Brasilito Beach

Good, not too dirty yet...

Oh, here we go. Yeah, sit in the wet dirt...

Just roll around in it, get it everywhere you can.

Dirty. Dirty, but happy.

Just look at that smile. Saying cheese for the camera of course, but she was thoroughly enjoying herself. Something about the texture of sand that she just loves. I stayed clean until I dropped my pant legs to grab Lily and save her from getting an approaching wave in the face.

Shirley said we should get Lily out of the sun. Yes, once again I forgot the sunblock. She is a more responsible maid than I am mother. Lily had fun bouncing on the beach ball in the shade. Everyone was SOOO dirty, there's still a ton of sand in the car. Gotta clean that up and figure out a way to go play at the beach again without a complete repeat of the mess.

Swimming at Night in the Rain

Did you know that it's the rainy season in Costa Rica? I didn't. But now I know. It's rained every day, and there have been silent lightening storms each night. But there's still enough sunshine that the kids have all gotten a slight sunburn.

Jumping Joe

Elegant Ethan

In posession of the coveted nose plugs.

Hyrum and Joe ridin' the raft

Wes and Ethan
They are all good little swimmers.

Lunchtime Entertainment

Wanna see Abi's new trick?

"Hey Mommy mommy - watch dis!"

She had all the kids in stitches laughing. After I took her picture and showed it to her, she thought she was pretty funny looking too.

Meet Shirley

Well, we have a maid.

Her name is Shirley. She is related to someone at the property management company and so they recommended her. Corey wanted a maid in Brazil, but I didn't. Now we're trying it out, and so far so good (2 days). She is super nice and I like her a lot. She cleans, set the table for lunch with placemats, she even cooks. She's going to come work Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays from 9 to 1:00 for $4 an hour. I gotta admit that is a ridiculously good deal for us.

Now I gotta start cooking or my kids and husband will love her more than me.

Computer Busted, My Bad

Well, it was really dumb on my part, but I packed my laptop in a bin that I checked, and now it's broken. Really dumb considering how many carry-on's I had, seems like I could have made room for it. Stupid. I discovered that it was broken when I first booted it up after unpacking it and the screen looked like this:


I left it on for Corey to look at, and he did, then turned it off. The next day I turned it on again and after poking it and pushing it in different ways, I discovered that the screen will show a picture and the mouse will work if I hold it like this:


If I let go, the mouse stops working and it starts to fade into pretty colors...

You can see my thumb prints.

It's pretty slow to type with one hand, but I did for two days, and now I'm done with it. I'm now using Corey's laptop (good thing he has two) and my Dell is officially turned off until December unless I need access to an old photo or something, which I might. Hopefully we can get it fixed after we go back to the states. And I'll bring it home in a carry-on.

Costa Rica Dogs

The kids have plenty of canine company while we're away from Chloe, and there are many dogs to choose from. There's the golden retriever (lab?) that sleeps on our front door step (he went swimming with the kids today). He's Wesley's favorite. There's the, what is this dog, a boxer? Who am I kidding, I don't know dog breeds. Help me out Ilene :) There's this dog, and I feel bad for this poor guy. He is super thin and has got a lame back left leg which you can kinda see here when he took a drink from our pool this evening.

Probably not the healthiest water for him to drink. There are a few others, but I haven't gotten pictures of them yet. I want to leave food out cause I feel bad for him, but at the same time don't want him totally hanging around waiting to be fed. Any advice?

I'm really glad Hyrum got over his fear of dogs or we'd be having lots of drama. As it is, tucking his arms as close to his body as possible is all that he does.

No screaming or loosing control, he's doing great. It's not even an issue. Good job, buddy.

Kissy Kissy Lily!

You ready, Lily? Everyone wants a turn!

Kissy Kissy Mel

A kiss for Joe

Puckered up for Ethan

And don't forget Mom *
I love those little lips.

Corey at His Computer

I've acquired quite an extensive selection of these photos. Many different locations, sitting on all different upholstered couches, with different models of laptops... I'll have to gather them all together in one spot someday and see how much the collector store says they're worth. :) Thanks for bringing home the bacon, sweetheart.

That's Gross, Joe.

Dinner = microwaved hot dogs, sliced tomatoes, and bread with jelly.

These hot dogs apparently had plastic around them, or was it skin? I don't know cause I didn't eat any. Not a big hot dog fan. Corey ate his skin/plastic. I fed Lily, and she'd chew the hot dog and then tongue the skin/plastic until she could catch it and spit it out. How were the rest of the kids doing? Joe decided to play with his food, and when I saw his hot dog turned inside out on his thumb, I was quickly repulsed.

"That's gross, Joe."

Of course it is, and knowing I think so makes him enjoy it all the more...

Mmmm...

Ethan, impressed with Joe's disgusting manners tries to imitate his grossness by thumbing his hot dog.

Just another meal without manners at the Wride house.

Last Leg

After my bathroom breakdown, I felt a slight release of all the emotional pressure I was experiencing, took a deep breath, and got ready to face the last leg of our journey. We left the Sky Lounge and headed to Gate E6. We met a fellow traveler to Costa Rica coming toward us, he told us they changed the gate. I was glad we met him cause it saved me walking all the way down there just to have to turn around. His name was Terry. He was a blessing, and helped me carry our too many carry-on's. On the return flight I WILL NOT have too many bags. Learned my lesson.

Mel, Joe, and our heaven sent friend Terry.

Our flight from Atlanta to Liberia went well. Abi and Lily slept about half of the time. Abi was sweet to Lilian as you can see by these tender moment pictures.


I was still exhausted though and didn't sleep at all, and thus easily started to cry on the decent when Lilian started to scream at the top of her lungs for the last 20 minutes. I think her ears had to pop. She thrashed around so hard that I couldn't even hold her, so I just let her collapse on the narrow floor space at my feet and jam herself under the seat in front of me.

We were the last ones off the plane again, climbed down the stairs from the plane, and a few stewardesses helped me carry our too many carry-on's as we headed to the passport/customs check in area which was like a warehouse. Liberia is a small airport. With the kids they let me go to the front of the line and we got checked in to Costa Rica, then off to the baggage claim, where after we got my 8 checked bags I remembered my 2 bags that were checked at the gate in Salt Lake. Glad I remembered those, too bad they were lost, as I previously mentioned. Corey was supposed to meet me here. He wasn't there. I was supposed to look up the phone number of Becky, the lady in charge of the management company of our rental house here so I could call her, but in my rush leaving Salt Lake I had forgotten to do that. So I didn't have a phone number of anyone in Costa Rica, nor the address of where we were staying, and my husband wasn't around, Abi was screaming from exhaustion this time, my brain was fried and I just couldn't think. I had 10 taxi drivers and 4 several airport attendants surrounding me (small airport and all the other passengers were already gone, so I had their full attention), and they were pressing me for answers as to where I was going to go, what I was going to do, "No se, um, Joe will you please help Abi, Um..." we called several people in the US to see who was near a computer and could look up Becky's #, no one answered except my mom and she was out running errands... I kept writing down different US phone numbers for this one taxi driver to call, and when I'd try to write them down, Abi would try and grab my pencil so she could draw, and then she'd scream as I tried to pull away from her, it was just nuts. Had my brain NOT been fried, I would have remembered, as I did an hour later, that I indeed DID have her number as well as the address of our home on some papers that Corey had printed up for me that were in my bag. Oh well, I didn't remember that until we were in a cab with our bins tied on top, on our way to Tamarindo, cause the taxi driver said he knew where the Blue Water Properties office was, and besides it was a small village and we'd figure it out, I just needed to get my kids out of the heat. Good enough for me. So we left. I left the airport with my 4 kids in tow in a car with some total stranger in a foreign country, not knowing really where I was going or what I was going to do. I just kept a prayer in my heart that Corey'd either see our cab passing by and recognize the bins on top or that someone at the airport would tell him what happened to us when he showed up. 45 minutes later he called the driver on his cell phone, apologized for not being here when I arrived, asked how I was doing... "Better" I replied, since the kids were all asleep and calm and we were moving. I had been cursing him and this whole situation a little while ago when I was at the airport with all the taxi guys harrassing me. I would have been fine if they would have just let me alone for a minute, but they had my bags on the cart all ready to load into a cab and so I couldn't get the snacks for the kids or go rest in the shade, they were just a little TOO eager to help. SO ANYWAY... Corey called and told the guy the address, Corey called the Blue Water Properties and by the time we got to Villareal there was someone from Blue Water there to meet me and give me the keys and sigh we made it. Corey arrived with groceries an hour later, pumped full of testosterone from his chaotic and adventurous journey through the jungle (My trip was testosterone producing too, but testosterone makes a woman tired, whereas it gives a man energy. More on the differences regarding stress on Mars and Venus on another post if you want to hear it. ) "We have had an ad-ven-TURE!!!" he said as he bounded in the door. I smiled, gave him a kiss, and went to take a nap.

Where Is Our House?

I remember during our first week in Brazil in 2007 (we lived there for 4 months), that one day after returning to the Chacara, Hyrum who was 3 years old, said "I want to go home!" We pointed at our Brazilian Chacara and told him "Here were are! This is home!" He looked at the Chacara and protested "NO! Not that one!"

We had a similar experience last night with Abi, who is 3. As I was getting Abi and Lilian to bed, they were both screaming. They had a late nap in the car and maybe they just weren't tired, but I was, so it's time for bed. I wasn't being very nice and kept barking at Abi to lay down. Lily was easier, cause I could just put her in her playpen and she was stuck. Of course she still screamed at the top of her lungs. After a while I went and got Lily out, asked Mel to go sleep with Ethan, and I got in Mel's bed with Abi and Lily. They calmed down a little and we made progress toward slumber. Then Abi, in her little 3 year old voice, sweetly and sleepily said "I want to go to my house." Much kinder now, and thinking I shouldn't have been so rough that she wanted me to sleep with her, as if just barely realizing that she was probably adjusting to this new environment, I said to her "This is our house, Abi." Then I hear her little voice in the dark. "No, this is not your house... Our house is at home." "Is home in Utah?" I asked. "Our house is at home" she repeated. Poor kid, she doesn't know what's going on. I hardly know myself.

Abi mourning with me during my bathroom breakdown.

Good News and Bad News of Our Layover

So, the last post started off describing the beginning of my rough trip to central America. But then came a bit of good news: A friend from our church ward in Granite (Bishop Powley) was on the same flight to Atlanta as us. He had a short stop so had to hurry to catch his connecting flight, but still had time to wait for me to get off the plane (we were the last ones off), help me carry my too many carry-on's and to carry Lilian, help us find our concourse, AND he also got me into the Sky Lounge, where there was food, water, and a posh bathroom.

The bad news: I was travelling with 2 toddlers both of which I'm glad had slept the 3+ hour flight to Atlanta, but now they were not going to fall asleep, even though I think they were still tired which is why they were acting fussy and clingy. So after 2 hours of Joe and Mel like this ..

(sleeping along with lots of other people who were sleeping or working uninterrupted on their computers... I shamefully found myself feeling contempt for the whole lot of 'em):

and Lily like this:

and this

(notice her constant movement, wears me out, but would probably wear out anyone who's internal clock was on 5 a.m.)

and Abi like this

(she has such a sweet little face)

which put together looks like this:

I was at the end of my rope. I had already been running on adrenaline since the night before and now was running on fumes. Joe and Mel were sleeping in an area where there was a posted sign designating it a "Quiet Area" which increased my stress as I was with two non-quiet little people. Safest place, in the bathroom...


I really wish I could have just stayed in this bathroom stall for a few hours and taken a nap. The door went all the way to the floor, so I could have slept in noise but atleast with the peace of mind knowing they couldn't escape. But I knew two screaming children would alert the authorities. So I didn't hide in the stall, but we did hide in the bathroom, which was close enough to the front desk of the Lounge that one of the attendants came in to check on the noise. "Hey! Is everything okay?" "Yes, we're all just tired" and then I started to cry "...it's been a long day, er night, er morning?" Almost there. Just a few more hours.

I know how you feel, Lilers, hang in there.