Snake! - Michael

We had a fun lunch today. Our neighbor, Renzo, told me he found a snake over by his chicken coop, which is about 150 feet from our homes. He had called the fire department to come get it. I didn't understand what kind of snake he was talking about. When I saw it I had to run back and get the camera.

Renzo told me he's never seen this kind of snake in the 10 years he's lived in the house. He saw it because he was over at the chicken coop with his wife and their little dog went off and started barking at the snake. Renzo's wife, Gretel, was pretty nervous and carried their dog into the house.

Snake in the weeds.

Snake's in the bag.

Firemen preparing to leave.

Don't worry, Grandma. As somebody suggested on Facebook, we'll arm the kids with machetes when they go out to play. ;-)

Baptism Temple Trip - Michael

On Saturday, Julia and I went with the youth in the branch to the temple in San Jose to do baptisms. That was fun to do. One highlight was the warm shower with lots of water pressure.

In front of the San Jose Temple

After the temple baptisms, we went to a baptism of a young member of the branch. Our branch doesn't have a font, so it was at the branch building in Santa Ana. The building was basically a big fancy house that even had carpet in one room. That was the first time I have seen carpet since we arrived here.

I have some pictures and video, because it was an interesting building for a church and impressive to our branch members as a house.

 "Baptismal Font"

This is just a quick picture I took of ward members before joining the
picture that Brother Wayne Richardson was taking.

 

 

Runaway Dylan - Michael

We have been struggling with Dylan lately. I think he is struggling quite a bit with the frustration of not being able to communicate and other general changes here in Cost Rica.

Thursday morning he didn’t want to go to school, but Hannah said that he would get his email account back if he went. So he went—at least in the car. Hannah said that along the way he started hitting her and Julia. Hannah didn’t want to reward his poor behavior by letting him come home. When they got to school, she had to pull him out of the car, and then he ran off. Hannah chased after him but couldn’t catch up. She came back to the school to get the car and follow him. At that point he was gone.

When she first came back to get the car, another mom, Nelsy (the mother of Favoricio, a friend of Dylan’s) began helping. They drove down the road into town and couldn’t find him.

I was home getting ready for work and helping Jonah to be ready to go to school when Hannah got back. Just after I sat down to work at 8:00, she called and told me Dylan had run off and they were trying to find him. I had wondered why she wasn’t back yet and hoped she was just running errands and hadn’t gotten in an accident.

Hannah came and picked up me and Jonah. Nelsy and Caleb were with her. They had already contacted the police. We returned to school. All of Dylan’s classmates were standing against the fence, worried about him. Nelsy didn’t speak English, so she and I started walking down the street asking people if they had seen Dylan, while Hannah continued driving around.

We walked and we called for him. We checked all the side streets and long driveways. We looked over fences into fields. What amazed me was how generally helpful and concerned the people were. And Nelsy was right there talking to everyone asking if they had seen the little lost boy who didn’t speak Spanish. Some of the people went out looking. Eva Cordero (Christian and Sylvia’s mom) was driving all over the place looking for him. She was so worried. (She has been so kind and concerned for our welfare, ever since we arrived.)

We had one lady who was going to light a candle to the Virgin to help us find him and neighbors talking to each other. Nelsy asked a taxi that passed if he would share with the other taxis to watch for the lost boy.

Every now and then Hannah or the Police would drive past us again as Nelsy and I eventually made our way into town. Nelsy suggested we go to this other investigative government agency, El Organismo de Investigacion Judicial. They do some type of investigative stuff. They said they normally don’t do anything about a missing child for at least 24 hours; however, in this instance, because he was new to the area and didn’t know Spanish, they were going to make an exception. It took a while to work through the bureaucracy of it all.

During that time Hannah came by with the passports which the agency wanted and she had the Relief Society president with her (I can’t remember her name, nor could Hannah). I wondered how she had found out to join in the search. Neither of us know.

By now it was after 11:00, so he had been missing for more than 4 hours. Right around 11:30, the agency was about to make some announcement—I’m not exactly sure how that was going to work, if it went to radio or tv stations or what—when they got word from the police that they had found Dylan.

I still haven’t really talked to Dylan about it. I’ve been trying to make up for the missed morning of work, so I’m not real clear on how he was found. My understanding is that one of those annoying cars with the speakers on the roof that normally drive through the neighborhoods advertising dances or something was driving down the street announcing that there was a lost boy. Even though Nelsy and I had talked to a lot of the people along the road, this seems to have gotten the word out even better. One of the people in the neighborhood found Dylan hiding in the bushes near the road about 500 meters from the school.

I called Hannah to let her know. By the time I got a hold of her, she had already met up with Dylan and the people who had found him. While Nelsy and I waited for Hannah to come pick us up, Eva Cordero drove by. I gave her the good news and we rejoiced together.

Hannah picked us up, and we returned to the school, so that Nelsy could get her car. While we were there Dylan’s teacher came out. She was so concerned for him. She told us not to force him and just let him get more accustomed to everything, which we will probably do. However, I think Dylan’s attitude toward the people at school may have changed as well, which might help. Dylan’s teacher reached into the car to give him a hug. He was a muddy mess, with mud on his face too. He had taken off his shirt and was in his wife-beater style tank-top. He got many hugs from various women who said to him, “mi amor!”

The whole time his teacher was talking to us, his whole class was standing against the chain-link fence happy to see he was okay and waving and saying, “Dylan,” “Hi, Dylan.” If he didn’t walk away from that experience feeling like a lot of people love and care about him, I don’t think there’s a way for it to sink in. They were all so great. I don’t have a way to thank the wonderful people in the neighborhood.

After we got home, our branch president, Presidente Lopez, came over. He heard about Dylan and had been out looking. I didn’t realize how many people knew. It was amazing. He was commenting that his wife wasn’t worried about anything bad happening to Dylan by some other person, but that he might get bitten by a poisonous snake or something. Nelsy said something similar and that was my sense generally. I didn’t think it was likely that he would be harmed by anybody else. I was just afraid he was lost, even though we were guessing that he was hiding somewhere.

As Presidente Lopez said, it was “una experiencia nueva”. I was just really touched by the caring and concern from so many people.

Poor Hannah, though. She is strong, but this one really took a toll on her. She is working on the language but feeling disconnected and frustrated by her inability to communicate with people, especially when looking for her lost son. She is a good brave woman.

Stuff I Like - Jonah

I like playing with friends and Trace's cool guns (Trace is one of Jonah's friends in AF). Sometimes mom doesn't let me. I like playing with friends' toys. hee hee hee hee.

I like climbing up trees.

Trace's guns are pretend. And I like my monster truck shirt.

I like going to Costa Rica, and Costa Rica is fun. I like when Mom lets me do the laundry. Our house is cool. Our house is warm.

I like gun sticks. I like playing with Reed (Jonah's friend at his preschool here in Costa Rica).

The Merciless Girls - Caleb

Today at school I saw a crumpled up piece of paper on my desk after recess. I looked behind me and saw three girls giggling (Who also happen to be the same three girls in the picture I sent earlier on my post called school; in order from left to right it's Alison, Lauren, and Zuri). I opened up the note and it said:

Stick

Almost right after I read it the boy that sits next to me came in and read the note over my shoulder. He then said "I love you," and pointed to Lauren (none of them knew very much English). I didn't know how "stick" translated into I love you, but I didn't really care about it. My English teacher walked in and I was so happy that it was time for English. It's the only subject that I am very good at, because all of the other subjects are taught in Spanish. 

A little while later she passed me another note that said:

Lauren  Yes    No

Alison  Yes    No

Zuri  Yes   No

I didn't want to say yes, because then no one would ever give me a break about it, but if I said no, it would be really mean. So I improvised and for each girl I wrote "Yo and Nes," the red letters make up the word no and the green letters make up the word yes. At first they looked at me confused, but then, with the help of my teacher, I explained what it meant.

By this time, everyone in the class knew what was happening. After that they tried this:

ü or X

Lauren    Alison    Zuri

                                                                   p   p  p     

I didn't know what to what to do, but finally, I wrote this in each box:

I passed them another note that said:

There is no translation allowed for the answer to

this question, if you are asked to translate it, do 

not: the answer to your question may or may not 

be what you want it to be.

One of them asked the English teacher to read it, but he said that he couldn't translate it. That got them frustrated enough to not bother me for a while, but then they passed me this:

only one mark

ü or X

Lauren    Alison    Zuri

                                                                 p   p   p     

At this point I didn't really know if they were asking if I thought they were cute, or asking if I liked them, so I figured that this was good enough to give back to them:

only one mark

ü or X

Lauren    Alison    Zuri

                                                                 p   p   p     

Caleb

þ

I only did one mark

Then I wrote another note to them that said:

This can be translated: I may or may

not think that any one of you are

beautiful. 

They had my teacher translate it. As soon as he finished, they started groaning. Then Zuri looked at me and said "¿Por Favor?" I asked my teacher to tell them that I didn't want to say yes, because then no one would ever give me a break about it, but if I said no, it would be really mean. But then at our next recess they asked me which one they thought was the cutest (my friend Tom translated it). I said that I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but they told me that they wouldn't get hurt feelings. They gave me one day to decide who was the cutest.

Now I'm at home trying to decide what to tell them. I know I won't tell them who I think is the cutest, but I can't decide what I do tell them.

Family Home Evening Revelations - Michael

Tonight we had Family Home Evening. It was nice. Hannah talked about being able to do hard things and how what we experience is largely dependent on our perspective. 

I won't bore you with all of the details, but I was reassured at one point when Jonah said, in response to one if the other kid's comments, "Mom, I never stole your credit card. Not even when I was two."

Thank goodness. I had my concerns about that boy, but not anymore.

Jaco Beach - Hannah

Can I just say I love any beach. The sound of the water, the birds, the smell, everything. But this beach... Wow, I am in love with it.

One of the main reasons was simply because I was not cold. It was fantastic. We could sit on the beach and be completely comfortable, and when we got slightly warm we could go play in the water. But the water wasn't cold either so there was no need to get out and snuggle in a warm towel. And apparently this was not even one of the nicest beaches.

These last few days have been tough on the kids--it's hard going to school when you can't communicate. There have been some tears, so I was so glad to see everyone smiling and having a great time.

It was a little iffy on whether we'd be able to go this weekend, because we needed a couple more seat belts installed. But we were finally able to get everything into place on Friday, so Saturday morning we went to Jaco beach. Before we moved here, we thought the beach was about a half hour away. It's about 40 miles, but on the roads here it took us about an hour and a half. It's unfortunate it takes so long. At the same time, the road is so scenic I didn't mind so much. Everything is so lush and green. It's just incredible. It's like there simply can't be a spot of bare ground; some living thing is aching to make it's way up. To keep roads and yards up, people just use weed whackers and machetes. It's absolutely gorgeous.

So here are some photos of our beach day. And before you get to the end, make a guess as to what kind of wildlife we saw. You'll never guess :)

We love the beach!!!

Julia keeping an eye on Jonah

Where the beach meets the jungle

Are these not the cutest little bananas you've ever seen?

Although difficult to see, there's Michael surfing and Dylan boogie boarding

Julia chillin'

The incredible shrinking Caleb

Half the kid he used to be

A cute little head we found

Jonah + Sand = One Happy Kid

Tropical beach girl

Just in case you were wondering who this girl was

Random coconut on the ground. Because that's just cool.

Hannah's rock collection

Dylan eating lunch. The typical Costa Rican meal is called a casada,
a mixture of rice, beans, a little meat, and veggies. So tasty :)

The kids drinking their bags of juice.
Apparently this is how they're often served juice at school. 

More lunch...

Our family photo, taken by a local. Alisia, we need you.

Running from the waves

On the drive home we took a look over a bridge and saw these.
Is that awesome or what? We counted 25 crocodiles.

Don't worry Mom. We were plenty far away from these guys.

To all our loved ones back home. We miss you!

Escuela - Julia

My mom keeps telling me I need to write a blog post but there really isn't a whole lot to say. Basically during school I sit there for 8 hours and doodle, make paper cranes, write down lyrics to songs I have memorized, and read books on my Kindle. Then I come home and do math and go back and forth between Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest hoping someone will post something. That's pretty much what I do every day, but there are two stories worth sharing about school, the first happened on my second day.

 

The first two classes were the same as always, I doodled and wrote in my notebook. In my third class, I got bored of song lyrics so I ripped out a piece of paper and started making a paper crane. When I finished I set it on my desk and went to make another one, but before I could, a girl sitting next to me picked it up and said, (it was in Spanish so I don't know exactly what she said but this is what is sounded like) "Oh it's so cute!" She then stood up in the middle if the teacher talking and held it up for the while class to see, "Look how cool this is!" Some people even stood up to get a better look at it. I just sat there, slightly amused that they were so fascinated by it. Then everyone was asking me to make them one. The rest of the day I was folding paper cranes and showing other people how to make them. 

The next story happened this morning. I went to school same as I always do and went to my first class, which I sat through being bored, then after my class, a girl in my class who speaks some English informed me that we had no more classes for the rest of the day. I was slightly annoyed because I always found out about these things at the last second, but I asked to use her phone to call my mom. I tried calling and she didn't answer  I called back two more times and she still didn't pick up the phone. I didn't know how I would get home. I walked up to the gates with my friends and when we reached the top of the hill I asked to use her phone again, and tried calling her two more times but still no answer. I had no other way to get home and the wi-fi at the school doesn't work very well, I tried emailing my dad but the wi-fi got too weak right after I finished the email so I don't know if it sent or not. I decided I would have to walk home. I knew how to get there but I still did not want to walk the whole way. So I began walking. It was really hot and I was wearing a thick shirt and long black pants, and I really had to use the bathroom. It took about 25 minutes before I finally got home, then I went to open the front door only to find that it was locked. I went around and tried the side door, but it was locked too. I knocked on the window of my dad's office but no one answered so I knew no one was home, which was odd because my dad is usually always home working. I realized I had nothing to do but wait so I sat on a chair and played a game on my iPod, but I knew the battery wouldn't last long. Luckily it was only about 10 minutes before my parents got home and I was finally able to get inside.

So those have really been the only exciting things that have happened to me since we have been here, I hope you're all having a more exciting time than I am. Ciao!

School - Caleb

I took a camera to school today, and took a bunch of pictures of things there.

Kids playing tag before school

My classroom

My desk

Dylan's classroom

My classroom from the outside

The lunchroom during lunch

I think this is the part when some kids in my class found out that I had a camera...

This is Jasón (middle), a girl in my class that I don't know the name of, 

and another random kid. The lunch ladies are in the background.

Some of my classmates at lunch

The outside lunch table

My teacher (on the left). Her name is Marisol, I think.
The students called her niña, which means girl.

My desk while sitting on my chair

Boys in my class

Girls in my class

Bathrooms

The only sinks that I've seen in the whole school

We play a game at recess a lot of the time, it's kind of like cops and robbers, if you've ever played that, except that the cops don't just have to touch the robbers, they have to grab them and pull them to the jail, and the robbers can struggle... a lot. Also the robbers can't just escape by running out, so there has to be a lot of jail guards. The jail is kind of tucked away in a corner though, so that makes it easier for the cops. We split into girls and boys, and every once and a while the girls and boys switch from cops to robber or vica versa. I like playing it, especially because I am probably the biggest threat. I don't know how I got so good at it, but no one seems to be able to catch me.. well they didn't before. Now they have about 4 or 5 cops just trying to get me. I usually just take it as a compliment.

This is my friend Tom (left) who speaks English, pulling a girl into the jail,
with another boys help. The background is the jail, and you can see a girl
there getting ready to escape on the far left. After I took this picture,
 I barely had time to put away the camera and then I caught her and put
her back in the jail.

This girl is running after me to put me in the jail.

This is what I do when I'm bored
because I don't know what people are saying. 

This is what I do when I'm bored of doing what I do when I'm bored. 

And finally, the gate leading outside to go home at the end of the day