Friday, September 12, 2008

Who's This Guy?



The one thing that Troy and I disagree on (besides scouts and chores) is his hair. He loves it long. The longer the better from his point of view. Wes just wants it short with a nice "comb over" for Sunday. I have to fight him on that one. I'm cool with it a little long, but I don't like tons of hair around his face. So in honor of him turning 12 in about a month, we had it cut off. Tons of his hair left his head for good yesterday. I was impressed he didn't go kicking and screamin'. Here he is before the "hair do". Check out this sign, Beauty Saloon instead of Beauty Salon. I guess you can head to the bar and down a root beer before you get all dolled up. So funny.
So here is the official "before" shot.
Here is the "painful" during. He had just looked in the mirror and got that panicked, "He's ruining my hair and my life look". I get that too during my hair cuts.
Here I was able to grab a shot just before he headed out the door to "go hang out". Thanks Troy for letting me photojournal your life today! When did my baby turn into this?????

It's still a little long. Next month we will have a new, shorter style. :)

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Survivor Man...

Can you guess what we watch on T.V? Discovery channel, Survivor Man, Dirty Jobs, you get the picture. We know that when getting through the jungles of Costa Rica, going through the mangroves isn't possible. Crickets can be good when roasted, but don't eat them raw, they can contain worms. We know tons of that type information.

So when Dallin wanted to play survivor man for a day, a very drenching rainy day I might add, I agreed. I gave permission to cut down 5 palm leaves to make his shelter. This is what he came up with.


He swears that it was actually comfortable to lay on the palms but I wasn't ready to try when he insisted. He hung out there in the deluge for at least a few hours. He did come in dry so this survivor man's mother was quite impressed.

Of course Aiden, Landon and Paige wanted to get in to the action. I made these little green slickers for them before they left for their adventures. (Poked a hole for heads and arms) It's amazing how easy it is at this age for your kids to think you are a genius. I plan to thoroughly take advantage of this.

Monday, September 8, 2008

I Love Doing Laundry...

I never thought I'd say that, but since we don't have "laundry facilities" in our home, I get to escape to Rusti's once a week to complete it. It usually is a glorious 5 hours to myself. Sometimes I will bring a munchkin or two, but today was not that day.
Let's see, what's going on. We are trying to get the kids into a "public" school here. It's looking like a more difficult task than I could have imagined. And I have a great imagination!
I'm glad I'll be heading home (in 10 days) because it looks like I will need to stop by LA and visit the Costa Rican consulate to have the kids paperwork documented. How fun does that sound? I guess for them to attend public school they need a stamp on their birth certificates. I will be homeschooling them to keep them caught up with the U.S. standards. The public school here will be their Spanish 101. Troy should be considered fluent probably within the next 4 months. He is amazing when it comes to picking up Spanish. I'm happy to announce the kids have earned enough money to buy a wii. This has been their goal and the reason my kitchen has been covered in flour, butter and sugar. All the kids have worked hard to sell cookies, but my oldest certainly wins most dedicated. "Great job Troy!" He gets dibs on the first game.

Since we have 1 week to pick out a few games for the wii, what is your favorite wii game????? I would hate to get back to CR and realize I had picked out a dud.

Spanish, well, what can I say. I've learned more than I knew last week. I'm picking up a few words everyday, and still I realize how much more I need to know. I can't get up and teach in Primary without having almost everything I say translated. In Nursery I'm on my own, so you can imagine that the cuties in there are doing very well picking up English. LOL I use the words for "calm down", "sit down", "please", "don't hit", "no", "clean up", "no, no," and my favorite, "o.k. we're done, time for your next class".

We have decided it's time to look for a new place. Our present digs, although a great deal, just aren't cutting it. We will be renting out this place to a smaller family (I'm sure) and putting the profit there into our new place. We did find a beautiful, gorgeous home with all of the American amenities (dish washer, washer and dryer, hot water, counter space, large fridge, garbage disposal, bath tub, pool, 4 bedrooms, alright I need to wipe off the drool and stop listing everything) we just need to see if we can get the owner to rent to a family with 5 kids. That will be our biggest hurdle here. Wish us luck.

Sorry, no pictures today. I'll have some on Wednesday.