gonewild

Kelly aprende español en el jardin

Kyle Bernhardy — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 23:16:33 GMT

Kelly learning some spanish on her laptop while sunning in the backyard.

Video & Jingle Bells

Kyle Bernhardy — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:55:50 GMT

Our blog is slowly creeping to keep up with technology and the latest addition is video. Kelly's parents bought us a video camera for Christmas, which has given us the inspiration to add a video feature to the website. We plan on taking videos of some of the things we find interesting and fun here in Costa Rica or anywhere else we may roam. Our neice & nephew kindly humored us by singing a Christmas favorite to kick things off:

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Game On

Kyle Bernhardy — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:24:26 GMT

Xbox 360 has the new ability to allow you to create an "avatar", similar to Wii's Mii. Here is what Kelly & I look like in the game world:

As Always Kelly looks better than I do.

Earthquake!

Kyle Bernhardy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:04:18 GMT

Last night we experienced our first earthquake - well, I experienced our first earthquake (Kelly evidently will sleep thru the house swaying, nuclear bombs dropping and a zombie apocalypse). It was pretty big - 6.2. I woke up to the sound of our windows rattling, which at first I thought was the wind but then realized the room itself was also rattling. Then I felt our whole house sway what felt like 10 feet, but I'm sure was just a few inches. Right after that I woke Kelly up, in case we had to get somewhere safe. I asked her if she felt the earthquake to which she muttered into her pillow how insane I must be. However this morning everyone in San Jose was talking about last nite's earthquake.

There was no damage to our house or any other homes and businesses that I have heard about. Still it was a wild experience, my heart was racing for about 5 minutes until I fell back to sleep.

You can see more info here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27801590/

Puerto Viejo

Kelly Bernhardy — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:46:46 GMT

Hello all - Kyle and I went to Puerto Viejo for the long holiday weekend with our friends Andrea and Julio. Puerto Viejo is on the Carribean side of Costa Rica (the eastern coast). It is much less developed than the west coast - no big fancy hotels here. It is what everyone here likes to call "rustic" - which is not necessarily for everyone (if you like the perfect bed and a fancy bathroom, this is not the place for you!). We rented a house that we found on VRBO (man I love that site) - it was right on the beach, as you can see from the photos, with an enormous yard. The coconuts we are drinking in the pictures came from a tree in our yard! And there were plenty of lizards for the dogs to chase. The house was very simple (we will most certainly find a place with air conditioning next time because it is HOT), but it was big enough for the four of us and incredibly affordable considering the location. Not to mention, we practically had the beach to ourselves - you can see from the pictures that we did not have many neighbors. Izzy as you know is a big fan of the water, and on this trip she was really able to practice her ocean swimming because the water was very calm. Bronco, well, he still hates water, even when it is the perfect temparature. Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend! Kelly & Kyle

Check out our pictures here

In Memorium: Shasta

Kyle Bernhardy — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:58:22 GMT

Our friends Brian and Cara sadly had to put their dog, Shasta, to sleep today. Shasta was a dog with a big heart and an even bigger tail wag. Kelly & I had often dog sat Shasta and he took full advantage of sleeping on our coach, bed and any other soft surface in the house. We loved having Shasta over our house as did Bronco & Izzy. Shasta was Bronco's first dog friend and if wasn't for those 2 dogs we would never have met Brian and Cara.

From Brian this morning:

One of our friends coined the name, "Shasta-tha-masta-of-disasta" after he tore the shit out of her house trying to eat her cats. It couldn't have been any more fitting of a name. Cara and I just called him "the man", cause that was what he was. He took on a leadership role in the house, especially while I was gone on trips. All the things he wasn't allowed to do when I was home, were fair game as soon as I stepped out the door. Couch, bed, extra treats, trying to eat the neighbors cat, all good. He was Cara's protector and best friend when I was gone and second in command when I was around.

Cara and I rescued "the man" 7 years ago from a kill shelter in West Chester, PA. We had looked high and low through many shelters, not finding a dog that was "quite right". One day going through this shelter, there was one dog, not barking, sitting at attention at the gate staring at us. Perhaps he knew his time was running out and he had to put on a good show. This guy, unabashed by any means, let his one ear droop and stared at Cara as we walked through the kennel. She was sold. I made her wait. As if it wasn't hard enough on Cara, she had to beg the landlady, beg me, then I am going to make her wait for this dog? So we sat on it for a night and I was sent the next morning to go adopt him. Cara was working, so I made the run solo, filled out the paperwork and threw this lucky guy in the back of my mustang on a blanket. We made it about 5 miles down route 1 before he puked in the back seat. So started the life of Shasta.

His name when we adopted him was "mister" which is just plain silly, he needed a name that had significance, something large. Cara picked him, I named him "Shasta". This was well before our engagement in our silly row home in Wilmington, DE.

Recently, Shasta has taken a few turns for the worse, I'll spare you the crappy details, but he had a skin disorder that caused him to itch and scratch himself to pieces. We have been trying to control it for 2 years now with combinations of drugs. He stopped walking 2 weeks ago, after the this disease moved to the pads of his paws. After putting him on steroids, he improved rapidly, then as soon as the steroids were over, he flared up pretty bad again. He basically stopped walking yesterday. Unfortunately he was no longer himself, he was not living the life that Shasta lives, chasing squirrels, wrestling Onyx and eating every single crumb in the house.

We made the decision to end his pain and suffering and have him put down this morning. There were few options left that gave him any chance without completely sacrificing his quality of life. With the heaviest of heart and eyes full of tears we held him tight as the vet compassionately helped him find some peace. Not to make it any worse, but we had to explain to Corben that Shasta was going away. This morning we sat on the front lawn with the man, Corben gave him a hug and a kiss and in some unknowing way, said "Shasta going away?" I replied "yes" then he pointed to the sky and said "up there?"

"yes, up there"

Long live "the man"

-Brian and Cara

We have stuff!

Kyle Bernhardy — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:13:24 GMT

We finally got our sea shipment yesterday. No more rattling around an empty house for us! It was like a Christmas where we were gifted all things we already own. One member of our family was especially happy to get the futon back:

Playa Hermosa Pictures

Kyle Bernhardy — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:10:08 GMT

We uploaded our pictures from our trip to Playa Hermosa. See them here

Playa Hermosa

Kyle Bernhardy — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:17:00 GMT

Kelly has finally finished her travels and we can start having some fun in this country we moved to! For 4th of July weekend Kelly found an awesome bungalow almost right on the beach that is also pet friendly. We arrived at the beach house in the dark in the middle of a rain storm and somehow didn't get lost. The place is beautiful and a surfers paradise with black sand beaches and warm water. Here is a quick pick of the dogs' first visit to the ocean:

Our move to Santa Ana, Costa Rica

Kelly Bernhardy — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:32:33 GMT

This blog is long overdue – if I’d had the time over the past few months to write a blog, I would have, I swear, but trust me when I say I did not. Most of you already know we have moved to Costa Rica, but not all of you may know exactly why.

Friday, March 14 – Western Union (WU) announced that it would be closing its union facilities in St. Charles, MO, Bridgeton, MO and Dallas, TX. Approximately 1,000 people (union and non-union) would potentially be impacted. They didn’t say at the time that they would be moving these jobs to Costa Rica, but we suspected this.

Monday, March 17 – Kyle and I had already discussed the possibility of moving abroad after our wonderful trip to Hong Kong. In fact, I’d already mentioned my interest in being an expat to my boss (I had recently pursued an opportunity in Dublin, but that didn’t work out). So on Monday morning, I told my boss that I’d be interested in going to Costa Rica if there were any opportunities – she spoke to her boss (Amintore Schenkel, our Chief Accounting Officer) and made him aware of my interest.

Tuesday, March 18 (mom’s birthday) – I had a voicemail waiting for me from Amintore when I arrived at the office. I went to his office and he informed me that yes, there was an opportunity for me there if I was interested. I said yes and then he asked me – “are you serious, are you sure?” because expat assignments have to be approved by our CFO, and he didn’t want to ask if I wasn’t sure. So Kyle and I met for lunch, discussed, and decided to do it. So that day, Amintore spoke to our CFO and got his approval. That evening, Amintore told me to book a flight for Kyle and I for Costa Rica the following week because he didn’t want me to make a final decision until I’d visited (very nice of him). And that night (mom’s birthday, don’t forget!) I let the family know what was going on. The following week, Kyle and I went to visit and decided that we wanted to go for sure.

So, I will try to make the rest of the story a bit shorter. Over the next 2 months, I traveled back and forth between St. Charles, Costa Rica and Denver. I traveled A LOT. Kyle was at home trying to balance his job with the move. To name just a few things that had to get done before our move - (1) finish the basement, (2) find renters for our homes, (3) take 60 hours of Spanish lessons, which could only be done on the weekends because of my travel schedule (3) pack up a house we hadn’t thoroughly cleaned since we moved in, (4) crate train the dogs for the upcoming flight and (4) sell the cars. It was hard, and Kyle deserves most of the credit for getting this all done. On June 17, we all got on a plane and officially moved. And then, I very quickly went back to the United States (St. Charles) for two weeks, which is where I’m at today. But this is my last trip for awhile – I’m really looking forward to not sleeping on planes anymore.

So after a very long couple of months, we now officially live in Costa Rica and hope to see all of our friends and family there very soon (open invitation to all!). In the near future, Kyle will be building a vacation calendar for our website (thanks for the idea Jeff!). Now that we are much further away, we are dedicated to keeping our website current so that we can share all of our experiences with you all. We will miss everyone, but hope to be back quite often for visits. Pura Vida! Oh, one last thing, there are pictures of our new house in the photos section of our website – check them out!