Samara Beach

Today we went to Samara Beach. I'm usually behind the camera, so we grabbed a kid and made him take a picture of the three of us. Hyrum did a great job, don't you think? Centered, positioned well, I was impressed!


Just another day in Costa Rica, where you'll always find young Mormon mother's from Utah!

Bread, PB&J, 8 packages of Pozuelo Cremas cookies, diapers, wipes, folding chairs, um, what else did we pack?

Oh yeah, 19 kids.
It looked like a school class field trip!
I thought it was very funny. Love it.

Kids having a mud-ball fight, since there's no snow.
First Michael (next to Joe) got Ethan...

Then Ethan got Joe

It's Two Face!!

I took lots of pictures, wanted to get some uploaded before I go to bed. I'll post more tomorrow!

Coco Joe

Joe's ability to climb palm trees began back in our BYU MBA days...

Living at Wyview Student Family Housing brought us together with families from all over the world, people from Chile, Yap, Guam, you name it. Tonga is another one of those countries. We would see the Tonga kids climbing up the black lampposts like they were palm tree trunks. "Hey Joe! You should learn to do that" said Corey, and the quest began. Joe learned to climb the lamppost in the front yard of our Sandy home. Here in Costa Rica, he's gotten to try the real thing.


It was a lot harder than the lamppost. I'm sure because of the trunk is thicker than the lamppost. Joe said his feet couldn't stick on the bark. I wasn't too excited about him doing it in his Sunday clothes. Luckily we've been back to visit lots and he's had other chances to pick a coconut. He got 3 coconuts on Thanksgiving.

Jacob and Dannan broke through those for him, Joe cleaned out the coconut meat. Has a texture like really rubbery and slippery ham. Joe brought one home and on Friday, after working on it for a half hour he'd gotten through.


Seems like an unusually large amount of work to do for a small amount of food.


But I am grateful! The coconut makes my fruit smoothies delicious! I love coconut! :)

Thank you to Joe, the coconut kid.

We Are A Cyber Family

Corey - Santiago, Chile 10:23 p.m.
(isn't he handsome?)

Tiffanie and kids - Villareal, Costa Rica 7:23 p.m.

Like Plankton of Bikini Bottom, Corey now has a computer wife!

and computer children...

Who miss their daddy...

They want to play with and abuse him! Corey does the best he can as a digital image by coming to eat them...

Let's hear it for Skype and webcams!

It's funny that when we talk to each other with the video, we really don't talk much. Corey put it best, (he usually does, he is so witty) "All this technology so we can sit and stare at each other." Amazing.

Corey's Happy Surf Day

We went to the beach Monday night. Sort of a FHE, sort of a surfing farewell for Corey. We parked a little too far south on the beach (my fault) so had to walk to the surfboard rental shops and to the part of the beach where there weren't rocks.

Corey went and rented a surfboard and two boogie boards. He looked so macho walking back with his boards that I wanted a picture. I was too slow fumbling around for my camera, so I had to tell him to stop walking... "Ok... got my camera, it's on, ok, go!" He stands there. "No no, pretend you're walking" I said, and this is what he gave me.

Isn't that hilarious? That is his "I'm casually walking to the beach" pose. "Oh fine, just stand there then if you're gonna walk like that."

Ok, I guess that'll have to do. Here's our handsome hero for his last hurrah.

The man and boys got situated, who gets to go first, who gets which board...

Joe's heading out

There we go! That's the "walk" I was looking for! Bent knee, casually walking, looks natural!

...only now I can't see his face. Blast. No dashing features to grace the photo, but oh well...

These four kiddos got busy doing what they do best


Lily in her squat, love it, patting the sand with Mel. She eats the sand, I think she's iron deficient or something. The kids kept making mud balls - They'd go to the waves and get wet sand, run up with it to the dry sand, throw it in and roll it around and it would make a good ball of dirt. Lily thought it was an apple and would bite it.

Then she chased me around trying to get me to try it too. No Lily, I will not partake of your fruit of the tree of dirt!


But she is persistent. And cute. Hmm, well, okay, just one bite.

Cute kids.

Cuts and Bumps

Wesley's lip is doing great (thank you Heavenly Father) what a miracle our bodies are. I've been taking a picture each day of his lip and after I do I show him. This one above was taking half way through eating a peanut butter sandwich, thus the bread crumbs. The first pictures I took made him squirm and with compassion in his eyebrows - he'd say with deep concern for the poor chap photographed "Ohhhhh!!!" The last pictures have looked okay and don't make him worry, and I told him isn't it amazing that our bodies fix themselves all by themselves? "Imagine if you broke a toy and it fixed itself by itself!" Wesley squeeled with delight at the thought, "Or if you ripped your clothes and they could fix themselves!" We got very excited at the idea - endless possibilities! But alas, nothing just happens. Well, maybe chaos and time just happen. Everything else takes an intelligence behind it. God is the intelligence that made our bodies - they have a spirit and are alive! Wesley's body is one of God's incredible creations, and his spirit and body work together, what a miracle!
And this little angel, see those beautiful eyes? Those are the eyes of Abigail, and she got those beauties from her father, who has beautiful eyes. Here Abi is showing us her bump. She fell down the ladder/stairs at the RMs house and got a huge bump that covered the whole center of her forehead almost down to her eyebrows. She still has a slight bruise, but the swelling has gone down and she is doing wonderfully. She's got her father's eyes and her mother's solid build. Abi and Hyrum are both of the same mold, which I believe is the Tiffanie mold, and they are build strong and solid, so I'm grateful she handled it well. Hyrum is just heavy to pick up, and I don't know when it happened, but my little Abi is now big and heavy too! What happened to my little baby? She's growing up. I hope she will always love pink dresses and babies and flowers and glitter shoes. She is a sweet princess. Grateful she is alright from her bonk.

Holiday Swim

After our Thanksgiving meal and before the desserts, kids and adults took a break in the pool, doing super soaker splashes, diving, and family races. Here Sergeant Dannan has his swimming soldiers standing at attention before he called out their diving orders.

Then Corporal Jacob joined in the fun.

My kids favorite part was when Dannan and Jacob rocket shot them through the air into the pool - You really get a lot more height when you're thrown from someone standing on the sides of the pool as opposed to when the strong Dad is in the pool. They had fun flying!

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day - Joe, Mel, and Ethan slept over at the RMs. I arrived with the other 4 kids around 10:20 - it only took me 50 minutes that time! I'm always timing how long it takes to get to church and to Nicoya. I left at 9, then at 9:13 realized I forgot something, and we were almost done with the dirt road, darn it, but I decided to turn around cause I needed the speakers if everyone was going to be able to hear the Michael Medved Thanksgiving Lecture which Corey insisted we all listen to. So I turned back and there was no complaining from the kids, got back at 9:28, back on the road at 9:29, but I just rounded it to 9:30, and we made it in zippy time to Nicoya. When I got there, the women were still working and cooking many scrumptious dishes.
The kids had had a great sleepover and are ready for another one. They woke up and went swimming first thing

All the kids heading to the pool. Ethan was so proud of himself cause Michael and Joey showed him how to dive off the pool house thing into the pool. And may I say it's a nice looking dive too. I'll try to get that on video for posterity.

Melodie found a little little black snake - looked like a black worm except for the tiny tongue that kept smelling the air. I couldn't see it's eyes it was so small. Cute little thing.

The men grilled up the chicken for the feast. We decided to go with chicken instead of turkey cause they got the turkeys marked up in price big time cause they know we Americans have a holiday to celebrate. So we went with chicken, cause it was less expensive.

Around 3:00 everything was ready to be served, a Thanksgiving feast in a tropical paradise next to the pool with Christmas music playing on the laptop. :)

Thank you Rachael and Melanie for all your hard work!

The toddler table, enjoying chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and green beans. Save room for some pie!
The Meyers twin babies in their chairs eating some green beans, with the older kids group in the background on the pool house which is their diving board.
Hey you guys! How's the grubb?
Abi, la princesa
Up next: After dinner activity (swimming)

Thanksgiving Eve

We will be joining the RMs tomorrow for a lovely Thanksgiving feast. They invited us to sleep over too. :) Hyrum, who is our family "no man" (as opposed to a "yes man") didn't want to, so the three oldest kids are sleeping over there and I brought the 4 younger ones home, and offered to do laundry for them in exchange. :)


Rachael and Melanie were working most all the day, a most amazing feat since their kitchen is the width of a hall and has,, I'm estimating, oh, about a 3x4 area of counter space. We will be eating outside by the pool (hoping it doesn't rain like it did tonight! If it hadn't slowed down I might have slept over there too.)

I went to AutoMercado for them to buy some pumpkin in a can but there was none, so Melanie's making due with a squash she found at the local Tico market and a few cans of sweet potatoes which AutoMercado did have on their Thanksgiving display for the Americans to buy. We're skipping on turkey, since it's $60. Thus chicken will be served as the main dish.

After dinner, the kids watched "Cats and Dogs" in the Royal parents' bedroom.

Isn't that a cute picture? This was taken after Abi, in the bottom right corner, fell down the ladder from the loft around 6:30, which is about the same time Wes got hurt last night. I think during the next several weeks I will be putting the kids to bed at 6. Abi got a big goose egg in the middle of her forehead but was very brave and didn't cry too long. I didn't get a picture of that but we'll see how it looks in the morning. I'm thankful that it was her and not Lily - Abi is a tough cookie and Lily is so little. I'm also thankful that Abi didn't cut her head open or need stitches. Thank you Lord.

I am thankful the RMs invited us to join them. I am also thinking along these lines tomorrow for Thanksgiving, that I read about in this post of this blog (scroll down for the section titled "Thanksgiving", when I read this several weeks ago it gave me much thought...) There are wonderful reasons why celebrate Thanksgiving. A day of Repentance, fasting, and prayer. Corey's also sent us a Thanksgiving lecture by Michael Medved via mp3 to listen to for homework. Should be good stuff! Happy Thanksgiving!

Package from Home

Sent from Cottonwood Heights, Utah on Friday, 12 November 2010

Arrived in Huacas, Guanacaste on Tuesday, 23 November 2010. They called me, we went to pick it up, 20 minutes later, the kids were at home with the knife cutting through the packaging tape.


They are very excited to have some Legos! Thank you Mom!

And I was so excited to have Ikea dishes again - I ate a bowl of cereal to celebrate. Love that they are plastic (won't break anymore dishes here), their pretty colors, small size (should save a little $ on the cereal budget), easy to wash, they all fit in the dish drainer, wow! Thanks again Mom, once again I owe her big time. I'll be paying it forward to my kids when I'm the grandma I'm sure.

Situation Update

Wesley last night...

Then this morning. Swellings gone down, and the tp soaked up blood so it's all black with a little white, has made a nice big scab, hope it heals quickly.

This morning at breakfast - having breakfast burritos, so he has a piece of rice on his cheek. He was able to eat fine. Only problem is when he smiles -


And that makes his lip stretch out and rip again. But I think it's doing good.

Close up picture.