Whew! We Survived!

We Survived Christmas and New Years! I had a bit of fun on Christmas eve that lasted for about 1 min. before Jou-Jou and Georgie wisely pulled these hats off!!

Every time the holidays come around, I take a huge deep breath and wonder how we will manage without our helpers for a few days, all the company, endless" bombs" and tons of fireworks!!

I am happy to report no casualties and we did just fine. We had folks here in the Bed and Breakfast non-stop and many people in for tours!!! It was exhausting and fun.

Then came the Costa Rican Family Christmas Party.....

40 Relatives (Jorge comes from a family of 10 brothers and sisters) came to visit from 10am to midnight! Fortunately I was up early to care for the animals and the sisters take over the kitchen and do all their food preparations and I did not have to make anything!

So, for those of you that have never experienced this type of affair, here goes:

Pork Chicharrones, Jorge's famous recipe Chef Rodrigo dancing with his spoon!

I am a vegetarian: Pork chicharrones are the highlight of Christmas, huge chunks of pork meat deep fried outside on an open fire. Tons of Tamales (also pork) wrapped in banana leaves, more food than you can imagine, that is all eaten! Music, dancing, Bingo, Piñata, more dancing, drinking, story telling, crying, more food and it's midnight! Whew!!

Bingo and Dancing!

The outside birds did well with all the fireworks from all over the valley this year, I am happy to report that none of them went flying into the cages with night- frights and all was well.

On a sad note, Christmas eve I had to call the vet in an emergency because Minae showed up at our gate with a juvenile Tamandua, ant eater that had been attacked by a dog...but within the hour she had died of internal injuries. Then a few days later we had reports of a young white faced monkey needing a home, but the people that found her never called back, so we are not sure what happened.

Finally, it has been misty raining here for days, but the good news is that we had some real birders in the Bed and Breakfast from Germany, and they were so happy because in the rain the birds come to the feeders, so they sat for 4 days on my porch with binocs and bird book in hand to see these beautiful Mot Mots that came every day, along with a whole variety. This year the birding in Costa Rica has been great.