Back in Santa Cruz

We are "home" again in Santa Cruz and back at work. This weekend got us out of the city for a short vacation. On Friday morning we packed up with with the family Yuneth, who is the Samuelito daycare director headed out on a 5-6 hour drive northeast to the little village of Concepcion which has the special feature of a gorgeous cathedral started by Jesuit Missions. We stayed at a hotel there and hung out for the weekend. Among other things we cooled off in the lake, I mean really cooled off. The water was quite cold in fact, and the only way to successfully submerge our bodies was to jump off the bridge. Many times. No worries, it was not THAT high of a bridge. Of course this experience was countered by the hot springs that we soaked in for a bit yesterday on the way home. Somehow the "4 km" of the beaten path to the hot springs turned into almost an hour drive on the sandiest, bumpiest roads (if you can call them that). Dispite such bumpiness the drive was quite lovely. As we got further from Santa Cruz we entered into a semi-mountainous region, saw many rolling hills covered in palm trees and large rocks and on Friday we even had to stop twice for cowboys to herd large packs of cattle down the road.
Today we have entered back into a rainy period. This morning we nearly had to call off work early due to the rain, but we gave it another go this afternoon and the sky actualy cleared out for us, which allowed us to move a large pile of sand to spread out infront of the daycare building.
It is the finaly week here which seems to have come fast. In the last few days some of the girls have started feel some ill effects from the food or something unpleasant, which is not all that unexpected.
Please keep us in your prayers as we continue through the last week and prepare to return to the USA.
I would love to share more pictures from the weekend but discovered that sticking anything into the USB ports at these internet cafes is a great way to spread computer viruses. So I will share them when I am home again.