HodgePodge

• 8 1/2 days of school left for Forrest this year.  I am not sure who is more excited, Forrest or me!

• 16 days left of school for Noah.  Remember he is a long term sub for a 4th grade class at our church's school.  It's been good for him to be in the classroom, but we've also learned what we thought was true, he's moved on from teaching elementary.

• God is giving us direction bit by bit on what's next for us here in Costa Rica.  We're thankful!  When things become just a touch clearer, we'll share, have no fear!

• This is one of my new favorite songs!  So describes our life right now!!

• We're so thankful for our church here.  Seriously, I can't wait each week to spend time with the people there!

• It's rainy season, sorta.  I have to admit, I am ready for rainy afternoons!  

• Quinn is cracking us up with his language skills.  The kid can seriously count to about 5 in two languages now!  And you should hear him say "tres"!  There is a little bit of a Yosemity Sam whistle.  Oh and he sings too!  

• Forrest finally lost one of his top teeth.  And yes, he only lost one!  His top palate has grown wider, so that second space on the right is just the room made by the growth! 

Hodgepodge

It's been a lot of this and that this last week.  Just a bunch of bits and pieces really...

So here you go, in no particular order:

• Today Noah is hiking up a volcano with two of our volunteers.  Yeah, pray for him.  Pray for great conversations with these two guys, that they would be safe, and that he wouldn't be too worn out when he gets home...7 hour hikes are intense, man.

• Today our lawyer meets with the Migration people to get the answer to our petition for residency.  Pray it will be granted!

• Since moving all three boys to different rooms last week, Quinn has slept so.much.better.  Probably should have moved him out of our room 2 months ago. Oh well.  We're thankful for more sleep.

• Although, now that we are sleeping more, my body remembers what it's like and now is asking for more and more.  I am pretty sure I could sleep 12 hours straight for the next week and a half.  Yeah, not going to happen, but a girl can dream, right?

• We need to paint all the bedrooms.  When I asked our landlady if she had paint we could use, her son brought primer over.  You think that will still work for a finished wall look?  I haven't the foggiest...

• After scouring the yard for limóns, and squeezing the ones we found, I look at the juice and realized there were worms swimming in it.  Yeah, that went down the drain...sigh.

• Seems as if we are transitioning to rainy season weather.

• I was explaining to my tutor yesterday about the house I grew up in, and he was amazed at the amount of land my parents own, 10 acres.  He also said no one here would live on that much land by themselves, it would be too dangerous.  And that explains a lot about why people think we are nuts to want to live in the campo (country.)

• Mango Hedgehogs are the boys new favorite way to eat a mango

A Blacksmith's Wedding

Saturday my brother Nate, the Blacksmith, got married.  What a sweet, fun day!  It was just what they wanted, which is exactly what we all wanted for them.  They are now off to Maine for the week and will come back to live in a garden cottage until they save up enough for a down payment on a farm.  Not to farm, but to have enough out buildings to house Nate's shop, and create a community of artisans, like his leathersmith friend who made us an AWESOME custom passport wallet!!  Anyway, I'll tell you more about that later.

Back to the wedding.  And really, you don't want to hear me talk about it as much as you want to just see photos, so here you are.

Rat in the Laundry Room

Alright.  I promised you all the story of The Rat in our house.  First off, I am just going to say, "YUCK!" and get that over with.

So here's what happened.  A couple of weeks ago, the city shut the water off to work on the pipes.  Our best guess is that is when this discussing thing was able to make it's way up the pipes and into our laundry room.  Well, several days later (that part makes me shutter...I have no idea how long it was in the laundry room before we discovered it!) I was working on something in the living, came into the kitchen and saw something streak across the floor back towards the laundry room, which Gracias a Dios has a door! 

I shut that door as fast as I could, because whatever it was, was big and brown and had a long tail.  I have seen enough mice in my day to know it was NOT just a mouse.  This thing was like the size of a squirrel!  No joke.  And I have had run ins with squirrels before. 

Noah was gone at the time, so doing the rational thing, I called him in panic.  We had been having some issues with cockroaches as well (that's a whole other story), and I said, "so we have bigger problems than cockroachs dear..."yeah, much bigger!

When he got home, we discovered that, yes indeed, this was a rat and it was trapped (again, Gracias a Dios!) in the laundry room.  And now what?  Noah went and found some sticky traps big enough (ha!) to catch a rat.  We put one in there, and waited.  After the boys went to bed we heard some scratching and realized it was stuck!  Noah decided that instead of letting it struggle all night, it would be more human to drowned it.  So, he filled a bucket and we thought we were done.  And then the water worked against us!  It got the glue off the rat and the thing escaped!

So, since the sticky traps came in packs of two, Noah put the other one out and we went to bed hopeful that in the morning we would be able to be done with this thing.  Uh hu.

Morning dawned and all we saw was a sticky trap with a bunch of fur on it.  So gross!  The stupid thing had gotten caught, and managed to work it's way off the trap!  Still at large in the laundry room!  Escape numero dos!

At this point Noah made the decision to go ahead and get some rat poison.  We didn't want to go that way because of the boys, but felt that since it was in such a enclosed area, it would be ok.  Well, The Rat did eat the poison, but it took a while to take effect.  At one point, I think one of the boys looked through the window (they would periodically run over and look and ask where The Rat was, like it was a zoo or something) and said they saw the yucky thing sitting on top of the washing machine!  Noah took a trash can and put it over it, to try and flip it over and then be able to drown it.  At this point, the poison had dulled the stupid things reflexes.  But Noah wasn't fast enough in flipping the trash can over again and it escaped!! Again.  Yeah, if you are keeping track, that is the third time!

So at this point, it's Sunday night.  We had been battling this thing for 2 days now, not being able to do laundry.  Everyone was on edge.  Any time someone accidentally brushed up against one of us, we would holler.  Elliot, who usually is fine with bugs, saw a spider in the corner while he was putting his shoes on and let out a scream like I haven't heard from him!  Poor kid!

Monday came, and off we went to school, hopeful that when we got home that afternoon that stupid vermin would be dead.  After school Noah ventured into the laundry room and looked high and low for The Rat.  He couldn't find it.  Anywhere!  We thought we had blocked off all the areas it could possibly get out.  And yet, it was no where.  Which creeped me right out.  I wanted that thing dead, in the laundry room, so I knew it was dead.

Well, by mid afternoon, I needed to do laundry.  We were running out of underwear.  So, sorta on a whim, I asked Noah to look in the washer just to make sure it wasn't in there...and guess what?

Yep, there it was!  Curled up next to some rags.  Yick!  Noah decided it wasn't getting away this time.  He put the washer onto the spin cycle, to get the thing good and dizzy, and then, yeah, you know where this is going, he washed it on the heavy cycle!  My husband drowned a rat in the washing machine!  It was nice and clean when it came out and got thrown in the field down the street.

And just so you know, I ran a bleach load three or four times after that just to make sure it was nice and clean.  Blahhhh!

Things that Make Me Smile

11 Thoughts

So, in no particular order, here are some of the things I have learned over the last couple of weeks:

1.  Baking soda is not an easily found ingredient.  Last week I walked to four different stores, totaling somewhere around two and half or three mile walk. Never found it.

2.  Mint green is never a good color.  Unless there is ice cream involved.

3.  After many months of not experiencing it, air conditioning can take you aback.  I took a taxi yesterday to look for sheets and when I got in something seemed strange.  I couldn't put my finger on what it was.  About 3 minutes into the ride I realized all the windows were closed.  And that's when it dawned on me, this taxi had AC!!  First time I had experienced that!

4.  Being far away from hurting friends forces you pray harder.  You desperately want to do something for them, and since there is no way to clean their house, bring them a meal, you pray.  Which is really what they need the most anyway.

5.  Four year olds can spend the whole day with their underpants on backwards and not care.

6.  Given the right conditions and the right amount of time, I can tell you what I am doing right now, what I am doing continually, what I want to do, and what I did in Spanish.  Again, note the stipulation of the right conditions and the right amount of time you have to waste listening to me stammer through the conjugation.

7.  It's truly amazing that in three months you can go from needing the help of another family to maneuver around the city, to being that other family to help someone new.  Our 'little brother and sister' Will and Elaine Savell come tomorrow!  They will be here for a year studying Spanish and then they will be working with pastoral training in Latin America.

8.  Without having a 30 year experiential knowledge of the subtle nuances of the weather, it's hard to keep track of what time of year it is.  Seriously.  You know how you can tell by the way the air smells, the look of the leaves, the sky, when it gets dark at night, what produce is in season, how the seasons are changing?  Yeah, well, I got nothing here.  It gets dark every night at the same time, there are no leaves to change, no familiar signs.  I don't even know if there are seasons for produce here.  It's a bit disconcerting really.

9.  Just like in high school or college, adult language school students get lax at the end of the term.  Wow, we are all ready for our two week break!

10.  Stores in Costa Rica sometimes carry only pink sheets.  Yes, for real.

11.  Sometimes you just need a nap at 10:30 am.

The First Best Thing

So the day we moved from Barakel, Forrest didn't love the idea of leaving.  When he woke up that morning, the first thing he said was, "We need to unpack everything and stay at Camp Barakel forever!"  But as he thought a bit more, he said, "But we are going to Costa Rica and Honduras, and it's always warm there!"

The week before we moved from Grand Rapids to Costa Rica it snowed.  That was the morning of the double ear infections and as we were driving to the doctor's office, Forrest looked around at the snow on the buildings and said, "We need to go back to Florida because it's always warm there!"

And now we are here.  And it is always warm.  I asked Forrest a couple of weeks ago what the best part of living here was and he said, "The first best thing is that it's always warm!" 

And we are taking full advantage of that.  Yesterday I bought the kids a pool.  I found one for about $12 USD and thought we could get our money out that during this year here.  And they LOVE it!

And while we know this is only for a short time (since they breed mosquito and in Honduras there are more scary mosquito borne illnesses like Dengue Fever, they really aren't something you can have around), we are certainly loving it right now!

Now that was an Adventure!

So, that was exciting!  Tonight about quarter to 5 our time, we experienced a full on earthquake.  Like 6.0 earthquake at the epicenter.  Which apparently, according to the Richter scale is classified as strong.  It didn't last very long.  Maybe 30 seconds.  But boy it was different!  Our neighbors came to check on us, which was very sweet of them.  Everything was fine.  My little art guy feel over in the kitchen and the hanging fruit basket in the laundry room swung around, but other than that, we really were fine.  By the time we realized what was happening it was over. 

Being from the land that nothing ever happens in (no earthquakes, hurricanes, poisonous snakes, alligators, fire ants, etc.) this was a new experience for us. I had to look up the whole Richter scale thing.  Our neighbor said that the heavy rains this time of year sometimes cause tremors.  He even called this tremor season.  Brings to mind that silly movie that always seems to be on cable.  Anyway, not sure how much scientific fact there is to his comment, but interesting none the less.

All of this did prompt us to look up the Red Cross information about earthquakes.  I have been meaning to do that, but just hadn't gotten to it yet.  Turns out you stay inside the house if you are already in there.  And the whole thing about the door frames being safer, nope.  Apparently a large sturdy piece of furniture is a better option.  Want to know more?  Here's the link to the Red Cross information.

So anyway, that was the big excitement for the day.  Or maybe the week! 

A Morning with Buela

 

Yesterday my mom took the boys to the Fish Ladder in Grand Rapids.  But there weren't any fish.  We tried to coax them out with day old bread and crackers, but it just didn't work.  Although Elliot had a lot of fun throwing the bread in the water.

 And then we found these guys.  And they were even more fun to throw bread at.

It seems as if Spring is here to stay!  And we are very glad of that!

Bug Buddie

Last night Elliot got all excited about something.  I mean really really excited.  We kept listening, trying to decipher Ellioteses, and then I realized he was trying to say spider.  Except there wasn't a spider, but a stink bug.  And he was thrilled!  His love of bugs goes way back.  Remember this video?

Elliot sat there, and very carefully, moved the bug around, playing with him.  Forrest was a bit leary at first, but then he realized it was ok and joined in the fun.  Poor bug.  But really, Elliot was so very careful with him, I think he went away unharmed.

In all of my thoughts on motherhood, it never crossed my mind that someday I would be telling my kids to share a bug.  But last night I did.  "Forrest gets to play with the bug for a minute, and then it will be Elliot's turn."  Yeah.

The Snowy Day