Happy birthday Lauren!

We went to a rural school and got to wear traditional skirts and dance. We planted a tree in a downpour and hiked through a cloud forest. We capped the day off with chocolate cake in honor of Lauren's birthday. It was fantastic!

Volcanoes!

Here is an image of one of the 7 active volcanoes here in Costa Rica, the Arsenal Volcano. This is the view from the girls front porch this morning. We were told by our guide that being able to see the volcano this clearly is pretty rare. We have been so lucky with our sightseeing: endless green iguanas, two sloths, native deer (so teeny!), and tons of turtles and birds. We looked into the lagoon in the crater of Paos Volcano, and walked in our first cloud forest. Not bad for our first day!  The sights are awesome and so is all the fresh fruit we are getting. Today we are kayaking on the lake below the volcano, hiking to a waterfall and visiting a hot springs. The adventure continues!

Iguana

Two volcanoes, sloths, thousands of butterflies, flowers and lots of iguanas. It is absolutely beautiful here! Love, Cheryl/Mom

Beautiful!

Arrived in the dark last night and woke up to this out our window.......

The "iPad Bar"

No regular seats at the gates in Minneapolis, but there are hundreds of iPads!  But the girls are enjoying it!

We are the World Travellers of Girl Scouts!

Through security and waiting to board our flight to Minneapolis. Girls were troopers this morning: up by 3:30am and in the shuttle at 4am. Everyone plans to sleep on the plane :).

So far, everyone is happy and a little punchy. Snacking on granola bars seems to be the way to stay awake in muggy airports this morning.  Right now, all the girls are looking forward to CinnaBon for breakfast in Minneapolis. I am looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight at Country Inn and Suites in San Jose.

30 minutes until we board. Costa Rica, here we come!

The time has come, and we are so excited!  Tomorrow, we will head to Billings for an overnight stay so that we can be at the airport at 4am on Monday morning to head to COSTA RICA!  Our bags are packed, camera batteries are charged, and now our blog is up and running so that we can (hopefully, wifi pending) keep everyone updated on our fabulous adventure.

A great big thank you to everyone who has helped us to get to this point.  We so appreciate everyone's support and encouragement!  And as their troop leader, I have to say that I am SO PROUD of what these young ladies have accomplished!  Way to go Troop #3528!  Thanks for taking me along on what is sure to be a highlight of my Girl Scout career!

YIGGGS,
Jenn