, as Erica was starting to get dinner together about an hour before they were scheduled to arrive, the stove stopped working.  We also noticed that the drier was spinning but it wasn't heating.  After discussing this with some of the neighbors, we surmised that one leg of the power must be out!  Flipping all the circuit breakers unfortunately didn't help.  Of course this has to happen just before we're having our first dinner guests.  Welcome to Costa Rica!

When our guests arrived, there were some slightly awkward minutes of explanation.  After some drinks and initial pleasantries, we headed out to a local soda (typical restaurant).  .  .  where there was no power.  It turns out that the third time really was a charm, when the local pizza place was open.  We ended up having a great time and made some new friends.  After dinner, Kelly's dad said that being together was more important than having all the electricity.  And so it goes.  Tomorrow we've already planned on going out for breakfast, as it's Erica's birthday!

This self portrait of this crazy boy seems appropriate for today