Playa Hermosa

Yesterday afternoon we packed a bag and headed to Hermosa Beach for Jordi's birthday.  When we got there we put our stuff in our room and grabbed some surf boards and headed for the surf.  Within five minutes of being in the water I felt a pain on my foot.  I thought something had bitten me- it hurt but not nearly as bad as I had heard stingrays felt so I assumed it wasn't a sting ray and hopped out of the water to check it out.  Once out of the water a couple people looked at it and said it was definitely a sting from a sting ray.  I thought for a minute "well this isn't so bad" but they all said I should go put my foot in some hot water so I headed over to the restaurant for some water.  It took them about ten minutes to boil me some water and by that time I was no longer thinking that it wasn't so bad.  I was in some serious pain.  The hot water came and it helped quite a bit, although it was so hot that I couldn't leave my foot in it for long.  After an hour or two it felt much better and I was able to get back to the party.  On the one hand getting stung made me more scared to get in the water, on the other hand it made me realize that while it does hurt, it also goes away and it's bareable.  I know that I didn't get a very "bad" sting but I definitely felt what it feels like- not fun but it doesn't hold a candle to childbirtth.

By this point it was getting dark, we had some dinner then headed back to the beach for a bon fire.  We roasted marshmallows, the kids ran around chasing frogs, and the adults chatted.  It was a great evening. 

We ended it with some birthday cake for the birthday girl.  Since we didn't have any candles for her to blow out she just did a face plant into the cake instead.

 

Of course the boys had to get in on the fun.  All I can say about these three is it's a good thing they're all so stinkin cute.

We then retired to our rooms.  We all climbed into our mosquito nets and settled down for a long night.  Between the heat and getting tangled in the nets we didn't get much sleep (yeah we're kind of spoiled) but the boys still woke up bright and early so we went out to some hammocks and enjoyed the view.

 

At this point it was time to surf again.  I'm not going to lie, I was nervous to go back out into the water but I also knew that I had to show my kids that fear can't stop you from doing things that you want to do so we grabbed a board and headed back out.  Within a few minutes I was having a great time and not thinking about stingrays.  Carter is getting to be a pretty good little surfer, we have a good time surfing together (Cam has yet to get a picture of me surfing, maybe next time.)

 

A couple of the other little boys started surfing.  Logan had never really wanted to try to surf, he was always happy with his boogie board but once he saw Mattie and Ford he really wanted to try. 

How cute is Ford surfing?

 

He was able to get up on all fours but never quite made it to his feet.  Now he's begging me to take him for surfing lessons so we'll have to get that done in the next week or so.

The kids played in the sand with their new friends, surfed, enjoyed the hammocks and just overall had a great time.  Other than the sting ray incident it couldn't have been a more perfect trip to the beach, definitely an awesome birthday part.  As I looked at these pictures I thought "what if you could have an amazing beach pretty much all to yourselves for a ten year olds birthday party, only in Nicaragua."  thanks again McBroom's for inviting us.

What we've been up to

Tonight I got in trouble with my husband because I haven't posted anything for a while, I told him that we hadn't done anything new or exciting and he explained how everything we do was new and that I needed to post about our day to day (shopping in Nicaragua, the many taxi drivers that we've met, etc.) so I promise to do a post on each of those topics but I want to get a few pics to go with them because pics make every post better. 

What I decided to tell you about tonight was an amazing family who is needing our help to change their lives.  Our spanish teacher Irlanda has been an amazing teacher and friend to us.   She has helped us so much here, from spanish lessons to learning how to cook using the local ingredients she's been a godsend. 

 

We recently learned about her brother Alvero.  Alvero and his wife have four children.  Their home (before today) consisted of a one room, dirt floor shack (for lack of a better term).  My amazing friend Julie saw the conditions that this familiy was living in and couldn't help but do something.  She's been raising money to build this family a new home.  For less than 8,000 dollars they will be able to build a three bedroom home with running water and electricity. 

 

They are getting close to their goal but still need a few thousand dollars.  Having faith they've moved forward with the project and just today they tore down this house:

 

Alvero and his wife and children will live with family while thier new home is built.  With the rainy season fast approaching it's very important that they are able to move quickly so raising the rest of the money is a necessity.  They're hoping to complete the house before Julie leaves Nicaragua in November, which just happens to be the same time we will be leaving.  We're excited for the opportunity to change this family's life and we thought we'd share the opportunity with our friends and family.  If you're interested in donating visit Julies blog:

 

http://www.hipmum.com/2012/08/housing-project-building-a-home-for-family-of-6/

 

Watch my blog for updates and pictures on Alvero and his family as the house is built. Hopefully we'll even have some pics of the completed house to share before we leave.

 



Another great day in paradise

Today we rented a car and went to church.  Pretty much the only negative to the place we're living is that the closest branch is 30 minutes away in Rivas, we have a couple options to get there.  We can either rent a car, take a taxi (which costs about the same as renting a car for a day) or take the chicken bus.  We haven't yet got brave enough to take the chicken bus but we will have to do that before we leave :)  We left quite early because I wasn't certain I'd be able to find the church again, we got there at 7:30 for an 8:00 sacrament meeting, or so I thought.  Nobody was there yet so we went to the central park and played for a few minutes.  The nicest security guard ever let me know that he'd watch my car for me while we played.  We went back at 8:00 and found one couple at the church.  They were super nice and spoke a little english, between their english and my spanish we were able to communicate.  We found out that church started at 9:00, Camryn wasn't very happy with the fact that I'd woken her up at 6:00.  So we drove around the town a little more and went back at about 8:45.  Church was great, the boys went to primary and enjoyed it- their teacher spoke some english so that was helpful, Camryn's YW teacher did not speak any english so she said she sat in the corner and didn't speak at all. 

After church we met up with my friend Julie and went to NPH, an orphanage in Jinotepe.  It was absolutely amazing.  The kids there are awesome, it was such a great organization.  I feel like I'm going to be asking my friends and family to give money to many people while I'm down here but seriously if you're looking for a good organization to donate to, this would be one (http://www.nph-nicaragua.org/).  They take in abondoned and abused children, they have clean nice houses for the kids to live in, they were happy, healthy, and very well behave children.  They all go to school and after graduating high school NPH even has a program that allows them to go to college if they'd like to.  I asked Julie before we went if she just wants to take the kids home with her everytime she goes and she said "no, I just want to stay there with them.  They're in the best place for them that they could be" and I couldn't agree more.  I could have stayed there all day and played with them.  The other great thing about being around kids is that I don't feel as stupid practicing my horribly broken spanish.  They were great to patiently wait for me to finish sentences and then do their best to slowly answer so I could understand.  One 12 year old girl, named Danni, immediately started talking to Logan and Carter, she told me they were both muy guapo (handsome) and then she wouldn't let Logan leave her side.  In the car on the way home he told me he may have fallen in love (I totally screwed up and didn't get any pictures of her- next time).

 

Camryn fell in love with this little boy.

 

See how beautiful this place is, totally not like the orphanage in Annie.

When we got back to San Juan del Sur we decided to take advantage of the fact that we had a car and go to the beach and finally catch a sunset over the water.  It was awesome, the boys were in awe with how pretty it was (Camryn stayed behind with Julie and her family so she missed it.)

It was one of those days that just felt right.  I keep having to pinch myself because it's still very surreal that we are actually living in Nicaragua.  The only thing that would make it better would be if Jeremy were here with us.  Actually if we're wishing, I'd love for all of our friends and family to just come on down and move here, I could definitely talk my kids into staying forever if that happened.

Hangin' ten

Today we went to playa Hermosa for some surf lessons.  Camryn and Carter got surf lessons while me and Logan played on a boogie board.  They all did so good surfing for their first times.  Carter may have found a new love, he did not ever want to stop.  I kept encouraging breaks and he never wanted to take one.  Even when it started raining he wanted to stay out in the water and surf.  Here are a few of the pics.

First the kids got lessons on how to get up on the board.

Then they were ready to hit the waves

 Carter got up his first try, his only complaint was that the ride didn't last long enough because he loved every second of it.

 

Seriosly, how cool does Camryn look in this pic?

It started to rain and storm a little so I made the kids get out of the water for a while.  They made some sand art.

 

We're all missing dad a lot these days :(

 

 

 Then Carter made a self portrait, can we count this as art class for today?

 

Then it was back to the waves.  Logan had a blast on his boogie board.

It was an awesome day.  One we will be doing again soon.  My only complaint is that it's a lot more stressful when I have three kids to worry about, I wanted to sit in the hammock and enjoy for a while but I didn't ever feel like I could let them play without being right there and they were not about to come and sit in a hammock with me for any amount of time.  All of them are already asking when we are going back.

Making progress, un poco

This week we started taking spanish lessons from Irlanda.  She's awesome, so far she's just been here one day but I feel like it's helped me a lot.  She's very strict and even when I just want to have a conversation about something and I don't want to be in school she forces me to try en espanol.  It's usually pretty much a failure but then she helps me to figure out the words and I stumble through the conversation.

Today we went into town with one goal, to get a hammock or maybe two.  I practiced and practiced the words that I'd need to negotiate with the hammock sales people.  It went OK, I was hoping to get a couple of them for around 12 each and I ended up paying 15 a piece, one lady was very nice and came down from her original price of 450 cordobas (about 20.00) to 15.00.  She only had the larger kind that you lay in.  So we bought one from her and went searching for a smaller one that you sit in.  We found some and the lady told us 15.00 I tried and tried to talk her down but she wasn't budging and she was not very nice.  I walked away but then I really really wanted another hammock so I went back and paid the 15.00.  I didn't want to buy it from her since she was so unfriendly but I REALLY wanted a hammock.

After hammock shopping we went to the beach and let the kids play for a while.  While I was sitting there waiting one of the many people selling pottery came by.  I actually really needed a large bowl for mixing stuff.  Our condo has only the basics and no larger bowls or pots.  So I talked to the guy for a while, he asked me where I was from, I actually understood and was able to answer.  He asked about the kids and I told them that yes those three kids belong to me.  He asked about their dad and I told them he was at home but he'd be coming to visit in a few weeks.  We had a very nice conversation, I'm sure it was because he was trying to sell me something but he was really nice.  In the end I did buy a large bowl from him, one that his mother made (or so he said). 

After playing at la playa I remembered that Irlanda had instructed us that we needed to buy some flashcards before our next lesson and that there was a place in town by the park where we could get some so we made our way there.  Once at the park I couldn't see the store she had told me about so I had to ask around.  I was able to explain to someone in spanish that I was looking for a place to buy flashcards, paper, etc and they pointed me in the right direction.

At this point it was time to get home.  I found a taxi driver and negotiated the price for him to take us home.  He started at 80 cordobas, I told him that was too much and offered 40, we settled on 50.

So I'm feeling pretty proud of myself tonight.  I had several conversations in what was probably the most broken spanish ever spoken but I was able to communicate a little and that's progress.  It can only get better from here an I'm very excited to spend more time with Irlanda.  Ahora necesito trabajar, hasta luego.

Where are we going? To the beach!

We've been to a couple of beaches in the past couple of days.  On Friday we went to the San Juan Del Sur Beach.  We weren't wearing swimming suits so the plan was to just get our feet in, unfortunately the boys weren't able to follow through with the plan.

After playing at the beach and eating some pizza we walked around town

 

Then on Saturday we went with some new friends to Playa Marsalla.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The waves were pretty small which bugged Carter cause he was really wanting to body surf, but it was perfect for the smaller kids that were with us.

 

After some fun in the waves all the kids searched for sea shells and found some real treasures to bring home.  I hope everyone at home is excited about sea shells for their souvenirs :)

 

The main thing we've learned in the past few days is that we need to learn spanish and we need to learn it FAST.  Our friends who live next door have a lady that comes to their house three days a week and teaches them, we're hoping to hire her to come to our house starting tomorrow.  Hasta Luego.

Our Home away from home

Thought I'd post a few pics of the place we are calling home.  it's pretty awesome.  I probably should have found something that would be more like a local would live but my kids may have tried to hitch-hike home had I done that.  So instead we are living in a resort that is amazing. 

There's a pool side restaurant-

 

The kids are enjoying the pool WAY too much.

 

 

There's a yoga deck.  Here Logan and Carter show us some nice yoga moves :)

 Cobblestone streets get you from the pool to our home, just around the corner.

 

This is our front door.

 

And this is our back patio.

 

Camryn has always wanted her own cat, apparently we have several now. Last night one of them even stole a peice of pizza off of Logan's plate.

 

 

The boys room has a balcony that looks out the back yard.

 

 

We aren't on the beach but we have an awesome view of the ocean

 

 

And this is our living room.

 

 

It's a very comfortable, safe place to be.  We are enjoying our new home.  We went to the grocery store today and got a few things to put in the fridge and cupboards making it feel even more like home.  The only thing it's missing is some visitors (hint hint).