Visit to the Hot Springs

Last Saturday we were looking for something to do outside of our daily routine, so we decided to take a little day trip and visit some beautiful Hot Springs near a volcano. It was a little rainy, but it was a really fun thing to do and the kids had never seen anything like this before so it was fun to see their excitement. There were several natural pools here and some of them were even too hot to get in. Pretty amazing to watch the steaming hot water flow into them. The lighting was not that great for pictures but we took lots anyway.

The Yellow Raft

I don't know why these pics would not load on the previous post...but here they are.

Fun in the Surf...

I haven't posted any pics for awhile so I thought I'd share some pictures from a recent day at the beach. Take note that the little yellow raft you see is the same one that Lane and Abe decided to take a "3 hour tour" in....(let's be grateful it didn't turn out like like the one in Gilligan's Island)

Lane's adventurous spirit kicked in yet again and he and Abe headed out from our beach to Flamingo Beach, which is 5 miles across the ocean. The girls and I drove to point B and waited for the little yellow speck to make its way into focus. They made it....tired and sunburned. Lane says it gave him a new appreciation for the ocean. Who knew you could take such a journey in a $28 raft???

A visit back to Ometepe Island

Unless you are a citizen here, you are required to leave the country every 90 days and get your passport stamped again. So, this past week, we made a trip back to Ometepe Island. The timing worked out well since our good friend Josh Eyre was here visiting us and he was really wanting to see the island as well. I will start with some not so good news....I was hoping to have several awesome pictures from our trip to post with this blog. Josh is super into photography and happens to have an incredible camera. He took some really great pictures of us with the volcano behind us, pictures of our friends there, our adventures on the scooters that we rented for the day...ahhh....just so many great photos. Well, the reason I cannot post any of them is because on our last leg of the journey home, sometime in the last hour of the last bus....yes, his camera was STOLEN! We all just felt sick about it and it really put a damper on the end of our trip. He had been so careful with it the entire trip, guarding it with his life. I guess on the bus, there must have been someone just waiting for that moment of opportunity to swipe it and get off the bus. To add salt to the wound, his passport was also in the camera bag! Oh man...we were all so upset by this. Luckily his camera is insured so he will be able to replace that, but the pictures he had taken were priceless and getting a new passport before he has to leave the country on Tuesday is not a fun process.
Oh well, enough of the downer news. We still had a great time and have the memories to keep forever.
SO, going across the border this time was actually much easier than the first time, since we each only had a small bag with us. It was nice to also have Josh as an extra set of hands and eyes to help us with the girls. The border is not my favorite place to be, but I made it into Nicaragua without too much contempt for the situation. It was only on the return trip trying to get back into Costa Rica that I felt a minor temper tantrum building up inside me. Explanation: Emma had to go to the bathroom. Those 7 words are not the words a mother wants to hear when you are in a place that is filthy and the procedure is not easy. We left Lane and the rest of them who were in line at the immigration desk and we went to wait in line for the bathroom. We were the only ones standing there at first. After about 5 minutes of Emma doing the "potty dance" it was apparant that there was no one in the bathroom coming out. I turned and looked at the woman behind the counter who had been staring at us the whole time. I asked her in my broken spanish if we needed a key. She said "yes". Well, can you please give it to me??? "yes". so she unlocked the door..by now there was a line behind us. We went in and quickly noticed that there was no paper in the stall. Ok, I am a little frustrated. We go back out, tell the lady there is no paper. Emma is dying by this point. The lady says, "yes, I know. You have to buy it." ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? could she not have told me that before? ugh...I actually didn't have any money with me at all, it was with Lane so I conveniently pretended to not understand a word she said but just pointed to Emma who was full on dancing a jig now. The lady rolled her eyes and reached under the counter to hand me a small wad of whole wheat toilet paper. I will end the story here because you don't even want to know what the bathroom looked like. Anyway, I wanted to have a little tantrum but I pretty much kept myself composed and to make a long story short, we made it through both border crossings without too much trouble. And in this woman's defense, I am sure that her job is not fun, so I will forgive her for the eye roll.
OK, so it was fun taking the ferry over to the island and remembering our trip on this same ferry just almost 3 months ago now. As soon as we were off the ferry, the smell of the island brought all those memories flooding back. Let's just say, that Bath & Body works will not be coming out with a new scent called "Island de Ometepe" ha ha
We found a decent little hotel, walked around a bit and saw several familiar faces from our week there before. We ate at a pizza place that was actually good and then we went to bed.
The next morning we wanted to do some exploring as well as be able to go to the town of Los Angeles that is about 4 miles up the road to visit our dear friends Leyla, Emerson and their 2 children, Jairo (11) and Melissa (3). Lane had the idea to rent scooters for all of us. We would have one adult and one child on each scooter. Well, my children apparantly have NO FAITH in me whatsoever because they all had this fearful look in their eyes concerning which one of them would receive the death penalty by having to ride on the back of mom's scooter! Thanks alot kids. They do not realize that when I was 13 years old, my brother and I had a little motorcycle that we used to ride all over the fields by our house. I have skills.
Lora drew the unlucky straw but made me take a practice run first down the street. Ok, so it was a little intimidating to take a test drive with like the whole town watching me and I admit that I was a little wobbly. I felt like I was in a parade or something! sheesh! Once I got used to it, I could keep up with them and even took the lead a few times. ha ha
It was a ton of fun to ride around the island for the day on the scooters and you will just have to imagine how cute we all looked in our helmets, since we don't have any pictures to post.
We went to this incredible place called "Ojo de agua" (eye of the water). It is a natural spring with sparkling clear water in the middle of this lush tropical jungle. It was seriously beautiful. We didn't have suits with us but Josh and all the kids swam in their clothes. Such a fun and beautiful thing to see.
After that we went to visit Leyla and Emerson and it was just......JOYFUL! We love this little family so much. It is hard to put into words. They were so surprised and so happy to see us! It was nice that our spanish is better than it was when we were there the first time so now we could actually talk to them more. Lane had the idea of getting them set up with an email account so that we would have a way to keep in touch with them. Neither of them had ever had ANY experience on a computer before so they were a little hesitant, but we assured them it would be easy and they could do it. Thankfully the internet cafe is right by their house and so getting there would not be a problem. Anyway, we spent at least an hour with them there and set them up with a gmail account and taught them how to use it. We had some doubt as to whether they would actually be brave enough to try it on their own once we left, but at least they had the tools now.
We arranged for them to take a taxi into town and meet us for dinner that evening and then to a branch activity that we had planned with the missionaries that we had run into the night before.
We rode the scooters back to town and shortly after, met Leyla, Emerson and kids for dinner. (pizza again). They had obviously put forth the effort to get dressed in their best clothes and look as sharp as they could for their evening out. It was very sweet. We had a great visit with them during dinner and then we all walked to the church where we were met by the missionaries, the Branch President's wife and one other sister in the branch. We sang some hymns and the missionaries taught a simple lesson. The spirit was there and we were so thankful to once again be able to have this sweet family have an interaction with the church.
After the short meeting, we walked them back to the bus station and waited with them. It was yet again a tearful goodbye. We have a bond with them that is just very intense. I sometimes wonder if I knew Leyla in the pre-existence and promised to find her and share the gospel with her. Emerson just loves Lane and is very sincere in his feelings for our family as well. It is hard to say goodbye because we never know when or if we will see them again for sure. The only thing we know for sure is that we all love each other and will be friends forever.
So, we went back to the hotel and went to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night it must have rained hard because we awoke in the morning to the floor of our hotel room flooded. We were thankful that all our bags and things were up on a table and nothing of ours got wet. A quick breakfast and off to the ferry again for the journey home. After just one full day there, we were reminded of how hard it was to live there and thankful that we were headed "home" to Costa Rica to a house with AC, clean sheets and fresh air to breath.
Aside from the theft on the bus, all went well and we were back home safe and sound by nightfall.
I am happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised with an email from Lelyla the next day!! We were so proud of her! Her email contained the wonderful news that they had met with the missionaries the morning we left and the three of them want to be baptized! You can imagine our joy at this news! I could not contain my tears. I guess we will be making another trip back to Ometepe Island in the near future and this time hopefully we will have a picture to post of this beautiful family dressed in white. I would cross the border 100 times over to attend this event. We will all pray that they will progress in their learning and will actually be baptized soon.
Please add your prayers to ours.
We have had a great week here. Josh has been a great houseguest and we have had lots of fun at the beach playing in the surf. It was so nice to have a face from home come and visit us and also come with something we have all missed...fruit leathers from Costco! Thanks Josh.
We have had a great Sunday today....got to feed the missionaries, the Branch Pres. and the RS President and Josh... Our house is happy when we are surrounded by such good people.

October General Conference

As members of the church, I think we often measure time by counting the months between one General Conference to another. I often remember being pregnant, laying on the couch watching conference and thinking to myself....by next conference I will be laying here holding my new baby...or within the last 2 years saying, next conference Alex will be on his mission, or next conference Mariah will be a BYU student. Well, 6 months ago, I remember distinctly saying, as I sat on the couch watching conference....next General Conference we will be somewhere in Central America, and trying to picture in my mind exactly what it would be like. Would we be eating chili and scones along with other yummy food like we always do during conference? Would we be tripping over puzzles, coloring books and legos that the kids have been working on for the past 2 days while we have camped out in the family room? I didn't know quite what to expect, but here is how it all went down:

We all got up at 6am Saturday morning to get ready and drive to the District Center in Liberia that is 1 1/2 hours away. We were not quite sure if we could get it without interruption through the internet at home and didn't want to take the chance of missing it. Lane and I had especially been looking forward to Conference this time. The kids were being pretty good sports about it. I had packed a bag of snacks, coloring books, crayons etc for the girls and Emma came with her basket of stuffed animals in tow. The District building is bigger than our church building in Santa Cruz, but not by much. There were several missionaries there along with just a handful of members from that area, and then our family. We had been told that they would have a separate room with a TV in english that we could watch. Although they did their best, they were not able to get that working for us, so we had to watch the first session in Spanish. While we didn't understand much of it, it did accelerate our motivation to learn! I sat there thinking...by next conference we WILL be able to understand this in Spanish if I have to eat rice and beans for every meal in between! Let's just say that Lane and I both have such a desire to learn this language and not understanding the talks just made us want it even more. The thing that WAS working was the AC unit and it was so cold in the room that I kept having to step outside just to get warm. Emma and I were sharing her little raincoat that she had brought, but that didn't offer a whole lot of warmth. I do have to say though, that even though we didn't understand all of the words, it was so nice to just see the prophet and other church leaders, hear the beautiful choir and see the temple grounds. There is something that is just so wonderfully comforting about all of that.

After the first session, we left and went to the best restaurant in Liberia, aka, McDonalds! ha ha....I was seriously just craving the ketchup. That sounds so wierd I know, but the stuff they call ketchup here is just not right at all. At least McDonalds has normal ketchup. We all ate a very unhealthy meal and then looked across the street to discover our next treat....Cinnabon! You see, General Conference has always traditionally meant "good food" in our house, so we were trying to keep things as traditional as possible.

We went back to the church geared up for the somewhat frustrating experience of trying to listen and understand in spanish, but we were pleasantly surprised that a couple of intelligent elders had been able to figure it out and we had another room to ourselves to watch it in english!

It was wonderful as I am sure you all know.

After that session, you guessed it...we made our way back to Cinnabon and shared some yummy hot cinnamon rolls along with a few other things. I am glad we don't live too close to Liberia for that reason!

It rained pretty hard all day, so the only picture we took was this one of us in the McDonalds parking lot. Lane was behind the camera getting wet since he couldn't hold his umbrella at the same time. The sacrifices he makes for us are endless :)

Lane and Abram went back to attend the priesthood session and the girls and I explored a little bit around Liberia, found the very small mall that they have and then made it back in time to get the boys. We actually got there a few minutes before it ended and we were able to see and hear the MTC choir that sang at the end of that session. It was a highlight of the day for me. Such an awesome powerful spirit hearing and seeing all those young Elders with their name tags on and ready to serve!

We got back home at about 9:30 pm and were exhausted but so thankful for such a great day.

This morning we decided to stay home and pray for no rain so that we could get all of conference on the internet. It was amazing that it only rained hard during the time in between sessions so we were able to view all of conference with only a few fairly short delays and freezes. What a blessing. It was fun for us because we knew that Mariah was there in the conference center with friends so anytime the cameras panned over the congregation, we were playing "where's Waldo?"....we never saw her of course, but it was fun just knowing that she was there.

It was a non-traditional conference for us in many ways, and we did not actually eat chili and scones like we have EVERY conference for at least the past 15 years, but we were together and happy, although very much missing our 2 oldest and I found myself thinking more than once...."by next conference, we will have Alex home with us again...."

I am truly thankful for a living prophet and apostles to lead and guide us. My testimony of the Gospel means everything to me and my heart is full today with love for my family and friends and all of my many many blessings.