Yesterday was an accidentally amazing day! We had loose plans that turned out to be magical!
The kids were invited by their karate instructor to come watch a Central American region karate tournament in Managua. They aren't ready to compete just yet but I thought it would be good for them to see what it's all about. The kids and I headed over in the morning and for 90 minutes all 4 kids sat in the bleachers of the gym mesmerized and totally fascinated by the competitors. They all came away from it inspired to keep training so someday they can also compete and spar. Their karate coach was one of the local instructors coordinating the tournament and he had a few of members of his team earn medals and trophies, including the overall first place! We love the instructor, he is so good with the kids and they are loving karate!
The kids with their coach and his team
Cutest photo bomber! There were 3 mats set up with judges at each mat so there was always someone competing.
R&R getting ready for their after school karate class on Friday
On Monday for Family Home Evening we had a lesson on giving service. We learned that "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God." Mosiah 2:17 The kids each had a 5x5 BINGO chart and they were challenged to complete acts of service throughout the week to check off a square on the BINGO chart. On Monday we planned a family trip to POPS, our favorite ice cream shop, for Saturday to enjoy the sweet rewards of service with an ice cream cone.
On Monday night Redick asked what the prize would be if anyone filled up the entire BINGO sheet for a blackout. Mitchell said if anyone got a blackout they would earn a banana split! Redick was focused on that goal all week and managed to give 25 acts of service throughout the week and got his banana split!
Reid earned 3 BINGOs and got a dipped cone.
Audrey also did lots of service throughout the week and earned her cone!
We had planned earlier in the week to go to a beach we had never visited before. On the Pacific coast near Leon there is an estuary where a river flows into the ocean. It forms a kind of reservoir/bay right there on the coast. Mitchell had read that there is a bird sanctuary there and that we could charter a boat to take us out to an island to see some birds. On Saturday afternoon we wavered about going. We wondered if it would be worth the drive or if we were getting too late a start to be able to do anything. After a brief huddle we decided to go anyway and at worst we would have to come back another time if we didn't have time to do everything. It was a nice drive and we got there a little bit before 4:00pm. Mitchell went to find out if we could get a boat to take us to the bird sanctuary and the kids found a bunch of other kids playing and joined right in.
Pretty cool little city they made out of tourist brochures!
Mitchell found a boat that agreed to take us up the estuary to see birds and the mangrove forest. He asked if we would be interested in participating in the release of 280 just hatched baby Olive Ridley sea turtles. Um YES!!!!
These Mangroves are super neat looking!
Captain Reid!
We had an abbreviated boat tour and saw many beautiful birds and were fascinated by the mangrove trees growing in the marshy brine. We stopped off at a secluded beach and got to see the sea turtle nesting site! One of the men working there told me that when a momma turtle comes up on the beach in the middle of the night they watch her for safety. When she leaves they dig up the eggs and move them to canvas bags that simulate the mother's nest. By bagging up the eggs in canvas bags of sand they protect the eggs from natural predators and accidents. He told me that through their preservation efforts they have a 90% survival rate of the baby turtles. If left completely to nature the baby turtles only have a 20% survival rate.
Right at sunset, 5:30pm, we went down near the shore and got to place the baby turtles on the sand and watch them scurry out into the water! By waiting until sunset the main predators, birds and crabs, had already gone away for the day and the baby turtles could run into the water safely. It was exhilarating!
Each bag contains the entirety of one momma turtle's nest. There are between 60-110 eggs per bag. They are kept safe and supervised until the baby turtles hatch in the early morning hours and climb out on their own. Then the rangers keep the babies in a large bucket the rest of the day and release the babies at sunset on the same day they hatched.
Layne found this tiny puppy and fell in love.
At 5:30 we all gathered near the shore to release the turtles
We got to take a really fun cooking class in Granada a couple of weeks ago! It was at La Tortilla cooking school and we totally loved it! All of the kids were involved in cutting, stirring, mixing and making tortillas. Oh, and at the end we enjoyed the delicious meal we prepared! We made a yummy dish called Indio viejo along with a cooked tomato salsa to put over it and some from scratch tortillas.
Ready to get our hands dirty!
Layne putting the diced tomatoes in the pot
Audrey spent all morning at home making this wonderful chef hat for her official chef lesson. It was adorable!
This kid is such a heart throb!
This is Reid, all of the kids got to use the sharp knives and participate in preparing the meal.
Shaping the tortillas
Our Nicaraguan chef was super sweet with the kids. Layne was carefully turning the tortillas.
Does that look awesome or what???!? It was totally delicious!
On the left are our fresh tortillas, then the Indio Viejo. It is kind of like a thick soup with chicken, veggies and a slurry of cornmeal and broth. On the right is the cooked salsa called Sofrito. We will be making this again at home! YUM!
It's been a while! After our 5 day trip to Costa Rica we decided to stay close to home on the weekends and re-build our vacation fund. Costa Rica was MUCH more expensive than Nicaragua! We have had some fun here though.
We attended a baseball game in Leon a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit of a last minute decision that morning so we just tried our luck at buying tickets right outside the gate. The box office was sold out but there were plenty of scalpers in the parking lot. We ended up way over paying, $2/ticket! Haha! Our seats were on the front row directly behind the batter's box. It was lots of fun! .....until Leon won and we were showered in beer literally raining down on us!
Since we were right behind the fence, front and center, ALSO the fact that we are so obviously NOT Nicaraguan, we apparently got a ton of face time on the TV broadcast of the game. Several people we know told us they watched us on TV and even a random employee at a burrito shop mentioned that he had seen us at the game. Ugh.
It was really loud!
My fair skinned blonde kids have gotten used to receiving a TON of attention. People will walk out of their way to touch their heads or faces and random people want to take pictures with them. I am really surprised that Layne was willing to let this drunk guy hold him!
It is so fun to share one of our favorite activities with the kids! Board games!! They are getting good too!
My cameral roll on my phone is full of silly selfies like this! Love these little crazy people!
Some cute little Nicaraguan critters. LOL! Just Kidding! The tarantula was under our couch when we got home from Costa Rica. I thought it was dead when I put the UNO card next to it to take the picture. About 2 seconds later it ran away and I scared all of the kids and probably the neighbor's kids when I screamed! Mitchell saw the scorpion when he was walking home from work one day. Fortunately, it is the only scorpion encounter we've had here.
I have been able to be a little more involved at the kids school lately, it's been fun! Layne's class was learning about the parts of a house and they got to take a field trip to our house! It was so adorable and fun! And reminded me that I am very glad to not have had 11-tuplets! Eleven 3 year olds in one room is crazy!
Reid continues to be our self-proclaimed "sports kid" He has been practicing his athletic skills a lot lately!
Redick isn't as interested in baseball, basketball and soccer but he does love to climb! I am super impressed with that upper body strength! This was at least his 4th time climbing this pole too!
The office manager at Mitchell's office got married this weekend! She has been so instrumental in helping us here in Nicaragua and we just love her and her new husband Salvador. It was a beautiful ceremony and a great party after. I didn't get any good pictures of her with my phone but their photographer definitely took his job seriously and got a ton of photos.
Of course we celebrated Halloween too! The US Embassy puts on a great party every year and we had a lot of fun! Layne was Marshall from his favorite show, Paw Patrol. Reid was Batman, Audrey was a mailbox like she was 2 years ago and Redick was a very convincing Mario.
