A Toast to 27 Years and Organic Farming

This past Sunday easily ranks at the top of my list for days spent in the lovely country of Costa Rica. I wrote in my last post about the Romero Rivera family--Frank and Nielsy and their 7 children. This past Sunday, I got to experience round two. I didn't think it could get any better, but I was seriously mistaken. 

This past Sunday was the 27th wedding anniversary of Frank and Niesly. They had never gotten each other wedding rings when they were first married, so they decided to get rings for each other and renew their wedding vows in front of their church congregation. It was a beautiful to see all of their family up next to them as they recited wedding vows to each other and then we, the congregation, extended our arms and prayed over them. 

On top of feeling extremely privileged to be a part of this celebration, I also found out that the church youth group was going to be meeting at their house that evening. There were about 25 of them in total and we got to do all sorts of random things from jumping rope to kicking a soccer ball around to dancing to making pyramids of people. And then, at the end of it all, we toasted to Frank and Nielsy's marriage. Several of the students talked about how much of an impact the witness of their marriage had made in their lives. It was really cool to see how a couple who was much beyond their stage in life still invested so much in the lives of the youth at their church.  

It was a long, but good Sunday. I was gone for a solid 12 hours before getting back to the house and crashing out of exhaustion. Below are few pictures that help put paint to my experience. 

A wedding toast

Jump Rope!

Part of the youth group--mainly the female part :)

Sebastian and Marianela--Frank and Nielsy's grandkids--and I blowing bubbles. 

On a completely separate note, we have spend approximately 6+ hours in a tour bus for my Español para Negocios class going on field trips over the past 3 days. It has been kind of insane. But, there have been some fun moments, delicious food breaks and good pictures. Here they are:

The first field trip was on Monday to an Organic Farm called "El Rinconcito Orgánico". It is locate on the hillside of El Volcán Irazu in Cartago. 

The hills of Cartago. 

The owner of Rinconcito. We are in the greenhouse. 

Workers picking cebollas

(They dry out and reuse all of their own seeds for their harvests)

And today, bright and early at 6:30, we headed to an organic pineapple farm in Southern Costa Rica. The really awesome part that I didn't realize until we were there was they produce DOLE pineapples. So, here are a few pictures from that adventure. Oh, and Ian Smith, if you end up reading this, I have some pictures of a lovely lady (Katie)just for you :)

The place where they box up all of the pineapples that have gone through a quality check station. 

Crazy Katie!

A place where they line up the leaf heads of all the pineapples that have been rejected because they aren't perfect. They reject 14,000 pineapples every day (Of course, though, the rejects are used for other purposes like juice, ice cream, etc.).

A pineapple plant.

Katie and I in our super attractive hair nets.