A new chapter begins

These past few days we have been getting Rhiannon settled into her new school here in St. Louis, Missouri.  It is the first time Rhodri and Tryfs have seen Principia, so that has been interesting for them too.  

We had quite a complicated arrival scheme to be able to get here, but we are here now!  Rhodri and Tryfan met us at the STL airport (happy reunion!!) and we drove the hotel to drop our stuff, then headed to campus (8 min drive from the Hilton Frontenac) to see who was around.  Here we are approaching the main building from the car park.

We didn't see any of the people we needed to see in the main building, so we went to the school store and bought a top for Rhiannon, then headed down to the Girls Dorm.  Here we are in the office, with Rhodri explaining something interesting.

We got to go up and see which room Rhiannon will be in!

Her Resident Counselor (RC) has a 9 week old Australian Shepherd puppy!  Lucky Rhiannon and the other girls on her hall who get to cuddle a puppy whenever they want!

 

We were able to get Rhiannon to try on and borrow some school uniform for the week until her new ones arrive, and then we went to the Galleria shopping mall but didn't really get much.  We ended up having a pretty late dinner back near the hotel, and none of us slept that great, but the next day (Sat) was a really full one that went well.  First we had an "All Family Opening Meeting" in the auditorium where several people spoke about what is to come this year at Principia, 

and then we were able to walk around meeting some of her new teachers for the year, then we had lunch.

In fact, we were rather late to lunch because we wanted to check something in the dorm, and we happened to get our lunch trays at the same time as Mr. Lindsay! So we got to all eat together, and that was really fun.  Rhiannon had met Mr. Lindsay back in February on our visit and he was one of my cross country coaches back in the day who has always been a special person in my life.

 After lunch we all went shopping to Target! Fun!

 

Rhiannon decided to get settled into her new room on Saturday night and just stay there instead of staying with us at the hotel. She didn't want her first night to be the night before her first day of school (so sensible!) so we dropped her off and went separate ways for the evening. Sunday we collected her around midday, did some more shopping, had a little food, and then dropped her off at the dorm in the evening again.

Monday was the first day of school, and apparently it all went fine.  We collected her after dinner and went on to have another dinner at Poke Munch plus a visit to Trader Joe's.  This time we said goodbye 'for reals' and gave our girl big hugs. 

I think she was ready to get on with her new life here, because there were no tears and no negative vibes. Just a good, confident, onward movement. 

It did feel weird for Tryfan, Rhodri and I to drive away but that is what we did!  Today we will fly to Denver for about 10 days of hiking and mountain biking and other fun Colorado-y stuff that Rhiannon won't be too sad to miss out on. So we will be sort of nearby for a week or so, just in case the transition isn't so smooth...

Mission to collect our girl

Today we left England and flew to the US, but we went separately.  I flew Heathrow to Houston so that I could intercept Rhiannon as she traveled with her group from Costa Rica back to England.  It all went to plan!  My friend Kathleen very kindly picked me up from the airport yesterday afternoon and I got to hang out with her and her family for the afternoon and eve. After dinner we sat out on her front porch, which was awesome. 

The next morning I got a taxi at 5:00 am and went to the airport to wait for Rhiannon's flight to land. It was a bit late, but soon enough I could see her through the sliding arrival doors and also wave confirmation to her supervisor to complete the hand off. 

She looked like a cute little packhorse!

So then we walked to one of the other terminals, checked our bags, and had a nice little breakfast near our gate for the flight to St. Louis. In retrospect, this was pretty much the only chance that Rhiannon would get to really talk about her Costa Rica experience, since after this she was straight into her new adventure at Prin.  She had a lot of stories to tell and a few photos to share. What a treat to sit with her for a few indulgent moments and just enjoy her company.

Then we flew over to St. Louis, collected our bags, and Rhodri and Tryfs met us with the rental car! We dropped stuff at the hotel and made our way to campus.

Costa Rica - off hours

It sounds like the Camps International group did build in a bit of leisure time, and they got to spend some of the afternoons out on the beach after the mornings of work.

Looks pretty fun - I got these photos from Twitter but don't know all the stories behind them. Maybe someday Rhi will comment here and fill in some of the gaps.

Camps Intl - Costa Rica for a month

The long-awaited service tour of Costa Rica (supposed to be Ecuador, but civil unrest sent them to an alternative destination) is finally here for Rhiannon! She traveled with her group on July 16th at 4am and did actually stay for a couple nights in Quito and got to have a look around before flying on to San Jose to start the program.  She sends HUGE appreciation to each and every person who supported her during the past 3 years of raising money. £4,550 is a lot to raise when you are only 13 years old and the pandemic era didn't help!  But now she is 16, she made all the money required by receiving donations and working 3 jobs (at the pub, swimming lessons, and doing chores for a neighbor... oh, and she made and sold loads of English Toffee using our family recipe during the past few Christmases). We are so proud of her, and she deserves to have a really rich experience in Latin America.

Here is a summary of Rhiannon's group of 12 teens + 3 adults during their month long adventure.

Week 1: Camp Terraba in the south of Costa Rica, working on building a SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) center and ecological visit to an indigenous reserve. 

Week 1.5: PADI open water scuba course in Papagayo 

 

Week 2: Camp Cano Negro in the north of Costa Rica, half of the group were working on a mural for the community park whilst the other half with Rhi were building a wheelchair ramp to the local football pitch and creating a trail of rocks for the local environment agency 

Week 2.5:  Camp Monteverde in the center of Costa Rica (rest for two nights and a day) 

Week 3: Camp Guanacaste in the northwest of Costa Rica, working on making benches and mixing concrete for bbqs for the bay overlook area.  This camp was a bit rougher than the previous camps - Rhi thought it was a cultural stop to observe a refugee camp, but it turned out to be their own accommodation!

Finally, Camp Cuajiniquil near Guanacaste doing waste separation.

They also seemed to find a bit of fun and mud as they tried to get logs out of the stream or something (? details not too clear...)

Next up is their group travel from San Jose to Panama City to Quito to Houston and then finally London. Yikes!  I will be intercepting her in Houston to then fly to St. Louis for her next adventure!

A Monday evening adventure

 The Three Amigas are back at it, this time in Barcombe. Heather brought her double kayak and stand up paddleboard and we set out in the early evening. 

This photo is from the https://www.isfieldanglingclub.co.uk/lakes/river-ouse-barcombe-mills/ website since I didn't take my camera/ phone with me in the water. Too dangerous! It was way more beautiful than this photo shows though - along the riverbank there were loads of flowers in bloom. It was very quiet and still, and we paddled peacefully as far as we could get, then got out for a little refreshment before paddling back.

I got back home feeling so happy and relaxed. It would be great to have more adventures like this in the future!

Mary's gallery opening

Our friend Mary had a gallery opening tonight in Lewes, so I went down there with the Filskows (in their camping van) as well as with a neighbour called Kerri. It was a really lovely evening, and I had many good conversations with people about Rhiannon. I've been feeling so worried and excited and scared for her with her Costa Rica adventure leading straight into the Principia adventure. It was really nice to chat and enjoy the evening with some good people.

I love this photo of Mary waving at me with her gorgeous paintings in the background and her name on the glass gallery front.

Visit from Laura and fam

My friend and former colleague Laura happened to be passing through the area with her family, so we invited them over for dinner. It was wonderful to spend time together as families :-)

We did miss having Rhiannon here with us, though.

The new shelf

 Finally Rhodri put up a shelf in the kitchen to get all the coffee and tea accessories off the counter top!