Simple Christmas Wishes

This poster that Emma made touches me every time I pass by it as it hangs on our wall....
Before she was quite finished up with it, she came to me for my opinion as to what she should add. I suggested maybe she could fill in some space by adding some more presents under the tree. Her reply was, "I already have 4, one for each of us. That is enough." (guess mom and dad aren't getting anything this year??)
I am thankful that the real meaning of Christmas has somehow made its way to her heart this year. Here, in CR with so much need around us, we have been trying to prepare the kids for a much different kind of Christmas this year. Love the "MARRY Christmas" ha ha


This was a poster that Lora did. Love it too.

I am feeling so blessed that I will have 4 of my gifts with me this year...Mariah, Abram, Lora and Emma.
And of course Mr. Clause as well...wouldn't be Christmas without him.
Emma's Christmas wish will come true this Friday at 3:00pm in the Liberia, Costa Rica Airport!!
It is going to be a wonderful Christmas.

All creatures great and small

Isn't this amazing? We took our flashlights down to the beach tonight just hoping to spot some turtle tracks in the sand that would lead us to a mother turtle burying her eggs.....and sure enough, we were able to witness this beautiful creature doing just that. It was just incredible.'This is nesting season for them and then in a couple months the babies will hatch and maybe we will get to see that event as well, as the babies make their way to the beach.

This MONSTER lives in the church yard and usually stays up in the trees but he made a showing sunday after everyone had left except us and the missionaries. They turned into 2 little boys and were running around chasing him and finally caught him by the tail! You can't see the whole tail here but all in all he is at least 5 feet long! Amazing!!

This little guy we rescued from the middle of the road on the way to church. Lora is in heaven now that she has a pet. She said, "I love Costa Rica, cuz you can get pets for FREE!"
He lives in our garage now and his name is Ellsworth.

And last but not least, this tiny fella was in the shower with me tonight. He lost his tail in a tragic accident when the shampoo bottle fell on it! This is the smallest gecko we have seen yet.
I feel like I am living in the middle of a zoo here in CR. Pretty awesome to have all of these creatures around us. I know my little nephew Connor would just be in heaven!

Glimpses of our life

Here are some random pictures of recent events and daily activities happening here in La Casa Amarilla ( the yellow house)... as the weeks go by, we settle into life here more and more and are becoming more attached to people and places that we have forged bonds with.

Love these moments when Lora wants to take over as "teacher" for Emma. She is actually really good at it and it gives me a break.

This is our wonderful Branch President who also serves as a Spanish teacher for the girls once a week.

Walking through the forest to one of our favorite pools to get a little family exercise.
This pool belongs to a friend of ours and there is never anyone there, so we get it all to ourselves.


This is my dear friend Neida Pina. She had a birthday this past week and so we had her over for her birthday dinner. She requested my chicken pasta salad and her husband's Peach Cheesecake!

This is our sweet branch president, President William Lopez, my handsome esposo and Jose Pina. The three amigos. They serve in the Branch Presidency together.

Love this sweet lady!


Love this sweet little person


This is Abe's new friend "SANDY" that he created for himself at the beach

El guapo muchacho!

Another beautiful sunset to end a perfect day at the beach

This is our favorite little "Tico"restaurant that is owned by a member of the Branch . We go here now and then after a day at the beach. This is also where we hold sacrament meeting for the small group of members in Brasilito now and then.

Savor the moments

This week was just full of good moments and I found myself thinking many times..."I need to tuck this moment away in my special box and keep it forever." I remember when we met the Ballantine family very early on in our adventure at the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border, they told us that we would see changes in our family that we would treasure and that there would be priceless moments. I am starting to recognize those things now and am trying to savor every moment. There are so many things that I can't put into words and so many things that I wish I could capture with a camera that I can't. I love the way my kids are becoming such good friends and they find things to do together that they would never have thought of before. They make up skits, dances,songs, games...all kinds of things. Yes, they still have their fair share of sibling rivalry too but life wouldn't be normal without a healthy dose of that right?
We had a few days of rain again this week and those are the days where we have learned to enjoy staying in and reading together...playing outside in the rain or watching dad's favorite show together (The Andy Griffith Show). All 5 of us took a little walk out in the pouring rain with our umbrellas and I think the look on the guard's face was pretty funny as we passed by his little guard house. ha ha...crazy family that must come from Arizona where they never get to play in the rain!
I have reflected this week on what wonderful people we have met here. People that have been in this world my whole life that I never would have met had we not come here. I love that people have a way of enriching your life so much and it always makes me get this ancy feeling inside that I wish I could move to a million different places and meet all the friends that are waiting there for us to meet! I just LOVE meeting new people and learning what I can from them. I think every single person has something about them that we can learn from.
We have already shed some tears with friends here as we all talk about the time when this journey will end for us. It is hard to get close to people and leave, but then the pain is worth it, so I wouldn't change a thing.
The holidays are upon us and we are looking forward to celebrating them differently this year. We didn't bring any holiday items from home so we will have to get creative and embrace the culture here....the girls have already been spending some free time cutting up white plastic grocery sacks into itty bitty pieces so that we can have "snow" around our Charlie Brown tree.
We will be putting that up this week since Lora is about ready to jump out of her skin she is so excited about it! I already told them that this year, the tree is their project and anything goes....normally I am a little bit of a control freak about the tree and although I let them help, I prefer to re-do it after they go to bed. Nope, not this year...I am learning to let go a little and relax. This is a good thing. I think this "Pura Vida" life is growing on me.

A Tico Style Wedding

This past Saturday night we had a wedding in the branch. This couple was supposed to be getting baptized as well right after the wedding but that got pushed back another week, so we just had the wedding. Our girls were very excited because this would be the first wedding they had ever been to!
This couple getting married comes from extremely poor circumstances as is the norm here, so a few sundays ago, we had a meeting after church and someone wrote down on the whiteboard all the ingredients that we needed to make the wedding cake and then people volunteered as to what they could bring. Someone else donated all the rice and beans for the "main course". I was very touched as I saw this take place and saw many people who have nothing, be willing to make the sacrifice to donate ingredients for a cake so that this couple could have a wedding.
It was very simple and humble but this couple had a wonderful evening and the bride's family especially was very touched that the church was so willing to help. None of them are members of the church. (yet)
Lane thought the whole "Tico Style" wedding reception was genious and thinks that our kids should follow suit. Ha ha...I don't think that will fly with them, but it was good for our three youngest to see that things can still be special when hardly any money is spent. As I was taping thin kleenex like paper over these old falling apart wooden tables for the food, and trying to keep the flowers from toppling over because they were only one or two stems stuck into a piece of foam, serving the wedding cake onto napkins because they had no more plates or forks.... I was once again humbled by all that we have and how much we take for granted. I hope that these experiences will stick with our family forever and we will learn lessons of gratitude and to be happy no matter what circumstances we may find ourselves in.

...and the rain stops

Well, we woke up this morning to a nice surprise...blue skies and sunshine! It seems like a long time since we have had anything but rain so we decided to take advantage of it and take a day trip to a place we hadn't been before. The missionaries needed our help moving them into a new apt. so we stopped first in Santa Cruz to help them. After leaving them, we were on the road to Nicoya and we noticed another set of missionaries walking along the road, so we pulled over and offered them a ride. Turns out that they had been taking a bus to Santa Cruz to meet up with our missionaries and their bus broke down so they were walking! Have no fear, the Martinsens are here!! They were pretty happy that we were driving by at that moment. We gave them a ride to the nearest bus stop and sent them on their way. I know I have said this before on my blog, but there is just something about seeing missionaries in foreign countries that warms my heart. I just love them.

So, next stop was Nicoya and we were getting hungry at this point and lo and behold what do we see in Nicoya but this totally GHETTO Burger King! It is actually an old bus that they have converted into a kitchen and the "dining room" and "kids play area" is under the covered patio. ha ha... We had lunch and a few laughs at how funny it was.
Next we drove through Nicoya about 30 minutes down the road to the beach in Samara. By that time it was not too far from getting dark so we didn't play in the water but had alot of fun exploring all the little tiendas and souvenir shops.(thank you Lane for being patient while me and the kids looked at EVERTHING!) We picked up a few Costa Rican trinkets to send Alex for Christmas. He will need some of those right?
The drive was a little long but really beautiful and fun to see part of the country that we hadn't seen yet. Aside from Lane accidentally driving the wrong way on a one way street for a minute, we had a great day and got home safe and sound.
I have no idea why my pictures for this post would not load...I tried for an hour and gave up. Oh well, just imagine a ghetto BK and cute kids shopping for souvenirs.

Halloween in Costa Rica

Well, here in Costa Rica Halloween is not really a big deal...they are already well into the Christmas festivities and decor around here, but our kids did not really want to miss out so they got creative and made some great Halloween decorations to put around the house anyway. I had no idea they could be so original with toilet paper, string, a paper towel tube, etc...
Since they don't trick or treat here AND it fell on a Sunday, Lane and I decided to have a little activity that we called "scripture treating". Since we have 4 bedrooms, we came up with a theme for each room and had the kids go room to room where we had a short gospel related lesson and a treat. The best part was hearing Lora SCREAM FOR JOY when she saw that we actually had Reeses PB cups in the bowl!! (thank you thank you Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Shawn for sending a box of candy that arrived just in the nick of time!) The kids thought this was alot of fun and were happy that they didn't miss out on the "spirit" of Halloween! Actually they said it was the best Halloween ever. works for me!