When we were at home, my dad and I loved to have Ice cream. We loved every single kind. My favorite kind of ice cream is Strawberry.  My grandpa also loves Ice cream 
Here in Costa Rica, We have a friend who makes delicious Ice cream out of goats milk. I never thought I would eat goats milk. But its really good.  
My mom found a recipe on a website that showed us how to make Pineapple Ice cream. We made some last night.  Im going to show you how. 
The first step is to take a pineapple and cut off all of the outside.  Then chop it up and put it in a blender.  Try to make sure its a very sweet pineapple. I like to squeeze it to make sure that its really juicy. My grandpa said to try to pull off a leaf. If it comes off easy then its ready. 
​Next, you open a can of coconut milk like this: 

Next squeeze the juice of one lemon into it . Add a half cup of honey or it says you can put maple syrup instead. We used honey. 

Pour it into parfait glasses or just plain glasses. Then put it in the freezer.  and then wait. 

When its frozen its just like regular ice cream, only with fresh fruit. I cant wait to try this with Strawberries. 

There are a lot of the same fruits here in Costa Rica , that we have in the United States.  Peaches, Lemons, Limes, Melons, Pineapple ( called Pin-ya here) but there also some crazy looking fruits and vegetables. The fruit in the picture is called a Mamon Chino. I think it looks like a sea creature. 
Inside, the fruit is kind of like a honeydew melon. It feels like it on my toungue, and tastes kind of like it too. But instead of having seeds in the middle like a melon, there is a pit.  Kind of like a peach or a nectarine. They are about the same size too.  The pit looks kind of like a nut, but if you eat it it is toxic. My mom says peach and nectarine pits are toxic too. The word for poison in spanish is Veneno. 
We have lots of other fruits on the farm too. 

I love goldenberries. I even put them in my jello for dessert sometimes.
I think passion fruit look disgusting inside. I cant make myself eat the slimy seeds.
​My mom says they're delicious but I'm not interested. There are lots of other fruits on the farm, like peaches, avocados and blackberries (Mora) and some I just don't know what they are called yet.  But I will find out and show you. 
On a different day I will tell you about my vegetable garden. 

 At Hush Valley we have a trout farm. Kevin told us that this place is where trout began in Costa Rica. He said that some body brought the fish from OREGON, USA a long time ago, and now lots of people have trout here.  
There are seven ponds on the property, and there are two hatchery tanks where the babies stay,
The babies are called fingerlings ( I think because they are about the size of my finger).  Right now, we have fish in five ponds.  Fingerlings in the Hatchery pond. Fingerlings in the Cedro pond. Medium sized  fish in the pond behind the house, and large fish in the pond by the chicken coop.  We also have a pond way over by the casita ( guests house). They are all different sizes. My mom and dad call this the sacrificial pond because it is not protected by an electric fence and the animals come and eat the fish at night. 
Animals that eat the fish are otters, herons, and raccoons. Raccoons are called mapache in Costa Rica. Otters are called Nutria, even though in Oregon Nutria are different creatures. There are nutria that live here, and my friend says they are called agua raton. That means water rat. The animal books say its called a Coypu. 
We have an electric fence that comes on at night to keep the animals out of the ponds. It will zap you if you touch it. My mom got zapped once. It was so funny but I felt bad for her. 
We have a customer that orders fish every Monday. My dad and our friends Martin and Johnathon, catch the fish and clean the guts out.  We put the guts on the river bank and the Vultures come and eat them. Vultures are scavengers, but they are very big and beautiful birds. 

I really like catching the fish but it makes me a little sad to kill them.  You have to conk them on the head with a big stick.  I used to like to eat trout, but I dont eat them now. 
I asked my dad if I could have my own pond for my own fish that wont have to die.
He said he is thinking about it. 

One thing I really like about Costa Rica is the food.  They have the best cheese.   My dad is really good at baking breads and delicious things like that.  He can also make really good pizza. We eat a lot of really good food here. 
There arent very many restaurants around here and most of them are trout restaurants. 
Where we are in the mountains, you have to drive a long way, on some really bumpy roads just to get anywhere.  Because everything is so far away. We eat at home a lot. 

Sometimes we have breakfast scrambles.  We have 15 chickens that lay eggs. It is my job to pick up the eggs, and make sure the hens have food and water.  Sometimes we get 13 eggs. Some times its 14 eggs.  All of the hens look the same. Their beaks are shaped funny. I think they look like they are making kissy lips. 

I like it when my mom makes spaghetti, and my dad makes pizza. I do not like it when they make squash soup. 

At our home in Oregon we have an aloe plant. It kind of looks like a cactus.  Our plant at home is in a pot.  In Costa Rica, we have aloe plants too. I did not know that aloe plants have flowers.  The red flowers in the picture are the flowers that come from the aloe plant. They are perfectly shaped for humming bird beaks. All day long humming birds and bees come and eat from the plants. The hummingbirds eat the nectar and I think the bees and the humming birds both carry the pollen to the other flowers. 
One day we were driving and a hummingbird hit our car.  I thought it was dead, but we had pulled over in front of a veterinario, that means veterinarian in spanish. We took it in to show her. She said it was just stunned and would wake up soon. We took a picture, and it shows the long beak of the hummingbird. I think humming birds have beautiful feathers and are very beautiful. 

Do you see how the beak fits perfectly in the aloe flower?

The aloe plant is very useful. It feeds the bees and humming birds. But it also can be used to put on sun burns. My mom got a sun burn one day and my day cut open some aloe, and put it on her back. she said it was nice and cool.  Lots of people use aloe for sunburns.  
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When we travel to Costa Rica, we have to drive 2 hours to the airport first, and we have to have a plane ticket.  It looks like this.  

It shows your name, and what flight, and what time, and your seat number.  I always try to get a window seat. They are the best.  I like to watch out the window when we go above the clouds. I put a picture in the slide show above that shows you my window seat, and what it looks like above the clouds. Its really awesome. 
 The air plane ride usually takes about 10 hours. Some flights are longer that other flights. it depends on where you layover. if the plane doesn't go to Costa Rica directly, you have to fly to a different airport and wait to take a plane that does. The time you are waiting there is called a layover. 
There are lots of different kinds of planes, and there are lots of different kinds of airlines. My favorite airline is Delta. I like them because more of their planes have tv's to watch while your flying. You can watch movies, or tv shows. They give you headphones to listen to them.
Sometimes they have maps that show you where you are in the sky. I showed some pictures in the slide show of when we were flying from Miami, Florida to Costa Rica. It shows the plane going over Mexico, and then over Central America. Central America is where Costa Rica is.
I came from North America. Most of my friends and family live in North America.
I like to fly on airplanes. But I always bring a pillow.