Some Pic's of Ashlyn

Ashlyn now has four front teeth; two on the top and two on the bottom. Her top two just came in this last week and boy are they big! Adam keeps teasing me about how she obviously got my "big front teeth genes". But she is just as cute as ever!


Ashlyn loves to help me bake. She's not the most precise measurer, or best mixer. But she defiantly enjoys herself and tries very hard to imitate what I'm doing and help out.


Ashlyn loves to play “dress up”! She drapes anything she can find around her neck, loves wearing glasses, thinks plastic pen cases are hats and the dirty laundry basket has become her personal costume wardrobe. Not to mention she has a minor obsession with shoes. She loves wearing them and makes sure Adam and I both have ours on too!

Ashlyn really enjoys having the dogs around. She helps me feed them in the morning and thinks it is the funniest thing to feed poor Sawyer one bite at a time. She also tries to dress them up by putting glasses or her backpack on them. She even throws the ball for them (it only goes a few feet, but they like it). When we come home she always smiles at them and says "hi dog!"

Mystery Solved

A common complaint I hear from Americans living here is having an infestation of mice & rats in their house. I always just shrugged and I said we’ve never seen any in our house. I figured this must be due to the friendly neighborhood cat who climbs in our windows at night leaving dirty paw prints everywhere (so much for our amazing guard dogs).

But last night I found baby snake number two in our house. This time he/she was in our bedroom all the way at the back of our house. We showed our landlord the snake and he said it was a harmless snake that feasts on rats and mice! He said we obviously have a mama snake hanging around, most likely living under our house. No wonder we don’t have any rats in our house, they never make it that far!
Adam inspected the area where I found the snake and sure enough. Behind the door was a little hole in the floor just the right size for a baby snake to crawl through.
So today we are going to search the house for "snake holes" to fill in. Our landlord is also bringing someone to clear our backyard, getting rid of any dead leaves and weeds. I personally liked the weeds; they are pretty vines with flowers. But I guess Nicaraguan's have bare, dirt yards for a reason.

Our snake family is doing a wonderful job of keeping the rats and mice away. I’d rather have harmless snakes hanging around then to kill them off and have poisonous ones take up residency. But hopefully that will be the last snake we find in our home.

Missions Trip

The mission trip from Adam's home church has come and gone. It was a really busy week, but lots of fun! It was great to see people who have been supporting us come and be a part of what we are doing. It was also wonderful to see familiar faces and show them our "home".

During the week they were here they ran a kids camp for a day, taught ESL to adults and did a construction project.

The kid’s camp went great! They had about 50 kids who came from a local school. They were able to swim, break some piñata’s, do some crafts and hear about the love of Christ!

The ESL was a big hit; the adults were so excited to learn English! They said they couldn't even sleep they were so excited to come back the next day and learn more! Adam and I are working on getting weekly classes set up at camp for them to come to and learn more.

The construction project was for a family who lives down the beach. The church built them an enclosed cement room as an addition to their home. I believe the family was in shock that this just "happened" to them. They are expecting their third child in August and are thrilled about having a water/bug proof room to sleep in. The church also gave them a propane tank and stove top to cook on. This is a huge blessing to the family since previously they would collect wood everyday and cook over a fire which filled their home with smoke!

It was a blessing to have the team here and they are excited to come back next year! Adam's mom stayed a few extra days and treated us to two nights at a all-inclusive resort here! It was lots of fun to go swimming and stuff ourselves full of food. Ashlyn really enjoyed spending time with her Grammie. She was quite the cuddle bug with Grammie, which was precious to see!

Now we are getting ready for the next team coming on the 27th! They are "Chop Point" the organization who founded the camp. They will be here for two weeks and will be running a kids camp. We are very excited to have them here since they are the experts at running these camps and once again it will be so fun to see people we know.

The "kids camp" kids and mission team.

New addition to the family's home.

Unwelcome Visitor

We had a mission team from Tennessee run a kid’s camp a few weeks ago. One of the men found a six foot Boa Constrictor outside his cabin at night.
Thought you might enjoy the picture!

Christmas Vacation

We are back from our Christmas vacation to Maine. It was wonderful to go back for the holidays! We had a great time visiting with friends and family, seeing lots of snow and “pigging out” on all the food we’ve been craving. I think we gave the local Chinese buffet a serious financial boost this holiday season!

Ashlyn accomplished some milestones while we were there. Her two, bottom front teeth came in! She was not a happy girl during this process, but now that they are in she looks awful cute! She also learned to walk while in Maine! It’s strange at times to have her just “walk” into a room like such a big girl!
It was really fun to see her interact with everyone around her. Once she figured out that people would say “hi” back to her, she was waving and saying “hi” to everyone. She also got to play with her “friends”. She was shy at first but by the end of the trip she was having lots of fun playing with the other kids.

I think everyone knows, but incase I missed anyone…we are expecting! I am about four months pregnant and due July 5th. We will be having the baby here which will give the baby automatic citizenship in Nicaragua. We are looking forward to our new addition!

Although I was a little sad to leave Maine, we are happy to be back! There has been a lot to do at the camp since we’ve been back. A mission’s team from Tennessee came down and ran a great kids camp. Now some church’s here in Nica. are using it to hold church retreats. And in just two weeks a team from Adam’s home church in Maine is coming down. We are excited to have them come!

Here's a picture of Ashlyn reaching in her stocking on Christmas morning.