Wonderful experiences with friends and family...

Jason and I on our 'day date' yesterday. It gets dark here at 6 pm EVERY day of the year, so we try and go out in the daylight so we can explore. Here is a pic of us in Ocotal... so beautiful, but I like where we live in 'Playa Hermosa' better. The beach there was very rocky.

These are the children of my friend, Anna, with Britton and Gracie. Anna is my visiting teaching partner and I love her to pieces. It is quite amusing to hear the two of us communicate... her using her very broken English and me, my very broken Spanish. But we have muddled through and it has been very special! She lives about 70 minutes from me  in 'Pijiji' and I went to her home once to go visiting teaching, and another when she invited us over for dinner. We also had them over at our place for a day to swim and go to the beach. This picure is taken in her back yard.

This is a picture of Anna (in the black), her daughter, and Britton, gathering water to haul up to her home. Unfortunately, there are water pressure problems in her area, so she cannot get water to her home. And, even worse, she has to wake at 1 am every morning, walk down a dirt path, and get water from a hose that has water pressure ONLY at that time for her to fill up her pails. She didn't complain... it was just how it was done! I insisted on helping, and she didn't want me to. She needed the water to prepare dinner.

Here I am resting from hauling water... I was breaking a sweat hauling it up the hill. Anna had two buckets filled all the way to the top, no big deal for her! I was very impressed.

Here is the WAY yummy dinner Anna and her husband prepared for us. We were all starving after church and it tasted amazing. Never knew I'd like fried bananas! After we left Britton said, "Mom, I feel bad... if we ate their food are they going to have enough to feed their own family? I reassured Britton that we were having them over the next day and we'd make sure and feed them plenty!

Here the kids are on their sofa after dinner, just being goofy. I love all of those kids! I loved how we bonded with them, despite language barrier. They are an absolutely darling family.

 We were so happy to have the missionaries take the long bus ride from Liberia to spend part of their P-day to have some lunch and see the beach. Elder Sangster was our favorite (don't tell the others!), but just had such a hilarious sense-of-humor and truly has embraced his mission. He told us some amazing stories... it was so wonderful to have them here! He had not seen the beach on his mission in Costa Rica yet! We were surprised as he has been here 16 months. He was thrilled to see it.

A picture with the 4 missionaries (Jason taking picture) and Anna and her family in our backyard. Anna and her family also took the bus out and spent the day with us. What a wonderful day it was!

 Later that day, after the missionaries had gone home, we went to the beach and met up with our Finland friends. We invited them over after the beach for dinner and night swimming. We played HARD that day!

This is a picture of Britton with his 4th-5th grade class. They had made pinwheels.

This is a picture of Gracie's 1st grade class. She is learning Spanish quickly as she has only one friend in her class who speaks English... and even that friend usually speaks Spanish. Her teacher, Kelsie, does speak English, however, so that is good. Every day Grace comes home with new words! Grace is on the left-hand side, BTW.

 I was so excited to see my name written on a wall in Liberia. But when I found out it was a diaper-laundering service, not so enthused anymore! ;)

 Jason and I went to Liberia with an American friend, Rebecca (can you see her behind Jason?) Rebecca and her husband Walter are expecting their 4th girl and we were delighted to have another English-speaking family in our branch.

This is the fruit and vegetable 'fair' that they have every Thursday and Friday. Farmers come from near and far to sell their freshest, and it is CHEAP!

This is Jason's 3rd load to the car... all for $35. And we SCORED! Needless to say, I was chopping and preparing fruits and veggies like CRAZY for several weeks!

 We see this scene A LOT here; sugar cane fields burning down. From what we've been told, the snake problem is really bad here (thank goodness... haven't seen a snake yet!) and after they harvest, they burn down the field to get rid of the snakes. We drive down roads with both sides burning all the time. The first time we were alarmed, but now we are used to it. I have only seen ONE fire engine in the whole time I've been here. I can't figure out how they can just let them burn when it is the dry season right now, and it is SO dry!

My Uncle Jeff, Aunt Nancy, cousin Chris, his wife Brenda, and their daughter, Arden, came to visit for 5 days and it was so wonderful! Here is a pic at the Cortez Waterfall... one of our favorite destinations here so far.

We went to breakfast at the Playa Hermosa hotel, right on the beach and 'beach beautiful' it was (Playa Hermosa translated)! We were a little disappointed the howler monkeys weren't there, as they usually are swinging through the trees at breakfast time, but we saw plenty of them later. Grace and Brock had a ball keeping Arden entertained. She is my cousin's daughter, and we all fell in love with her. We even were able to babysit while they went on an excursion for the day! In this picture, Brock is goofing around with Arden and wearing her hat. He is so cute with little kids... it makes my heart melt!

The White-throated Magpie-jay, or the locals call it an 'Urraca'

We went for a trip on the ocean with my visiting family. So pretty... I wish Jason could have been there, he had to leave town. He went foreign... to San Diego!

This is a HUGE nest of termites. They were all over the place in a little area we toured on the boat. Bleck...

The guide took us to a little private beach where we snorkeled, and enjoyed the caves. Here we are finding little sand critters.

These caves were incredible... with the waves crashing through from the other side.

Swimming with the family. This pool gets used probably more than our beds do... did I mention it is REALLY HOT right now?

We decided to try a 'soda', which is a tiny restaurant. This one is in 'Sardinal' and it was really good. Austin and I ate the local dish called a 'Casada,' and the rest had pizza. We will be back... we fed our family for CHEAP!

Austin's dinner... a typical 'casada'; rice, beans, meat, and fried bananas. This one had a macaroni salad too. They usually have a big green salad with it.

Visiting teaching! My partner, Anna, is on the far left, the one to my right is a missionary (I know, she is teeny), then a new member, another missionary, and the new member's daughter. I was seriously NO help other than the car, but I loved going. They asked me to say the prayer and I told them I hadn't learned how to do that in Spanish yet... DOH!  It was so eye-opening as these homes were TEENY, with very few homes having an actual floor... mostly dirt. I was indeed humbled!

This is one of my favorite pictures. These are Anna's children, Iam, Jonathan, Valerie, and Stephanie, and Anna is taking the picture. They could not have been more warm and kind to me. They showed me all their fruit trees and sent me home with fruit. I was indeed touched. The youngest, Iam, has epilepsy and Anna told me, "I buy his medication before I buy our food." Her husband works in construction and is rarely home.

Here are some baby parrots that were all over Anna's yard.

A beautiful flower from Anna's yard

Yep, not all sunshine and flowers here... one of the MANY ear infections we ALL took turns having. We discovered the water in our pool wasn't being cleaned properly and it caused us all to get sick. Now, with new pool 'guys', it has been tested and is safe.

We had our friends from church, the Briggs, over for the weekend and we had a ball. We were delighted to have another American family move into the branch! Here are Austin and Britton with their three girls, and one more on the way! They are having the baby in San Jose... a 4-hour bus ride away.

Our first car problem... the first of many! It's almost been in the shop longer than we have had a chance to drive the piece!