Feliz Navidad!

Whew! Another 2 week review and it was a busy 2 weeks! 

Audrey and Redick got into the Christmas spirit all on their own one afternoon

The preschool group at the kids school put on a special Christmas program for the families. They sang and danced so well! There was also a pot luck afterward. R&R are in the back on the left. Am I the only one who just cries all the way through these kinds of things with my kids?!!?! I'm not normally a very sentimental or emotionally driven person but I always cry when they perform! It was a wonderful show and will be a fond memory forever!

Audrey and her class also had a Christmas performance with the rest of the school. Mitchell and I were so amused because all of the other little girls wore white tights but Audrey wasn't asked to. Could it be because her legs are already white? Haha!

A few weeks ago we got to assemble Christmas bags to give away to children. It was a great experience to be able to assemble the bags but the icing on the cake was being able to participate in delivering the bags and visiting with the children. We got to meet a wonderfully Christ-like man, Dean, who runs a preschool out of his home 6 days a week. The poorest of children walk to his house from the hills outside of Managua. Some walks up to 3 miles to come. He feeds them breakfast and they sing and dance and learn. Last Saturday we got to join him and the sweet kiddos for their Christmas party. We had an absolute blast! About 60 kids, ranging in age from 1year to 14 years came.

No party in Nicaragua is complete without the pinata! In fact, many times they refer to the party as the Pinata. 

Of course the mob when the candy comes out!

Everyone is lining up to receive their Christmas bag

Audrey, Redick and Reid got to hand them out! 

Is it any wonder this boy is a total heart throb around here?!?! SO handsome!

The kids are out of school for a month for Christmas break! They made a list of things they want to do before they go back to school. We're working our way through the list! First up, gingerbread house decorating! I bought preassembled kits from our local panaderia (bakery). They had a lot of fun with it.

Not much candy on the house yet, but plenty in the mouth!

Next up on the Christmas break bucket list, check out the skate park! These kids love riding their scooters at the skate park. This was a pretty good one too. 

Layne keeps right up with the big kids!

Tuesday I spent a large part of the day with our new friend Dean. We visited several people who needed some love and we helped a 14 year old boy get molds taken of his eye to be fitted with a new prosthetic eye. 3 years ago he was playing outside of his house and found a washed up hand grenade leftover from previous wars. He didn't have a clue what it was and while he was tossing it around it blew up and he lost his left eye. We also visited La Chureca aka the municipal garbage dump. There are about 1,000 people who live in the dump and about half of them are children. Dean visits the children at the dump daily and brings them lunch and dinner 7 days a week. It was very touching to see them and get to interact with them a bit. 

If anyone is interested in learning more about Dean and his wonderful ministry here let me know. We plan to be involved in other outreach programs with him. Here is his donation page for the charitable work he does here. 100% of donated funds go directly to the kids.  http://pureheartchildren.org/private/

The Christmas break bucket list continues with a trip to the zoo! We brought along our friend Karla and her 2 sons. This was Karla's first ever visit to a zoo! It was a fun day and we saw all of the animals.

Thanks to this monkey letting Audrey touch his tail she now wants a pet monkey! I can't imagine another monkey around this place!

We visited the butterfly exhibit at the zoo and this monarch butterfly landed on Redick's finger and stayed put the whole time we were in there. He had to shake it off when it was finally time to leave!

Santa found us! 

The kids are excitedly waiting for the ok for them to go downstairs to see what Santa brought!

Church today started at 10 so that gave us plenty of time to eat breakfast and open presents before church. It was organized chaos and so much fun! 

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting today too. It was based on Elder Russell M. Nelson's talk on Joy and Spiritual Survival. I told a story about my sister Lynn while she was enduring her cancer treatments. She has always been a very upbeat and positive person. She always looks at the bright side of everything! A couple of years ago after one of her surgeries I was feeling really worried about her and her family. I called her and she comforted me! She told me that having cancer had, in many ways, been a big blessing. I couldn't believe it and she was serious too! She told me that having to face this trial together had strengthened her marriage so much that given the choice she would choose it again! She is amazing. 

After church we had a really neat opportunity! We got to go to the dump (La Chureca) with the whole family this time. Once again Audrey, Redick and Reid got to hand out the Christmas bags. It was a really meaningful and wonderful way to spend a part of the Christmas afternoon. We handed out over 100 bags with toys, school supplies, trinkets, snacks and rice and beans.

We brought along the missionaries to help hand out the bags. So much fun!

Here's my Audrey in her element, the center of attention. She was showing these cute girls how to launch their toy helicopter.

Mitchell had fun rough housing with the boys!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Costa Rica Gone Bust

From November 28-December 7 this Catholic country celebrates and observes what is called the Novena. It's basically a celebration of the Immaculate Conception of Saint Mary. Each day there is a special mass dedicated to Mary-interspersed with songs, prayers and fireworks- and followed by the giving of gifts. The gifts are mostly for the children and are food items or trinkets. It's a big deal and celebrated all over the country. The first lady, who is also the vice president, canceled school that day and handed out gifts of food to anyone who wanted to stand in line. 

Downtown there were at least a dozen of these large and beautiful altars to Mary in honor of La Purisima. I could only snap a couple of quick pictures as I stopped at a red light.

The kids school held a Purisima event too that was fun. They handed out noisemakers, rattles and whistles to the kids when we arrived. The mass was about an hour long and was an even mix of recitation, singing, firecrackers and handing out gifts of food and trinkets. 

What else would a 4 year old boy do with a whistle, a rattle and a noisemaker? A gun of course! Lol

Layne made friends with the man sitting behind us. They were tossing this orange (yes, the oranges here are green) back and forth.

One morning this week we went to the park to play. In this picture you can just see Layne in the blue striped shirt. He is surrounded by 3 grown women and a child who were all chasing him around the park trying to take selfies with him! He is a total heart throb here with his clear blue eyes and blonde hair. It was kind of hilarious and happens to us all the time!

Mitchell had the day off work on Thursday for La Purisima so we decided to take a long weekend in Costa Rica! We had some really fun things planned and we were all so excited! 

The border crossing is always a long, complicated and boring process.

Earlier in the week we got all the official paperwork we would need to cross the border with the car in order. We needed a document from a lawyer saying we are authorized to drive the car that is in the name of Mitchell's company. We also had to have a document from the police department authorizing us to leave the country in the car. Both documents were completed but unfortunately the one from the lawyer wasn't returned to us at the police station so when we got to the border crossing they didn't let us into Costa Rica. It was even more fun than that though! Nicaragua let us out of the country without the document but Costa Rica wouldn't let us in. Then when we turned around and tried to get back into Nicaragua they wouldn't let us back in without the document!! It took us 3 hours to complete the 1 mile trip out and back in the country.

Side note: Mitchell took this photo on the Panamerican Highway headed back into Nicaragua. Can you see the white cotton candy like stuff in this picture? Absolutely everything in this area is covered with that cotton stuff! Would you believe it's actually SPIDER WEBS!?!?!?? AHHHHHHH!

We were all pretty bummed that our Costa Rica plans got sacked. We decided to try and plan some last minute fun down at the south end of Nicaragua instead. Audrey and Mitchell hired a three wheeled bicycle taxi to take them to find a hotel. They found one that was clean and cheap and we said go for it!

We got Burger King for dinner and ate at a local park. About 10 minutes after we arrived a procession came down the street toward the town's Catholic church. It was the final procession of the Purisima.

Friday morning we took a rainforest zipline tour! It was 2.5 kilometers long, 17 platforms and we were zipping along for about 45 minutes!

All geared up and ready to go!

Adrenaline junkie #3 loved it from the start!

Adrenaline Junkie #2 also loved it!

She's not smiling but our first little Adrenaline Junkie loved it too!

This picture perfectly depicts Layne's feelings about the zipline. The eye roll says it all! He was NOT happy about being harnessed up and strapped to a stranger only do be flung down a long cable at break neck speed! Part of me felt like such a mean mom to make him do it anyway! He was not crying or hysterical at all (I wouldn't have gone that far) so I just let him endure the experience. Fortunately, by the end he was giving everyone high fives when they came in and once we were all done he was all smiles and said he had fun. We'll call it a win for overcoming a fear! Hah!

The kids come by their Adrenaline Junkiness honestly! I LOVE this stuff!

We didn't take any pictures later that day but we went to a new beach, Playa Coco, and it was absolutely gorgeous! After the beach we enjoyed our favorite local food restaurant in San Juan del Sur. 

Yesterday we met Santa at the mall! Audrey got overwhelmed and didn't go up but the boys enjoyed meeting him. They were thrilled when he spoke English to them too! There was a little band with a keyboard, french horn and a trombone playing the most beautiful live music!