Volleyball in Nicaragua

This week on Thursday Cam was asked to play on a school volleyball team.  She had practice that day after school and then Friday was a huge tourney.  She was told to be at the gas station at 8:00.  In very Nica-like fashion they stood there for about a half hour then were told to walk up the road (in the opposite direction than where they'd be playing).  We went up the road to another intersection where a whole bunch of kids were all waiting.  We didn't completely understand what was happening but in the next 30 to 45 minutes a band showed up, they passed around shirts and flags and a truck showed up with signs for all the different sports.  We eventually figured out that there was more than a volleyball tournament going on.  There was football (soccer), handball, surfers, basketball, MMA, volleyball and some other signs that I couldn't read.  Eventually (probably about 10:00) they started the parade.  They walked all through town, in the front was a guy with a torch followed by all the kids holding flags and a band playing.

Warming up for the game

 

The game was played in the middle of a road which was blocked off for the event.  There wasn't much diving that happened but the Nicaraguans have figured out many ways to improvise and they use their feet a lot more to get balls that we'd normally dive for.  Their were some really good players.

 

At one point the ref blew the whistle to stop play.  We all wondered why then we noticed a drunk guy had stumbled onto the court and collapsed in the middle of the other team.  This guy helped him over to the sidewalk where he slept it off for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

Cam hitting the ball.  She was a little nervous at first since she couldn't understand her teammates or her coach but after the first game she worked out her jitters and did awesome. 

 

There were two teams from Stella Maris that played.  The white shirts were an older team and included Cam's friend Molly, they ended up taking first place.  Cam was on the red team, they started out a little slow but by the end were playing well together and ended up taking third.

 

Later that night there was a ceremony to give out the trophies and awards.  It started out with some Nicaraguan dancers.

 

This is Cam's team getting their tercero-lugar trophy. 

New news

A couple exciting things happened this week that I thought I'd share.  First, on Sunday we went back to NPH (the orphanage that we visited shortly after we got here.)  Right when we got there Danni ran up and gave Logan a hug.  Danni is a girl that Logan really connected with the first time we went.  Logan was super excited to see her again.  A few minutes later Logan couldn't find her so we spent the next hour or so looking for her.  We visit a few houses along the way but didn't find her, Logan was getting sad until all of a sudden he saw her running towards us and he started running towards her until they got to each other and hugged, it was seriously so cute.  We knew that we wanted to do something for her so I asked her if I could be her Madrina (sponsor/ godmother).  She was super excited and turned to Logan and said "Now you are my brother."  We hope to visit her and/or have her come here to visit us a couple times before we head home.

 



The next exciting thing happened today.  Camryn went to school!!  She decided that she wants to learn spanish bad enough that she wanted to go to a local spanish speaking school.  She has a friend who goes to Stell Maris, a catholic school in town, so she talked to her and decided she wanted to go too.  We went to town yesterday and found her a uniform, she looks so cute in it.  She woke up early and got to school on time (7:00 am) and I worried about her all day.  I went to pick her up at 12:15 because that's when school usually ends.  She came out to let me know that on Tuesday's they have English class so they don't get out until 1:00.  I suggested that she could probably leave because she already knows English but she really wanted to stay so I took the other kids to pottery class and came back to get her.  She was so happy, the kids were super nice to her, she met a really nice friend (whose name she can't remember because it's a spanish name), her Teacher was super nice and it couldn't have gone better.  The only bad news that she had for me was that she was picked randomly as the person to bring brunch on Thursday.  So I have to figure out what to make for the 31 kids in her grade.

 

 

Camryn's friend told us before that Camryn might not want to use her full name because Camarone in spanish means shrimp and the kids might make fun of her for having the name of shrimp so we decided her Nicaraguan name should be Camila and she said she was really glad she had done that because everyone remembered it and could say it and she thinks it helped, only a couple times did she accidentally write the wrong name :)

Carter also chose the Nicaraguan name of Carlos and Logan is Leo (although pretty much everyone already knows Logan as Osito so his is probably not necessary but he didn't want to be left out.)

Another great day in paradise, other than missing our family it's getting easier and easier to be here and the thought of leaving is getting harder and harder. . .

Tengo Miedo

hey this is carter and my mom wants me to tell you guys about how a nicaraguan man tried to attack us with a coin


     Well, we were walking and this man was walkin towards us and my mom was paying like no
attention the man had a coin and was like trying to hit us or something but we were like 3 yards away but there was a man who was waving his hands and saying "be careful" so my mom grabbed me and stopped me and turned me around.  We looked back to see a crazy man waving his hands and shouting.  So my mom was watching him and when people got to close they'd wave and shout at him so they obviously knew to watch out for him but didn't know so we were glad the other guy helped us.

This is Logan, I'm going to tell you a story about a snake. 

    So, I was by the couch, and then I yelled "SNAKE!!"  and then everyone got up on chairs and then we got the guards to come and kill it.  They chopped it's head off with a big machete, then there was blood on the floor and we were scared to heck.

Too much fun (week two)

Sorry for the long posts, I'd promise not to do it again but I know better than that.  I procrastinate way too much.  We had another fun week with Jeremy before he had to leave.

Monday October 8th- we went fishing. We had booked a sport fishing trip but didn't really get that. What we got was great for the kids though so we didn't complain. They took us to a beach called playa Costa Blanca, it was a beautiful beach that I'd heard of but hadn't visited yet because you can't get there by car. We snorkeled for a while and then headed back for fishing. They had pretty ghetto fishing poles for us to use but it worked well for the kids, Carter was first to pull in a fish, Grandma followed shortly after. Then Logan pulled two in at a time!! In the end everyone was able to catch at least one fish except Camryn who did not have much luck that day, but still had a great time.

Tuesday October 9th- we stayed home this day. All the kids went to pottery class that afternoon and the adults tried to catch up on some work and sleep. That night Jeremy and I went out on a date. October is the slow season here in San Juan so the first two places we tried to go to were closed but the third one was open, we enjoyed another great meal on the beach for about 25 dollars.

Wednesday October 10th- we hit the road again and headed to Granada. Once again we took our tour guide, Irlanda. She helped us find Granada, then helped us find our hotel where we checked in. The boys favorite part of the hotel was the huge chess set that was in the courtyard. We put our stuff in our rooms and headed out to see the town. Once to the main square we found a couple horse drawn carts to take us for a tour of the town. It was definitely the best way to see the beautiful colonial architecture and hear about the city. They dropped us off at an amazing restaurant for lunch. We went back to the hotel, hit the pool then the girls went out for a little shopping. I didn't love the shopping in Granada, more tourists means higher prices and we didn't end up buying anything, but we still had a great time.

Thursday October 11th- we went on a boat tour of the islands in Lake Nicaragua. There are a total of 365 islands, some large some very little. We all decided owning an island there would be pretty amazing. Our favorite island was monkey island. We went close and threw the monkeys some bananas we had bought, one monkey named Lucy was even allowed to come on the boat and get her own bananas. She was so cute, I definitely wanted to take her home with me. After Monkey island we stopped at another island that had a local family. They lived in some huts there and fished early in the morning, taking their catch into town by 6:00 to sell to the restaurants, they also grew crops there. The family consisted of a grandma who had 18 kids and over 40 grandkids, most of them living right there with her still. They were a beautiful, hard working family. We ended the tour at a restaurant and had another great meal, after that we headed back to the hotel and picked up our car and headed home.

Friday October 12th- we spent another day at home. The kids had drawing class that afternoon and we spent some more time in the pool. We shopped for Camryn's birthday bash. I went to a lady's house to order a cake. I told her that I had a daughter that I needed a cake for her birthday. She asked her age and I said 13, she said "three?", I said "thirteen" then I told her that she liked horses, she got all excited and said "Ponies?" and I nodded. The next day when i went to pick up the cake I had Camryn with me, when she saw Camryn she got a worried look on her face and brought out a cake with a pony on it. It was more appropriate for a three year old, I quickly told her that it was great and we loved it. I think she wondered what kind of a 13 year old would like a my little pony cake but Cam was just fine with it and it tasted really good so that's the most important thing.

Saturday October 13th- the big birthday, I have a teenager :( We had a great day. That morning we woke up and opened the few presents that she had, Logan had made her a card, Grandma had brought her a gift as well as a few cards from friends and family at home.  We had decided that we wanted to give her an "adventure" for her birthday instead of stuff.  First off we went zip-lining. We invited Camryn's new friend Molly to come with us. She's an awesome girl, she's fluent in Spanish, English and Italian. We're super excited to get to know her better. The Canopy tour was awesome, we all enjoyed it, even Logan went without any hesitation and loved every minute. After the zip-lining we went to lunch and then Camryn and I went to get massages. After the massages we hurried home to get ready for the party. We had invited some of our friends including Julie and her family, Kelly and her family and Irlanda and her family. We ate, talked, broke open a pinata and then Camryn ended the night by playing volleyball with Sergio (Irlanda's son) and Shirley (Irlanda's neice). I think getting to play a little volleyball was Camryn's favorite part of the day so we have already planned to get together with them later this week for an actual game on the beach. She's already mastered the art of being a teenager, including the eye roll (she's had that one down for a while thanks to Aunt Noelle :), the dodging pictures maneuvre, the pouty face, I'm hoping since she's had these pretty well mastered she will move on to the next stage of life quickly????  actually, she's still pretty sweet, as far as teenagers go so I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

Sunday October 14th- we went to church in Rivas. It was fast and testimony meeting, and Logan wanted to bare his testimony and asked me to come with him. I was forced with a hard decision- do I bare my testimony in English or try in spanish. I decided to try in spanish, it was very short and very broken but I was able to say a few basic things and I felt good about it. In sunday school and relief society I actually understood some of the lessons given. It was the first time that I was able to follow along and understand quite a bit of the lessons, it definitely made me realize that my spanish is coming along.

This morning Jeremy left us :( It was a sad day. Logan cried quite a bit. Our lives will be more boring again, which might be ok for a while since we've fallen quite a bit behind in school and work. we have four weeks until Grandpa and Jeff and Carol come, we're starting the count down again.

I must say that Nicaragua is definitely starting to feel like home. We've met so many amazing people, both locals and expats. I'm already starting to feel like our time is not going to be enough, and yet I'm WAY excited to get home and see everyone again. We will definitely be coming back to Nicaragua, probably just for short periods of time to visit, but we will be back.

TOO much fun (week one)

Jeremy and Grandma arrived Wednesday October 3rd, we haven't stopped having fun since so I haven't found time to blog so you get a catch up post.

Wednesday October 3rd- We expected them between 2:30 and 3:00 so when someone knocked on the door at 2:00 we were surprised. We had decorated the house that morning with balloons and a sign welcoming them. It was an awesome reunion, the kids quickly showed them around our place and helped them get settled in. That day when the lady came to clean our house I told her that my husband was coming, so she left these cute swans on our bed :)

We had planned on going to the beach to watch the sunset that night but it was cloudy and threatening to rain so we decided to grab some dinner in town and come home and hit the pool instead.

Thursday October 4th- we hung out at home and went into town to show them around. Jeremy had been here once before but now that we are "locals" we could show him all the cool places we've found.

Friday October 5th- we headed to Ometepe. We took Irlanda to be our tour guide and help us navigate our way around. When we got to the ferry we found out that the one that you can take a car on was broken so we had to change our plans. We booked a shuttle on the island and left our car behind, it turned out to be even better because we could all sit back and not worry about where we were going. We saw some of the island, had some lunch and then stopped at Ojo de agua, a beautiful lagoon with mineral rich water. We swam for a bit and then headed back to the ferry. The ferry was my least favorite part of the day, both ways I got a little sea sick, Logan was nice to sit and rub my back though.

Saturday October 6th- we went to Hermosa beach and rented some surf boards for the day. We all took our turn with them (except Grandma- next time.) And we all enjoyed the hammocks some too. Logan found a cute little friend who would talk and talk and talk and he didn't care the Logan couldn't understand a word he was saying. After Hermosa we went back to San Juan del Sur and booked a tour to see the Turtles that night. Camryn, my mom and I went to playa La Flor that evening when the sea turtles come in to see them. We saw huge turtles and a few little baby ones, some of the adult ones were laying eggs and you could actually watch them lay them, they each lay between 80 and 100 eggs, burry them in the sand and 45-50 days later the baby turtles climb out of the sand and make their way to the water. It was way cool to see, we just wished it would happen in the day so you could see better but they said during the day there's not really much to see there because they're all out in the ocean.

Sunday October 7th- we spent the day at home listening to conference and catching up on our siestas. Palermo has a live band at the pool every Sunday that we can hear perfectly from our back yard so we spent a lot of time in the hammocks listening to the music.  What a great week we had, and we had another fun one planned!