Busy March: Reunions, beginnings and endings, work, and play...

Reunións:

this is my friend cat - we went to jr high together and now she lives in CA too! sitting across from her at dinner, all i could think about was how i used to "boing" her curls everyday during 8th gr. English

the very next day, D's high school friends had a layover on their way to NZ.
dude, just b/c he's tall, he has to only have tall friends?? i look so short and stubby...

Comienzo y conclusiones:

yes, everyone around me is having babies!
isn't she cute? she was hands down the best behaved infant i've ever seen. boy, her parents are lucky!

this was my first mtg w/ my new teammates for this summer's trip to China! how cool is that?

this goodbye was sad and sweet... it was tearful but kinda neat losing a ctte member to the field!

Trabajo:
i'm terribly terrific at drawing clear lines between work and home life (in other words, i am NOT a workaholic and will never be), but this past month, school got really hectic and caused a bit of stress:

the science fair is a HUGE event for me... but once again, several angelic mothers showed up to help set up. the cool thing: i had almost 50% of the students participate this year! but that also meant a LOT of grading!

& the annual 5th grade trip to Catalina happened 2 weeks later. it was beautiful and overall a good trip, but this class wasn't as group bond-y as last year's, and their attitudes took a toll on me during our 3 days together.

which was why i was so glad for Diversións:
besides re-discovering my love for reading, i also got to experience singing in a choir again. the grp was put together for Easter and though we had a lot of practices, it was a lot of fun!

but why, you ask, are all my headings in Spanish? b/c last week, i went to Costa Rica!!
i know, WHAT?? i'm all over the place...
i must say, though, that the whole trip including airfare cost under $750! woo-hoo! i'm realizing that for now, vacationing cheap and often is the way to go. one day (probably soon), i'm going to value comfort over economy, but you can't beat $7/night/person @ a hostel if you're on a budget!

anyways, Costa Rica was fabulous! we were especially lucky b/c we got advice beforehand from cat's costa rican husband, had gorgeous weather, & encountered no biting bugs (yay!).

having only a week, we did a pretty simple trip - we hit up the cloud forests near Monteverde and a volcano near La Fortuna.

this is me right after our first rainforest tour. unfortunately, we didn't see any exciting animals during the tour, but while settling down for lunch, we were approached by a pig! i was scared (as you can see) - what do you do w/ a wild pig?? but it seemed that all he wanted was to be pet and fed... is that normal behavior??
haha, we found out later that Charlie had actually been raised on a farm and released into the wild. being a farm pig, though, he liked ppl best and kept wandering near the entrance of the reserve. so much for seeing any wild animals...
this is Arenal... it's the 3rd most active volcano on the planet. the night before, we got to see it erupt (which it does every 10-20 minutes). and afterwards, we enjoyed a dip in a local river heated by the volcano

and this is my favorite picture of the trip.
it's incredible how *alive* i felt in the rainforest - listening harder than i'd ever listened before, surrounded by so much lush life...

now i'm on my 2nd week of spring break (i know, you hate me). i'm sooo thankful, though, b/c i think i caught something from the woman sitting next to me on the plane. either that or i'm just completely pooped from this past month. regardless, i'm finding out that during my regular life when i have a million things to do, i do them all and do them pretty well. but when i'm on vacation and i only have two things to do, i don't do them at all! what is that all about? *sigh*... at least writing this helps me feel like i accomplished something today. =) g'nite!