Our wonderful, marvelous, pretty good, very great day

Today was full of fun, and instead of just putting the videos and pics on facebook, I wanted to be able to write a little bit about it too - especially since Scott wasn't able to be a part of it :(.

Since Sydney is in Kindergarten, she was a part of a "Minifestival Deportivo" today, and she got to show off her gymnastic skills as well as cheerleading skills. She was awesome - I can tell that she's learned a lot - her memory amazes me! She remembered all the moves to the cheerleading routine. After that was over, they spent the rest of the day playing games and team sports. She was so exhausted, that when I came to pick her up at 12:30, she was asleep on the floor. Her teachers said that she played pretty hard. :)



Can't forget to mention the US soccer game - we ALMOST had the win. I only got to listen to it on the radio, but from all that I heard, the 3rd US goal was stolen from them. when they scored the 3rd goal, I actually let out a "yes!" pretty loud - I don't know if anybody else in the office heard it... :) At least England/Algeria was a tie as well - we've still got a great chance to get into the knock out round. Here's to the USA!

I've been wanting to do something fun with the kids this weekend, since next weekend we have a HUGE event all day Saturday and Sunday, and then the next weekend we are getting ready to head to the States. We decided that we would go see Toy Story 3 and get dinner in the food court. The movie was really good - a little intense for Elijah at the "dumpster scene" (you'll know what I mean when you see it), but all in all he thought it was good. We saw it in 3D, but I wouldn't really recommend paying extra for that feature - it wasn't overwhelmed with special effects, making it feel like you just had crazy glasses on your face for no reason.

Well - in just about 2 weeks we be Stateside - it's hard to believe. We have a lot to get done before then. Please pray for GOL 2010 that we are doing at church. I'm pretty much the main organizer, and we are doing children's ministry, soccer tournaments, projection of the World Cup and more. It's a lot, and there are lots of details, but I always love being a part of the event when they are actually here. We hope to have 1000 contacts and 100 people to follow up with after the event.

Hope you all have a great weekend - go see Toy Story 3 if you have time. :)

Kids in the Kitchen

About 6 weeks ago, I started really watching what we are eating as a family, and intentionally teaching the kids about decisions that we make concerning what we eat. It all started out as a reason to help Scott and I drop a few pounds, but it's turned into something more life transformational. I found a few ITouch apps that are calorie counters and restaurant guides, as well as found a podcast that is specifically geared toward healthy kids.

3 weeks ago, I started getting the kids involved with planning and cooking 1 meal a week. Sydney has been sick this week, so we are behind on this week's menu, but i wanted to share with you the meals that they have chosen and made.

Elijah first chose to make banana pancakes - he learned the hard way that you have to hold a pan by it's handle, not the hot metal part. Even with a small burn on the tips of 2 fingers, he still learned a lot. He really like mashing up the bananas. For his second meal, he chose Tilipia (fish) with cauliflower and fruit salad. We baked the fish in the oven, steamed the cauliflower and chopped up his favorite fruits. He was so proud of this meal, that we took a picture of it. :)

Sydney's first week, she chose her meal by looking through one of my cooking magazines. She chose Almond crusted chicken and broccoli (they have to chose a vegetable to go with their meals). It was made in a saute pan on the stove top, so I did most of the cooking, but she liked dredging the chicken and crushing up the almonds to make the coating. She loves putting veggies in the steamer basket and watching them steam up. Her second meal was chicken and rice - we had some left over shredded chicken and made a casserole with it and some rice. She learned how to make rice in my pressure cooker. She especially likes putting a little bit of crushed potato chips on the top. In the course of eating both of these meals she said "I'm a good cook" or "This is so good". I told Scott that if I had made either of those meals, she would have sat down and before even tasting it said "I don't like this."

It's been revelatory having them in the kitchen. They are learning to think through meal planning and everything that it takes to prepare a meal. Elijah is already getting good with a knife (he is WELL supervised, no worries) and Sydney knows where most of the pots/pans/measuring cups type of stuff is in the kitchen. It's been fun - I would recommend it to any of you with your kids/grandkids/nieces and nephews. Oh, 1 other tip for kids. Use compartmentalized plates - they are fun for the kids, but they really do give good portion control to what's on the plate. (Just make sure you use a bigger space for the fruits/veggies and the smaller one for chips/cookies)

I think Sydney is making pork chops tonight - we'll see how this one goes!

life and times of us

Life has been moving by at an incredibly fast pace lately! Our Lenten resolve has fully manifested itself on the weekends, and using the bus has made us savvy Ticos, but at the same time, we are all ready to get back to the use of the car for all of our normal life activities! Whenever we find ourselves with a bad attitude about not using the car, it typically serves as a great reminder of Jesus' sacrifice for us. Believe it or not, the kids have actually gotten used to the bus system. I counted last Sunday morning how many blocks we walk from our bus stop in San Jose to our church bus stop - about 13 city blocks. These are in addition to the 5 blocks to walk to the first bus and about 4 blocks to walk to the church. We easily get in about 2 miles of walking with a round trip to church. Elijah is a force to be reckoned with - he walks them with ease. Sydney sometimes makes it the whole way, but sometimes begs to be carried on Scott's shoulders. He usually gives in, because it makes the walk faster in the end. :)

Elijah's obviously been loosing teeth like crazy! He's lost 3 in the past 5 weeks, and has another on the bottom that will be out in the next week or so. We've been saying that he's got a jack-o-lantern smile. He's becoming quite the professional on pulling them out, I must say. About 2 years ago, Scott told him the story that Clark tried to pull out one of Tim's teeth back in the day, by tying a string to the bathroom doorknob and the other end of it to Tim's tooth. When he slammed the door, the tooth didn't come out of Tim's mouth and Tim went flying across the bathroom! Elijah's determined that he won't let anyone near his teeth when they are loose - he'll do it himself. :) With his front 2 teeth, the tooth fairy left him 500 colones (about $1) - the others ones he lost were small teeth, so he got 100 colones. His most recent loss was the second front tooth, and when he came out of his room with the money in his hand, he looked and me and said, "I knew that one would be worth 500 Colones". It was so funny. Oh - he's also doing really well in school - he got a 100% on his recent science quiz and spelling test. He's pretty proud of himself.

Sydney is loving the clubs that she's in this year. She's taking a drama club on Monday, gymnastics on Tuesday and Cheerleading on Thursday. Her staying for clubs helps out our schedule, because that means that she gets out of school the same time Elijah does. Currently gymnastics is her favorite, but next week we will get the note that says we need to make a cheerleading uniform for her club - I have a feeling once she has a uniform for cheerleading, that will come out on top. :) We've decided to take her out of swimming for a while - she's not enjoying it anymore, and it was frustrating to always make her get in the water. She is a pretty good swimmer - I hope that she wants to start again in a few months. Elijah continues with the lessons, and is GREAT at swimming on his back and is already practicing diving in the water.

In case I don't post before Holy Week, we will be gone for vacation during that week. We've rented a condo at Playa del Coco - it's about 5 hours from here, on the Pacific side. We are taking March 29 - April 4 as a family vacation and we are really looking forward to it. I'll for sure post pictures when we are back. Adios!

5 days in

In efforts to share a little of our "car fast" experience, I'm going to try and blog a little more frequently.

We started our experience last Wednesday, and knew that our carpool deal with some neighbors was going to be challenged, as well as it being almost technically impossible. Sydney gets out of school at 12:15PM and Elijah gets out at 2:30PM. We picked up Sydney at 12:15 and got on the bus to get home - we made it home by 2:15. Obviously, there is no way to use the bus system to get back to the school from our house to pick up Elijah and Jose Rubén (the neighbor's son). Thankfully, on Wednesday, we had already arranged that the other family would bring the boys home, so it didn't affect us too much. After talking about the arrangement and the conviction that we have, we've decided that we will use the car only for getting the kids to and from school. So far, it seems to be working alright.

We've learned a lot about how the bus system works in San José. We already knew some stuff, but doing it makes it more real. :) The system here works on a "wagon wheel spoke" system. Meaning that every bus from any town around San José goes into San José - from there you have to find the next bus that goes to the town that you want to go to. This is a system that works, but takes SO long when the town that you want to get to is "right next door". For example - the office is in Guadelupe and our house in is Tibás. When we drive it, it usually takes about 15 minutes, because we take secondary routes, and they are "neighbors" to each other. With taking the bus to San José first, and then transferring to the Tibás bus, it takes about 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

You can clearly see that we have more time on our hands - which has been good for our relationship (Scott's and mine). We have more time to just sit next to each other and talk. It's also increased our physical activity on a daily basis - a bus comes pretty close to our house (about 3 blocks) to go into San José, but once there, the walk could be anywhere from 5 - 14 blocks, depending on what part of town we are going to. When it's just the 2 of us, it's not a problem, but having the kids with us has been interesting...

Believe it or not, the kids are starting to get a little used to it already. We still hear a lot of complaining from Sydney that she's tired, can't walk as fast as we do, why don't we just use our car, but it's been a good teaching experience to help her understand a little bit more about Jesus' sacrifice for us on the cross. Unfortunately she's usually with us from the school bus stop or the church bus stop - and those 2 are the furthest away from our home bus stop in San José. I'm interested to hear if her attitude changes at all, as we continue in this experience.

Taking advantage of this space - Sydney and Elijah have asked if they could be baptized. We talked with our pastor yesterday, and he said that he's planning a baptism in 3 weeks. PERFECT TIMING! He said that he would love to have Scott help him, as well as let Scott have the honor of baptizing the kids. We look forward to celebrating with them.

Ash Wednesday

It's obvious that I didn't keep up with my "once a week blogging" resolution. As much as I would love to keep up that much, I just don't see it happening.

Today is Ash Wednesday on the Christian Calendar. In our family, we take the 40 days leading up to Easter very seriously and almost always decide to "sacrifice" something that affects our daily lives. Usually this is a bad habit or something edible, but this year I felt the Lord asking me to give up something extreme. After praying about it and talking it over with Scott, we've decided as a family to give up using our car for 40 days. The public transportation system is very reliable here in Costa Rica, so we will be learning bus routes well, as well as investing more time into transit daily. We are praying that the Lord uses this specific "fast" to help us focus on his sacrifice on the cross. Obviously, we will be bringing the kids along on this 40 day adventure - we pray that God opens their eyes in a new way as well.

The past few weeks brought Sydney's 5th birthday and first days of school for everyone except Scott. The kids started officially this past monday and are already enjoying their new classes and teachers. Elijah has to wear dress shoes everyday, and his major complaint is about sore feet - after wearing Crocs all summer, I'm not surprised that his feet are sore!!! I also started my on-line class with Nazarene Theological Seminary. I'm studying "Introduction to Christian Theology". It's an interesting format being online and I'm enjoying the "study at your own pace" pace. :) My first paper is due next week - here's to hoping I remember how to footnote correctly!!! Thankfully Scott is a walking grammar goalie - not too much get's by him. I'll have to have him edit, I'm sure!

I've been trying a few new things in the kitchen - last week I made "gallo pinto" - Costa Rican version of bean and rice. It turned out alright, but I need to make some adjustments. I also made some YUMMY spicy chicken empanadas, some homemade pita bread and hummus. The pita bread and hummus made a HUGE hit with the kids - they loved it.

I'll try and keep you updated on what's going on with school and all. OH - we got to watch the KU/Texas A&M game - we felt like God was especially smiling on us on Monday. :) Love to all!

I know - you are shocked I'm blogging

I'm making an early new years resolution - to keep up on blogging more consistently. I feel like the kids are getting so big, so fast, and there are so many things that you should all know about, that just get left to the wayside. So - in an effort to turn a new leaf, here's a quick entry.

A few nights ago I was putting Sydney to bed, and as always we sing a song together and then I pray and she prays after me. At school, I think they start most of their prayers with "Heavenly Father" so she started her prayer like that on this particular night. I had to keep from laughing, because she said "emily father" - it's what she hears and is copying it. It was so precious. She's becoming quite the little prayer warrior. We've been praying every night for an almost 2 year old named Marley Moore that has brain cancer. Last night she thanked God that Marley was learning to walk again (she had a stroke and lost a lot of abilities) and prayed that she would "rest well" during the night. Then she said "please God, PLEASE, PLEASE help the medicine to work so that Marley's cancer goes away". It's amazing the power of a 4 year old's prayers - she teaches me frequently how to pray.

Elijah is chronically outside playing soccer in the backyard. For a few months both kids have been earning allowance from us, to help them learn to manage money and to help teach them the concept of tithe. As a side note - I'm proud to say that they both always get their 100 colones out of their banks on Sunday morning to take for Sunday School offering - I don't even have to remind them anymore. Anyway - Elijah saves EVERY cent that he gets, rarely spending it on frivolous things like his sister. :) A few weeks ago, right after we moved to the new house, we were in a store that has lots of toys. We walked past a set of portable soccer goals that cost about $40. He wanted them so bad, but I told him that I didn't plan on buying that, and didn't have the money for them. I told him that he had about that much money saved in his bank (he had birthday money still, as well as his allowance) and he could spend it if he wanted to. He decided that it was a worthy investment, and bought them. He plays with them everyday and hasn't regretted his decision yet. He's also started getting into "extreme speech". For example - a couple days ago I made some hotdogs with melted cheese wrapped up in a tortilla for lunch. He really liked them and looked at me in all seriousness and said "mom, this is the best lunch I've ever had!" With easy standards like that, I'm bound for cooking hall of fame with him. :)

Candy and Tim are coming in 2 weeks and we are really looking forward to their visit. We are so excited to show them around our new house and our new country! We are going for a mini-vacation to the beach for 3 days and are REALLY looking forward to that. Their visit and vacation couldn't come as a better time - life's been crazy busy, and we are ready to slow down a little.

We'll see if my resolution sticks - hope to blog at least once a week. If you are on Facebook, look up Misión Mundial MAC and become a fan of the page. We just started it for our ministry and you can get a peek into what we are doing. It's all in spanish, so you might want to brush up. :)

It's update time

Hey to all! I've been HORRIBLE at keeping up. I know that none of you LIVE for the blog postings, but I know that it's nice to stay in the loop. SO - I'll try to give you a quick snap-shot of the past few months.

We did finally decide on a church - it's call Cuidad Refugio, El Bosque (Refuge City, the forest). El Bosque in the name of the area of town that it is in. They have quickly welcomed us and our skills and willingness to want to be in active ministry. They've asked us to help with the youth program and give it some "shape" in the way of formal youth ministry. We've been meeting with the youth on Saturday nights at 5PM and have lots of challenges, but see a lot of potential in the 12-15 core members. Elijah and Sydney love the Sunday School class that they are a part of on Sunday morning, and I was asked to attend a Sunday School teachers meeting next Sunday morning. I can see myself getting involved in that way as well in the future.

I took this picture for my mom - I knew she'd love seeing Sydney
"cleaning" our porch after it had rained!

The kids' school is awesome - we are really impressed with it. Elijah is doing really well at reading in English and Spanish and pretty much knows how to write in cursive (except for obscure letters like "Q" and "Z"). I often compliment him on his penmanship and tell him that he writes better than Scott - that always gets a laugh out of him! He's also doing great at soccer - his coach seems to be really impressed with his skill level. He had a game this past Saturday - they lost, but their goalie didn't show up for the game. The coach put Elijah at goalie for the first half, and he blocked all the shots (even taking one in the face!). In the second half, the other substitute goalie was a little more afraid of the ball, and let 2 get past him. Elijah had fun playing the goalie, but I prefer to watch him play forward. I had butterflies in my stomach everytime the ball would cross midfield and head his way! Sydney is coming along beautifully in her skill sets as well. She has known letters and numbers for quite a while, so a lot of Pre-kinder is review for what she already knows. Her Spanish is exquisite and she has a best friend named Sofia. She is still enjoying her ballet class, but has already starting dropping hints that cheerleading is what she wants to do next year - she's got lots of rhythm in her blood - she's a good match for the "sport" (quotes for those of you who don't consider cheerleading a sport...). Tomorrow Scott and I are going to her club to see what's she's been learning in ballet - we hope there is a recital someday before the end of the school year, but haven't heard of anything yet. She feels little slighted that we've gone to 2 soccer games for Elijah, and nothing for her. Hopefully going to club tomorrow will make her feel special for a few hours.

May and this last week of July brought 2 really huge ministry milestones for us. In May we had our 4th missionary training and were able to see a class of 13 new missionaries trained in missiology and practical concepts of missions. This past week, we welcomed back our 7 volunteers that have been serving for the past 2 years in Spain and the Middle East. It was so awesome to hear how God used them to touch so many people's lives. It was incredible to hear a maturity in their conversation of the many strategies implemented to really relate with people, and earn the privledge of talking to them about God. All of them came back changed people - what a great thing to be a part of.


A few things you can pray for - Scott has tonsilitis and is STILL battling his ingrown toenail. Elijah has had a persistent cough for the past 5 days. That our energy level would get back to normal - we all are completely wiped out when the evening comes.

To leave you with a funny Sydney phrase: (To the tune of "Bringing in the Sheaves") We're bringing in the cheese, bringing in the cheese... :)
Also - It's mother's day on August 15 here in Costa Rica - check out the video bar (2nd video down) for a tribute to moms!