Time has flown by

Where has the time gone? At first there was really nothing to say. Same old same old. Get up early, take kids to school, go to school myself. Spanish, spanish, spanish. Study, study, study. One day I am impressed with how much I have learned and the next discouraged with how little I know and have to learn. I struggle with staying focused, especially with the kids around so one way for me to study is to roam around and listen to Spanish and study in the park. I am ruuning more and listening then too. I have always struggled with staying focused, but now I really want to learn something so it is more frustrating. Time on task. My new mantra. The more on task, the more I will learn. The more I learn, the more fun it is because I can talk more with people. Those who know me know I love to talk so it is a good motivator. We had a great Thanksgiving (minus the horrible Lions game). A friend from collage had us over. He is married to a Costa Rican, who is wonderful and has a great family. They even cooked a turkey. It was fun trying to talk in Spanish since half the people did not know English. They were so sweet to me and my broken Spanish. Laney entertained with her dance and talking in Spanish. She is my diversion in a group of Spanishh speakers.

Feliz Navidad!

Last Friday, the eleventh of November, the kids at their Christmas program. It was a big deal. They have been practices for months. We had to have the kids at the auditorium an hour before it started. There were tons of people there so they rented out a big auditorium since the Kinder (what they call preschool here) is so small. They have a day care there too so there were tons of little kids in costumes. Everyone had at least one costume and the stage was decorated with a Christmas tree and lots of cute houses and snow. Laney had a few things she had to do. First she had a saying while her classl stood on stage spelling out Feliz Navidad.

She had another little saying before her dance. Last and certainly not least she had to dance the meringue with David. They were so cute and she was shaking her shoulders and hips like a tica. She was worried he was not going to show up and then what would she do. After running into David's mom in the bathroom, he was really worried last week when we were in Nicaragua and Laney was not in school for the rehearsal. He told her she had gone back to the States. Here are some pictures of them after the show. They re-enacted their dance for us afterward since we could not get good pictures of them doing it on the stage.

We are not sure what Creed was. He was dressed in a little German outfit and walked on stage with his class and did some choreography with a song with the rest of his class. They knew better than to give him some lines. Every time we pick him up his teacher tries to make him repeat something, usually about how cute he is, and he refuses every time. Of course, he is more than capable and comes home a chats us up in Spanish. I do not think they know how much he can talk. He was on stage for ten minutes.

 The show was an hour and a half and it was SO loud. The music they danced to was insanely loud. I just hope the speakers were only going out toward us or my kids might be deaf. They said it was not too bad, but I had to plug my ears a bit. Laney has sensitive ears like I do so she either was so use to it or it was not as loud on stage. The kids were ridiculously cute. I had a hard time understanding them though as they shouted into the mike. They sure know how to throw a production or any festivity for that matter. I am continually surprised by it. They are just little kids, but everyone (except a small number of little kids) seemed to enjoy themselves. The parents, grandparents and bucket loads of families seemed to enjoy themselves too.

I think it was a success. Unfortunately a lot of the teachers are sick this week and so is Creed.
And this is afterward waiting for a cab. I think I will see this look a lot in the future.

Loving the Weather

Oh how a couple weeks can really change things around here. The weather is amazing. It is perfect and why we moved here. It is sunny and 75. There is a slight breeze and some clouds move in in the afternoon. It is beautiful. I think it is even more amazing because October was so miserable. Apparently it was worse than usual as far as how much rain we had and that the sun did not come out. I cannot live in a climate that does not see the sun. Which is why I like Colorado even though it gets cold. The sun and blue skies trick my mind into not going crazy. I guess this is how it is suppose to be through December (in case anyone needs to make some plans) and then it gets a little warmer in January and every month afterward until May when the rainy season starts. We are moving February first so we are only concerned about the weather until then.

The kids and I had a wonderful afternoon at the library. It was a nice 15 minute walk away and had a little play room inside and a great park outside. They are at such a great age and really enjoy playground equipment and for the most part do not hurt themselves on it. They love all the climbing stuff and of course the slides too. It is fun watching them play together. I even got a chance to work on my memorizing verbs while they played. I sat in the warm sun and soaked in the vitamin D.

Lake Nicaragua

We woke up early...shocker. It was beautiful outside so we decided to take a boat tour of the lake. We had discussed it with Orvan the day before and he said we would be the only people on the boat so could cut it short if need be (things to ask when you have small children). He came with us and was our wonderful tour guide. He is bilingual but was gracious enough to talk to us in Spanish and help us out when we did not know a word. He spoke clearly and slowly. There are 365 islands on the lake, many of them are pretty small. There are a ton of cool houses on them and the scenery was gorgeous. We also went to the monkeyś island and threw cookies at them. We saw some little bats, some cool birds and some fish. Creed started to get cranky so we headed home. We learned a lot of history of the area and some gossip about those that owned houses on the islands. Oh and we had some cookies too. You could not ask for a better tour.

Creed fell asleep on me in the car. I ended up rocking him for over an hour in the lobby. It has been ages since he has fallen asleep on me and for so long. He looked so cute. After awhile I figured I better wake him up or I would be up even earlier the next morning.

We went to lunch and he could not stop crying and you guessed it he felt warm. I took him back to the room and found out he had a fever (we never leave home without the thermometer) of a 102. So we watched TV and rocked. I love that there were so many rocking chairs. We just chilled in the room the rest of the day. Jason took Laney swimming so they got to have a little excursion. His fever went down for several hours before the medicine wore off. We gave him more and sent him to bed. Amazingly, he only woke up once in the night and went right back to sleep. He even woke up without a fever. He still was pretty clingy and tired though.

We decided to take a horse drawn carriage tour of Granada. The kids had been wanting to do since we arrived. All the carriages are parked in front of our hotel and Laney wanted to the one with the most ribbons. Lucky for her it was the one we ended up taking. The tour was fun and we had a great guide who spoke clearly and slowly. We saw forts, many churches, and tons of colonial houses. I love history and that kind of stuff so it was really interesting. We were able to climb to the top of one of the churches bell towers. Laney was a touch frightened being carried up a tiny spiral staircase. Creed was all for it. We had some great views from the top. I loved it!! It reminded me of all those churches in Europe I was able to climb on my trips.

We enjoyed some ice cream and chilled most of the day. The kids had been sick and seemed to be getting better so we did not want to take any chances of them getting something else. Jason and I took turns going out and checking the city out. He went on a cigar tour and enjoyed walking around the market. All in all it was a fun trip. Our only issue seems to be the kids getting sick. They are becoming better travelers and hopefully over time their immune systems will improve so we can enjoy our vacations even more. I would love to go back to Nicaragua and check it out even more.

Creed and Jason got their hair cut. I did not take any pictures of Jason getting his done, but I went along with Creed. Here is my cute Nico.

Granada, Nicaragua

We decided to leave the beach and head out to Granada on the first. Needless to say I was pooped with being up with Laney in the night and then early with Creed. Luckily we had rented a car so we could go at our own pace. We wanted to check out Leon a bit on our way out of town, but only seemed to get ourselves lost for an hour. We finally made it out. I could go on and on about how bad the maps are and how there are hardly any addresses. Granted Leon actually had some street signs. It is the same in Costa Rica where no one has an address. You have to tell people you are a 100 meters from this thing or that thing. Finding places and roads can be challenging. It is kind of hard for me to get use to. No point in continuing that rant since it does no good.

We actually made it to Granada without getting lost. It is such a cute city. We just drove to the town square and found something to eat. I promise I will insert pictures here of the beautiful yellow church and other fun places.

We did not have a place to stay so Jason started asking at hotels. We noticed right away that there were tourists and English speakers. We attempted to stick with our Spanish. Jason did a great job having Spanish conversations and I did a good job listening and inserting random sentences. Anyway, we found this great hotel across the street from the town square. Manuel showed us a room and we fell in love with it even though it smelled, was extremely dark and you could hear loud construction going on underneath. It had two large rooms with a door in between. We were so excited to have a little room. The kids started playing right away. Laney was still recovering and a little chill time in the hotel was good for her.

Views from in front of our hotel.

Manuel went to the pharmacy and got us some more medicine and told us some fun things to do. He was very helpful and fun. Plus, he did not speak English. He helped us set up a boat tour with Orvon for the next morning. Granada is on an enormous lake, Lake Nicaragua. It has 365 islands on it from Volcano Mombacho exploded numerous years ago. We relaxed the rest of the day and went to bed early.

The Beaches of Nicaragua

We came to Nicaragua on our visa run. I cannot believe we left Colorado 90 days ago. Where does the time go? We flew on a tiny airplane with six other people.

The flight went well, but Jason had some big ear issues during the landing. Laney, Jason, and I had colds and when we landed he could not hear very well. Not great when you are speaking English, but horrible when you are trying to understand Spanish. Laney had some pain in hers as well and cried every time she yawned. Which she kept doing since we had to get up at four thirty in the morning. Then I realized I forgot to bring the rental car reservation and could not remember which rental car agency I had reserved it with. We asked them all and none seemed to have it so we had to start from scratch. We finally made it out of the airport with our car. I decided to drive b/c I have been missing it. We went straight to Leon which is about ninety kilometers from Managua. The drive was pretty with lots of green stuff and a few volcanoes. We decided to eat lunch in Leon and found a bad pizza place. They had a couple of old playground things in it so the kids were happy, which goes a long way. We had not made any reservations b/c we could not decide if we would stay there or go on to the beach another twenty minutes away. It was not raining and the city seemed a little challenging to navigate with small children so we moved on. We found this tiny place. Too small to be a town b/c there were no stores, just a few hostel like places and houses along the beach. We found the place we saw on line and they had a room for us. It was cheap and they had a pool. Granted the room was incredibly small.

We made our way to the beach to play in the sand. The water was too rough to swim in but the waves were beautiful to watch. There were some rocks near by that they crashed on too. The kids got themselves covered in sand pretty quickly. Glad Laney is over her fear of sand from a few years ago. It is messier now, but a lot more fun. We then went for a swim in the pool. It is nice that they are comfortable in the water now and just float around on their floaties happily. We have come a long way to making vacation more enjoyable with the beach and swimming thing being fun now.

We had a nice dinner over looking the beach and this is what I had. It was delicious.

We however have not figured out how to stay healthy on trips. This is a killer. At dinner Laney was super exhausted and would not even eat french fries.

We took her back and she had a 102 temperature. We are always a little worried about her when she is sick and coughing b/c of how it effects her breathing. We put them down for the night and prayed she would not have an asthma attack. We put Creed on the floor. The good thing about the night is that she did not have an attack. The bad thing is that she cried out every half hour. She gets a little crazy with fevers too. Creed kept rolling all over the place. One time he was half under our bed and then he fell asleep off his blanket onto the tile floor infront of the bathroom. He was up at five thirty. I tried to get him out of the tiny, tiny room as soon as possible so he would not wake up Laney or Jason (who still had his cold). Creed and I went to hang out at the beach. It was beautiful. I sat and watched the waves while Creed rolled around in the sand. We went for a little walk and dipped our toes in the water.

Two hours later Laney and Jason joined us for breakfast. So glad they got a little extra sleep that they needed. Her fever was down. That ends our first night in Nicaragua. Traveling with toddlers is an adventure. We decided to leave the next day and move on to Granada.

A girl in Creed's class had a birthday party and he was invited. He kept asking about it the week before once he found out there was going to be a bouncy house. He LOVES to jump. I was nervousvall week because I knew I wold have to go with him. It is hard for me to converse very long in spanish. I know I have been here almost three months. But it is slow going, at least for me. We will at least come home with one really good spanish speaker. Laney is going crazy with her spanish and Creed is right there too. Laney has a great accent and talks a ton. She seems to understand a lot too. Her teacher said she is talking a lot at school. She corrects our spanish and is right a lot of the time. She seems to have a good ear for it. Plus, she is social and loves to communicate. Creed is doing great too. He speaks in sentences and loves Ana. She comes a few afternoons a week and plays with the kids. She does not know any english. She hugs, carries, and kisses Creed which helps his learning. Needless to say, I am proud of my kids. I am a little worried about myself since I am the weak link. Anyway, back to the party. We went and Creed had a blast. I got to meet some of his classmates moms and his really nice teacher was there too. I did not speak very much, epecially once the disney karaoke started. It was so loud. Glad we went and now when I drop the kids off I recognize some of the moms and the say hola.

We live near this huge park. I guess it use to be the airport. They moved the airport and planted a ton of trees and added a few ponds, some futbal fields, a track, a pool and a bunch of other stuff. They planted these austrelian eucaliptus trees because they grow really fast. However, now they are taking them out because they kill all the local vegetation and the birds and butterflies do not like them. Bummer because they are beautiful. At least they are doing it in stages so there still are trees. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago there was a couple hours of no rain so the kids and I went over to play near the ponds. They love to throw sticks and leaves in them. We were having a great time until creed slipped in up to his neck. It must have looked hilarious. Luckily it was a slopped part and I was sitting next to him. I know to never be too far from him when we are near water. He kept his head up and was lying in it up to his neck. I pulled him out by his ankle. He was very freaked out. Poor little guy. We had the stroller so after undressing him and wrapping him in our jackets we went home. That boy needs to learn how to swim soon.

I Need to Build a Boat

It has been raining for DAYS! Enough already. Before it rained every day, but was sunny too. I could so handle that. Now it rains day and night. This morning it was only drizzling so I enjoyed a long walk. First I went to see if the library was open. It was so I had a nice little conversation with the librarian about the library and it's hours. They have a nice little kids room for kids five and under with some toys and books. I think it will be a nice place to study too. It is hard to study in the house and my waistline is being affected by studying in restaraunts, so this is a good compromise. There is a park outside so they kids will like it too. On a side note we believe the poor dead gecko was Stanley. We have not seen him since that day. Laney was asking about him and Jason said maybe he went to another house and Laney said it was probably Stanley in the drawer. Creed has not asked any questions. We had a pet butterfly for a couple days in the laundry room. Creed did not care for it. It kind of looked like a bat. It hung upside down and was big and black. He disappeared after a few days though.

Stanley

We have a new pet and his name is  Stanley. He is our little baby gecko. Laney and I argued for awhile about whose room he should be in. I think he should be in mine and Laney wants him in hers. We love geckos because they eat mosquitoes. Jason decided to leave him in the living room and then Stanley found a home near the roater. Lucky Jason. Creed said he did not need him since mosquitoes do not like him. He is the luckiest of all. I have not seen a bite on him yet. Anyway, the kids made a house for Stanley out of toilet paper rolls and like peeking in on him. At night he climbs the wall above Jasonś computer. He is so cute and little. Creed found another gecko yesterday in a drawer. He was little and did not move. Laney and Jason looked into it and found out he was dead. I did not see Stanley yesterday so hope that was not him.

The Sickies

Had another pretty good weekend, which was a pleasant surprise since Laney was a bit under the weather. On Saturday we had a play date with a family who lives here and has a three year old and a one year old. They knew of  a cool park, where everything works and was so nice. The kids loved it. We enjoyed lunch and ice cream in the food court across the street. Laney was getting a little tired and bored and then made friends with a couple of girls. They had a doll that she sees on tv and loves. I heard them talking to her in Spanish and not sure if Laney responded or not. Either way she had fun. She seems to make friends easily and it is fun to watch.

Sunday we went to church and joined a womenś bible study. I decided I needed that and enjoyed it immensely. The kids seemed to have fun in Sunday School and we let Jason go to service by himself. It was nice meeting some women. I sat next to someone from The Congo and she was talking about all the war and the elections coming up. I cannot imagine how horrific that would be to see so much violence. Her faith was inspiring. There were also two Costa Rican ladies in my group who teach English. They were sweet with their words of encouragement in learning a language. After church we headed over to Gol to watch a little futbal norte americano. We were so hungry we went during the first half of the Lions game. I guess we should have waited and gone later so we could have seen the great come back. The game was kind of boring and the kids cannot stay their that long that we left. Granted we do bring toys and paper to lengthen our stay but it is not enough for a whole game. Still glad they won even though I did not believe they would. SO many years of them losing has taken its toll on my belief in them. I am still a fan and am excited for their win. Cannot wait for Monday night!! Win number 5?

The week did not go as well as the weeekend. Laney ended up getting sick. She was on the border for awhile and just could not get over it. Lots of coughing, a horrible night, and a couple of missed days of school later and she is on the road to recovery. Good thing Jason and I got two for one on our classes on Tuesday and Thursday because one of us seems to not be able to go a lot. Creed has a little bit of cold, but made it to school today. We shall see how he fares. Laney was happy to go back today to school. We could not decide yesterday if she should go or stay and when I asked her if she wanted to go she said no. So she stayed home. I know the same question will not be asked of Creed. He has been coughing, before he had the sniffles, in an attempt to stay home. Laney does not like missing school so we figured she must not be well enough to go. It cracks me up how different they are from each other. Hoping school does not wear Creed out too much and hope I get better quickly. I sent Jason off to class since I got what Laney had. It is no fun having the sickies in the house. Jason is not a hundred percent either so here is hoping for a quick recovery and another great weekend.

Jason's Birthday

It's official I am married to an old man. Jason turned forty last Tuesday. I would make more fun of him, but it is my turn next year. It was not the best birthday ever. It started at 7:30 with the electricity going off right after he got in the shower. Here that means no hot water. The kids said, "Feliz cumpleaños" to him and I made him some eggs. Laney did not think they should go to school, but we should all celebrate the whole day. She made him a big poster board card and hung up some balloons. She put all the gifts she made and piñata stuff on a shelf for later and went to school in tears. Jason and I went to class and I brought a few pastries for all to enjoy (us and two others). We figured the lights would be on when argot home. However, there were not. Soon we realized it was just our house not the whole neighborhood. Jason checked the fuse box and found nothing wrong and then called the landlord. He said someone would come at three. No worries. I went and got the kids, who were in a terrible mood. Creed woke up a little off and his mood only went down hill. I think they did not feel well. The house is pretty dark without lights, especially Creed's room which has no windows. It got really dark outside and started pouring. No quiet times and no kids shows (long boring story of a broken tv that was taken to be fixed three weeks ago). Luckily Jason left for a coup,e of hours of peace and quiet. Alejandra came over for our Spanish lessons and brought cupcakes. It was so nice of her. The kids and I were going to make him cookies, but we had no oven. We mixed them up thinking it wouldn't be too long. Someone came at six to fix it, right after it got dark. Needless to say there was some arguing with the landlord in there too. Not all bad, but not all I wanted it to befor him. I told him we were still going to the beach so at least he would get his present.

Fast forward to today, the day we were going to head to the carribean....and we did not. The kids had some runny noses on Tuesday and then on Wednesday night Laney had two bad asthma attacks. Luckily, this time we have inhalers so she was able to breathe again and go back to sleep. It took me a coup,e hours after each one to fall asleep. They kind of freak me out and I am a bad sleeper after being abruptly woken. She was ok in the morning and we sent her to school. After looking into the humidity we saw that it really went up here (October is the rainiest month and worst for asthma here). The beach is pretty similar to here, but is far away from a hospital and civilization. Knowing Laney never has just one bad night and this asthma thing is new and scary and being so far we thought it would be best to not go. So Jason did not get his present from me. Laney gave him a ton that she made (a camera, a hand, some butterflies) and Creed sweetly gave him some of his cars. Then last night we did the piñata so he at least got something. Oh, on Wednesday morning we makes him his cookies too. Laney made all the pretend candy for the piñata too. I love how the kids got so into it. Creed would ask laney what candy it was and they lick it and say how delicious it was.

The kids do not really realize we were going to the beach and it does not bother jason so it is not too bad. Jason knew how bummed I was so he and the kids picked up a gorgeous bouquet of flowers for me on the way from school today. How sweet is that. He gets nothing and I get flowers. He is such a great guy.

Hopefully Laney will feel better soon and have no more attacks. Last night she just coughed, but she is complaining about her ear today. I am tired of getting up in the night too so it is best we did not go because then Jason and creed would not be sleeping either.

El Fin de Semana

We had a nice weekend. Saturday we went to the science museum that is two blocks from our house. I love it when activities are easy. They had a ton of stuffed animals. They had big animals like lions, ostriches, tigers, etc. They did look a little worse for the wear. A lot of them were from the 1980s. Then they had all the Costa Rican animals; sloth, tons of birds, reptiles and of course, butterflies. There were a ton of amazing butterflies. Laney had to look at each and see where they were from. A lot were from here. The room smelled of whatever is keeping them from rotting and she did not even complain, which is amazing because she has the most sensitive nose and notices everything. They also had a bunch of dinasaurs. They loved those too. It only took an hour to go through it, but it was fun seeing the kids get so excited over everything.

We then went to McDonalds. You would think my kids never get out of the house the way they react to McDonalds (or Old McDonalds as they refer to it). Laney has been wanting a little pony from there ever since MariaPaula brought hers to school and told her about it. There toys are perfect for our kids b/c they are cheap and they love them. Laney kept saying how it was like Christmas and it was what she always wanted. Creed got a transformer and was willing to get on the excitement bandwagon. I think he liked the hamburger the most. They played on the playground and had a blast. They are still playing with those toys and love them. I want them to stay like this forever, I know that is not possible so I will enjoy it while I can.

Sunday we went to church. Of course, it was not just that easy. The week before we were late b/c they moved the bus stop on us. This Sunday we realized there was a 10k race in the park. Wish we had known about it ahead of time and may have tried to do it. Anyway, we walked the twenty minutes through the park to the bus stop and waited...and waited...and waited. The bus we were waiting for comes every ten minutes. We realized they had changed the bus stop, but where too? It was not the same as the week before b/c the race was going by there. People admired the kids while we waited and called them munecos (dolls) and were so cute with them. I tried to talk some too.  We had to find the bathroom and this time we were prepared with our money, then we got a snack and then we went back to wait some more. We had run into a friend from Spanish class who was looking for the same bus and he said he would go investicate and then call back. He called right when the buses started coming and said they were stopping across the park. I did not know what to do b/c I knew they would just switch back at some point. We could not get on a couple of buses b/c they were so full. We eventually got on a bus and made it to church early enough to play in their playground before hand. Granted it was for the second service, not the first one that we were originally trying to get to. I met a nice lady on the bus and talked to her on the way. She was heading to her own church.

Then after church we came home and went to the sports bar to watch the Lions. For the sport fans you understand why it was such a good afternoon. We missed the first half of the game, where they got themselves down 0 to 20 and enjoyed the second half come back. We love our little sports bar and enjoy talking to Raul and the rest of them and of course the games are great. I love being able to watch my Lions again especially with the best start in decades.

Nothing Too Exciting

I feel like I should have lots of exciting things to post on this big adventure, but I don't. Learning a language is just a lot of tedious work. Plus, having small kids is kind of tedious work too. Everyday seems to be the same. Get up, way to early, try and get Creed to finish his breakfast in less than an hour, get dressed, get them to school. Granted the last two days Creed has finished his oatmeal at record pace and beaten Laney. That is the exciting news in this house. Breakfast has been an issue for him his whole life, or at least an issue (pain) for me. We have tried a laundry list of tactics with the one of not caring being the best. "Eat it, don't eat it, whatever; but nothing else until you do". I put pineapple in his oatmeal the last couple days and he ate it fast and mostly by himself. Not sure if we have turned a new leaf over or not. He has had pineapple before with not as good results. Folks, that is the excitement over here. We have the same issues we did at home. I guess the good news is is that it does not surprise me, at least as far as the kids are concerned. Granted I did hope that somehow being here I would just miraculously pick up Spanish. That is not the case. It is A LOT of work, with at the moment, not feeling like a lot of results. I think there are numerous issues. One being every conversations ends kind of awkward or a little confusing. I think the conversations are longer than they use to be, but they just go until I do not know what is going on. It is hard feeling clueless so much. I believe it is all paying off and will come together, but it is hard. I am changing some classes around to have more from my favorite teacher. I am excited to spend a lot of time with her starting next week. She somehow gets me talking a ton (in spanish of course) and teaches me through that. I am hoping I will start to much better. It is hard too b/c you have one really good conversation and then the next minute you do not understand the next person at all. Un poco y poco. That is my new mantra. They say it takes kids longer to learn a language than adults (ask Jason he has done a ton of research on this). If we spent as much time as they do we would know it really well, however, I believe there is a huge mental advantage that they have. They do not care if they are wrong or corrected, whether they are totally understood. Laney enjoys playing with her classmates, it does not bother her that she does not understand them. That is huge people. I want to be able to communicate well and be able to understand people. I guess when I talk about kids I mean little ones like I have. I am glad it is not traumatic for them, I just wish it was not for me too. There is a lot of self talk involved in trying to remain positive and realize how much we are learning. I am so glad we have this opportunity to this. It is a great learning experience personally as well as the language. It is worth the work. I am just going to do the best I can and see where I am at in awhile. I cannot worry about whether I will be fluent or not. I think more people will understand me in a year than do now. I must keep my nose to the ground and stay focused. We are going to the Carribean in a week so will have more exciting news about that. If people would come visit then we would have more excuses to see this wonderful place.

First Field Trip

The kids went on their first field trip. They went to the museo del niños. They had to be at school an hour early (7am). Creed was excited until we started walking to school, then he kept saying he wanted me to go with him. They peeled him off of me and had a great time. Not surprising since that happens a fare amount of time and he always does well. They were so excited about the juice boxes they got to take for snack time. When I picked them up they were so hyper. Creed kept saying he wanted to go back there. Laney talked about the bus ride there and all she saw. She was on the same bus with creed but did not go through the museum together. We went a month ago with their grandparents and the kids loved it. Laney said her friend David told her creed was on the same bus. I know that does not sound earth shattering, but it means she is understanding some of the kids in Spanish. I cannot help but get excited by that. Yesterday creed said to is teacher, "tengo hambre". Both his teacher and I were very excited. I know creed knows some Spanish we just do not know how it will come out. When he was little (6weeks) I started taking him to the Y and when he was two one of the workers looked at me in a surprised fashion and said he could talk. It made me laugh because he started talking the month he turned one (even before laney) and was a great talker. He just does not see the point in talking outside the house. I am so glad they love school and had a blast. Also glad I did not have to go supervise a bunch of 3,4,5 year olds. That sounds a little crazy to me.

Domingo y leones

For the second week in a row we went to a sports bar close to our house that had the NFL package. I have not watched the lions on a regular basis for a long time, at least since having the kids. I actually have not missed much since they have had some bad years. We go to Gol (the name of the restaurant) and have a delicious lunch and watch some futbol Norte americano. In addition, the friendly manager likes to talk to us. We end up missing some of the game, bit it is mice talking to him. He is working on his English so he asks us questions and he helps us with our Spanish. He is very friendly and now it is nice recognizing someone here. When I go by during the week he says hi too. With young kids you cannot stay and see all of the games, but it was nice to see the lt two games where they played so well. Who knew I had to come to costa rica to watch the lions.

Feliz Día de la Independencía

Today is the Costa Rican Independence day. We have been learning about it all week in our classes. We decided to go to Ezcasu for their parade. It is another little subarb of San Jose. I go there everyday for classes too. It is easy to catch the bus there from here and we actually know how to now. Laney loves parades, shocker I know. I felt like it might be child abuse if I did not take her. We enjoyed the bus ride over. We grabbed some juice and postre and sat down to watch. It was a beautifully sunny morning. There were lots of cool dancers and kids doing cheers with pom poms. There were lots of drums and xylophones. After an hour or so we had to leave because the drums were so loud and constant. My ears are a bit too sensitive for the noise levels here. Of course, Creed was crying as we left, but it was a fun adventure. And it has been fun learning about costa rica. Laney has had me play the costa Rican national anthem over and over so she can dance to it. She absolutely loves it.