Surprise!!!

Wow, what a morning!  We woke up, ate breakfast and got ready to go to the Feria (the local farmer's market by our house).  A normal Saturday morning for us.  We finished our shopping at the Feria and heading back home.  Cohen opened the garage door for us to go in and we noticed that our front door was wide open and Rosa's shoes were outside.  Rosa always takes off her shoes before coming into our house, but why was she here on a Saturday???  She was supposed to be picking up some boxes (for packing) for us so maybe she just decided to go ahead a drop them off at our house. 

 

Samuel walks up to the doorway and says, "There is a bunch of people in our house!"  At just about the same moment I stepped into the doorway and saw a room full of ladies sitting in our living room and they all shouted, "Surprise!!!!!"  I think I backed up a few steps out of shock at this moment :-)  The first thing that crossed my mind was that this was a surprise for Cohen since his birthday was just the day before.  It didn't even really dawn on me that the party couldn't be for him since the room was full of ladies, but that is just what I defaulted to :-)  I looked at Cohen as to say, what is this, and he said, "It's a baby shower."  No way, a baby shower for me!  I could hardly believe it.  A baby shower had not even entered my mind.

 

What a blessing this party was for me (after I got over the shock of course)!  As it turns out, Rosa had been talking to Cohen for about a month trying to plan a shower for me.  How so very sweet of them!!  Not only that, but our friend Mishelle had a big part in it too.  And, many of the ladies brought yummy food for us to eat.  It was truly a blessing being surrounded by many of the great friends that the Lord has put in my life this past year!

 

Of course, we played some games too.  My favorite was the one with the chocolate melted in the diapers.  Yes, you read that right :-)  Diane had four different diapers with four different kinds of chocolate melted and smashed in them.  The object of the game was to pass around the diapers, smelling each one and trying to figure out what kid of chocolate was in them.  I wish you could have seen us playing this game.  And some of us were even smelling the chocolate and saying, "Mmmmm, que rico!"  Which means, how delicious :-)  We had a great time being silly and sniffing diapers.

 

Also, a very special part of the party was when Cohen and Rosa prayed for me and Nathanael.  And, each lady at the party wrote a special prayer for us on separate little cards that I can put in Nathanael's baby book.  These things were very touching to me and will always be remembered.

 

Wow, what a blessing!  Thank you Cohen, Rosa, Mishelle, Diane, Glynis, Christy, Marge, Gabi, Esther, and Clara.  You gave me memories that I will remember for a lifetime.  I love all of you very much!  Thank you for giving me such a special day!  And thank you Father most of all for all these great people you have blessed me with!

 

What a great day :-)

The 30 Year Old

This is a few days late, but Cohen turned 30 this past Friday, March 27th!!!  We had a small family party for him with pizza from Paulista's, french fries, cake, ice cream and of course singing :-)  We followed all the good eats with our normal Friday tradition of watching a movie together.  Even though it wasn't a huge celebration, I think he enjoyed himself.  I know the rest of us did for sure.

 

After singing happy birthday to him, he of course blew out his candles, but then we lit the cake again so the kids could help him blow them out again.  They loved it!  Levi didn't get to help though since he was at the other end of the table so I took the cake down to him so he could check it out a little before we cut it.  I had to be careful because I think he was having flashbacks from his first birthday :-)  He was about to dig right in!

 

So, Cohen now joins me in being 30.  For about four more months we will be the same age and then I will move on up a year.  It is nice to have company in my old age :-)  Just kidding about the old age part :-)

 

Well "Happy Birthday" sweetie!!  We love you so much!!!  We enjoyed being able to celebrate with you on your special day :-)  There is still one little piece of cake left and it is all you!

The Time is Drawing Near!

This picture is a few weeks overdue, but I still want to share it with you.  As you know our time here in Costa Rica is coming to an end.  We came here last April (2008) to start our language school journey and now we have been here for almost a year.  We will be finished with language school on April 7th, so we have been making preparations to head back to the States for the summer and then, Lord willing, Belize at the end of July.

 

When we came here, we had to buy a few things to set up house and make things more like home for us and the children, but now we are having to find other homes for some of these things.  You might think that a difficult process, but actually it has been so incredibly easy because there are so many other people who are ready to take it off our hands.  We sent out an email to all of our friends here with pictures of everything we needed to sale and in less than 24 hours all but about 6 items were sold!!!  This picture of Cohen with a stroller full of stuff was taken the morning after the email was sent out.  This is how he looked when he went to school that morning.  So many students responded to our sale, that Cohen decided to just load up the stroller and deliver some of it to them the very next day.

 

What a blessing this was that the sale went so smoothly, and what a blessing it has been to others to be able to purchase items at super low prices.  I must say, however, that it was a little sad for us to see some of the items go.  For instance, you can probably see some little ride-on toys in the picture.  We had three of them for our children and they absolutely loved to ride them all over the house.  I will always remember that.  They had such a good time on them, but it is time to let them move on to another family and make more memories.  In fact, we bought them from another missionary family when they were getting ready to leave language school, so they had already been making memories :-)

 

Now, we have only 3 weeks left here!  We have this week and next week left of school and then we have a week for packing.  We are so excited, but we are going to miss Costa Rica and the wonderful friends we have made here.  The Lord has really blessed us with a wonderful year and He had taught us so much!  And He has used so many of you prayerfully and financially to keep us here.  Thank you :-)  We look forward to seeing many of you again soon!!!

Easily Entertained

Cohen came home with the groceries one day and after we put up everything, the children took interest in the grocery bags.  Iva was the only one up from her nap so she was the first one, then here comes Levi and finally Samuel.  The next thing we knew, they were hopping around the play room in them.  They had a great time playing with something as simple as a plastic bag and we had a great time watching them :-)

Someone is Learning to Read!

That's right, Samuel is learning to read!!!  (And he isn't even 5 yet!!!)  We are so excited and proud of him!!!  Almost 2 months ago we purchased and account with a really cool internet based company called ClickN READ Phonics and Samuel absolutely loves it!  He started at the beginning and now is on lesson 21!  He calls it his "dog game" because the mascot of the program is a dog. The dog's name is ClickN Kid. 

 

Through this program Samuel has learned the letter sounds for 18 letters so far and is working on site words and word families too.  Also, he has been working on picking out the letter sounds in words and also reading small sentences as well.  In fact, just yesterday, for the first time EVER he really tried to read the sentences that the program has been working on.  He usually just listens to them as they are read, but not yesterday!  Samuel actually read 3 sentences!!!  "The cats ran to Sam."  "Sam ran to the cats."  "The cats ran to you."  I couldn't believe it!  We were both so excited that we started cheering!!! 

 

This program has been a real blessing for us because Samuel is actually excited about learning.  I have tried in the past to sit down with him and help him sound some letters out in one of his favorite books, but that didn't work.  This way, he is enjoying the learning process and I am enjoying helping him along.  Not only that, but Iva always sits in and listens so who knows what she may be learning too :-)  I am loving it!!!

 

Way to go Samuel!  You are doing great buddy!!!  Keep it up :-)