First Day of School in Costa Rica

At 5:03AM our alarm clock went off, and our day began. The kids (amazingly enough) pretty much got right out of bed without too much pulling. They were ready to start the day and go to school. They got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed teeth and got on the bus at 6:00AM. It was hard to believe they were out the door just as the sun was really coming up! They were excited to get on the bus - another girl, Daniella, is in first grade and is our neighbor at the seminary. They all got on the bus together. I'm sure Elijah and Sydney were fine, because they had each other. If Elijah had to go by himself, I think we would have had some tears.

Since we now have an extra 1 1/2 hours in our days (with waking up so early!), Scott and I have decided to start walking in the morning. We walked around the seminary campus a few times - it felt good to have some time to exercise. I also hope to be able to read a chapter a day in some books that I've started and haven't finished - I've got about 4 books that I'm in the "middle" of.

I also started back at the office today - it's different getting ready to go to work, instead of sitting at the desk at home. I've been doing some follow-up work from the COM that we had last week in Nicaragua. We are trying to get rid of so much paper and keep things digital, so all the paper from the COM (registration sheets and interviews) have to be scanned - guess who gets the fun of that? I can't complain - Scott has to send out the recommendation letters to everyone - that's a day long project in itself.

Things are starting to feel more normal - we think that we've found a church. There are still 1 or 2 more that we are going to visit, but we are really happy with one that we found a few weeks ago. We'll see what God has in store. We've unpacked about 96% of the boxes - home is starting to feel like home.

I'm anxious for the kids to come home (around 1PM) to see how their first day went. We've been praying that it's AWESOME and that they can't wait to go back everyday. :)

Settling in

Just wanted to send a quick update on our Costa Rican status - everyday looks a little different because of all the things that we need to get done. If you get our update newsletter, you know that we are the proud new owners of a 2004 Terrano (Nissan). It was on the high end of our budget, but we were prepared for the close to $20,000 price tags that come with Costa Rican 4x4s. In fact, we feel really blessed that we found it for under 20K - a few other missionaries that are just moving here are having a hard time finding something in that price range.


We've also been busy purchasing some furniture for the house - we got a chest of drawers for the kids room, a dresser with mirror for ours, 2 bedside tables for our room and an entertainment center/stand. Today, we went and placed an order for a couch and 2 chairs and are having some curtains made for our living rooms as well. The curtains are SUPER expensive, because half of our living room is solid windows. Due to the positioning of our apartment, anybody can see inside if they aren't covered. Due to the monstrous size of the windows, I'm not adequate to find window fixtures and curtains that would work.

The kids have enjoyed every single day here - lots of the Latino missionary kids haven't started school yet, so they are enjoying the warm mornings here. The weather is something that is a little shocking, because it's warm (upper 70's) in the morning, but by 1PM it seems to fall into the lower 60's. The kids always start the day with short sleeves and end with sweatshirts and jackets. We've been told that Feb/March will take a drastic turn for warmer weather - we'll see if that rings true. :)

We are still awaiting our shipment - they thought it would come on Wednesday, and then today - I'm sure somebody thinks it will come tomorrow. I'm not getting my hopes up - I'll believe it when i see it. Call me a doubting Thomas. The kids are dying to get to their toys again - it's been almost 4 months since they had them to play with. With Sydney's birthday coming up, I'm tempted to just put away one of her old toys and wrap it up and give it to her again. I don't think I could really pull it off, but it's crossed my mind.
Hopefully our TV arrives in tact - the cable company comes tomorrow to install the line. Elijah is geared up for the SuperBowl. He is cheering for the Cardinals to win (who would've thought that Cardinals and SuperBowl would be in the same sentence?) We'll see what the outcome is shortly.

Keep us in your prayers with the church search - we've visited 3 different ones so far and haven't felt like any of them have completely "clicked" with us. We have 3 more to visit that are possibilities - the kids are anxious to find a place that we can be every Sunday - they get really anxious having to go to new Sunday school classes every week.

Lots of love to all of you!

We are here in Costa Rica!

PURA VIDA! That is the Costa Rican way to say that all is well. In fact, even if someone asks how you are, the proper response is "pura vida" (pure life). That will take a while to get used to saying, I think. :)

We make it to Costa Rica exactly one week ago, and I'm finally able to slow down enough to send some news your way. Needless to say, we've been busy. I've sent the link of pictures of the house to family members, so that I don't overload this blog with that stuff - if you didn't get it, and want to see, just let me know, and I can send it to you. We are slowing making the house a home, but without our shipment here yet, things still feel a little "temporary" - like we are just here for a while. We should be getting our things in about 2 weeks, we hope.

We've gone to the grocery store twice and Scott went out today to look for a potential car. He thinks that he's found one, but until we get permission and go through all the processes, we can't purchase it. If the purchase goes through, we'll take a picture and post it in the next few weeks. Grocery shopping here is much like it was in Guatemala - lots of the same type of foods available. One difference is that there are TONS of grocery stores - in Guate there were only 2 main ones that were even close to where we lived. This morning I went with another missionary who has lived in CR for a long time to the produce market - I'll definitely be buying there every week. There is a lot more selection and the prices are a little bit lower. Speaking of prices - things here are MUCH more expensive. I think the hardest thing to get used to will be the price of cheese - for 10 pieces of sliced cheese, you can easily pay $4.00. For a block of cheese, prices are around $6-$10. The exchange rate has been kinda hard to get used to - it's 550 colones to 1 dollar - it's been interesting trying to figure out how much I'm spending to buy things.

The weather here is pretty nice - it's always sunny and warm in the morning and by the afternoon it cools down considerably. We usually have long sleeves or jackets on by early evening. You probably all know about the earthquake that happened a few days ago - it was pretty big. The newspapers are still carrying it as the front page story. No damage happened here on campus - we are very thankful for that.

Elijah and Sydney are LOVING being outside all the time. There are about 15 MKs all within a stones throw from our front door. About 6 of them are younger (6 and younger). Needless to say, they have found some new friends pretty easily. The older kids are enjoying playing with them too - Elijah like to play soccer with them, when they let him. He comes in crying almost everynight that he's not ready to stop playing. I don't think that he really understands that we live here, and that when he wakes up, everybody will still be here. :)

Well - lots to say, but don't want to bore you with everything. We have got an internet connection in our house, so feel free to send an e-mail. We should be able to get to it soon. We want to go to the kids school on Tuesday and get them registered and buy books and uniforms. We have a scheduled power outtage all day on Tuesday, so we figure it's the perfect time to get stuff like that done. Lots of love to all of you.

em

Parker is Here!

I know a lot of people in Scott's family wanted to see a picture of Parker Robertson - our newest nephew. He finally came home on Dec. 24 and I get to see him on Dec. 29! (thanks, mom, for the airline ticket!) He's adorable - looks so much like Peyton did when he was born - I can't wait to see him!

Scott and I are having a special date to the Melting Pot tomorrow night and REALLY looking forward to it. For Christmas, Connie and Clark got me a cook book filled with Melting Pot recipes and I've been browsing it for the past 2 days - it's definitely gotten by taste buds going for our big night tomorrow. We have our last service on Sunday morning and head to Costa Rica next Saturday (8 days from today) - it's been a good, long 3 months. We are ready to go "home" and set up our new home. :) I hope to post some pictures of our new place in Costa Rica within a week of being there. We'll have internet in our house, so I'll be able to keep up much easier!

Hello from Missouri

We've been on home assignment for 2 months and 1 day officially. It's been crazy, but a good time as well. We have a huge praise - we found a daycare that the kids can go to during the days in December. It is one of Candy's neighbors and she takes care of 7 children ages 2-5. We took Sydney and Elijah over there this morning and they were THRILLED to be with other kids and new toys. It will help Scott and I a ton to have some time to ourselves and get some of our work done during the day.

We found out that our house in Guatemala was packed up last week - we are praying that all the stuff made it into a box! :) We thought that we would have our stuff when we got to Costa Rica on Jan. 3, but found out that because of the holidays, they aren't shipping the stuff until the first week of January. So, now we are praying that it get there before the kids start school in February. Just kidding (hopefully) - they say it should only take 5-7 days once it leaves Guatemala. We'll see if that is the case.

We have a service tonight in Drexel, MO and one on Friday night in Bonner Springs and 2 on Sunday (in Lawrence and Gardner). We are definitely finding ways to keep ourselves busy - today we went to the Seminary and spoke with a missiology class. I'm healing up well from the hernia surgery that I had last Monday - not taking any more pain medicine and sleeping much better now. Still can't lay on my stomach, but hopefully that changes by next week.

I don't have lots of recent pictures of the kids, but here are a few from October.
Oh - the kids have noticed a lot of cemeteries as we've been traveling, and we've explained that that is were dead people are buried. Now, they always point out to us when we go past a cemetery with lots of head stones. Last week, we went to a Christmas tree farm to pick out a Christmas tree with Candy. Sydney looked at me and said "There's a lot of dead people here, mommy" - it cracked me up. She thought that the lines of Christmas trees were like headstones. Oh the thoughts of 3 year olds...

hey - if you want to see a REALLY cool video - check out the video bar. It's worth the 2 minute investment of time.

quick pictures!

Hey - I haven't kept up with my end of the bargain in updating the blog, I know. I have a ton of pictures to upload, and about 5 minutes to do it in. Some of the pictures are from Scott's birthday last week. We celebrated with homemade apple pie (I did pretty good, if I say so myself) and we bought him a new Guatemala soccer jersey, and tickets to the Guatemala/USA soccer game on Aug. 20. Elijah went with him to the game, and is sporting his new jersey as well.


Green faces - Sydney and Elijah "painted" their faces with green marker the day of the soccer game. It was a dry erase marker, so we scrubbed as much as we could, and then had to wait about 24 hours for the rest to wear off. Sydney looked like a little martian. It was a parenting moment when you know you shouldn't laugh, but you just can't help yourself. Since we laughed (after being upset for about 10 minutes) I expect to see marker on both of their faces in the near future.


What i want to be when I grow up - Sydney and Elijah went to school last friday dressed as what they want to be. sydney wants to be a painter (for now) and elijah a police officer. The funny part for Elijah - he was all dressed, and as he was coming down the stairs he said "Mom, if I'm a police man, where is my mustache?" - I laughed and told him we could make a mustache - so check out his upper lip. Apparently all police officers in his life have a mustache. (I just realized I haven't transferred these pictures to my computer. they will come shortly.)

Lastly - please pray for us. We have 4 weeks left in Guate. Emotions are starting to run high as goodbye are being said and stuff is being sold. We also have TONS of work starting us in the face everyday. I'll have to send you a picture of what our house looks like soon - we've sold almost everywhere that we have to sit. We are down to the Chiefs chair & 2 foldable garden chairs. It's kinda sad, but at least we've recouped some of our money on the stuff before we leave... :)

We found a School in Costa Rica!

Hey guys - I just got back from a trip to Costa Rica, and Scott and I had the opportunity to visit 2 schools for the kids. We liked both of them, but there was one that really stuck out to both of us. Without even talking about pros/cons, we just asked each other if we had a gut feeling on either of them. We both said that we liked the Methodist school - and the decision was made. We talked with administration at "Colegio Metodista" for about an hour, and are REALLY excited to enroll the kids for next year. Their website is www.metodista.ed.cr if you want to check it out (it's in spanish, but it has some pictures you might want to see)

Sydney will start their Pre-kindergarten program and Elijah will be in there "preparatoria" program. They both will have school days that start at 7:15AM and end at 12:30PM. The first half of their day will be in Spanish and the second half of their day will be in English. This is the part that we really liked - it's preparing our kids as bi-cultural kids. They will study certain subjects in each language - not just study the language itself. They are a school that goes all the way through high school, if we choose to keep the kids there that long. The "Prepa" area (where our kids are) is separate from the elementary, which is separate from High School.

They also offer extracurricular activities in the afternoon after school, until 2;30PM. They have a soccer program that we will consider putting Elijah in (he's been DYING to play soccer for the past year). They mentioned a ballet class that Sydney would probably like, but we'll have to play it by ear - if she's really old enough to stay at school that long.

Here is a picture of the soccer field and a typical "prepa" classroom.


We also got to check out our future house on the campus of SENDAS in San José, Costa Rica. It's on the seminary campus, so it's RIGHT next door to lots of other missionaries. We've been told we will be in house 39, but with our experience, we aren't banking on it until our stuff is officially moved in. :) We did take advantage of looking inside it while we were on campus - it's not near as big as our house here in Guate (which is good for me - I hate cleaning!), but it is 4 rooms with a decent kitchen/dining room and 2 living room areas. A big plus to the homes there, is that they all have screened in back porches - so that is another area that we can use as "living" area. we also will have a decent backyard - the kids (and me) are already vying for a dog when we move - we'll see what we can work out. Elijah and Sydney are thrilled that there is a playplace right outside our front door - they plan on spending lots of time there. :) The website for SENDAS is www.sendas.ws if you want to see some pictures of the campus (again, it's in Spanish)



Please pray that our residency process moves along. Thanks Connie, for being the messenger in all of the formal applications to the Costa Rican embassy in the States. We'd be sunk without you. Scott comes home on Sunday night - he's been gone since July 9 - the kids are really ready to spend some time with him. Please pray for his safety, as he has a bus ride from Costa Rica to Tegucigalpa, Honduras (about 20 hours) and then has to drive a mini-van from Honduras to Guatemala (another 12 hours). He's going to be exhausted.

Love to you all.

Family Day at School

On Saturday, the kids participated in Family Day at school. I took some video that I will try to upload this week, so that you can see their "dances/songs" that they participated in. They had a lot of fun playing games as well. I've uploaded all the pictures to Kodak Gallery - if I missed your address with the invite to browse them, let me know, and I'll send the link. Here are a few pictures.

Faces painted at Family Day Elijah and his teacher, Mis Vanesa
Sydney and her teacher, Mis Sara

We've also started our time with Youth in Mission. They arrived on June 1st, and we've been running ever since. When you think about us, please pray for our health. Scott is running like crazy, with lots of trips, and to get sick doesn't really fit into our schedule. We have a group of 11 this year - 5 from Mexico and 6 from the States. They are a great group - ready to tackle anything. We are trying to enjoy our last few months in Guatemala as we are with them, so a few of our tourism activities include some of our favorite places (like Lake Atitlán) :)
The YIM group last Sunday

Scott and I also celebrated 8 years of marriage last week. We got away for a nice dinner at our favorite fondue restaurant - a couple of the Youth in Mission girls babysat for us. Scott surprised me with 3 dozen gerbera daisies and I got him the KU championship DVD. It's been a long time since we've both gotten each other a gift for the occasion.

Celebrating 8 years at Casa del Fondue!

Gerbs - My FAVORITE!

Lots of love to our dads - we hope that you had a great Father's Day. We are celebrating tomorrow night in our house, when Scott's back home. We are going to order pizza, and we made a butterfinger dessert. We think he'll like our plans... ;) Love, hugs and kisses to all.

em

PS - just for a change of pace, check out the video bar - Human Japanese Tetris is currently one of our favorites.

Costa Rica Info

Hey guys - I think we've told all of you by now that we are headed to Costa Rica (CR) next year. We've been told that the date that we need to arrive in Costa Rica is January 5th. SO - that means that we will need to have our whole house packed up before we leave for home assignment in October. They will ship our stuff (which supposedly will only take 1 week to arrive in CR) in the end of December. I've been looking up some embassy stuff for Costa Rica, because we need to start our residency process, and during the course of it, I found this info - thought it might be of interest to some of you (Costa Rica at a Glance). If it's not of interest, here are some pictures for you :)

Sydney's bedhead on Saturday morning

Fun with stickers - enough said.

Retreat in El Salvador

We had an awesome time in El Salvador last weekend - the kids LOVED the pools! They practically lived in them in the down time that we had. Every morning was filled with workshops/dynamics on team building and every evening we had a service with guest preacher Dr. Bill Selvidge. In the afternoons, we were pool babies. They had a HUGE pool with lots of shallow areas where the kids were really comfortable playing. In fact, Elijah even went underwater and started swimming! We were shocked! He loved it. Sydney wasn't so fond of being underwater, but floating on top was perfect for her. It was an all-inclusive resort, so we felt like we ate every 2 hours - snacks and sodas ran freely, you just had to show them your wrist band. Here are a few pictures...









Isn't this a hilarious picture? It was taken candidly
by another missionary. Who knows what Elijah was
up to?

We are packing up our suitcases tonight for our Florida/Indiana trip. The kids are really excited to be seeing so many relatives in the coming days. Please keep sydney in your prayers - she was diagnosed with mono on Monday, and has been battling some pretty high fevers for the past 4 days. Pray that the Lord takes the fevers completely away, and that he continues to guard her from other infections - with mono, she's more apt to catch something, since her immune system in compromised. Can't wait to see lots of you soon! We love you!

Random Picture Time

Just wanted to put up a quick post, because there are a few pictures of the kids that I wanted you to see. We leave for El Salvador today, for a missionary retreat, so I'm sure when we get back, I'll have more to post.


This is a picture of the kids last Sunday morning - they are both getting HUGE! Can't wait 'til you all can see them. I think Elijah is in a growth spurt - yesterday, we went to Burger King for lunch, and he ate 1 1/2 cheeseburgers...already walking in his father's steps! :)
This was space day at school. I didn't have a lot of time to create a "space helmet" so I covered their firefighter hats with foil. Sydney was confused all day - she didn't know if she was an astronaut or a firefighter!
About 2 weeks ago, we sold some stuff in a huge garage sale. While I was there, the people next to me had some little girl clothes that they were selling. This little sailor dress caught my eye - it was only Q10 ($1.25) - I thought it was a good purchase, every little girl needs a sailor dress at least once in her life. This picture was taken with my mom in mind - I knew she would love it.
This is a picture of the kids with their straight "excellent" report cards. Sydney looks hilarious in this picture - that's what happens with a shirt that too long, hair that's not combed and a funny "smile". As you can see, Elijah is just ECSTATIC that he's gotten perfect marks.

Well, we'll post some pictures and probably an album when we get back from El Salvador. Hope that you all have a GREAT day. Looking forward to seeing some of you in a few days! :)

Sydney's Singing Again

Just wanted to add a post, so that you all could check out Sydney's latest performance - singing Apple Red Happiness. It's on the video bar to the left of the screen - obviously click on the picture of Sydney, not the other kids... :)

Just a little bit of daily life

As you all can see, Sydney's been dressing herself lately! About a month ago, we started cutting out afternoon naps for the kids, and instituting 1 hour of afternoon "rest". The rest is more for me, than the kids on my afternoons! Anyway, both of the kids are confined to their bedroom until the alarm clock beeps, and they've found quite a few interesting things to do with their new found "alone time". About a week ago, Sydney came out of the room wearing this wonderful outfit (don't forget to notice the mismatched sandals) - I asked her why she put on 2 swimsuits, and she said it was because she was Jasmine, from Disney's Aladdin. I didn't ask any more. :) This will definitely be a picture she hates when she gets older...
This is just a funny picture of Elijah - we were at a birthday party that was outdoors, and by the time he was done drinking his drink, and collecting dirt on his upper lip, it looked like he had the beginning of a mustache. We laughed so much - I took the picture, so Elijah could see himself. He thought he looked cool. Basketball has become a favorite past-time in our home. You can see that Scott plays pure defense with Elijah - although, when Elijah's shooting, Scott doesn't block him (yet). Elijah's passion for the sport has been sparked because of our avid interest in the NCAA tournament this year, and we are SUPER excited to watch the Jayhawks in the final game tonight. Scott returns from Mexico this evening at 6:30PM, and the game starts at 7:20PM our time - we hope that he makes all of his flight connections and comes in on-time (if not early!), so that we can see the whole thing. Rock Chalk Jayhawk.

Just wanted to take a few minutes to update you all on our "daily" life. We've been praying for Oma and Grandpa Duecker - they've both had heart related surgeries in this past week, and we are so happy to hear that they are both recovering well. We are looking forward to our time in Florida and Indy in May - it's gonna be here in no time!

Time for Swimming!

It's March, which means that we have our swimming pool out, and our brackets filled in. Elijah and Sydney have been off school since Friday - so we've had quite a bit of time to fill up the wading pool and splash around. We've been enjoying our summer temperatures of 85 for the past few days.


Scott's been traveling with our Regional Director and our General Superintendent for the past week, and surprised us last night by coming home a day early! It was awesome to have him home, and the kids were SO surprised when they woke up this morning, and daddy came out of the bedroom! He leaves again on Saturday for another week in El Salvador and Honduras.

We've all officially filled out our brackets - Elijah and Sydney even filled theirs out. Elijah has KU winning the whole thing, and Sydney put her faith in Villanova (she can't even pronounce it, but that's who she wanted!) We have tomorrow and Friday as vacation days from work, so we are excited to watch the first rounds together. We've invited a few friends over to watch with us tomorrow afternoon - we are going to order Dominoes pizza (they have 2x1 on thursdays) and glue ourselves to college basketball.

I know it's been awhile since I've had a funny Elijah saying, but here's one for you all:
"Sydney, you better sit down and eat your cereal before it gets massagy" (instead of soggy)

Happy Easter to everybody!

PS - by the way, I changed the video bar - it's a classic. The first "box" is the original posting, but the second "box" is the funniest (I think)

Subscription Help

I figured out the subscription link...

1. click on the "Subscribe to the Armstrongs" link in the upper Left corner
2. it will take you to a screen that has you choose which format you want to receive the subscription in (Yahoo, AOL, etc.)
3. Choose one of these (I chose Yahoo, because that is what we use)
4. it will take you to a page that says "add to My Yahoo" - instead of clicking on this box, look at the bottom right hand corner. Here is where it has the option of having an e-mail sent to you when there are major changes (updates) to the blog.
5. Hope this clears it up - sorry it was so hard to figure out.

Sydney's 3!

I posted Sydney's birthday pictures to Ofoto, but I wanted to just put a few on the blog for those of you that didn't want to sit and look at 45 pictures! We had so much fun, and felt like we celebrated all day!

We went to her pre-school at 9AM and celebrated with her Cinderella Piñata and homemade cupcakes. She said that it was a lot of fun - it was so much easier for me to have her "party" at her school for 1/2 hour, instead of inviting lots of 3 year olds to the house for a 2 hour party. It was also the first time that Scott and I got to meet her classmates. Of course, we sang Happy Birthday to her (in English, so it was more like "oppy bear day to jew") (Elijah sings the english with a spanish accent perfectly - it's hilarious)

At lunch time, we let her open her presents and have the afternoon to play with them. She loved them all and is looking forward to spending her birthday money from Nana this weekend. Who knows what she'll come back with!

For dinner, we let her pick out what restaurant she wanted to go to, and she chose Pizza Hut. She ate 2 pieces of cheese pizza and shared a "Hut Sundae" with mom. She had lots of fun playing in the playplace with Elijah as well. Needless to say, after a full day of "Sydney celebration", Elijah wants to know how many more days until his birthday (3 months, for those of you that are wondering as well)

Even though it doesn't have to do with Sydney's birthday, I want to take the opportunity to say Happy Valentines Day to everyone. We love you all and are excited to see most if not all of you this fall (or sooner, for the Indy people!) when we are on home assignment. Have a SUPER day.

emily

Subscribe to the Blog

Hey Family! I just figured out how to add a link to this blog to "subscribe to this blog" - check it out in the upper left hand corner (there are no bells and whistles - it's just a plain text link). PLEASE sign up to get the subscription - then every time I update, you will get an e-mail from feedburner, instead of me. Add the website so that the notification doesn't go to your SPAM. Here are a few pictures of the kids, while we are here. :)




Also wanted to point out that today is Ash Wednesday. Scott and I always made a pretty big deal out of it with our youth group in the United States, and I woke up thinking about Ashlynn today. Ashlynn was a 13 year old girl in our group, and when we had an Ash Wednesday service that she was a part of, she decided to give up candy for the Lenten season. One of her friends told her "Ashlynn, how can you give up candy? You eat it everyday all the time!" And Ashlynn, with all the simplicity in the world said "If Jesus can give up his life for me, I can give up candy for him for 40 days." Her simple words have stuck with me to this day, and I'm always challenged to give up something that means a lot to me - because Jesus gave up his life for me. Maybe this year you are challenged to observe Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season in a different or new light.