Language through a 5-year-old's eyes

I was watching something on TV in Spanish, and the characters started laughing. Charlie noticed they were laughing, and here's the brief conversation we had.

Charlie: "Mom, how do people laugh in Spanish?"

Me: "The same way we do."

Charlie: "But laughing is in English."

Me: "No, it's not. Laughing is universal. People laugh in every language in the world."

Charlie then proceeded to try out a wide variety of laughs. When he was done, he said: "Mom, did I laugh in Spanish???"

Scaring Daddy

The kids had "ugly sweater day" at school last week. Here is what Charlie wore to school. It doesn't show in the picture, but the headband has blinking red lights on it in addition to the big elf ears.

Right after I took this picture, I told Charlie he could go and wake Daddy up. I didn't really think about what Charlie was wearing. Or the fact that I normally wake him up and not Charlie. Or the fact that Seth tends to freak out easily when woken from a deep sleep. Nor did I take Charlie's quirky personality into consideration.

So instead of going up and just telling Seth it was time to wake up like I thought he would, Charlie turned on his blinking red lights, snuck into the dark room and proceeded to silently hover over Seth's face until he woke up. The result was that Seth opened his eyes to tiny blinking lights and huge ears an inch from his face, which startled him pretty good. He said he's just glad he didn't impulsively punch Charlie upon waking.

This kid never ceases to crack me up.

Sam's 10th Birthday

We had Sam's 10th birthday party last week, which entailed having nine 3rd and 4th grade boys over at our house. There were several more we could have invited, but we finally had to limit him to just inviting school/neighborhood friends. They spent the first hour running around the house chasing/wrestling/attacking each other in every room of the house. Then Seth braved the cold and brought the whole crew to a large snow pile in town so they could go sledding for an hour. It did kind of double as his birthday party, too, after all. Only a couple of sleds broke and there were no major injuries so I considered that a success.

Then came time to feed them. Fortunately we had enough food to keep them happy and they managed to sit down and be relatively still for a few minutes. Want to know what nine 10-year old boys talk about when they are all stuck together in one room? Poop. That's pretty much it. Try as we might to change the topic of conversation (and we did!), they kept just circling back to poop. It started by sharing every story they have ever heard/experienced involving poop...which then became making up outlandish stories about poop...which digressed into just spastically shouting the word "Poop!" at random....and finished with a chorus of songs such as "Poop! There it is" and "I Poop." 

Ok, I'm not being completely honest. To be fair, they did occasionally change the topic to farts.  At least that was when parents are within earshot - I seemed to notice a change to the topic of girls from time to time as I moved further away from the group. It honestly terrifies me to think how the conversations go when adults are completely removed from the picture.

That was followed by an all out nerf-gun battle all over the house. And then we tried to settle them down with a movie - which worked for the first half of the movie anyway.

All in all, they had lots of fun and our house survived with only a few minor things broken aside from my dreams of having a somewhat tasteful and organized party at a sound level of under 80 decibels. I was unable to capture the crew all in one place long enough to get a picture so you'll just have to do your best to visualize it all.

Flirting

Charlie was looking at the jacket to a movie he hadn't seen, and asked if a couple on the back was married. I said they're not married, but they like each other.

Later he showed the picture and told Seth, "This guy and this girl like each other."
So Seth said, "Oh? Do they flirt a lot in the movie?"
Charlie thought about it and said, "No. I don't think there's any farting in this movie."

Halloween and All Saints

St. Ed's school had their annual Saints Day Contest this year. It's one of my favorite events: I love seeing all the creative costumes. I do not envy the judges at all because the kids all do such a good job every year. Sam and Charlie both got first place this year for their age group. Charlie was St. Joseph and Sam was St. Lawrence. Fortunately most biblical and saints costumes can be created with old pillowcases and sheets. Elena's was a little more complicated this year as she chose St. Catherine Laboure, who has a habit similar to The Flying Nun. I had to leave for work before they were fully dressed, and Seth had an early meeting so unfortunately we were dependent on their teachers for photos this year. We're still waiting on Elena's, but I'll share as soon as I can.

 And for Halloween this year we had a Ninja Turtle, Chewbacca, a "Good Dragon" as Frakie called himself, and Annabeth from the Percy Jackson book series. The extras are some of the local cousins.

Birthdays and other news

Frankie turned 3 this month. His birthday lands right between his cousins Gabby, Laney and Bella quickly followed by my dad's birthday so we had our fair share of birthday celebrations last week!

He was very excited to be 3, and proudly shows off his 3 fingers whenever anyone asks how old he is. He's an adorable 3-year-old, but he can still be exceptionally challenging - as can most 3-year-olds, I guess. He's our first kid to adamantly refuse to open his mouth for the dentist - refusing things in general has been a bit of a habit lately, so there are lots of tears over things like having to eat his supper and wear be buckled into his car seat. And I can't get his haircut for anything. Luckily for him (and for me), this isn't my first time around the block so I can deal with the difficulties a with more patience than I had with the older kids.

Sam wasn't feeling great this day and opted out of the picture.

Birthday cake! As usual, they only ate the ice cream. 

Age 3 at our house always means entering that transition time when the kids almost don't need a nap, but can't quite make it all day. Here he is passed out on the counter while I made supper.

 In other news, we have another baby on the way! We kind of just told the kids and let them run with it so I have no idea who knows and who doesn't other than immediate family. I've been sick enough (sicker than the last couple, I think....although it's entirely possible I've just blocked out how sick I was) that I really couldn't hide it anymore from the people I see regularly, and Elena was getting suspicious because I was lying on the couch all the time. A sick mama usually means a healthy baby, though, so we're all very excited. First ultrasound looked great - I love seeing that tiny little heart-beat!!

I'm due right at the end of the school year, which times out great for work! I'm a little nervous about going back to work with a 3 month old next year, but I didn't want to put the school through the difficulty of finding a part-time Spanish teacher again. Fortunately we are surrounded by family willing to help out - especially when it comes to new babies!

Class pictures

We maybe could have used some warning that they would be taking a full body picture with the classes for school picture day. I remember having the conversation with Sam before he left that his Superman shorts did not look great with his shirt, but let him go figuring you wouldn't see his legs in the picture anyway. At least he decided against the dress shirt he had on at first, that would have looked even stranger.

September Highlights

I went back to work again this year, teaching Spanish at the high school. I am really enjoying it so far, but it means this blog might be reduced to monthly highlights for a while. 

Here's what's been going on around here.

Charlie started Kindergarten, and he is loving it! Here is a picture of him helping out in the kitchen with one of his classmates. Looks like he's taking the job pretty seriously.

The kids found a monarch caterpillar and we were able to successfully keep it alive and release it as a butterfly. We missed it actually emerging from the chrysalis (again!). I checked on it, went upstairs to change clothes, and when I came back down it was out. I always forget how quickly they come out once they start. Oh well - maybe next year.

Bug Days was a blast. And much easier this year with a couple of older kids who can help out with the younger ones. Elena took care of all the costuming this year for the kiddie parade. Sam got distracted right before the parade and decided something else was more interesting so Seth's cousin's husband wore his costume (sorry I didn't get a picture).

Frankie was super excited to be the Hulk and wants to be that again for Halloween. He stomped like the Hulk all the way down the street during the parade - it was pretty dang funny.

And Charlie took 2nd place in the tractor pedal-pull for his age group. He was very happy to get his first trophy and took it everywhere with him for a couple of days.

And to finish, I'll leave you with one fun quote of the month. I was getting ready to go run a few errands, and I asked Frankie if he wanted to come downtown with me or stay home with Seth.

"I want to go under!" he said.
"Under?" I asked, "Under what?"
"Undertown. I want to go undertown with you!"

More August Fun

Another big highlight of August was having my brother, Joe, and his girls visit us from Boston. The kids had a blast getting to know their cousins and showing them around rural Minnesota. It was especially nice for Elena to have some more girl cousins her age to play with as the Myhre side is so heavy on the boys. 

We lucked out that school started later than usual this year so we had the entire week off. 

All the great-grandkids of my Grandma & Grandpa Marso

All of my parents' grandkids 

Skipping rocks at Camden Park

Our niece, Hoku, is especially fond of pigs, and we were luck to have good friends who had pigs farrowing the week they were visiting. These piglets were just a few hours old. So much cuteness!!

After seeing the pigs, we were treated to a "ride" on the hydroswing door of a machine shed. I hear it was a beautiful view (I stayed down because I knew Frankie would want to follow me if I went on)

Frankie especially liked riding around on Uncle Joe. I recall making Joe carry me around everywhere as a kid. Now that I've finally quit asking him to carry me around, my kids stepped right in line!

August Fun

August was packed full of summer fun for us, starting with a week at the lake house with Seth's family that Seth's parents got us all for a Xmas gift. Immediately after the week at the cabin, we were treated once again to unlimited ride wrist bands at the County Fair by my parents. I tried putting these pictures in chronological order, but Blogger had different ideas so here are some pictures in no particular order.

First is Charlie, Frank (and Gabby in the background) playing in the beloved corn pit at the fair.

Frankie spent a large part of his time fishing. This year we were lucky to find a life-jacket that he liked and kept on. It was a much more relaxing year for Mom and Dad....which doesn't say too much since last year was one big perpetual tag-team effort. 

Here he is catching a fish with his cousin, Austin:

All the cousins - and no one is crying this year!

Seth and John - playing Hawaii 5-0 in their matching Hawaiian shirts

At the fair again!

Bella and Frankie helping Seth play the guitar

Thanks, Jimmy Fallon

This is what happens when your 5-year-old sees a Point Pleasant Police skit from the Tonight Show with "Jimmy Tim Falton" (as Charlie refers to Jimmy Fallon) and then the doorbell rings during supper and you go to answer it and chat for 5 minutes....leaving the two little boys alone with 2 plates full of spaghetti.

It's worse than it looks. My circa-2010-style cell phone doesn't take great pictures so you can't see much of the sauce that goes with those noodles. At least Charlie had the sense to take him out into the back yard to do this....which is why I didn't hear it going on. And at least Frankie seems to have appreciated the humor.

For those of you wondering what the Point Pleasant Police are, here you go:

You might be Catholic if....

At breakfast this morning Frankie finished his cereal, then held the bowl up with great significance in front of himself and said, "Amen," before drinking it. When he was done, he said, "There, now I drank Jesus all up."

Proved me wrong

"I don't think she's going to like that, Frankie!" I said.
"Yes, she will," he said.
Looks like he was right.

Redefinitions

Challenge /ˈCHalənj/ noun   the act of giving an exceptionally stubborn 2-year-old a haircut while he spends the entire time trying desperately to run away from the scissors/clippers despite the fact that countless promises have been made for rewards and his favorite show is playing on the TV in an attempt to distract him

It turned out basically OK. He's clearly still traumatized by the whole experience.

Cute kyo͞ot/ adjective  this:

Notice something different?

Elena finally got her ears pierced! She's been wanting pierced ears for 5 years, but hasn't been able to bring herself to actually get it done. The first time we tried she was 6, and when the lady wiped her ear with the alcohol swab to prepare her lobe, she jumped off the seat and ran away.

After I told her that we would not consent to her wishes of carrying her into the store in the middle of the night while she slept so they could pierce her ears without her knowing (that was an actual and totally serious request she made at one point), she finally resigned herself to the fact that she might not ever get up the nerve to pierce them.

When we were in the store the other day and passed by the jewelry counter, I noticed someone else was getting their ears pierced and brought it up. She immediately shot the idea down, but using a heavy dose of reverse psychology combined with a little bribery, I was able to get her to do it. She looked like she was going to pass out leading up to the piercing, but once it was done she didn't even flinch. "How was it?" I asked. "Fine."

And she smiled the rest of the day.

And now I have the opposite battle to fight with Sam, who now wants to get his ear pierced. I'm not sure how I feel about that. We live in a remote enough area that there's probably still a pretty good stigma around young boys with their ear(s) pierced so we'll just stick to the status quo and hold off on that one.

Giant Lincoln Logs

One of Seth's favorite toys as a kid was his Lincoln Log set. So I guess it's not surprising that he found a way to make a huge version of them for a pergola out on our patio. It's not quite finished, but we're looking forward to growing grapevines on it and having a little outdoor dining area. 

The kids and Coco all like climbing on it. The height combined with the occasional nail sticking out provides the kids with some quality risky play, which kids today apparently lack on a huge scale. So far Charlie has been very cautious about going up and Frankie is well aware that it is too high for him (Seth lifted him up, and Frank immediately wanted to come back down - a first for him!) so for the time being I don't think I need to worry about the smaller ones climbing up and falling off. 

Anyway, here's the project so far (can you spot Coco?):

A hodgepodge of quotes

Over the past few weeks, I've just been writing down cute or interesting things the kids say (mostly Charlie) so I won't forget them. These might be more interesting for me than the readers of the blog, but at any rate, here they are.

Charlie, looking in the mirror after I cut his hair shorter than he expected: "Why did you cut it so short?? I'm not Charlie anymore!"

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Frankie, jumping up and down with excitement after I unlocked the garage door: "Yay!!! You did it, Mom! You did it!! High Five!" He's like my own personal cheerleader following me around to congratulate every tiny accomplishment.

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As we were getting ready for bed Charlie jumped down from the top bunk to the bottom, and his ear must have made a strange sound. He was trying to describe it to me (doctors, feel free to chime in on what the heck he might have been talking about): "When I jumped down from bunk, my ear made a noise like 'Ho-lo-lo-lo-lo' except bumpier. No, not like that, it was like 'Mo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo' except, no, it was like 'ho-lo-lo' but a lot bumpier...(this when on for awhile)...it was like the bumpiest thing in the world."
Shortly after that, as he was supposed to be falling asleep: "What if someone yelled in my ear so loud that my eardrum fell out....I hope that never happens. Cuz then I would keep saying 'What did you say? What did you say?' but I wouldn't hear anyone......I really hope that never happens to me...... And what would it feel like if you just stuck your eardrum back in after it fell out?" He seemed pretty dubious when I told him that eardrums don't fall out, they just become damaged or burst.

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Charlie must have heard someone use the "Good News, Bad News" delivery of information recently because lately he has been using this method of talking to people.
"Mom, I'll give you the good news first....The good news is Reed is home! The bad news is sometimes robbers break through windows and steal stuff."
 And this one: "Frankie, the good news is this breakfast is yummy. The bad news is (here he dramatically broke into song) We're going down for real!!!"

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As we were eating I noticed Charlie was spending quite a long time focusing on his belly button. When I asked what he was doing he said, "I'm trying to get some quinoa through my belly button into my stomach.....Uh...now it's stuck."

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Frankie gulped the last of my coffee the other morning, then looked at me with is cheeks puffed out as he held the coffee in his mouth. He must have decided he shouldn't have taken the last of it from me because he suddenly leaned over the cup and spit it all back in. Then he handed the cup to me and said, "Here you go! Drink it!" (I did not.)

And just for fun, here's Frankie singing The Wheels on the Bus:

Make-up Artist

Frankie was a bit too quiet today while I was putting away laundry upstairs. Ignoring my motherly intuition, I finished the job at hand before going to check on him. I had to say goodbye to an entire tube of lipstick (the color looks better on him than it did on me anyway) and then spent quite awhile washing his face, hands, feet, legs, shirt and inside his left ear. 

This is what I found:

It's about time

After 11 years of parenthood, we (and by we, I mean Seth) have finally made them a sandbox, and they are loving it. We had friends with a large amount of very fine, beach-like sand out in their pasture, and they were generous enough to let us take a truckload of it for free.

It's beautiful sand for playing in, perfect for making sand-castles and burying people. And it took us about 5 minutes to realize that we have created for ourselves a new battle. In addition to being as fun as beach sand, it's as sticky as beach sand. So every time the kids play in it, they are covered in a clinging sand that doesn't easily rub off. We've filled a little pool as a washing station for the kids and have the back porch fully stocked with old towels in hopes of keeping the sand from getting all over our house. Time will tell whether this endeavor was worth it or not. So far so good....

Hired!

I'm thinking of giving Charlie primary job of answering the phones here. If I can get to the phone in time, I can usually tell if it's a scammer or telemarketer, but occasionally the kids beat me to it and end up answering.

Charlie was with us as Seth was telling us about a new scam call that had been hitting homes in our area, and we were talking about the importance of never giving out any information over the phone to people who call. Charlie wanted to know why so I said something to the effect of the callers just being after our money.

The very next morning, the phone rang and Charlie answered it. I could overhear a man asking to talk with "your Mom or Dad." Instead of handing me the phone, Charlie narrowed his eyes and said, "Wait....Are you just trying to take our money?"  It ended up being an impressively believable recorded voice  (impressive because it was apparently able to tell that a child had answered the phone), so there was no reaction to Charlie's impertinent question.

Winter fun

First off, I offer my apologies for writing about snow and winter when we are just beginning to thaw out and forget that a month ago we were buried in over a foot of snow around here. I meant to share these picture sooner, but you know, kids, life, blah blah blah. 

Anyway, we did manage to have quite a bit of fun during our extended winter here in MN. During the late March blizzard, I was gone for the weekend so Seth was on his own with the kids. When I came home, I was greeted by the biggest snowman I have ever seen and a very impressive igloo-type fort. The fort doesn't look that big, but we actually fit 7 people inside it at once (one of them was Seth so we didn't even cheat by squeezing in only tiny people). Both of these feats are something this mom would never be capable of doing with the kids - my best snowmen usually end up around 3-4 feet high. Seeing this made me once again thankful that our kids have such an adventurous and creative dad who can do those things with them that I'm too small or feminine (or lazy) to do. 

Speaking of things I would probably never do with the kids, Seth also brought the boys ice fishing this winter with our brother-in-law. It took Charlie about 5 minute to catch this guy! Looks like he has his Great-Grandpa Lawrence's knack for fishing!

Grandpa Lawrence (on the right)

More questions from Charlie and other observations

Why are there such things as scary dreams? I wish we could delete nightmares and scary dreams.
Why did dinosaurs live before people and why did they all die?
Why do people wear earmuffs and why do they look so weird?
Why don't hornets have horns?
Why don't moms fart?
Do our tongues go all the way down to our tummies?

"I know why Reed's name is Reed. Because he likes to read.
And Noah's name is Noah because he likes to say No.
And my name is Charlie because I like choring (doing chores). Except I don't like to do chores!"

Charlie: Mom!! There is a black coat on the back porch!!
Me: Ok.
Charlie: It can sting people!!
Me: What?
Charlie: Black coats sting people!
Me: (going to look) Do you mean a yellow jacket?
Charlie; No, it's black! It's a black jacket.

Hidden cuss words

"Dad! You said the B-word!"

That was Sam when he overheard Seth say the word "obituary."

On the same line, Charlie has asked me more than once, "How come there's such things as swear words?" I have found that's a difficult one to answer. I've been getting lots of those lately:
"How come you couldn't have had me first so I would be the oldest?"
"Why does there have to be coldness?"
"Why are there such things as germs?"
"How come men can't have babies, too?"
"Why are there bad people?"
"Why do good people do bad things sometimes?"
"Why do girls have to pee sitting down?" (that one I could answer). 

He's a deep thinker, this one.

Quote of the Day

"I'm Anus!!"

This was enthusiastically shouted by my nephew, Reed, today. The kids were watching the movie Ferdinand, and each kid right away picked the character they wanted to be. Sam wanted to be Ferdinand, Elena picked Lupe (the calming goat), and Reed was a bull named Angus.

He just got the name a little wrong. Fortunately, none of the other kids were familiar enough with the term to notice.

Happy Easter Fools Birthday!

April 1st marked 3 celebrations for us. In addition to Easter and April Fool's Day, it was Elena's 11th birthday.

The kids started the day with the Easter Bunny giving them prank gifts with clues to find their real gift. The few toys they got are all old toys they already had.

Sam followed his clue, but found a pack of hot glue gun sticks that I had left on the counter the night before instead of his actual gift. So when I came down in the morning, he said, "Mom! Is my only gift really this pack of glue sticks??"

Then we celebrated Easter with Seth's family. We brought chocolate with surprise fillings (olives, grapes and mushrooms), and set them out on the counter. Food does not go untouched at the Myhre gatherings so it wasn't long before people were getting pranked. By the time we had been found out, there were 4 left that no one would touch (all olives and mushrooms). Frankie spotted them and wanted one. After arguing with him a bit, I finally gave him one. He liked it so much he finished the rest of the bowl! I guess he's young enough not to have any preconceived ideas on how a truffle should taste.

As one last prank, we stuck a "dented your car" sign on Seth's sister's car, and left our nephew's phone number. We finished the night with a mini-birthday party at our house - because after all the goodies on Easter Sunday, what we really needed was cake and ice cream. Elena did a great job decorating her Easter-themed cake.

At the end of the night, Seth and I went to bed and couldn't figure out where our top sheet went. We finally figured out that it had been pulled all the way up and tucked in at the top of the mattress so it looked like the bottom sheet. Underneath, we found a note from Elena saying "April Fool's!" Given her birthday, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that our daughter has started to effectively prank us. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Dinnertime with Frankie

Last summer I took several videos of Frankie eating with the intention of sharing them on the blog so we could always remember how mealtimes were when he was 1. When it comes to making messes with food, Frankie takes the cake. It didn't help that he always refused to wear a bib or sit down while eating. 

These are a little dated now, and I'm happy to report that he is much better. Still messy, but not quite so extreme or deliberate. I'll also add that with most of these videos I would have normally intervened sooner, but I wanted to capture how he was uninterrupted and in his natural state.

This first one occurred when I sat him down to eat rice and beans and then quickly ran to use the restroom. When I came back out, this is how I found him. It cuts off at the end, but he was trying to rub refried beans on the bottoms of his feet when I finally reached my limit of tolerance.

Eating yogurt...he dropped his spoon and improvised:

And here he is eating a cup of applesauce:

Charlie quotes of the week

"Sam! You didn't do that on oops. You did that on purpose."

"Oh, I think that I found myself a cheeseburger." (singing Cheerleader)

I normally love it when the kids brush my hair...

Charlie was brushing my hair today - a rare treat for me.

After a bit he stopped brushing and said, "Wait a minute!"
Me: What?
Charlie: Probably you're going to get old soon.
Me: Why do you say that? (I knew full well why he said that)
Charlie: Because some of your hair is turning white.
Me: Yes it is.
Charlie: Probably Dad is going to get old soon, too.
Me: Well at least I won't be alone then.

Costa Rica Part 3: Almost to the beach

Our one mishap of the trip was our decision to stop at a beautiful waterfall on the way to the beach, which also had a great area for swimming right underneath the falls.

After struggling to find it, Seth and I spotted the very small sign pointing the way. Unfortunately we were following our friends who had incorrect directions. We turned off towards the falls thinking they would see us turn off and would pull over to turn around. We thought wrong. They did not see us and had no idea what had happened to us. And we had no cell phone so calling wasn't an option.

Eventually they realized their directions were wrong and also that we were missing so they retraced their steps. I was ready to wave them down on the side of the road. 

We headed down to the waterfall, parked our cars despite much confusion about where we should park. There were men all over to direct parking and collect the $4 parking fee, but every other one told us "You can park right here" then "Don't park here, you need to park in the lot farther down" then "No, don't park in the lot: it's more expensive" then "Your car won't be safe unless you park in the lot." We finally figured out that there were two separate groups collecting the parking fee so half the men worked for the "parking lot" group and the other half worked for the "side of the road" parking. 

We started our walk down the path to the waterfall, and I quickly noticed that it looked quite a bit longer than we had expected. I asked someone how long the walk was, and they said it would take 30 minutes. We hesitated and thought maybe we should skip it (it was very hot and we had 8 children - a few of whom would likely want to be carried). But after asking another couple who was just returning they said it was only 10 minutes. Another said 20, and another 15. So we just went ahead figuring on the 15 minute average.

Seth and Dan went ahead with Frankie and the older kids, Joy and I quickly fell behind with Grace and Charlie. It took Charlie about 3 minutes to decide he was hot and tired and wanted to be carried. I tried carrying him on my back and shoulders, but in the heat and with a backpack full of swimming supplies and a very full bladder with no bathroom in sight, that didn't last long. So for the next 30 minutes Charlie and I walked at a snail's pace while he whined that he wanted Seth to carry him and I could do nothing but remind him that he would have to walk a little faster than 0.0005 miles per hour if he wanted to catch up with Daddy. 

By the time we got to the steps that would lead down to the waterfall, everyone else was coming back up, ready to go. Apparently, it was completely packed with people and there was basically a rave going on. It was Sunday so it appears many locals took advantage of the day off by bringing their very large speakers and stereos down to the beach where they could blast their music, smoke who-knows-what and hang out. I guess the 100 or so cars parked outside the waterfall should have been our first clue that it wouldn't be the peaceful oasis we were expecting.

Needless to say the kids were not happy at having to make the long trek back through the heat after a half hour walk to a waterfall they didn't even get 30 seconds to enjoy. There were a few sunburns acquired as well as I was the one with all the sunblock, and I couldn't catch up to everyone without abandoning Charlie on the side of the road.

I was sure to let the kids know, however, that this is very typical of traveling in another country, and this was a very good lesson in making the best of it when things don't go as expected.

Dan got a little footage of the waterfall. You can see the delight on the kids faces :) You can't really hear the music in this one, but as soon as you got any closer to the swimming area it was so loud you could barely someone talking right next to you .

Costa Rica Trip: Part 2

Zip-lining!!! Having a 2-year-old along on the trip meant someone had to stay and watch him so I let Seth go ahead and do the zip-lining with Sam and Elena. Charlie also stayed back, although in hindsight, we really should have let him go.  So if we ever make it back Charlie, Frankie and I will be sure to finally take our chance to go.

Dan and their oldest 2 went along as well, so Joy and I stayed in the car mostly with the 4 youngest. Initially it was raining so we were stuck. After quite a while, we got stir-crazy and managed to sweet talk our way into seeing the hummingbird garden for free, which was a patio where you could be surrounded by several varieties of hummingbirds who would come there to eat. They were so used to people you could just stick a finger out by the feeders, and they would sit on your hand. We also got a very close up view of a couple of coaties.

Fortunately Dan had his phone handy so he got some pictures and footage of the zip-lining and the Tarzan swing that they got to do at the end. They went on a 2 hour trek through the cloud forest, hiking from one zip line to the next. They got to go on 13 lines total with the longest one being 1 km (over half a mile). I didn't expect Elena to go since she has a slight fear of heights, but she went and loved it.

Here they are getting ready to go:

Here's Elena on a zipline

And Sam on the Tarzan Swing

Our Trip to Costa Rica: Part 1

Friends of ours invited us to go with them on a vacation to someplace warm this winter.  So we stocked up on flyer miles and got free plane tickets for all 12 of us to Costa Rica. Our kids are all about the same ages so each of them had a buddy which worked out perfectly. Given the price of our plane tickets, I suppose we shouldn't complain about the flights....but we were honestly second-guessing ourselves on the way down. The airlines were great, and everything was on time it was just 2 days & 4 planes each way with a very short night's sleep in between and a 2-year-old who HATES long lines and being forced to sit down for plane rides. Once we were there, however, all the stress was well worth it.

There's no way I'll cover everything in one night, but to get started I'll share about the first place we went. After a long, curvy and bumpy ride, we arrived at the University of Georgia Campus in the cloud forest of Monteverde.

I was a little skeptical our first night, as I listened to the wind and rain all night long, imagining how poorly our footwear and clothes would hold up in all the wet and muck. But even though it was unusually windy and misty for what should have been the dry season, it didn't too often flat-out rain. Having come from MN it was still plenty warm for us and the damp never seeped through enough to chill us so we were all happy even if we were smelly and a little soggy. As a silver lining, the mist made for some fantastic rainbows.

Other than the less than perfect weather, the place was fantastic. The older kids' favorites were hiking through all the trails with lots of guided tours. The classes given by the naturalists on insects and plants - plus the kids got lots of vials they could use to catch the insects they found.  Sam especially liked hanging out in the lab, learning about the research they do.
The middle age kids really enjoyed the constant supply of hot tea and hot chocolate (made with super-fresh milk; practically still hot from the cow). The littlest ones really liked getting as wet as possible. Frankie also liked tearing through the lunch hall around all the tables while everyone ate.

The moms enjoyed having 3 authentic Costa Rican & super delicious meals made up for us a day.
Seth actually really enjoyed the adventure of driving on terrible roads all the way up there. I can't say that was his favorite but he really liked it. (We complimented each other well on the trip - my language skills and his driving skills made up where the other was completely incompetent).





I'm not going to lie - before leaving I was a little nervous about poisonous snakes and whatnot -especially given that Frankie's not fantastic about not touching things when we tell him not to, but once we got there of course, I was just fine. Sam found a bunch of army ants once, but a naturalist was right there and told him to just walk away quickly. And we found a tarantula right next to a scorpion on our night hike. That was honestly so cool! They were both too slow-moving for me to get squeamish, but I can't say the same for everyone else there. Charlie was pretty disappointed that the tarantula and scorpion didn't have a battle.

Here's a picture of our last day there. I think Charlie was just mad at being rushed to get ready to go. 

Here's a leaf-cutter ant hill. We should have had someone stand by it to show how huge it is, but I think you can get the picture.

 Out on the nature hikes:

In the lab:

 Some of the insects and butterflies that can be found on campus. And yes, that rhinoceros beetle is as big as it looks. Probably bigger.