3 months in Photos

Hello every one and a Happy New Year! When I started this blog it said Merry Christmas and here I am finally sitting down to finish it almost a month later. I hope you all had a great holiday season ours was wonderful as we got to share it with my parents who were here for a nice long visit.


 

We know that we have a lot to catch you up on as it has been about three or four months since our last post so I figured the best way to do that is through pictures. So here is a little picture diary reviewing all the wonderful things God has done for us over the last few months.

The biggest blessing was that my mom came and home schooled the boys from the beginning of  October through the middle of December. Then my Dad joined her and they stayed another month to celebrate the holidays with us. the boys loved having Grandma as their teacher. We  were told many times she is a lot more fun than Mom and Dad.






Also in October I got to go to Honduras and teach in a DTS at the YWAM base there. It was such an amazing experience especially since I taught in Spanish the whole week. It was a great challenge and I believe it went well.







 Then just a few short weeks later I also got to teach in the DTS at our base in San Jose. It is so fun that God is opening the door for me to teach. I teach on giftings and Gods call in peoples life and I love it. I am hopping for more opportunities to teach this coming year.

In November Douglas' parents came for a week so Douglas' dad could teach in the BCC. It was so great to have them with us. We got to go on a few fun outings with them the weekends they were here.



The boys loved seeing all the animals at the La Paz Waterfall Gardens.


We also went Hiking in the rain with the BCC students it felt just
 like we were hiking in Oregon.

Just  one week after Douglas' parents left we had Pastor Peter from Country Side Community Church come. He also came to teach in the BCC and to bless us. It was such a pleasure to have him here with us.



He brought us an amazing care suitcase from our family at Countryside. It was so much fun to open, just like Christmas. Thank you to every one who donated to that and a special thanks to those that donated towards a new computer for us. Our old one was pretty old and the new one is such a blessing. It was amazing how everything that was sent was just what we needed.

As has become tradition I was in charge of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the YWAM San Jose family and there guests . This year we had around 130 people which is about the same as last year. It was a lot of work but I had great help including my mom and even Peter pitched in to carve turkeys.

not sure what is up with the matching shirts but it makes a great photo.

One of the great things about having visitors is
that we take time out to show them the beautiful things that are here in Costa Rica. This is us at Volcan Irazu just out side of San Jose. We took Peter to see it and when we first got there it was completely clouded in so we waited in the car and praise God it cleared up and was beautiful. Cold but beautiful.

Every year at the beginning of December we have a National retreat for the three YWAM bases in Costa Rica. It is held at the base in Guanacaste CR. The boys always have a blast with all the other YWAM kids. We spend one day at the beach the kids get to ride horses and we women sit around and do our nails:) Oh yea and they have huge bugs,

We even took the dog!

 On December 13th Douglas graduated his 6th Biblical Core Course (BCC). As always it was a great time of celebration.

 After the School ended we were in desperate need of some time off and time to hang out with my Parents so we headed off to Panama to do some snorkeling and we even got to see Dolphins. But the best part of the trip was that Gabriel got Baptized! 

The day after we returned from Panama I hosted the Christmas dinner at the YWAM base. I made a traditional Costa Rican dish called Chifrijo for about 80 people. I was super nervous to make a traditional dish but it came off well and every one seemed to enjoy it.


We had a great Christmas and New Year but unfortunately I took no pictures with my camera they are all on my parents camera. : (  I will have to get those from them.

I have to say thanks to my dad for all the dishes he did the sink was empty the whole time he was here.









To start out the new year Douglas got to go to San Fran to officiate the wedding of a young couple from the base here in CR. It was a super short trip but he had a great time seeing family and hanging out with a bunch of friends that all gathered for the wedding. I was hoping to go too but tickets were over $800.00.












That makes 3 trips to the states in the last 6 months for Douglas and none for me or the boys (not that I'm counting :) so we are talking of a trip this summer. We will keep you updated and ask you to pray for provision for a trip.



The last two weeks we kicked off the new year at the base with a bang. I put together a small staff bar-b-q while Douglas was in Cali. my parents helped out a lot.  We were sad to say good buy to mom and dad a day after Douglas returned. Our final event was the quarter kick off dinner on Saturday. Now we are looking forward to getting into a new routine for the year.  Next week we will start back with home school and we are hoping to get the boys into Karate classes.