Free Spirit

When the older kids go swimming, Lily is usually so anxious to join them that she'll get in with her clothes on if she can. On other days, like the day captured here, I don't want to bother with finding her suit and changing her, so I just s t r i p her down and let her go. We do swimming this way the most often, as we both seem to prefer how quick and efficient it is.


The kids usually all start to scream when they see her - "Ahh!!! N a k e d Baby!!! You guys, Lily's n a k e d!!!"

But that only lasts a few moments, then they are all happy playing. When Corey's in the pool, he will bring her into the deep water for some fun-

"Are you ready, Lilers? 1..2..3!"

After throwing in the air, Corey said "If that isn't freedom, I don't know what is"
What a great little grin - love that cheesy smiling face!

Kick the Can

The kids and I went to visit the Meyers and Royals today after lunch. As soon as we pulled up, the older kids jumped out and I hardly saw them - they were lost in adventure playing the games kids play. After a few hours of exploring the jungles, they returned to homebase to play kick the can and I was finally able to get some pictures of them.

Kids Rule!!!!

So, what should we play?

Some going off to hide and planning their strategy to kick the can, which I would say was in a pretty guarded and hard to get to spot for any would be kickers...


Isn't that in a hard spot? You can see the food storage can in front of Mel's left foot - that's home base, on top of the pool house? The kids have to climb up and around the pool side to get at the roof of the pool house to kick it... I didn't know how they could do that without getting spotted, cause Mel had an unobstructed view in every direction from on top of there. Hmm.

Then I had to laugh when I saw how they did it. The person counting just stayed on top of the pool house looking around, and then all of a sudden (I need to ask the kids how they coordinated this part) after about 5 minutes in hiding they all came out at the same time and headed for the can.

The poor person that was it kept jumping and calling names, but with 14+ kids coming at ya, they couldn't call and jump over the can quickly enough before someone kicked it over. Good strategy I thought, but the person counting was in tears twice - felt a little ganged up on. And they were, but I don't know how else the kids in hiding were supposed to have a chance at winning. It was fun to see them all play together. They were busy and lost in their game for 5 hours, only taking a break when I called them in for sandwiches. It was great, just how childhood should be. I'm so glad we are here in Costa Rica! If we hadn't come, we never would have made these friendships. We're excited to meet more dear friends for the first time when we go to Chile, and we hope to be back to Costa Rica soon.

But there's 3 weeks before the kids and I go, so we'll be over to play again soon. (The kids want to do a sleepover!!)

Corey Returns To Live

It's almost been 2 weeks since Corey got the email telling him he was invited to participate in the 2010 Start Up Chile program. He finally bought his plane ticket today. He's a very careful man in planning things out and making sure he's got everything in place first before he makes any big or hard to refund commitments, like buying airfare.

At 8:13 he checked prices again to see which airline had the best deal. He's got his wallet with credit card under his arm.

After poking around a bit more, he started to enter the info with the music of Illapu playing on his computer from this youtube video. (I love this song by the way - beautiful lyrics too - I'll post them at the bottom so you can sing along, and also I just tried to translate it - hope it makes sense)

Joe freaked out when he saw Corey type the date of August 2012 - "We're staying in Chile until AUGUST 2012?!?!"

Corey looking at him with raised eyebrows that said let's not freak out... "That is the expiration date of my credit card! Relax!"

Melodie tried to stop his hands from typing.


But it was finally done at 8:29. He has officially pushed the "go" button.

Confirmation # received, Passenger Corey Wride will fly from San Jose to Panama to Santiago Chile next Wednesday. Have fun sweetie. Don't forget to send for us!

Brief background on Illapu here - my summary, they are an Andean folk music group, in 1981 they were forced into exile under the Pinochet regime. First they went to France and later Mexico City. In 1988 the political climate improved and they returned to Chile - that is what this song is about - their return after 7 years away from their country. Corey's returning after 13 years. He is excited. We all are too. It will be a grand adventure.

Illapu - Vuelo Para Vivir... Lyrics
-------------------------------
Vuelvo a casa vuelvo compañera
vuelvo mar, montaña, vuelvo a puerto
vuelvo sur, saludo mi desierto
vuelvo a renacer amado pueblo.

Vuelvo, amor, vuelvo, a saciar mi sed de ti
vuelvo, vida, vuelvo, a vivir en mi pais.

Traigo en mi equipaje del destierro
amistad fraterna de otros suelos
atras dejo penas y desvelos
vuelvo por vivir denuevo entero

Vuelvo amor...

Olvidar, por jubilo, no quiero
el amor de miles que estuvieron
pido claridad por los misterios
olvidar es triste desconsuelo

Vuelvo amor...

Bajo el rostro nuevo de cemento
vive el mismo pueblo de hace tiempo
esperando siguen los hambrientos
mas justicia, menos monumentos

Vuelvo amor...


Illapu - I Return To Live letras translation spanish to english
-----------------------------
I return to house, I return companion
I return ocean, mountain, I return harbor
I return south, hello to my desert
I return to be born again, my beloved village

I return, my love I return, To satisfy my thirst for you
I return, my life I return, To live in my country.

I bring in my luggage from the exile
Fraternal friendship from other people
Although I leave pain and anxiety
I return to live for a new entirety

I return...

Forget for joy, I don't want to
The love of thousands who were
I ask for clarity about the mysteries,
To forget is sad discomfort.

I return...

Beneath this new face of the cement
Lives the same people of long ago,
Waiting for to follow the hungry,
More justice, less monuments

I return...

"Making Dinner" at Home

Lilian loves to jump in the fridge whenever it's open and make it so we can't close it - and she'll get our the little containers of cream cheese and play with them. Oh, and she also is always spilling her cereal then stepping on it on purpose. How rude.



Lily and Abi love grabbing any contained condiments from the fridge and making dinner. They use the garbage pail as their table, a towel for the table cloth, and make stacks of dinner for hours on end.

Lily is taking dinner classes from Abi, although I think her inspiration came from Shirley and she would have been a better teacher. Still, Abi does pretty good. Here they are making bobbed tomatoes in water.


And other times the kids are really lucky and I let them play around with real knives and cut up real remnants of food for practice. One day as I made fries I let the kids help, and after Mel and Ethan were done with the potatoes, I let Wes and Abi work on some onions for fun. They seemed to enjoy themselves.


Corey is good at letting the kids help him when he cooks. I hope that I get better at it, I usually can't relax with letting them make a mess as they figure it out - I struggle when they want to help crack the eggs or scoop up the flour. Haven't done too much baking from scratch here, so I've been doing better since we're usually just chopping and mincing food. It is great to have eager helpers on hand, I need to try harder to take advantage of their willingness while I can!

"Making Dinner" at Church

This is what Abi, Lily, and I do during church - We make dinner. First you get a chair from one of the classrooms inside.

Next, you pick up off the ground any dried leaves or flower petals.


Third, you find a stick.


Finally, stir and serve. Repeat.

It's so much fun! They work so hard, Lily is really cute to watch, she's very intent on making a good meal.

Saturday Drive Back to Guanacaste

Saturday, November 13th

Corey went to the temple in the morning,

We left San Jose around noon.

We drove through the jungles of Central America

Kids slept during the drive until we stopped the car to ask directions and buy oreos.

Lunch at Burger King in Nicoya

We arrived in Santa Cruz at 4, home in Villareal at 4:30

Quickly got everyone ready for a wedding at the church at 5:30 - Corey played some smooth Jazz for the newlyweds.

The babies danced.

After refreshments and cake, we helped clean up and then I noticed all the kids had disappeared... I found them

Happily playing with some cheapo type of Legos that don't really work. It was cute to see them all playing. We've promised them muchos Legos for Christmas in Chile, they are excited. They haven't missed any other toys, but are always wishing they had their Legos. Should be fun! Then they all fell asleep on the drive home. Lily slept in her clothes, then on Sunday morning, woke up, ate, and went to church again. Then we went straight from church to the RMs (Royal & Meyers) house, where we spent the day, then drove home late, Lily fell asleep in the car so she was 48 hours in the same little dress. Kinda funny.

Si Vas Para Chile...

In order for Corey to participate in the Start Up Chile program, he needs a very specific type of business visa. In order to get that visa, he was instructed to contact his nearest Chilean consulate. If we were back in Utah, that consulate would have been in San Francisco. And our whole family would have had to appear there if we wanted to go to Chile with him. What a blessing for us to be here in Costa Rica, cause there is an embassy in San Jose. No problem for all of us to go there. Much easier than driving/flying to San Francisco.

So, we are planning on going to Chile. We don't know when for sure yet, but were taking steps to get there.

We waited the whole morning on Friday to see if we were going to go to the Chilean Embassy. It was open from 8 to 1. Corey were waiting that morning cause we didn't know for sure that all of us needed to go. He didn't want to take all of us there if he didn't have to, and if he didn't have to, then he decided he probably wouldn't bother going either, and would just go by and pick up his visa on his way to the airport when he flew out.

Well, it was 12:30 and still no email yet about if they wanted all of us to come, and now it was probably to late to go anyway, so I told the kids they could go swimming now. So we got dressed, and were about to head down the stairs when Corey said "Oh! They just emailed me... they want all of us to come, we have to be there by 4, let's GO!" Someone told him it took 2 hours to get from where we were to where the Chilean consulate was. Corey arranged for a tour guide to take us all there in his van so we wouldn't get lost in San Jose like we did when trying to find the hotel. It was a very good move. Cause not only wouldn't we have been able to find our way in the city, we probably would loose each other by me missing a red light or getting a car between us and then I'd be lost forever, or we'd have a car accident (driving conditions are worse than Mario Kart) So again, great move getting a guide to take us in his van. Abi and Lily fell asleep on the way there...

We arrived at the place in 45 minutes. Sweet.

Waiting at the doors... after walking inside, we told the kids we are now technically in Chile. Their reply "That was fast! Can we have our legos now?"


We waited while Corey had his interview. I got in trouble for taking a picture inside the embassy. Sorry, didn't know that was a no-no! She didn't say I had to delete it though, so here's a picture of us waiting...

So then we went and took pictures outside...


7 kids by the Chilean flag.

They called the rest of us in after about 20 minutes. We all got finger printed and then we were done. Lily was cute - we got her finger black and then pressed it on the paper, I guess she didn't like it cause she started to cry, we all laughed when she held her finger out to the Consulate for her to kiss it better. Cute.

Then we were done. But wow, what a blessing to be here in Costa Rica. Also, if we hadn't planned this trip to CR, Corey might have had an expired passport and for sure not all of us would have had passports since we just got them for Lily and Abi in June when we started thinking about this trip. It's a good feeling to see the hand of Providence - so many pieces are falling into place better than they would have if we had known that we'd be going to Chile and planned for it.

One proud entrepreneur by the Chilean flag, excited to be invited back to his other tierra.

On the drive home the kids were noisy and had lots of energy. Abi had her ears covered as she loudly sang.

Lily was up and down and up and down till I'd had enough and we strapped her down - she seemed to be really tickled at first, but it didn't last long before she was squirming to get out again.
So, we're getting ready to go to Chile. Corey might even buy his airline ticket soon. Until then there's still a chance to back out. We'll let you know. :)

Pool Time

The kids thought this hot tub was so cool - they pretended they were in Narnia sitting on the four thrones of Cair Paravel -

The water wasn't deep, so Wesley and Abi could both touch and would walk round and round the tub. And it had a bench all the way around the tub too, so Lily also had a place to play. She likes to get in, get out, get in, get out 100 times. Here she is out.

What a happy baby. The two main pools were soooo cold that we spent atleast half of our time in the warm tub even though we are in tropical warm weather. It was cold cold, felt like the waterfall water we went to - you could tolerate it, but first it took your breath away. And I couldn't go in little by little, I had to jump and get it over with. Brrrr! One pool was up high, then there was a waterfall that lead down to the lower pool. The top pool spilled over the stone wall that you can see behind Lily in this picture. Our room is the window in the top right corner of the picture.

We had two room actually - the kids were in that one, Corey and I were in the room right next to it that you can't see cause the palm tree is hiding it. I got good exercise going up the stairs to the 6th floor several times a day.


Saying Cheese and flaring her little nostrils, what a goof.


I made Wes, Abi, and Lily pose for a photo for me. Wesley enjoying the nice tropical weather, with a bonk on his forehead from jumping into the shallow pool water. I told him to not jump, but he insisted he would be careful, then he banged it good right on a spot where he got stitches a little over a year ago. Made me nervous, but luckily it held together.

Glad he enjoyed himself.