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.

Our first Temple Trip in Costa Rica

Last Saturday we went for the first time to the San Jose Temple. The excursion was much different than deciding last minute to run up to the Mesa temple after dropping the kids off at school, having lunch with a friend after and being back in time to pick up the kids from school...no siree...those days are no longer.

This temple trip actually started on Friday evening by driving into town to pick up the local Tico woman who cleans for us and bringing her back here to spend the night, since we had to leave a little before 3 a.m. and needed someone to watch the girls.

We all went to bed around 9:30 to try to get as much sleep as we could before our long day. The only problem is that whenever I have to wake up really early for something, I am worried all night that I actually won't wake up on time, so I don't ever really fall asleep. So, when the alarm went off at 2:30 a.m., it didn't really take me by surprise. Lane, Abram and I were out the door on time and Maricella was up smiling and ready to lock the door behind us. I was thankful that we had someone we felt good about to watch the girls all day.

We drove the one hour to Santa Cruz to meet up with the other members of the branch who would be going as well. First we had to drop Abe off at the Missionaries' apt. because the youth were going in a separate van and not leaving until 6a.m. We drove to their apt. but our cell phone was in a dead spot with no service and we didn't know which door was theirs. We didn 't think people would appreciate us knocking doors at that hour in the morning trying to find them, so we drove back to the church not really knowing what to do because the adult van was already full.

The Branch President was there to see us off (he was not able to go because he had a job interview that day that was really important, seeing as he is unemployed right now). He agreed to walk Abram back down to the missionaries apt. SO the 8 of us adults climbed into the van and off we went in the dark for the 3 1/2 hour drive to San Jose.

The van was a little rickety and there was no AC, but it was too early to be too hot, so it wasn't bad. It was a pretty quiet ride since it was so early.

We arrived at the temple and had about an hour to wait so we walked down to this little "tienda" to grab a snack. The picture above is the outside of it....looks like a good place to buy a snack huh?

Well, the temple is very small but beautiful and it was so wonderful just to walk in the door. It felt very familiar even though we had never been there before of course. I love that about the temple. It was a really nice way to spend several hours. We met up with Abe and the rest of the youth afterwards who were just smiling and glowing! What a great experience.

Abe told us after that he and the Branch Pres. had walked all the way back to the missionaries' apt. and they were probably dead asleep and didn't hear them throwing pebbles at their window! They walked back to the church which was now locked and Pres. had given the key to someone else...so they sat there and had a good chat on the sidewalk for a nice long time.

The whole day was wonderful until the ride home started. You see, there are two different routes that you can take to the temple and I was very grateful that on the way there, we took the new freeway and I felt very safe. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I get EXTREME anxiety about driving on bad roads and in bad weather, in fact I really don't like driving at all, especially when I am not behind the wheel! Well, I soon noticed that we were taking a different route home and I had "heard" about this other road and was NOT a fan, even though I hadn't seen it for myself. It goes over the mountains and the road is very narrow and has steep drop offs on both sides at some points. I am going to embarrass myself here, but I will admit that I started to cry! You see, not only was this a scary road, but it had started POURING rain AND I was sitting in the very back of this van with no air and I felt trapped. Lane quickly saw my fear and knows my anxiety in this situation so he was questioning why we weren't taking the same road back that we came on? They basically said they couldn't afford to pay the tolls which would equal about $8. Well, Lane was quick to hand the needed money up to the driver who said thank you but it was already too late to turn around. I was pretty much a mess inside. I wish I didn't get such anxiety about driving but I think once you are in a bad car accident, it just stays with you for life. Abram rode with us on the way back and he and Lane were both trying to help me do my "childbirth breathing" ha ha....I can laugh now, but not at the time.

I remained in that state for the first hour which seemed like 3....and then all of a sudden my fear just left and I felt totally happy and calm. Lane told me later that he was praying his heart out for me. Thank you honey.

We stopped to eat at this little buffet that had rice/beans and other Tico food. Behind the restaurant was this GORGEOUS garden! It was raining but you can see how pretty it is.

We made it home around 7pm, and greeted our very happy to see us little girls! They had a fun day with Maricella and her baby that she brought with her but they were so glad to have us home.

I was thankful for the experience but so happy to be home safe and sound.

If you live near the temple, please don't take it for granted!

Independence Day in Costa Rica

September 15th is Independence Day for Costa Rica. Lora's school was invited by one of the local public schools to join them in their festivities early that morning. It started at the school with the students and staff singing many patriotic songs of Costa Rica and then ended with a parade down the main street of Huacas. Despite the rain, the children were all very excited and proud to be in the parade. There was only one damper when an obvious drunk driver came speeding right through the rope lines being held at the front of the parade, and he headed straight for the oncoming parade participants! Everyone panicked and scattered out of the way as fast as they could and thank heavens no one was hurt! Very scary for a few minutes there.

Lane took these photos and has several more posted on his FB if you want to see them. This was a fun thing for our family to really see some true Costa Rican culture and tradition.

more school pictures

Fo some reason, I could not get more pictures to load on the first school post, so here are a few more. This school is a k-12 and currently there are about 30 students attending, so it is very small. The woman in the kitchen is Martina and she is the school cook and also cleans. I am able to sub at this school quite a bit and have gotten to know everyone here quite well. Most all the students speak English as their second language and all the teachers speak English, so Lora is not getting exposed to as much Spanish as we would like. We may make a switch with her as well at the end of the semester. A public school is a very poor education but she would be immersed in Spanish....we would definately have to homeschool her as well if we went that route. We will see.

La Escuela: School

Here is the little private school that Lora attends. Emma was attending here as well, until just recently we decided to make a change with her. We are going to do a combination of Public school/homeschool with her. We are still trying to figure out the best school options here.