Census or Health Visit? - Michael

Today two women came to our house as part of a census type of health visit. I figured it was probably legit, because Caleb brought home a note about it from school about two weeks ago. It was an interesting visit, and I'm not quite sure what the purpose was. Here's a summary of the questions they asked (in no particular order):

1. What is your name, age, date of birth (for each member of the family)?
2. How long have you lived here?
3. How long do you intend to live here?
4. What is your occupation?
5. Do you rent or own?
6. Have you been advised about Dengue Fever? (They said it's not a problem in our town but can be in parts of Costa Rica.)
7. Are you pregnant? (asked to Hannah)
8. Have you been tested recently for Syphilis? (ask to Hannah, at least I think that's what they were asking, either that or for human papilloma virus, or both?)
9. What kind of contraception do you use?
10. Are you on any prescriptions?
11. Is your stove electric or gas?
12. How many televisions do you have?
13. How many computers do you have?

In the middle of the questions, they took our blood pressure. I think Costa Rica is good for me. Not only was my blood pressure lower than normal (110/70), but for the first time ever was lower than Hannah's (even if just barely).

Our Secret Place - The Kids

There's a place that takes about 5 minutes to walk to from our house; we call it our secret place. It's a shortcut that you can take to get to the main road, but if you go off the path there's a lot of cool places to explore and stuff, and we've started going on walks there a lot. Two days ago Julia went, yesterday Julia and Dylan went, and today all of us went.

Yesterday while Julia and Dylan were there it started raining as we were about to leave. Soon after we started walking back it started pouring and we ran as fast as we could all the way home, and when we arrived at the house our legs were covered in mud and our clothes were soaking wet and we were out of breath, but it was really fun .

Today when all of us went we took a lot of pictures, and here are our favorites.

I'm on top of the world! -Julia

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! -Caleb

boom boom boom boom -Dylan

I'm flying -Dylan

HAHA look at my hands -Dylan

I'm dying -Dylan

At most I'd break a leg -Dylan

I like this picture -Jonah

And it's funny -Jonah

This is my stick, and it's a little bit pokey -Jonah

High Humidity and Moldy Clothes - Michael

A friend here, who is from California, warned us that our natural fiber clothes will likely start molding within a few months. I put this hat in a closet right after we arrived here and haven't touched it until now. I pulled it out and found it was growing. Not what you want to have happen.

I'm hoping that the mold only happens on things you don't use. We all brought so few outfits that they all get used regularly. Except for my one pair of jeans and most of my socks, I think the rest of my clothes will be okay.

Little Bananas - Michael

We all like these little bananas you can buy here. They're nice, because they don't require so much commitment. Here you tend to find bananas in one of three general sizes.

1. Large - what we normally find in the States.
2. Medium - 4 to 6 inches
3. Small - 1.5 to 3 inches.

Here's Jonah holding a bunch of small bananas.

Watching General Conference - Michael

On Saturday and Sunday, we watched General Conference. It was somewhat similar to our experience of listening to General Conference online, when we lived in Indiana, ten years ago. One tradition that started, when we were in Indiana is that General Conference involves a fair amount of candy. This was no exception, even though we paid $12 for a bag of candy that probably would have cost $6 or $7 in the U.S. Here's the family watching conference.

I just realized that the picture above the couch is crooked.

Because the screen wasn't very big, we set up two laptops to make it easier for both ends of the couch to see. However, they would quickly get out of sync, which we just lived with. One was muted, so that wasn't a problem.

We also kept the glass doors open, because otherwise that room can warm up a bit in the sun (probably would have been the perfect temperature for Hannah). I wish I would have gotten a picture of the neighbor dog that spent most of the day laying just outside the doorway.

While I really missed being able to go the Priesthood session with my brothers, it was a good weekend.

Cowboy Jonah - Hannah

Jonah and his principal, Jose.
 Riding horses was "fun, but a little bit scary."

No Hands!

Riding backwards and drawing shapes on the horse's back

A Walk to Town - Hannah

This post has nothing exciting--no snakes or crocodiles or lost children--just a simple walk to town with the kids for bread and treats. It made for a nice morning.

Here are some pretty flowers we saw on our walk:

 
 

And some cute kids:

And a couple other sites along the way:

Lest you think it's all lovely, here's an unfortunate and all too common site--the garbage along the road:

And here are the kids eating their popsicles:

I thought mine had chocolate chips, but they were actually raisins. Not too bad, though I never would have thought to put raisins in a popsicle.

And finally, here's a photo that Dylan took of the tree back at our house. Can you see the squirrel?