An awesome weekend

We are happy to report that Lane is pretty much 100% better now. It seems that the second Dr. was accurate in her diagnosis and the medication has worked quickly.
We had met this wonderful couple in the branch last week at church, Eddie and Mirna. They are a little older than us and are watching over us like parents as well as friends.
Eddie has 3 restaurants with his brother Carlos. They have one in Chicago. One in Guatemala and then they just recently opened one here in Costa Rica, not too far from our home. It is called “Carlos & Carlos”: Italian Restaurant. Anyway, Eddie and Mirna have become such good friends already. They have been so helpful to us and we really enjoy being with them.
Friday, Mirna came and picked me up and the two of us went shopping for groceries and a few things that I needed for the kitchen, etc. We went to lunch together and just had a great day. She is originally from Mexico and so she helps me with my Spanish a lot. Eddie is from Guatemala.
Saturday, Eddie and Lane went to the Priesthood session of District Conference in Liberia. I stayed here with the kids and we walked down to the beach. It was a beautiful day and the waves were a little bigger than normal, so we had a blast playing in the water.
The kids were excited to see some things that they hadn’t seen before. Lora saw a huge starfish, Emma saw a puffer fish and Abe…..well….he was a little disturbed at what he saw.
Explanation: there was this woman at the beach with her little 13 month old daughter. They ended up coming out into the water with us and playing and talking with us. She is from France. Well, her daughter apparently got hungry halfway through our conversation and decided to get herself a snack. Abe was not prepared for the way French women do things, and lets just say he got an eye full! This nice lady just didn’t bat an eye that her daughter was helping herself to a nursing session and she just kept right on talking and playing in the water with us.
It made for a good conversation on the walk home with the kids about how people do things differently in other cultures. I am sure that will not be the last time the kids see that, as this woman plans on meeting her new friends at the beach more often now! Maybe we will have to get Abe a pair of goggles that only let you see under water…hmmm….I will check E-Bay.
So Eddie and Mirna brought us a pot of homemade Marinara sauce from the restaurant and we had pasta for dinner. SO yummy! Afterward, Abe looked up a recipe for “No Bake Cookies” online and he made those for us. Used up the whole jar of $6 peanut butter,(very small jar) but they were worth it!
Today was District Conference in Liberia for church and once again our wonderful friends Eddie and Mirna made the awful trip down our pot hole, dirt road to pick us up bright and early for the meeting. They are so fun to be with. We all end up laughing a lot because things just seem funnier for some reason when we are all together. They are just happy people. They are leaving in 10 days to go back to their restaurant in Chicago for 3 months and then they will come back here. We will miss them a lot.
The conference was great. Lane and I each had an English speaking missionary come and sit by us and help translate the talks. I guess it was the highest attendance they have ever had at a District Conference here. Over 500 people. It was held in a banquet room of a hotel. Not like a nice hotel, but it was adequate. We were a few minutes late to the meeting because we got pulled over by the police on the way….so as we got out of the car, we could hear them singing the opening hymn, “We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet”. I can’t explain how that made me feel inside. It was like chocolate cake to my ears! Even though it was in Spanish, it was so familiar and it just made me so happy to hear all these wonderful Latin people singing at the top of their lungs.
We were able to pick up our rental car on the way home so now this week we can get around a little more. The kids are excited to go explore another beach farther away tomorrow.
We have progressed a little more in our Spanish this week. Lora memorized the first Article of Faith in Spanish and we are reading a little of the Book Of Mormon in Spanish each night, along with the English one so we can see them together.(that was Mariah’s idea for us). The missionaries have agreed to come over on Saturday mornings and teach us for an hour or two. That will be fun. I need to get some more peanut butter by then…that is one thing that they say they really miss! Like I said, it is very expensive here, so they don’t buy it.
We are feeling more comfortable here. Life is very relaxed and we have lots of family time. It feels good. We know there will still be challenges to face, but we look forward to new experiences.
We love our families at home so much. We find ourselves talking about them now more than ever. My younger brother Matt got married Saturday! We are so happy for him and the kids are so excited to have a new Aunt Heidi and her 3 adorable kids to be new cousins.
I always look forward to Mondays because it is when we hear from our missionary son! It is still the highlight of our week. Thankfully we have skype and get to talk to Mariah nearly everyday, so that is the highlight of my DAY! I love them both so much and am so proud of them. We are very blessed.