What we've been up to

As I've said before, I'm not too great at updating this, so I am again behind in my blog.

In October the kids had a few days off of school and we decided to hit the road and head for the Caribbean side of the country. There are far less visitors and hotels on the Caribbean side, probably because it rains alot more there. Although October and November are the rainiest months for most of the country, it's the best time to visit the Caribbean. After a 4 1/2 hour ride we enjoyed 3 days at a quiet hotel right on the beach with a few other families we know. We all had a great time, and enjoyed seeing a new area of the country. We passed many, many acres of banana fields and pineapple fields, many of which are sent to the US.

I went onto VRBO.com, a great web site to find vacation rentals, and found a wonderful house with a private pool and awesome views. Again we were able to spend time with some of our friends who were also visiting the area. The highlight of our visit was a night walk on the beach where we were able to see a Ridley sea turtle laying her eggs. The turtles are endangered, and are very well protected here so we had to go with a guard to see the turtle. It was a really need experience for us all.

This week we are getting ready to head home for the holiday's. In fact, Dustin and Zoey are already on their way to Arkansas, while the rest of us will fly Thursday. We will be in Missouri and Arkansas for a little over 2 weeks and we are looking forward to seeing all of our family and friends.

I think Dustin has all of the pictures with him, so maybe I can add them later.

Temple Trip

Yesterday we were able to go with Austin to the Temple for his first time. It was a wonderful experience for him and for Dustin and I as parents.

Dustin serves in the Young Men's program and we were both able to go with the YM/YW. Dustin did about 150 baptisms and 80% of them in Spanish, I was quite impressed!

Austin at the Temple
This is a picture of our ward youth group and the leaders.

This is our entire youth group except for 2.

Tag, I'm it!

My sister Vicky tagged me yesterday so here it is.

Here are the rules:
"MY UNSPECTACULAR QUIRKS"
1.Link to the person who tagged you
2.Mention the rules on your blog
3.Tell 6 unspectacular quirks about you
4.Tag 6 bloggers by linking to them
5.Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blogs letting them know they've been tagged.
First of all don't expect the links, because I am not that computer literate!

When I first got this I thought, I can't think of any strange quirks that I have. But after brainstorming with the help of my hubby I have come up with a list to share with you all. (I'm pretty sure Dustin came up with most of these. Thanks honey!)

1. I am not an e-mailer. I much prefer a conversation on the phone or in person. When I want to discuss something I don't want it to take a few days, or even hours to make a decision or to hear back from someone. Along with this I'm not a huge fan of e-vites. To me they are very impersonal and how do save that it a scrapbook if you wanted to? No offense to anyone who loves e-vite, that's just me.

2. I love to read! The only problem is that when I am reading a good book I am lost to the world, just ask my family! My husband can't understand how I can be surrounded by 5 noisy kids and not hear a thing when I'm in the middle of a good book. It absolutely drives Dustin crazy!

3. When I am deep in thought or concentrating on something I bite my tongue. Not only that, but when I used to feed my babies I would open my mouth as I fed the baby (unknowingly). It took Dustin a long time to figure out why Austin wouldn't eat for him, he watched me feed him one day and pointed this out to me.

4. I don't know why, but I pass medial tasks, that I could do, to Dustin. It is something I just recently realized, but if, for example, we have a problem with the internet, I will ask Dustin to call them. I don't know why I do this, because I'm sure I have more time and I'm totally capable, I just do. I'm going to have to work on correcting this problem.

5. When I fold laundry everything has to be folded just so (a.k.a. my way). If Dustin volunteers to help I usually turn him down or I let him fold only his own clothes. Now the really strange part of this is that living in Costa Rica I have a maid who does almost all of the laundry and I don't care at all how she fold it (sometimes things are still inside out), I'm just glad I don't have to do it or watch how she fold it!

6. I'm always right! O.K. maybe not always, but at least 99.5% of the time! I can honestly say that I truly believe this when I am discussing something with my husband. In fact one time we were discussing the fact that I think I'm always right and I said "ok, maybe I'm not always right... but really I almost always am!" It made Dustin so mad!

So now I am tagging:
Christine, Kim, Tamara, Crystal, Wendy & Desaray
Have fun!

New York City

A few weeks ago Dustin and I were lucky enough to get away for 6 days with out the kids. I've always wanted to go to New York City and I finally got the chance. We absolutely loved the city! We saw all of the tourist sights and a couple Broadway shows. We absolutely loved Wicked, but weren't crazy about In the Heights. The weather was gorgeous and we walked miles and miles every day. We enjoyed eating American food, walking in Central Park, and of course being together!

The kids stayed in Costa Rica with the maid during the week (I felt a little guilty because she only speaks spanish), and then they went to a couple of my friends houses for the weekend. A Huge THANKS to my friends Jenny and Angela, we couldn't have gone without you both!

Company?

A few weeks ago I walked into our dining area and sitting on our window casing was a parakeet!

The parakeets are always around, sitting right outside our bathroom windows and making all kinds of racket starting at about 5 am.

I hurried to get a picture before he flew away, but apparently he had no plans for leaving. The girls went over to the window to visit and he pecked on the glass while they tapped from the inside. Zoey meanwhile was scared to death of it. We played with it (through the glass) for about 15 minutes, but then had to leave, and he was still there.

I guess it was just one of the amazing things you come across living in Costa Rica!

Independence Day

Some of you may remember our Christmas card last year featuring our "Tico" children (a Costa Rican is refered to as a Tico). Well, Independence Day for Central America is this coming Monday, September 15th, so today they celebrated at school. All of the children come dressed in their typical Costa Rican clothing. The girls get to wear beautiful skirts and blouses, which of course they love!! And the boys dress as caballeros (cowboys) with white shirts, hats and bandannas. Then they all parade around the school grounds carrying lanterns, sing the national anthem, dance and celebrate their independence from Spain. It's fun to see our children dressed up and enjoying this cultural experience.

Braden

ZoeyKayleeIsabellaAustin

All of our little Ticos

Blessings in Costa Rica

I just wanted to share some great news with everyone that we are really excited about.

You may not know it, but Braden has struggled with school pretty much from the beginning. When he was in 1st grade the school did some testing with him and said he had a learning/reading disorder. When I asked what the difference was between that and Dyslexia, they said "we don't like to put a label on the kids". So, he has gone to a reading specialist for about an hour a day during language arts since 1st grade.

When we were deciding to move to Costa Rica we were really concerned as to whether or not he could get the help he needed here. Well, we found a school that we thought would work and we moved here.

Last year the reading specialists worked with Braden, but they weren't having much success. They tried everything they knew to help him, but weren't very successful. They talked to us about getting him further testing to figure out the best way to help him learn. The problem has never been his willingness to learn because his teacher always say he is very attentive and eager to learn. So in May we started testing him and we finally received an actual diagnosis for Dyslexia.

I never knew you could be excited to have your child diagnosed with Dyslexia, but we are very excited. We have found a tutor who specializes in Dyslexia and will be using the Barton System with him. We are so excited about this program and everything it can do for Braden.

We really feel as though this has been the biggest blessing we could ever receive from moving here. I think that if we hadn't come here we never would have gotten a real diagnosis and Braden could have floundered for years.

So I guess...Thank-you Wal-Mart for sending us to Costa Rica!

Beach Boy Braden