Thursday, October 28, 2010

Still Stylin'

Every year on October 27th we have a tradition. That is the day we celebrate "Gotcha Day" with our baby.
We get out all the baby clothes she was wearing on that wonderful day, and she tries them on. I can't believe that after six years they still fit her, amazing.
The funny part is she is turning into a model in them, even down to the split pants.
This year was fun as she is understanding more and more about the whole mind boggling idea of adoption. I'm not real sure when or if it ever actually makes sense to a child that their birth mother gave them up, but she acts like she gets it.
She never asks questions about her birth mother. She just tells people that she has two moms one that had her in her belly and another one that takes care of her.
I guess every year it will become more understandable for her. In the meantime we will enjoy the excuse to party!



Friday, October 22, 2010

Omitepe Island



Usually when I think of islands I think of beautiful aqua waters, white sand beaches and palm trees. We blew that whole picture out of the water, literally, when we visited Omitepe this week. It is the only island in the middle of fresh water, a fresh water lake no less. There are actually two volcanoes and they are in the middle of Lake Nicaragua.


When we visited Tamarindo last month we left a couple of hours before a big earthquake hit. Today two hours after we left Nicaragua Costa Rica "troops" or I guess we should call them "pretend troops" since Costa Rica does not have "real troops", moved into the border town.

Apparently a bad guy is messing with the river dividing the two countries and dredging in the river and even threatening a kid and cattle. This of course calls for some pretty drastic measures.

So this afternoon the "pretend troops" moved in to restore order and strike fear into the Nicas. The real problem here is they have real troops! Just waiting to see how long it takes the U.S troops off the coast to mobilize and help out, since that is what they are there for right?

Anyway just glad we escaped with our lives and don't have to worry about leaving for a few months.

Now the thing about Omitepe. If you have not been there I would just recommend you check out my pictures and experience through them. In other words it was a little boring. There are of course some cool places to hike to, if you want to spend a lot of money and fall in with the other tourists.


The most interesting part was the guy who owned the hotel we stayed at. He had this cool beaver tail and some great stories. One rainy day we just hung out with him and listened to him talk story and looked at his pictures. This guy had been all over the world as a peace ambassador for the Native Americans.

He is a true blue headband wearing Indian. He and his tribe actually live in teepees on Omitepe, pretty appropriate ha?

Monday, October 18, 2010

Nica Bound

We will be heading off to Nica tomorrow for our 90 day leave. We are really excited as we will be visiting a new place. Well new to us, really old to everyone else. It is Ometepe Island. There are two volcanoes located there and we are planning on hiking the big one, Conception. Exciting.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Half Marathon PR!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I would agree after looking at these. We both, Bekah and I left it on the road today. We did our race in Cartago and the first hour was all up hill. From there on it was awesomely downhill and fast, even for us! We finished in 2:10 and 2:15. You can probably look at the two last pictures and guess who had which time :)




Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Logistics of Family Racing

I am not used to having other members of my family racing along with me. It is fun and of course very humbling. There are a few drawbacks, but the fun is worth it for sure.

The biggest draw back would be the food bill! Holy guacamole we all eat a lot when we are training for a half marathon! Especially when we all do our track workout the same day, and long run the same day, lots of calories to replace those days.

Last night I cooked a perfectly healthy perfect meal. Whole wheat penne pasta with a vegee marinara sauce and a beautiful salad. About thirty minutes after dinner hubby started talking about how good a banana split would taste about now.

At least we did healthy banana splits. A great huge banana, only two scoops of ice cream, home made chocolate syrup made with cocoa powder and raw sugar, and nuts on top. I don't even want to know how many calories, but it did satisfy the itch and was fun to eat while watching the Biggest Loser.

I think hubby is still trying to recoup his calories and rest after his 10k on Sunday because he ordered cheeseburgers and potato wedges for dinner tonight. Good thing we are getting ready for our half marathon on Sunday.

Which brings up another logistic problem. Me and my daughter are going to ride the bus to Cartago to do our half marathon. I was thinking this morning "wait a minute, I don't want to ride three busses in my running clothes, and not to mention wearing them home after a half marathon! We would clear the bus to be sure".

I asked my son who also did the 10k last Sunday if he would be willing to go with us and watch our junk and maybe shoot a couple of pictures. He readily agreed so that base is covered. His very kind younger sister went along to their race to be the holder, and picture taker.

Not sure what we will do when we have bikes to haul, probably have to break down and rent a car for those races, or just ride our bikes to the race :)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

10.5 K




Today my middle son raced his first ever race. Considering he has only been training for two weeks and finished in the top one third of his age group I am very excited. Mostly because I am so relieved he did not get is Mom's very slow genes.

I knew he was strong and an awesome biker, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he is also fast.

He takes after his papa who also raced today. He did awesome also and is of course bummed about his time and looking for ways to get faster. I guess none of us would continue to race if we were happy about our times...

Seventh, Seven on 10/10/10




Pretty special day around this part of the woods.

My seventh child turns seven and it is 10/10/10! Pretty cool and pretty fun birthday party for sure.

She of course chose one fried egg for breakfast, her favorite. For lunch lazy soup. And for dinner fish, baked potatoes, and salad. And of course a strawberry cheesecake for dessert.

The best part of course was the presents. We don't usually spend much on birthday gifts, way too many birthdays for that. This one was an exception for a very good reason. Teeny had a cell phone that had died a horrible death. She also had a Nintendo DS that she never ever played with.

Well baby loves the DS so we made a deal with Teeny to trade her a new cell phone for the DS she was trying to sell on Craigslist for $150.00. I guess it turned out win, win,, win considering we would have had to buy her a new cell anyway, and baby will be very busy for a long time!

Friday, October 8, 2010

To The States Again....

Time for another trip to the States. Good thing this one will be very short, and hopefully very sweet.

Micah will be having his sentencing hearing the 16th of November. Since we have classes to teach here we will fly in one day, hearing next day, fly out that night.

The big question and prayer...minimum sentence please!!!!!!!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Bittersweet

Today is "baby boys" birthday. It is a bittersweet day for me. On the one hand I am filled with joy when I remember his birth. I was talking to his older brother about it as we walked home from our track workout this morning.

My whole goal that hot October day in Independence Missouri was to finish our paper route before I finally had this baby. He was two weeks late and I was so ready to get this fifth baby born.

Since we did not do the ultra sounds we were all just hoping that he would be a girl. Having three boys already and only one girl we were all so hoping for a girl.

I loaded the kiddos in the little white car and we drove the paper route. As soon as we were done we loaded up the whole family in the van and drove to the hospital. My friend Jackie was there to keep the other four kids in check during the birth.

Really the only thing I remember the most about his birth was the fact that a)I almost had him in the toilet and b)his shoulders got stuck and it took a couple of pushes for the doc to turn him around and get him "unstuck".

Other than that it was quick and he was a lovely little squirmy guy with tons of black hair, and of course very big shoulders. He weighed in at a whopping 7lb.15oz. and was 21" long. Man was I happy to finally get that boy here.

Now all I can think about is how happy I will to finally get that boy out of jail and have a real birthday party with him on his birthday. This is his third birthday in county jail and we are all ready for a real party.

Of course like he in all his optimism reminded me tonight on the phone, at least I know he will not get drunk and die on his 21st birthday. That much we know.