la fortuna, san carlos

for my spring break i told paris that i really wanted to go somewhere new. i have been living in this country for a while now and i barely know any cool places except the major tourist destinations. so i told him i wanted to go to la fortuna, san carlos where the famous arenal volcano is.

we were a little nervous because the drive is about 3 hours give or take 30 minutes and paris had never driven that long before! but we turned on our trusty waze gps and made it just fine. la fortuna is a cute little town, albeit very touristy. we stayed in a hostel called arenal hostel resort and were very pleased. paris's first hostel experience too! (i think he liked it)

here are just a few shots from la fortuna and our hostel. isn't it crazy how that big volcano is just sitting in the background?? i was impressed.

more pictures to come this week of our hot springs and arenal adventures!

she's back

well guys my blog break (and my spring break for that matter) is over! i wasn't sure how long i would stay away for but just over a week was long enough for me. it was really nice to be able to enjoy my vacation from teaching without stressing over when and what to write about on here. and now that school starts back up again on monday i will be ready to go on the blog too.

hope you missed me! i sure missed you guys :)

see you in a bit

i'm taking some time away from the blog. right now i am just feeling a little too much pressure to constantly be updating and posting 4-5 times a week on top of school and on top of tutoring. but fear not! i will still be reading as many lovely blogs as a i can. i'm not sure how long i will be away .. could be one week and could be a few more!

in the meantime, you can follow me on bloglovin' here so that when i come back you will know where to find me :)

love these days

sometimes there is nothing better, or more needed than a car ride with friends and some sun by the pool.

i hope everyone had a great weekend!

love always

dear self: sometimes saying yes to everyone who asks you for something can make your week go from do-able to really hectic. maybe you should learn to say no once in a while just to keep your sanity. dear arenal volcano: next weekend we are coming for you! our first weekend trip together in a really long time and i couldn't be more excited. dear 30-day shred: i have officially finished day 4. i am determined to complete all 30 days before i leave for the wedding at the end of april. i will do it! dear private tutoring: i am really starting to like you more and more. at first i was tutoring just for the extra money but now i am really starting to like working one on one with my students even more. i'm hoping i can continue it as long as my clients want me around!

happy weekending!

linking up with friday's letters

what i'm listening to

ray lamontagne has been one of my favorites since college. i have never had the pleasure of seeing him perform live but i like to scour youtube looking for the best live performances of my favorite songs. this combined video of shelter and hold you in my arms is the.best.  it makes my heart swell when i find a version of a song that i like more being performed live than the studio version. and this video is exactly that. if you haven't already heard of mr. lamontagne, i highly suggest you go listen to his music! you will surely love it.

la finca

in a lot of my blog posts i reference us going to la finca or going up the mountain like i did yesterday, and i thought i should explain what i mean by that. paris's parents own another property that is up on a mountain. it is actually really close to the property where we live downtown just directly up the mountain about 5 minutes. the property is just beautiful and over the years paris's dad has constructed numerous small apartments that he rents out to people. sometimes i call it la finca because part of the property is rented out to grow peppers and onions. plus there are always a ton of dogs and sometimes cows and horses roaming around. we go up there quite often even if its just for an hour or two to relax and get some fresh air in. the peacefulness is what gets me. it is the perfect place to set up camp with a good book and a glass of ice tea.

so if you're ever wondering where i am taking all of these pictures of a farm or pretty views of the mountains...it is probably from there.

the sunday recipe

i think i've found a way to make schoolwork on the weekends more bearable:

a pizza bigger than the box it comes in

+

a beautiful afternoon outside in the mountains

grading the 80+ quizzes that i had to grade this weekend wasn't so bad with those two ingredients.

dear lovely little sixth grader

dear friday: thank goodness you finally arrived. i have been waiting not so patiently for you! dear self: after this weekend it is time to get in shape. my brother's wedding is coming up in less than two months and i am sure that my dress would not fit me so well at this point. so lets get those workouts started. dear lovely little sixth grader: you are just the cutest. but if you continue to buy me large snickers every day i will keep eating them because i have no self control. and then i will most definitely not fit into my dress. maybe some mango instead? dear unknown mom from school: thank you for bringing every single teacher at school today a flower for dia de la mujer. what a wonderful surprise! dear nicole: thank you so much for including me in your blogger crush list yesterday. it made my day :)

happy weekend everyone!

linking up with: friday's letters

volcanos and abandoned hospitals

the same day we went to the irazu volcano we also tried to go to the abandoned hospital sanatorio duran. we tried. we passed the hospital on the way up to the volcano so i snapped some cool pictures of the whole property. after the volcano we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the hospital only to arrive 15 minutes after they closed the doors. i was still able to get some shots of the main house from outside but i was a little bummed that we didn't get to go inside. i don't know much about the hospital but i do know that it was mainly for tuberculosis patients. 

it was so interesting to me that this hospital was right underneath a volcano! you can kind of see the whole landscape in the first picture up there. and getting to this place was kind of a hike so i was really surprised when everyone in the car was like "oh and thats an abandoned hospital..." random!

i guess we will have to make another trip to one day go in!

the little things

this picture and post are completely unrelated. but this was my favorite picture from the weekend and i just had to share.

as i have already stated on here many times in the past few weeks, teaching this year is hard! it has been stressful and a lot of work and i am slowly adjusting. but there are some little things that remind me of why i put all of the effort in. after school some days i tutor 4 students ranging in ages from 5 to 22. on top of school it is hard work but those 4 hours during the week are some of my favorite. teaching 1 on 1 has both pros and cons but my favorite part of tutoring is really getting to know the student.

i only tutor one student from the school i work at and he always makes a point to find me and say hello. it.is.the.cutest. and this week his mom was so excited to tell me that he got 100% on both of his english quizzes. both of them! since he is in first grade, we weren't sure how he was going to do when it came time to take his quizzes. what a relief to know that it all paid off. a lot of times i think that i still am completely lost when it comes to teaching. thank goodness i have these moments to remind me that i must be doing something right.

volcanos are for the morning

i have been telling paris that i want to go to a volcano for weeks now. we went one time two years ago and i thought that by now i should have been to more than just one. so i demanded that we go.

but based on something called "tico time" (costa ricans are called ticos) we didn't end up getting to the volcano until about 2pm. it is typically best to visit volcanoes oh, before 11am. when there is actually something to see. by the time we arrived, all we saw was this cloud. and oh my goodness was it freezing.

 i clearly was not dressed properly but played it off as oh i went to school in boston, nothing can hurt me. wrong. 

who knew costa rica could get so cold.


*also, head on over to jay's blog to check out an interview i did for her series called expatriated!

this is not a healthy recipe

ever since the superbowl when we had some buffalo chicken dip, paris and i have been seriously craving some more. so when we finally found buffalo sauce in the store we bought some just for this dip. after a bbq with paris's coworkers we had about 4 extra packages of tortillas and paris told me .. we should make chips! now if i had know that he knew how to make home made tortilla chips, we would have been done this about a thousand times already.

for the dip we used this recipe. it is so easy and so addicting. and for the chips, here is what we did:

take some tortillas and cut them in quarters. fry them. thats the not so healthy part. paris used butter and some white substance called malteca that i don't really know what it is but i know its not good for you.

when they are done frying you can blot them with paper towels to take some of the grease off. then add salt and you're done!

i will warn you though. this combination is addicting! but definitely de.li.cious.

tgif

well guys, i did it. i made it through three hours of parent teacher conferences in spanish. i finished what seemed like the longest day of my life to come home and continue working on the five annual plans due this monday. can i just ask who thought of the idea of an annual plan???? i really love this job that i have and i love being in the classroom with my students, but all the work that goes behind it is just the worst. sometimes i feel like i, myself am the student with all the work that i have to turn in to be revised and approved. but such is the life of a teacher ;)

i hope everyone has a nice and relaxing weekend. i am definitely going to try and get some relaxing done!