Ashlyn "walking"

Here's a video of Ashlyn "walking" by pushing a chair in front of her. She also says "bye" to us as she leaves the room.
This morning she was standing up in her crib when I came in to get her. Her eyes were peeking up over the top; she is getting so active! As soon as I put her down she's on the move. It's crazy to think she's going to be a toddler soon!

Nica. rice dish

The other night our neighbor came over to bring us some of his daughter’s birthday meal. It was a special meal and his family had taken all day to prepare it. He had even taken the time to find someone who speaks English and had them write down how to explain all this to us. How sweet of him! After explaining, he handed us a plate of steamed plantain leaves tied up with string.

After opening the plantain leaf I saw these gelatinous looking cubes and said “What is that? It looks like chunks of fat!” Adam responded by stabbing one with his fork and popping it in his mouth. A second later his face twisted in disgust and he stated “yep, that's fat”.
So it has chunks of fat, perfectly cut into large cubes. Rather gross according to our food tastes. But the majority of it was a mixture of rice and potatoes with spices. Adam ate it (minus the fat cubes) and said it was pretty good.

Ok, so I have to come clean. I didn’t even try one bite. I had already eaten supper and the fat cubes turned me off a bit. But honestly I probably wouldn’t have tried it anyway. I just have no adventuresome spirit when it comes to food. I’d much rather stick to things I know and love. What can I say? It is one of my many short comings of a missionary.
In my defense, when living in India I ate more than my share of mushy rice dishes.

Ashlyn Update

This month Ashlyn has really started to engage us. She laughs when we laugh and tries to “talk” about things to us. She has also discovered she can make us laugh. Once she figures out we think something is funny she will do it over and over again.

One thing that makes Adam and I laugh is when she does her “tri-pod”. I’m not sure why we call it a “tri-pod” the name just seemed to fit. It’s when she makes a V with her body by putting her hands and head down in front of her. At first she started doing this on things she liked, a rug or blanket, even sand. But now she just does it all the time, maybe she just likes the way things look upside down.

Ashlyn has also started to pull herself up and loves walking with me holding her hands. Her favorite place to stand is at the living room window because it’s low enough so she can see out. I am nervous about her falling and banging her head on our tile floor, but so far so good!

In the morning I usually sweep the house and she just follows me around from room to room playing with toys or finding something new to explore. I love hearing her palms smack the floor as she crawls after me. Lately she has been “turning on the jets” with her crawling. She has her normal crawling speed, but then sometimes when she’s excited she makes this funny panting sound and takes off across the room.

We only have one step in our house and Ashlyn has been fascinated with learning how to go down it. I have tried to teach her to how to slide herself backwards so she is going feet first, but for some reason she doesn’t seem to get that. So she attempts to go head first. She puts her hands down first and then tries to walk her hands forward enough so she can get her legs down. One time she was right in the middle of this process and realized it wasn’t going to work. She just froze and then I heard her quietly say “ut-oh”.

Every month I think to myself, “I’m so in love with this pudgy, sweaty, toothless little girl, I can’t possibly fall more in love.” Yet every month I fall more in love with her! As cheesy as it sounds it’s true, I just adore her.

Christened

In Nicaragua most lower class families get around on horse carts, bicycles, or just by good-old walking. Many people are not use to traveling on buses, trains, cars etc. Because of this and the roads being rather bumpy, when they do get in a vehicle they often get a little motion sick.

That being said...I would like to announce that our truck has officially been christened…twice. I’m not sure why they don’t mention they are feeling sick so we can pull over. But just rolling down the window and sticking their head out seems to be the preferred choice. Needless to say, it gets on the outside of the vehicle. Right now our truck has throw-up down the side of it. Yuck!
I’m just glad they have such a good sense of humor about it. They really don’t seem to mind too much at all!
I will refrain from adding a photo to this blog. :)

Visitors!

This weekend Adam's Uncle Bob and Aunt B came to visit us. They just moved to San Jose, Costa Rica about two months ago. Right now they are in school learning Spanish for one year. After finishing their schooling they will see where God leads them next.

It was great to see some familiar faces and to just talk! We shared our different experiences and stories about living in Central America. One silly difference we noticed was Costa Rican’s always carry an umbrella with them. But in Nicaragua few people carry umbrellas, most people just stand around in the rain. Bob & B brought their umbrellas with them, Adam and I don’t even own one! My theory is, it’s hotter here and rain is a nice way to cool off.

While they were here we toured our town, the camp, Granada and San Juan Del Sur. They have such a laid back, yet adventuress attitudes. It was our pleasure to show them around!

Ashlyn also really enjoyed having them here! It was two days of going non-stop, but she seemed to enjoy the change of pace. She loved all the extra attention and said "hi" to them at least 20 times a day. I think her favorite part was going to San Juan Del Sur where we found a secluded beach full of rocks. Ashlyn loved playing with the rocks and of course eating some sand as well.

It was a really fun, refreshing weekend and I miss having them!

San Juan Del Sur

This evening Adam and I went to San Juan Del Sur, it is about 45 minute drive from our home and is a very popular tourist destination in Nica.
Ashlyn got her first taste of salt water, and I must say I think she liked it. Not only was she all smiles as the waves hit her, but she kept sucking on her hands and shirt. Gross!
We all had a lot of fun playing in the water and afterwards we went out to eat at one of the local restaurants. It was so relaxing listening to the waves while we ate. It was a great night and I am looking forward to our next visit!

Rainy Day!

It rained most of the day and for the first time Ashlyn noticed the rain and seemed very interested. So I took her out on the back porch and we played in the water pouring off our roof. She would squeal and kick her legs in delight when I would swing her out into the water that was coming down off the roof. We both got soaked, but she loved it!

When it rains our yard becomes a giant, muddy puddle. The dogs decided to have some fun chasing each other around in the water. It was a lot of fun to watch them, especially when they came flying up onto the tile floors. They would slide a few feet and then wipe out, crashing into each other.

Sawyer and Rio wiping out on the tile.

It's the little things

It’s the little things that make you fall in love, setting that one person or place apart.
But it’s also the little things that start to drive you crazy. That’s what this blog is about!

Every night before bed I take the dogs out to go “wee”. I have a path I always take when walking in our yard, it is the “safe zone”. Last night I foolishly wandered off the safe zone. One moment I was walking along, not a care in the world and the next second my feet were on fire. I had walked right over a fire ant hill and the little buggers were biting me like crazy. I ran to the pavement and threw off my sandals but they were all over my feet. I started smushing them to death, but they just kept biting me. So I ran into the house and hopped in the shower to wash my feet off. This got rid of them, but my feet were still on fire and this morning they are so very itchy!
It’s not really the fire ants themselves that makes me so angry. It’s the fact that I cannot stand in my own yard for more than 30 seconds for fear of getting attacked. They have stolen my freedom, I can’t put Ashlyn down in our yard, or play with the dogs, even standing still long enough to pick lemons or avocado’s is risky. I am a prisoner to tile and cement floors.
However I do retaliate against the ants. Every time I have been attacked I find their hill and douse it with vinegar and baby powder (according to my research these are two things ants hate).
Insane? Absolutely. But it makes me feel better.


The fire ant hill covered with a nice powdering.





The second thing is how dirty my house always is. I can sweep and mop the whole house and within two hours, it looks like I haven’t touched it in days. It is infuriating, especially because it’s so hot here I sweat buckets sweeping and mopping. You would think in a country where all the houses have tile floors they would have some great mops; like the Swiffer 2000 or something. But nope, I’ve got this wooden handle with a cloth mop head that I attempt to wring out by hand. After a week of mopping with it, it’s just smelly and gross. So now I am a prisoner to dirty, tile floors.

The third thing is the electricity is always going out. The electricity is on a schedule because the power company’s generators were built in the 50’s and can’t handle the country’s demand for power. So they shut the power off Monday thru Friday from 7 am to 2 pm.
It took about a week of trying to turn things on and a few spoiled bags of milk to adjust. Now I have gotten use to using our propane stove to heat things up and moving perishables into the freezer everyday.
But these last few weeks almost every time it rains, or for no reason at all the power on our street goes off. This mostly happens at night, and then Adam and I just lay in bed sweating, trying to decide if it’s worth opening the windows and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes or just to lay there and sweat. After a week of the power going out almost every night Adam did some investigating. He finally figured out there is a faulty transformer on one of the street poles. The power company has plans to fix it in a month…or so.

These are a few of the little things that are driving me a bit crazy. Someday I will write a blog on all the little things I really love about living in Nicaragua, but today is not that day.