Savor the moments

This week was just full of good moments and I found myself thinking many times..."I need to tuck this moment away in my special box and keep it forever." I remember when we met the Ballantine family very early on in our adventure at the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border, they told us that we would see changes in our family that we would treasure and that there would be priceless moments. I am starting to recognize those things now and am trying to savor every moment. There are so many things that I can't put into words and so many things that I wish I could capture with a camera that I can't. I love the way my kids are becoming such good friends and they find things to do together that they would never have thought of before. They make up skits, dances,songs, games...all kinds of things. Yes, they still have their fair share of sibling rivalry too but life wouldn't be normal without a healthy dose of that right?
We had a few days of rain again this week and those are the days where we have learned to enjoy staying in and reading together...playing outside in the rain or watching dad's favorite show together (The Andy Griffith Show). All 5 of us took a little walk out in the pouring rain with our umbrellas and I think the look on the guard's face was pretty funny as we passed by his little guard house. ha ha...crazy family that must come from Arizona where they never get to play in the rain!
I have reflected this week on what wonderful people we have met here. People that have been in this world my whole life that I never would have met had we not come here. I love that people have a way of enriching your life so much and it always makes me get this ancy feeling inside that I wish I could move to a million different places and meet all the friends that are waiting there for us to meet! I just LOVE meeting new people and learning what I can from them. I think every single person has something about them that we can learn from.
We have already shed some tears with friends here as we all talk about the time when this journey will end for us. It is hard to get close to people and leave, but then the pain is worth it, so I wouldn't change a thing.
The holidays are upon us and we are looking forward to celebrating them differently this year. We didn't bring any holiday items from home so we will have to get creative and embrace the culture here....the girls have already been spending some free time cutting up white plastic grocery sacks into itty bitty pieces so that we can have "snow" around our Charlie Brown tree.
We will be putting that up this week since Lora is about ready to jump out of her skin she is so excited about it! I already told them that this year, the tree is their project and anything goes....normally I am a little bit of a control freak about the tree and although I let them help, I prefer to re-do it after they go to bed. Nope, not this year...I am learning to let go a little and relax. This is a good thing. I think this "Pura Vida" life is growing on me.