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.