Visiting Utah

 Wow. Four months without updating. My life has been busy... I guess. I should just write and add photos and not think too much about it.

Back in September I visited Melanie in Utah. We had met in Wales in 1996 on a Welsh language course. We met again exactly 15 years later, to the date. I got to spend a wonderful week with her family. I got to see beautiful parts of Utah. These pictures are from Moab.

Balanced Rock

Double Arches

 We spent a long time under the Arches, just the two of us talking. Like in Lampeter in 1996.

My friend talking to Horton.

 Melanie and I both agreed that the rock wall looked like Horton. Can you see him?

Chocolate Sundae.

Landscape Arch.

Sheep Rock.

Delicate Arch.

 This was a scary place. The wind was blowing so hard that at times I was down on all fours. I was scared!

A passing rain cloud.

View on our way up to Timpanogos Cave.

The walk up took about 1.5 hours.

 We also visited the Conference Center in Salt Lake City and listened to the magnificent Tabernacle Choir.

I wish I can go back soon and not wait another 15 years until we meet again!

Rincon de la Vieja

 We went on a hike in the rain forest in Rincon de la Vieja volcano. The trail to the crater was closed since ol' Rincon has been too active lately, huffing and puffing and apparently killing fish in the streams. And besides a 16 km round trip is a bit too long for our boys. Instead we enjoyed the 3 km round trip and took almost 4 hours walking it, stopping to admire the nature and me taking photographs.

 First we had to cross Rio Colorado.

I wanted to take a photo of the boys and asked them to stand still for two secods. Not happening.

 Jungle view. We saw several morpho butterflies, blue, big fluttering mittens, but they were hard to catch with the camera lens.

 Mushrooms are great subjects for photography, they don't move. During our trip we heard thunder quite often, but not a drop of rain.

 Even though we couldn't visit the crater we saw a lot of other volcanic activity. Bubbling hot water,

bubbling hot mud,

 steam coming from underground,

 and more bubbling mud, frosting on the cake being the repulsive rotten egg sulphuric stench.

 There was a beautiful waterfall,

beautiful vegetation,

and happy kids running back and forth telling us what they saw. Tuomas had his magnifying glass and binoculars, but in addition to the morphos we saw only one frog, leaf cutting ants and a dead spider. We heard birds singing and probably some insects, too, but they were hiding.

 I realized from this picture that Risto has grown a lot! He'll be 10 in a couple of months.

 When we headed home from Rincon the sky was overcast, but we could see the whole volcano. Huge storm clouds were forming above the adjacent Volcan Miravalles. Gradually they moved over Rincon and then headed towards the shore. We stopped on our way home to admire the setting sun color these clouds different shades of pink and blue.

 I set up my tripod for one last picture and was lucky to press the shutter at the right time. Got it!!

Life in August and September

 The hills are certainly green now, greener than in this picture which was taken back in May. We've apparently had slightly less rain than normal. Mornings are usually dry, with rain and quite often thunder in the late afternoon, evening and night.

 We needed a desk in our house and asked a local carpenter to make us one (no IKEA here). This is the result of our dictionary-aided conversations, a beautiful desk made of Guanacaste wood.

Last week I went back to his workshop and this time without a dictionary. Hopefully next week we'll get another desk for the boys and a bookshelf.

 The boys at the independence day parade sipping pipa frias with their friend Truman.

 Tuomas and Jenher have been best friends since day one.

In August we were invited to our neighbour's daughter's 15th birthday boat cruise. This is Stefanie jumping from the boat. Risto and Tuomas were happy to take turns with the nine bikini-clad girls.

Stefany's adoptive mother Heather and I pretending to be mermaids.

 John, Stefany's adoptive father enjoying the ocean.  Their family of three are wonderful neighbours who have helped us a lot and are also dear friends.

 After jumping and swimming around the boat we went to the beach for a bbq and games. One of the games was trying to hit the orange ball with a plantain tied around your waist.

 Another fun game was to try to move a cookie from your eye to your mouth without hands.

 We also found a dead sea snake. Oh, btw, I am not holding it.

We enjoyed some water sports, too.

Jaakko was very happy to be in the water and not go on a banana boat ride.

 

I was the designated photographer and DH the handyman.

 In addition to fun-fun stuff we have also pulled a couple of teeth, two from Jaakko (his first ones) and one from Tuomas. Don't worry, new ones are growing.

 DH working on his computer. Or actually he was listening to music full blast. I don't remember which was louder, the music or the snoring. So, if you happen to fall asleep with your hands on the keyboard you get q-tips in your mouth and a photograph.

 Another beautiful sunset.

I went on a photo shoot with a local photographer. We left at 6 am, drove to the top of a hill and worked there until the sun had risen completely.

 Then we headed to the nearby village of Guardia to take pictures of local people. She was one of a group of students.

 She really loved her parakeet. 

 

 Swimming in the rain, but it's not really cold

 Our traditional wedding anniversary picture was taken at the sunset lookout point.

 We asked the boys to set the table for our anniversary dinner. They wanted us to stay in the bedroom while they worked. Candles and a bottle of wine opened. And it was not a screw top bottle! I'm not sure if I should be proud of my 9-year-old for being able to do that. I don't know who was responsible for the plates, but he did not set one for DH.