ING Half Marathon

Yesterday, Marc ran the ING half marathon in Atlanta. He really used this as a training run and ran the 13.1 miles at a slow pace (for him), finishing in 1:56:56. Even though it was a cold day, I was out cheering him on and was so proud when he crossed the finish line.

We were in Atlanta with our friends Bobby and Summer, so Bobby could run the half, too. Bobby took a little longer than Marc, and Summer and I almost froze on the sidelines. It was a very chilly morning.

Congrats to everyone who ran yesterday!

18 Hours in Boston

I have had an exhausted yet rewarding week, and it was topped off by a trip to Boston. Last night UGA had an event there, and since The Boss was present, I was too. I flew in at 4:00 pm yesterday and flew out at 10:00 am this morning. One of these days, I'd like to actually explore Boston. Both times I have been there, I have basically only seen the airport.

But the event went well, I had lots of face time with The Boss, and had some great seafood at Legal Seafood.  The resturant is coming to Atlanta soon, near the Georgia Aquarium. Evidentially Legal Seafood tends to be in close proxmitiy to aquariums - I wonder if the fish is fresh for a reason? :-)

And since it was cold and rainy in Beantown, here's a warm and pretty sunset in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Costa Rica Sunset

While in Costa Rica, I took 4 rolls of film and I finally got them developed. So I'll be posting some of my favorites here. Trust me - you don't want to see the 17 shots of iguanas! But here is sunset our last night there on the beach. It was SO beautiful.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail. . .

Happy Easter from the McDonald-LaMotte Family!

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Thursday night, the laptop died. Marc said the light that was plugged into the same outlet flickered. And after that, it was dead. Gone. Over. And it took with it all my pictures and wedding menus and address lists - ARGH! I know you should back everything up, and I did. A year ago.

So last night we made a trip to Best Buy, where the Geek Squad confirmed the computer had gone to computer heaven, and took the power cord along with it. The Geeks told me they could recover the hard drive. For $100. But if that's what it takes, do it. And then we went to Sam's and bought a shiny new laptop.

I had great dreams for that tax refund. Oh, well.

Iguanas

On Friday, we traveled from the mountainous region of Costa Rica to the Pacific Coast, and boy did I love the beach! It was so natural and undeveloped and I could have spent days there.

We stayed in a development called Hacienda Pinilla, which has hotel rooms and houses. I was in the Casa de Golf suites, and outside our residence there were a number of iguanas. It was typical to see two or three sunning in the driveway, and they hoped we would give them some fruit.

The Daddy Iguana

Zip-Line Daredevils!

After we officially dedicated the Costa Rica campus, we went on a canopy zip-line tour. It was great, once I got over my fear of falling and dying. To start, we had to climb up these stairs, cross a very unstable bridge, hike far to much, but the pay off was worth it. There were 11 zip lines in the tour, each getting longer and faster. The last two we had to go in tandem, and Marc sang the OSU fight song at the top if his lungs as we crossed #10 together.

It was the coolest experience and the mountainous region of Costa Rica is just beautiful when viewed from the top.

Marc zipping across Costa Rica

The Campus

On our second day in Costa Rica, we got to the campus around 9:30am. While everyone else toured the campus, I was adding in the VIPs to the Provost's speech. So I missed seeing everything, but Marc took some great pictures.

Some of the flora
Some of the cows and horses on campus

Headed to Campus

Here are some pictures taken on the way down the mountain to the UGA Costa Rica campus. The first picture, while hazy, is of the Nicoya Gulf.

Costa Rica, Day One

We left for Costa Rica on Wednesday, February 27. Our flight to Liberia, Costa Rica left Atlanta at 10 am, so it was an early morning for us. We were up at 4:00am, on the road by 5:15, and at the airport by 7:00. We were the first of the UGA group there, but we were quickly joined in the ticketing line by several others on the trip.

Our plane took off from cold Atlanta, and after an uneventful 4 and a half hour flight, we were in hot and windy Costa Rica. We quickly went through customs and in no time were on the bus headed to San Luis.

Our first stop was about 45 minutes into the bus ride, and we had lunch at Rio Tropicales. It had a cute resturant and gift shop, and was a place where you could go rafting/canoeing. And I was delighted to find Coca-Colas in the larger glass bottles. Yummmm. . .so good! My resolution for one coke a day was out the window when I was outside the USA.

The view from Rio Tropicales

The roads in CR are rough, to say the least. They are bumpy and curvy and our bus couldn't go more than 40 mph. We took some Advil and pain pills to proactively prevent and back pain, and I had lots of dramamine!

We had a great tour guide that told us lots about the country, Juan Carlos. If you ever go to CR, you MUST have Juan Carlos as your guide. He was the absolute best and we all loved him.

We stopped along the way to take some pictures of an active volcano. On the other side of the road, it was beautiful and mountainous. We were there during the dry season, so it was a little brown. But it was still beautiful!

We arrived at Monteverde (the larger town outside San Luis) at 6:30p (central time) and checked into the hotel, but didn't go to our rooms. Instead, we loaded into smaller buses and headed to the UGA Costa Rica campus. We had a great dinner with the students who are currently studying there. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and crashed.

Marc crashed hard.

It was a long and exhausting day, but was worth it to see such dynamic students and faculty.

Where have I been?

Costa Rica! Marc and I got back from a 5 day trip where we dedicated the UGA Costa Rica campus. There was a lot of work leading up to the trip and I am terribly behind in everthing now, of course. But as I get the pictures downloaded and developed (we took our film camera along, too) I will get some pictures posted and tell you all about the travel. But till then, here's Marc on the beach at sunset.