The Days Go By

Finally got Nicole's picture scanned from her basketball season!

 

For participating in a PTA art contest with a painting as well as a story, Nicole and the family was invited to a breakfast at school. She won 2nd place in her age group (K-2) in her school for her painting and 3rd place for her story she wrote.

Having breakfast in the library was a bit scary. I was glad I'd fed the kids oatmeal before coming, since donut holes and o.j. don't really make a power breakfast! The kids were so good, and despite my fears Jake did not make a mess. Whew!

Nicole took a picture of her certificate, it was sweet to see how special she felt when she was called up. And then after the other kids were all called up, Jake (before I could stop him) walked right up to the front to the lady waiting for a certificate too! Funny kid!

 

Nicole took a picture of yet another tooth gone! This is the second one she took out at school, it's so nice to know her fingers are in her mouth all the time at school. :) And today she mentioned that the tooth fairy hasn't come in two days even though the tooth is under her pillow! Jim said that I could get in touch with the tooth fairy and I said it was probably a busy season for her. Nicole was fine with that.

To celebrate my birthday, some dear friends took me to a 13,000sq ft warehouse with wall-to-wall trampolines. I had fun trying to shoot into a tall basketball hoop, trying to bounce high enough to reach a punching bag hung from the ceiling, and bouncing off trampolines on the side walls. My favorite was doing flips from the trampoline into a foam pit! After a session there, we went to a frozen yogurt shop. I am blessed to have these sweet friends.

Last night, Jim took me to a Tim McGraw concert! The venue was an outdoor amphitheater, and I bought seats in the last row that is actually under the roof. We were so close it was incredible, awesome and unforgettable.

Ready for the show to begin! There were a ridiculously small number of restrooms for the over 20,000 people attending. I don't think I'd like going there again because there was a lot of beer consumed, not as much by where we were seated but if we left our area to go near the lawn or bathrooms it was pretty crazy. I thought it was funny that in comparison we brought our Sprite and girl scout thin mint cookies :) So although the area around our seats was fine, I couldn't imagine being on the lawn and having anywhere near the experience. Also the traffic leaving was awful, it took us an hour to make the twenty minute drive.

There were two opening bands for Tim, and I recognized a song or two from each of them. I recognized a pretty mellow song from this group but everything else was wildly redneck. The drummer was incredible according to Jim so it wasn't a total loss :)

And then Tim came on! Since I've only been to a Taylor Swift concert it was interesting to compare the two styles. Tim hardly spoke at all, whereas Taylor had a monologue introducing almost every song. For Tim, there was a musical bridge, change of background scenery and on to the next song. Awesome.

 

Tim sang a whole variety of songs from his career and I knew most of them, he has so many hits that it was no wonder he didn't need to fill his concert with talking; he could just sing and everyone loved it. There was a huge difference in how Tim performed from Taylor. He didn't dance around or anything, it was more like he was just enjoying singing a bunch of his songs. He'd jump around, walk over to his band and rock out a bit, but overall was just singing his songs.

The screens behind the band would change to be different vistas or effects and that was awesome. They also had cameras on the audience that would show on the screens along with the big shot of Tim singing.

The most personal part of the show was when he had us all sing Happy Birthday to a friend of his who he grew up with that was in the audience. And then this picture was taken during the one song he sat down. For all the rest of them he was standing. I wasn't performing but was still tired from so much standing!

One of my favorite songs was She's My Kind of Rain and the background was a 3D looking rainstorm. He sang it really well and hearing it outdoors with the wind blowing was cool.

The music was loud enough that I could sing along and nobody had to cringe listening :) It seemed like everyone's favorite song was Live Like You're Dying. You could hear the audience singing and loving it. I thought it was interesting that a song written a while back had everyone dancing the most even though he sang a lot of recent hits too.

 

And last, but not least, here is Michael's picture for me. He drew a person then asked "Mom how do you draw bones?" I said I didn't know, so he just added all the bones by himself, adding that he didn't put any bones in the ears or nose. How did my boy get so smart? He's such a cute boy.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a very beautiful place with lots of mountains and rugged terrain. The plants and trees are beautiful and don't look like anything we have back home. Here is an example of a flower. The beaches here have black sand. When the water is over the sand and the sun shines on the sand it looks like thousands of gold flecks are in the sand.

The people here are very friendly and the country is relatively safe. Costa Rica relies on tourism from America and this has caused them not to tolerate the kind of drug wars that go on in Mexico. With this said you still really see how blessed we are in America. They still have barbed wire around most houses and lots of security guards in neighborhoods. Also the streets and buildings can be run down some and dirty. Many of the things that would bother us in America like haphazard buildings and streets and mismatched paint jobs just don't bother anyone. The food and water is also safe to drink in most of the larger cities. I could see myself enjoying serving a mission here one day (although my lack of Spanish is a major problem as I will note below).

We are staying in a small little house in Jaco, Costa Rica. it is a few minutes from the beach. It is small but the yard is full of the most beautiful vegetation like the flower. We also have banana trees, coconut trees, and a mango tree.

 

We have a family of iguanas in the back yard. I spent some time trying to catch the father but he just was too fast and didn't seem to want to meet me nearly as much as I wanted to meet him.

We eat at little outdoor places called Sodas. These have plates of beans and rice and fish for about 6 dollars. We had a late lunch and when dinner came around Dr. Clark and his friend they were still full and asked Luke and I if we just wanted to skip dinner. You should of seen the look on Luke's face. He said, "Well I am kind of hungry" After dinner David looked at me when Luke got up and said, "That boy can mow some food down!" Skipping dinner no matter how late lunch was is never on Luke's agenda.

 

After dinner we went to get groceries. That is no easy task. All the labels are in Spanish and none of the brands are the same. I almost bought dish soap to wash my clothes instead of laundry soap. I was going crazy because I could not find any instant oatmeal. I found a pouch of stuff on the cereal row but Luke confirmed it was not oatmeal. I had several other blunders. I saw Tony the Tiger on a box of cereal and grabbed it as the only recognizable food in the store. They call them Zucaritas or something.

I also got all mixed up at the airport. I was trying to find Luke and ended up somewhere I was not supposed to be apparently. Someone came running speaking Spanish very quickly and seemed a little upset. I pointed forward the way I wanted to go and she pointed backward and frowned. That was universal language for "wrong way buddy" I was amazed that I could not understand even one word.

Today is Sunday and Luke and I just kind of rest, read scriptures, and talk. there is a church only 45 miles from here but apparently you have to take quite a bus ride to get their and it takes like 2 hours. Luke said getting on a random bus in Central America and then walking around an unknown city trying to find the church is not to good an idea. Again, I am used to America where 45 miles is nothing but here it is a big deal, especially since streets signs seem to be the exception rather than the norm. I don't know how missionaries do it in places way more dangerous than this!

 

We basically surf in the early mornings and then Luke and I strategize about the business after lunch. Luke and I are reading a book called Good to Great and it is helping me make better business decisions I think. After this we may try to surf in the afternoon if the wind cooperates. The morning is the best. We are often up at 4 am to get to the waves at first light.  The surf can be very intense here and it is a major work out leaving you exhausted by the end of the day.

 

 
I love these lizards. I wish I could put one in my carry on. Monday was very fun. I have some scenery shots. We woke up at 3:15 in the morning and drive an hour to a surf spot called Boca Barranca. It is a special break called a point break. The wave breaks from a headland rock across a river mouth and into a bay. It is the second longest left hand wave in the world. One of the good things about the wave it is soft and not terribly powerful. The waves were huge, 6-9 feet and about double over head while ridding it. Even at this height it was manageable. There is another beach here called Hermosa beach and a waves half that size is much scarier. The surf in this location has been to large for anyone. I snapped couple picks of that wave but the picture does not do it justice. The waves looks like an explosion went off when it crashes.

At Boca Barranca you can sit further away from where the starts breaking and get a little smaller wave (still bigger waves than I have ever seen). The way the waves break if a big wave is coming you can paddle away from the waves easily. So it is a long long long long paddle but you avoid getting a lot of waves crashed on you. Waves here can break 800 meters. They were doing this Monday. It was really something to see. you have to either paddle out in the river or walk down to the pay and paddle the long way in. There is one minor downside to this wave and that is there are a good bit of crocodiles in the river. They typically get washed down and sometimes even in the surf when it rains. It has not rained in a while so luckily there were no crocodiles. The waves were to big to paddle out the river yesterday so we had to paddle the long way. it is literally a half mile paddle to the peak of the breaking waves. After you catch a wave for 500 yards you have to paddle all the way back! I think I paddled perhaps 2 miles yesterday. My arms and Luke's are super sore even with all the exercise we both did.I stayed off the main peak where it was a little smaller. I caught an incredible couple waves.

Countryside

 

 

rugged coastline

 

Sunset over Jaco beach. This beach was fun to surf on with smaller waves.
 

This is Bocca Barranca. This is Cundido. He lives right next to this wave in the house you see behind us. Everyone pays him 3 dollars to park in his gated area and he watches the cars so nothing gets stolen. You can also use his outside shower to rinse the sand off. He is a real nice guy. He tells us when the waves will be good and when they won't. He also tells us if the crocodiles are in the river. He is like a weather wizard. He knows his wave better than everyone else. He is so friendly and helps everyone.

 

This shot I pulled from the internet so you could see the wave at boca barranca. The river you see is the crocodile one. the wave wraps around the point you see. If you don't paddle out the river you have to walk all the way down the beach and paddle straight out and then over the area in front of the river.

This is another picture I pulled from the internet to show you the wave. It was bigger than this when we surfed. The wave just never crashes. It just keeps peeling around the point you see above all the way into a bay where it finally breaks. the bottom has smooth rocks so that is a little bit of a pain too. You don't want to touch the bottom. The wave breaks in deep water so it is not much of an issue except on the way out the first few steps.

Luke and I had some great times as brothers the last few days surfing together. We had perfect surf the last 2 days that was just pure fun. We both caught a wave together and rode at least 100 yards with Luke whooping. Then he fell and I kept going. I actually dropped in on him which is a surfing no no but he forgave me. He probably would not have fallen because he had to ride close to the white water while I was on the face. I surfed at least another 200 yards. Our arms and back are burning. The waves are so long you just have massive paddles back to the waves. We saw a bunch of crocs today in a river (not the one we surf thank goodness). Luke took these pics from a very safe vantage point I promise.

April

Mahi mahi, lemon asparagus, black beans, brown rice, grilled shrimp vegetable kebabs.... yum! My kids love seafood (Nicole tries to eat all of the shrimp!) and we love these healthy dinners!

The boys!

The girls!

We went on a picnic at a nearby lake before General Conference.

Diana really wanted Jake's banana!

We listened to birds and talked about the beautiful creations around us. Since the boys didn't pay much attention to conference (besides shouting out that they kept seeing Benjamin and were convinced that Holly was the organist), it was nice to get them talking about their Heavenly Father.

Little D is crawling all over now, searching out adventures, food and her siblings.

The kids were playing outside but came to say hello to D. Jim commented how safe she was with the glass dividing them!

Waiting for the community pool to open, we busted out the baby pool for some spring fun. This shot reminds me of one my mom took when I was a kid.

I have had allergy testing done- skin prick test and blood test- all of which have come out negative. Great news, right? Except my hand still has eczema flares occasionally- during the day, overnight...all very strange. Since I cut out dairy and soy 100% I haven't had any super bad eczema so I can't complain. It would be nice to "fix" it though! Anyways, here is my half cheese and half close-to-cheese. The packaging on my nondairy nonsoy cheese says "melts just like cheese". Right.

Diana adores our stuffed animals. We got her the elephant for her bday in June and I couldn't wait to give it to her. She loves wrestling and cuddling with these.