This afternoon I snagged 30 minutes to have one last coffee and cookie date with Ian in all his preschool sweetness. In just two months his afternoons will be booked as he starts all-day Preparatory (Kindergarten). Just like that he’s a big kid.
This afternoon I snagged 30 minutes to have one last coffee and cookie date with Ian in all his preschool sweetness. In just two months his afternoons will be booked as he starts all-day Preparatory (Kindergarten). Just like that he’s a big kid.
The rainy season has arrived in El Salvador…Tori is soaking it all in.
This weekend has been a bit of a whirlwind! It started last night when the kids celebrated many cultures around the world at their school’s annual “A Taste of the World” cultural festival. They attend an international school so there are students from all over the world in their classes. I love the fact that they are getting an education in such a culturally rich environment. As part of the festival, the students could view cultural exhibits presented by the parents, taste international food at food booths sponsored by the high school students, and participate in performing traditional dances. Ian’s class dressed as African animals and danced to music from the movie “Madagascar” while Tori’s class dressed in traditional Indian dress and performed to Indian music. This afternoon, we attended an event […]
Last week we had one “tourist day” squeezed in between the end of the leaders’ conference and the start of the Regional Conference with all the YWAM staff from Central America and Mexico. After visiting Apoyo Lagoon, we headed to the colonial city of Granada. I love history and architecture and Granada did not disappoint. Founded in 1524, it was the first city in mainland America. It has both Spanish and Moorish influence in the architecture and design. Granada was a thriving port located on the massive Lake Nicaragua, which provided trade to the Atlantic through a river. It also left the city vulnerable to pirate attacks as the pirates could sail in from the Caribbean, down the river, through the lake and to Granada. I thought the pirate thing was […]
Central America is an absolutely beautiful part of the world, and Nicaragua is no exception. While we were there, we visited the nearby Apoyo Lagoon or Laguna de Apoyo. Imagine a huge volcano that imploded in on itself thousands of years ago and then filled with water. That is what happened when the Apoyo Volcano erupted. The eruption created a thermally vented warm, clear, and blue body of water in the crater of a volcano. Lush forests slope down into the water, and the area is home to all kinds of birds and animals. We only had time for a quick stop and the day was cloudy, but it was well worth it to see this natural wonder of Nicaragua.
We survived our tri-country road trip to Nicaragua and we had a fun time doing it! The kids were absolutely wonderful in the car thanks to snacks and electronic devices. The trip there and back was fairly uneventful with the exception of Jon getting stung by a bee five minutes into the trip, Honduran roads filled with potholes, immigration officials on lunchbreak, and a policeman who wanted a few bucks in exchange for giving Jon’s license back. It took us about 14 hours to get there counting border crossings, breaks for meals, and police checkpoints. Coming home we made it in 12 hours thanks to Jon finding a short-cut. The road was only semi-paved but it did shave some time off of our trip. The conference itself was a great experience too. We […]
Preparations are underway for Operation Roadtrip 2012. We are heading to Nicaragua for the YWAM Regional Conference for all the missionaries working in Mexico and Central America. This will definitely be the longest car trip our kids have taken in awhile. Back in 2009 we travelled across a big chunk of the U.S. , but we all seemed to have blocked that out. Any major trips since that time have involved airplanes. As you can imagine, this trip is causing quite a bit of dread excitement around our house The trip will take us from San Salvador, El Salvador to Diriamba, Nicaragua. Diriamba is located past Managua, somewhere around Granada. Mileage wise, it’s about the distance of driving across Pennsylvania. We’re not sure how many hours it will take us as we […]
“Is it hard to live in a foreign country?” This was the last question that my kids were answering as they responded to a letter from a Sunday School class in Maryland last week. The letter asked some questions about life as a missionary. Tori and Ian discussed them, and Tori wrote down the answers. But this one had them stumped. They weren’t even sure which “foreign” country the letter was referring to. I explained it to them and after a lot of thinking and a little confusion, they finally settled on answering that they missed their friends and family in the U.S. This conversation made me realize that my kids have made a transition into becoming full-fledged Third Culture Kids. TCKs. They were born in the U.S.A., but they are […]
Yesterday afternoon Ian took me on a guided tour around his world. We rode bikes, tried to find different ways to help “ninja lego guys” survive a Tonka truck crash, and explored the garden. He showed me all of his favorite plants and kept up a steady stream of Spanglish conversation about his toys, and the dog, and his climbing tree. After our walk, I suggested that we sit down on the terrace. He had a different idea. He sat down on the hill in our backyard right in the grass and said, “Down here is better Mommy.” I was hesitant because the grass in El Salvador is really sharp (weird, I know…just how it is) but I agreed. Ian was right. It was better. From our view on the […]
Last night we had an invasion at our house. An insect invasion. The sun was setting and we were finishing our dinner ,just minding our own business, when we noticed a bug or two buzzing around. They were skinny little harmless bugs. One by one they buzzed in through the open windows. Then more came…and more…and more. It was like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. They were in our food, stuck in our hair, and clinging to the lights. They didn’t bite, they didn’t sting but they covered everything in a matter of minutes. Let me tell you, nothing brings a family together like an insect invasion! We all scrambled to finish our dinners, get the food off the table, and close the windows. The next thing we knew, […]
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