Merry Christmas!

Christmas

Oh what a great Christmas we had. As long as we can look past the fireworks (or dynamite) at 2:30am Christmas Morning and the 85 degree weather, it was a pretty normal Christmas. Okay it wasn't normal at all. We woke up with no other family around and opening presents was done in record time, but we made it a holiday to remember. We bought from another family a little Dora Kitchen for the girls and Evie saw it and said "This is mine!" It was so funny. Mylee took the sight in for a little bit then went straight to her little bag of stocking goodies. But as soon as they were done opening presents that was the first thing they both played with. The other well-liked presents were the princess dresses and shoes. Both of them loved those and put them on immediately. Around 9am I had to go lay back down because I was so tired from only getting 3-4 hours of sleep from the night before. But in the afternoon we went and had a lunch with some other IMB folks. The kids had a great time running and playing, I had a great time playing Mexican Train dominoes with the ladies, and Aaron hung with the boys and watched bull fighting on TV. But there was one constant. I brought with us a children's nativity scene that we could sit down as a family and over a period of 7 days talk about the true reason for Christmas,the birth of our Savior, Jesus. Yes it was definetly a very different Christmas but, because of Jesus, one worth remembering.

As I type this I wait for my parents flight to arrive safely in Costa Rica. Please pray this week that we have a great week with my parents, Mike and Connie, and that things would run smoothly with the fun activities we have planned...Si Dios Quiere (If God Desires). Please pray also that Aaron's grandmother's house sells quickly down in Bentonville, AR and that we would know which offer God would have us accept. Click on the photo above to see our fun Christmas. Have a Happy New Year!

1st Week of Vacation

Well we made it through our first week of vacation and didn't die of boredom. It went by really fast! However we didn't do much this week. Sunday we had a little birthday party with our Nicaraguan friends in our bible study because the father of Violetta, who hosts the BS, celebrated his 85th birthday the day after Aaron's birthday(16th). Below is a video we took of singing and blowing the candles out on the cake. Very fun evening. (Remember to push pause in the music box to the left, before playing the video to hear the sound of the video.)

Monday we went to the park and took some pretty cute pictures of the girls in which you can see when you click on the pictures below. Tuesday was another good attempt at Potty Training but didn't last all day. So we will try again later down the road. Wednesday and Thursday were spent going to Hipermas and PriceSmart to stock up on supplies for the month. Friday, Aaron and I found a sitter for the girls and went and did some final Christmas shopping. We then were able to eat lunch at Subway, where we found out they have Air conditioning! It was so refreshing after walking in the hot sun. We are finally moving out of the rainy season and have had quite a few days of no rain. Praise the Lord! We are looking forward to this next week celebrating the Birth of Jesus here in Costa Rica. Have a very Merry Christmas!

Park Day

End of Trimester Evaluations

 

 

 

We finally made it through our second trimester of language school! We both came out with two more A's under our belt! We also received our language acquisition score for the trimester. Aaron received an Intermediate High, which is what he needs to move on to Mexico. Good work Aaron! I received Intermediate Medium Basic. I moved up a small step but small enough to probably say I didn't move at all but I didn't go backwards either. This last trimester has really been hard for me in dealing with the death of my Grandfather, including a trip to the states. We have also been without a house helper for the past 2 months and probably still a month to go. So towards the end of school Aaron and I had to get a schedule set to keep up with the housework on top of homework and studying. So I will be working next trimester one on one with a tutor trying to gain some ground back. My goals over our month break will be to practice memorizing some more verbs and brushing up on the 14 conjugations of each verb.
Above are just some random pictures I snapped the past week. We were mainly just trying to get through the week. Evie had a temperature Thursday and Friday, but no other symptoms. But her fever finally broke early Saturday morning but only after she had two nights of nightmares. So sleep was scarce for all of us. I pray tonight will be better. So Friday Mylee and I came home from the school Graduation to find Aaron and Evie snuggled up on the bed sleeping. So I snapped the pic because I thought it was so cute.
At the school garage sale I found each of the girls a new swimsuit (well new to them). So they wanted to try them on and Evie decided to put on her rain boots too and sweep the floor all at once so it was a funny sight. Thought you would enjoy that pic.
Below is a video we made to promote the Lottie Moon Christmas offering for a couple churches. I wanted to put it on here, so you could see Evie's personality shine through! If you would like to play for your church or would like for us to send it to you please email us at agmewoods@gmail.com. Aaron's 31st birthday is on Tuesday, December 16th. So if you wanted to shoot him a Happy Birthday, I am sure he would love it. Enjoy!

A Weekend of Parties!

This past weekend, including Thanksgiving, we attended 6 parties! Two on Thanksgiving, two going away parties(one with our Bible Study group for Scott and Sherry), and two birthday parties! What a busy weekend! The girls participated in a Christmas program as well this week. Evie wasn't too sure of it all. So she just stood there with her fingers in her mouth. And at one point was crying. But it was her first performance so a little stage fright was to be expected. Mylee's class did the Christmas story and Mylee was a shephard. Below is a video of her class reciting in Spanish Luke 2:14. In spanish it says: Gloria a Dios en las alturas, y en la tierra paz a los que gozan de su buena voluntad. In English: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace good will to all men. You can't really understand them but you can watch Mylee perform. She wasn't shy at all! The other video is of Mylee taking her turn at a pinata at a Costa Rican birthday party she was invited to. They had the party at McDonald's. Mylee had a great time playing with all her friends. There are also some pictures of a Cultural Day we had at school. They taught us Christmas Carols of Latin America and portrayed what is called Las Posadas. This is where the children of a Catholic Church dress up as Mary and Joseph and walk around to preselected houses singing a song about Mary and Joseph looking for an Inn. When they reach the final house they are accepted into the home for coffee and cookies and they sing carols and pray. So the teachers portrayed this for us. We then had Tomales, and hit pinatas. You will not want to miss some of these pictures! If you want to hear the sound on the videos be sure to scroll down and push pause in the red music box in the left column. Click on our family photo box to view the pictures.

A party weekend!

What a great Thanksgiving we had with our Friends and IMB Family. We ate lots of good food cooked by some really great cooks. I will have those pics for next weeks blog!
For this week I have a variety of pics from different occasions. One of which includes the addition of a Christmas Tree in our home! The girls absolutely love it and think the lights need to be on every moment they are awake... which is fine with me!
I have added a couple videos this week. The first one is of Evie and Aaron and their daily custom when walking to and from school! Evie thinks it is the greatest and when you see the video you will see why. There is also a picture of Mylee(Click on the Christmas Tree below) walking with her little friend, Claire, who will be leaving in a week. Claire lives accross the street from us and the girls get to have a play date about every week where they trade on and off at each others house. Yes, we will really miss Claire!
The other video is of Evie at the Children's museum when their school had a Christmas party. And boy was it a Party! None of the kids had to pay to go and came home with lots of treats. One of us had to go with Evie because she was two, so Aaron went with her. I stayed behind and attended classes because I had already missed a lot a few weeks ago. So this is a little video of Evie playing around at the museum.

Among the pictures below are two pictures of the children that were orphaned when their mother was killed a couple months ago, which was the neice to our House Helper, Yolanda. Yolanda has traveled back to Nicaragua with the kids but at this time is unable to return to Costa Rica. She has been unable to get the proper paper work to return. Please pray for God's hand in this situation because she is missing her son and Fiancee a lot, who are still here in Costa Rica. Please take a few minutes to pray for the children when their pictures come up. I know they will appreciate it. Have a great week!

Oh Christmas Tree!

HSM3 and the Beach!!

Movie and Beach

Right after I returned from the US, I took Mylee to her first movie theater experience to see High School Musical 3. We went with a friend of mine and her two girls as well. It all went really well except I had to keep telling Mylee we couldn't talk during the movie. And then during the one 5-second kissing scene she yelled EEEEEEEW really loud. Oh the 4 year old innocence. So after we recovered from that we were able to get through the movie. Luckily there were only 7 people in the theater and we made up 5 of those 7. You will be interested to see the types of seats in this theater. It is like nothing I have ever seen. I will give you a small hint: the name of the movie theater is The VIP! I will let you look at the pictures to see the rest for your self.

We signed up a couple months ago to go with the school to Punta Leona Resort and Beach. The trip was from Friday 8am to Saturday 6pm. We had a day off on that Friday so that is why we decided it would be a good trip for us. We had a lot of fun and the girls loved the sand. The ocean on the other hand was a different story for them. We tried to push them a little to try the ocean out and all was going well until a huge wave, bigger than Aaron and I, came over us and engulfed us all. Needless to say that was the end of the ocean for both of the girls. So in the sand they stayed and loved every minute. A very common thing in Costa Rica is an all inclusive resort. Which means your meals are included in your price. We really didn't know what to expect, but boy were we surprised. The food was incredible! Some of the best we have had here in Costa Rica yet. It was so good that even the white faced monkeys wanted to get in on the action. The restaurant is in the middle of a rain forest so what do you expect. But these little monkeys had some guts. So much, they actually stole a banana off my plate while Aaron and the girls were sitting at the table! We would look up and see them eating Splenda packets from the table, bananas, hard boiled eggs and once even a box of cereal. It was funny but eventually annoying because you had to guard your food and the girls would scream every time they would come within 10 feet of us which was pretty often. I guess a little later they set off fire crackers in the forest to scare them off. But it was definetly an expierence to eat breakfast with monkeys.

Click on the picture above to see all the fun pictures and more. Check back next week to see the new addition to our house! Look to left to see a poll I have added to the website. Don't forget to put your vote in! Have a Happy Thanksgiving with safe travels!

Chicken Pot Pie from Scratch

We have been getting together with David and Ana(teammates in Puebla) on a weekly basis for dinner and time to hang out. This particular night we made Chicken Pot Pie from scratch. So I had to get pictures of the whole process and the many little helpers we had in the kitchen (two to be exact!) But we had fun making it together and it was very good when we finally sat down to eat it. It was worth all the work that went into it!

One of the assignments in school was to present and demonstrate what we do in our free time. So I took some of my scrapbooking supplies and the necessary pictures to make a two page layout in class. So I had Aaron take pictures of my demonstration. It was a lot of fun. Probably the most fun assignment I have had yet!!

This is the blog update that I wanted to post before my trip back to the States but didn't get done. So I have also included some pics from my trip of my time with my family as well. Click on the picture below to see the album of the week. Coming soon (next Monday): Pictures of our trip to the beach this weekend. We went with the school on a 2 day trip to a close beach. You won't want to miss the stories or the Pics! Have a great week!

Scrapbooking

Update Coming Soon!

I wanted to write a quick note to let you know my Grandfather has passed away. I am in the United States attending his funeral. I will be returing to Costa Rica Saturday, November 8, so I will not be able to have another blog update until sometime after I return. Thank you for checking our site and appreciate you checking back at a later time. Have a great week!

Blessings

Here are a few blessings from this week that I took for granted in the states:

I found a bag of Funyun chips at the store this past week!
They had JettPuff marshmallows at PriceSmart(Sam's) and I successfully made Rice Krispie treats!
We finally were able to bring our Microwave back home! Long story, short: Our microwave wasn't functioning properly like coming on by itself and sometimes not working at all when the buttons were pushed. So only having it 5 months I figured they would just refund our money and we get a new one. Wrong. They said they would try to fix it and it wouldn't take longer than a week at the most. Well 3 weeks later I went to the store to check on it and it was ready and repaired with a new key pad. They said there was a short in the other one. But surprisingly enough I really didn't miss it!

A couple nights ago the girls were playing in their room instead of sleeping. So after going in there twice already I was headed in a 3rd time to lay down the law. I went in only to find that Evie had taken everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, off and was playing in Mylee's bed. How do you not just bust up laughing when you are supposed to be the really mad parent because the kids aren't sleeping? Thankfully there were no "accidents" on the bed because I would have been really upset, clothes or no clothes.

Coming up: Aaron and I were invited to a murder mystery dinner next Friday night!
Gabrielle is teaching the next Bible Study (in Spanish)!
Have a stupendous week!

La Fiesta

This past Friday we had an exam in our Language class. After studying typical Costa Rican parties, our exam was, with another class, to plan a party! Everything from decorations, food, games, and clean up. Some of the requirements were to speak in Spanish the whole time, include some jokes and use a Costa Rican idiom or saying. I was in charge of the game. So I bought a pinata and filled it. It was a lot of fun! Below are a couple of videos of our time in the party. The first one is of me talking a little bit in Spanish. I am telling the class there are surpises in the pinata. The next video is of me hitting the pinata and breaking it! Be sure to push pause on music box on the side bar to the left to hear the video sound! Enjoy.


Also this week we had a cultural day. The grade school and high school put on a performance with many different performances from other cultures. They had a song in Korean, different verses of the Bible read in different languages, a video of many different people from around the world, and a human video (which was my favorite) to the song "Go Light Your World" by Kathy Troccoli. They worked very hard to get ready for this day and we were privledged to be a part of it. About half way through the performance I was looking at Evie and noticed I had dressed her in her little Mexico dress. Actually that morning she picked it out herself. So I don't know if she knew what she was doing or not but she fit right in for the day! Below is the link to click on to see the pictures. Just double click on any picture. Have a great week!

Lunch and a poopy diaper!

What a week we had! This past Sunday Aaron was able to lead his first Bible Study in Spanish! He did a really good job and we think everyone understood his Spanish. Last Sunday before we left the Bible Study we asked our Nicaraguense friends over for lunch the next Sunday, which was today. We scheduled for them to come over at 2pm and at 2:20 they called and said they were lost from the directions we gave them. We live near Parque El Bosque and little did we know there are 2! There is a small one and a big one. We live by the big one. I guess they went to the other one first. But they made it here finally. I was so excited to make this new dish that my mom gave me the recipe for. I wanted to make them something different, like American. So I made them Chicken baked in a sweet salsa. Well during our dinner conversation I found out that this is a common Costa Rican dish=( Oh well, at least it turned out edible. When we were almost finished Evie came in from the backyard with her dress held up and you could see her little bottom covered in poopy. I guess she didn't want to bother me with a diaper change so she was going to do it herself. Oh how embarrassing. But they all laughed it away. But lunch turned out to be pretty fun and we were actually able to keep conversations going. Below is a few pictures of our lunch and as promised a few pictures of the girls. Evie is at that stage if I don't get a cute picture the first time I snap it, then I don't get one at all. But she is in the picture no less. Dios Le Bendiga! (God Bless You)

Somewhere over the Rainbow...There's a lizzard in our house!

I had the opportunity this week to show the love of Christ to our water delivery man with a donation of $85. Berny had lost quite a bit of money in the robbery a couple weeks ago and a few families in the states followed the call of God to help Berny and his family out. How wonderful it was to hand him the envelope and tell him that there were people praying for his family and that God loved him very much. He didn't know how much was in the envelope because it was sealed but I said that I hoped it would help him out with the loss. All he would say is "It's enough, It's enough!" He was very thankful for the help and I pray that we will have more opportunities to be a light in a very dark place. Thank you families for responding to God's call and putting it into action.

For the first time in San Jose, we saw a rainbow over our house this past week. It was so big and the end of it seems to land right at our house! It was very pretty! We also had another little, and I mean little, visitor in our house. Check out the pictures below! However there are no pictures of the girls this week. But will have some for sure next week. Have a good one!

An IMB Weekend

Not much excitement happened this week. Praise the Lord we have heard of no more excitement as far as robberies go either! But what we did have was our monthly IMB group meeting. These meetings can be different. Sometimes Member Care (counselors)come in for a training session. Sometimes we have different speakers come in. But this month our Mentors talked with us about church planting. It was Friday from 4-6pm and then continued Saturday 9-12pm. These weekends are packed with helpful information that will help us with church planting here in Costa Rica and in Puebla as well. Below is a slide show of a few pictures from the weekend and a few extras(double click on the pictures to see the pictures on the web). As you look at the other missionaries you will not have their names. But God knows who they are. Please send up a couple of prayers as you look at the pictures of our fellow IMB missionaries that are in language school just like us.

A week of Celebration!

Not only did we celebrate the Independence of Costa Rica this week but God's safe deliverance from what could have been a very bad situation: A robbery!

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:19
Taking a step of faith has a whole new meaning when there is a gun not two feet away from you. For precautions of water diseases, we have a man deliver some water to us on a weekly basis. This particular week, my husband wasn’t home, so I was taking care of the water exchange. As I went out to unlock our gate, which is about 5 yards from the door to our house, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that another man had walked up on the sidewalk. Not really paying attention to them because people walking by are not abnormal, I proceeded to unlock the gate. However, when it was time to open it I realized I couldn’t because the man had stopped and a conversation in hurried and anxious Spanish began. As I looked from the ground up to the other man I came to the gun he held in his hand that he was using to rob our water delivery man. At that moment the words “get in the house” ran through my head but I knew I needed to lock my gate first. So I reached down slowly and locked it as quietly as I could and turned very slowly to have my back to the robbery and walked the longest 5 yards of my life back to the safety of my home. I have never been so scared in my life, but at the same time depended solely on my faith in God, to keep me and my family safe. I truly believe that God was guiding each of my actions. Every step I took was just as hard as the first one, but I could feel God walking every one of those steps with me.

What a week it has been. Trying to get used to Evie being in a big girl bed and trying to potty train at the same time. Her teachers at school and a friend of ours told me she was showing lots of signs of being ready. I really didn't plan on tackling it yet but I thought I would give it a try. Well after 3 days of accidents and no success I decided to stop for now. She would go everywhere but on the potty. One time she didn't have anything on and decided to go #2 on our back patio which we smelled and found some 2 hours later. So we will try it again a little down the road. It's too stressful at this point in time.

There was a storm one night this week and Mylee and Evie were a little scared of it. But I told them they needed to go right to sleep so they wouldn't hear it. So I prayed for them again and left the room. About 20 minutes later it was all quiet. I was praising the Lord after about an hour of trying to get them to go to sleep. I go in their room each night after they are asleep to make sure they are covered up and to turn their fan off. Well this night of the storms I was surprised to find them in the same bed. But they were asleep! It was so cute so I took a picture of it!

You can find this picture along with a few others of some other happenings throughout the week. Just click on one of the pictures in the slide show! Thanks for visiting...We will see you next week!

Additions to our Home!

 

 

 

No, Evie is not new to our home but the big girl bed she is sleeping in is. We arrived home after our first day of classes and the gentleman that that does all the handyman work on the IMB houses was ready to make the switch of beds, but needless to say I wasn't so ready. Mylee was really easy to switch to a big girl bed. But Evie on the other hand has the word FREEDOM blinking before her eyes. So this week has been sort of a week of struggle getting her to stay in her bed. At one nap time I heard Mylee yelling "Evie get out of my bed"! But she is getting better at it. The reason we took her out of her crib is because we are getting ready to tackle the potty training task. I think she is very ready and will have it down with a little instruction and a few "incentives". Please pray it goes well.

The other new itew we have is a Radio Flyer Wagon. This has been passed to us by another IMB family when they left and when we leave we will pass it on to another family. It has been a fun asset to our home as it brings a few memories of the wagon at Grandma and Grandpa's house that we had to leave behind.



Please pray for Evie as she has just been diagnosed with RAD-Reactive airway disease. During the rainy season (October-January) we were told this is going to get worse before it gets any better. We have started her on 2 weeks of meds hoping this helps her. Please pray her condition will improve and we will not have to resort to a Nebulizer. Thanks for visiting us. Have a great week!

Evie's Week

As you read in the previous blog, Evie stayed with some friends of ours, whom we refer to as Grammy Diane and Grampy Steve, during our week at Playa Ocotal. I asked them to take some pictures of their week together so you could see what a great week she had as well as us and she didn't have to endure the long bus ride as we had to do. Above is a video of Evie singing a song. It also is a really good video to show you a little bit of her personality. I think this is her singing about 3 different songs but she ends with Jesus loves me because her last line is "for the Bible tells me so". Remember to push the pause button in the read music box at the left side of this webpage to view the video. Below is the link to see some pictures of her fun week. Enjoy!

Evie

To the beach we went!

PlayaOcotal

What a fabulous week we just had in Playa Ocotal. (Ocotal Beach) Because we didn't do any sight seeing during our trimester, we thought it was time to see the ocean. We visited the Pacific Ocean in Guanacaste. It was so beautiful. In fact the beautifulness of it was worth the very hard bus trip we took to get there. Because we were taking a public bus, we decided to leave Evie with another missionary couple, Steve and Diane, who so graciously offered to keep her for the week.

In my mind I thought this was going to be a Greyhound bus ride. Boy was I fooled! We got on the bus to find there were no bathrooms! Okay, so we will hold it. Hopefully they will stop just a little ways down the road, right? They did make plenty of stops but it was to pick up other passengers who stood along the road. Did I mention the bus was full when we left the station. And now we are picking up more people? Yep, they stood in the isles! So soon I had about 3 armpits in my face as people stood over me holding onto the the luggage racks. Then further down the road they stopped to let on a boy selling drinks and snacks for a living. So up and down the isles he went pushing people aside as he went. We are definitely not in America anymore! We caught the bus at 8am and were supposed to arrive at 2pm. Praise the Lord we made it a around 1:30pm! By the end of the trip it was very hot. The lady in the seat in front of me wanted to lay her seat back and was then in my lap (literally), and the isle was crammed packed with people. I was getting very claustrophobic and barely made it. It helped me at that point to take my tennis shoes off to cool down a bit. Don't worry about the smell, it didn't make it anyworse than it already smelled. But we finally made it and had a great time that made it all worth it! Oh and they did take a 20 minute bathroom break about 3-4hours into the trip!

When we got there we were met with pineapple smoothies and the news that we were upgraded to better rooms. We had requested beach front rooms, so we were a little worried. But when we saw the difference we couldn't believe it. God just decided to bless us with this extra perk after enduring that bus ride and boy did we love it.

During the week we were able to snorkel off the beach a bit with Mylee riding on Aaron's back the whole time, with her life jacket on of course. We did go on a boat ride with a bunch of divers, two of which were with us and we just snorkled while they were diving. Mylee did so good on Aaron's back once again and was even able to see a few fish from her view of the water. On this boat ride we were able to see dolphins as well. That was a fantastic day! We were so sad for the week to come to an end. But now are ready for the new trimester which starts Tuesday. Please pray that we would be able to remember what we learned last trimester and be able to apply it to the new classes we will have.

Above is the link to see all the pictures from our trip. Below are some pictures of the girls that one of our friends took of the girls when she was watching them on July 4th. Enjoy!

Our first Vacation-Arenal Volcano

ArenalVocano

What a wonderful break we have had so far. This last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we went and saw our first volcano. Arenal is one of the most active right now in the world. There was one night we were able to try and go see some of the lava, but it was raining and a little cloudy so our view was minimal. But a friend of ours was able to get a couple of pics. We were also not able to stay long because it was thundering and lightening. But we made it back to the hotel safely.

Aaron and I were also able to go on a date while we were gone. It was the most interesting and fun date we have been on. We went horseback riding! I have never ridden a horse before so the next two days my back and bottom were very upset with me. During this horseride, I learned two very important things that you should never do while riding a horse. One is never ride a horse with a full bladder. We were finally able to stop and take a break at an observatory with no bathroom, so behind a tree I went(the horse went while we were riding, and I almost did!). The other thing I learned is don't follow the horse in front of you too close, because when the horse in front of you has gas you see and smell everything. My horse had gas first and I thought it was so funny because Aaron was behind me. Then the horse in front of me decided to have some too. Oh well it made our trail ride comical.

There were a few different pools at this hotel. One pool and slide was a regular pool with cool water. The other pool and slide was a hot springs pool heated naturally to 90-100 degrees. It felt like bathwater. Mylee went down the slide once. She didn't care for the slides very much. Evie, on the other hand, went down the hot slide probably around 20 times and twice by herself, with me catching her. She would come down with a look of terror on her face and immediately say again and crawl out of the pool. Guess who is going to be our adventurer! We had an amazing time there as a family and with other IMBers. Click on the link above to see some pics of our trip and the volcano as well. Below is a video of the girls helping us sing one of our favorite spanish songs. I regret you can't hear the girls very well, but you can watch them do the actions. Before you start the video you will need to go down to the red music box and push pause (parallel double lines) so you can hear the sound. Have a great week.

A Break At Last!

Children's Museum

We have finally, officially, reached the end of our first trimester of language school! Aaron received his evaluation score of Intermediate Low as well(Please see previous email for a break down of the levels). We have both reached our goal for the first trimester. But we were only able to do this with the help of your prayers reaching God's ears. We were able to kick off our break with a surprise trip to the Children's Museum of San Jose (Museo de los Ninos). The girls had a great time and us as the parents did as well. There was a lot of hands on stations and play areas for the girls. The best part was it only cost us 3,000 colones to get in which translates to 6 dollars for our family. Evie is still at the age she can get in for free most places. Above is the link to see the pics from our day at the museum. However, I have to warn you there were some pretty interesting things on display here that you would probably never see in the US. So it was a very comical experience sometimes. But the girls are still young enough they really didn't know what was so funny, and it was all in spanish, so most of the time we didn't even know what it was saying. However, we could put together the gist of what it was talking about with the pictures helping a lot!

Friday the 15th was Dia de Madre or Mother's day here. You would've thought it was Christmas because everything was closed! So for mother's day I received a clean house from my wonderful Aaron and kiddos. They had the time to clean it because I was gone most of the day with two other women painting a room at the school. There is a room that is called the Student lounge/library that we sit in quite a bit during the trimester. We were all sitting there one day and someone finally voiced what we had all been thinking... "This room could really use a paint job." So we received the permission and all the supplies to get the job done. We were so excited to see the end result and are very anxious to use the room this next trimester. The before and after pics of the room are right after the pics of the museum. Tune in next week for pictures from our first trip to Volcano Arenal. Please pray this week for traveling safety for our family the 4 other families we will be with. Hope you have a blessed week.

3 Days Left!

What a blur this week was for me because it went by soooo fast. I (Gabrielle) had two tests this past week and one more to go next week and Aaron still has 2 more to go. I also had a pretty important test done but one they say you study for just like you study for a blood test! I took my language proficiancy test that the IMB requires us to have after each trimester. What happens is I go and talk, in spanish, for 30 minutes with our mentor Rebecca who does these tests all over Mexico. She then rates me at one of these levels:
Novice
Intermediate
Advanced
Superior
And then those are broken down to low, medium and high.
And then those are broken down to basic, mid and strong. Very technical.
To be able to go to Mexico Aaron and I have to reach a rating of Intermediate High, atleast.
So I went and talked and came out with a rating of Intermediate Low Strong! I couldn't believe it. Aaron has his Language test Tuesday so we will have his score by next week. By receiving this rating it gave me so much more confidence that what I was sent here to do is attainable.

This week the school held a function that I think has been the best function yet. At the end of every trimester the school holds a garage sale! I was so excited to attend and buy used stuff. I even walked around 4 different times just to look again in hopes of finding something I didn't find the first time. Oh the things we take for granted! A few items we were able to get: backpacks for the girls (High School Musical for Mylee and a smaller pink and black one for Evie), a couple books for Evie, beach toys to take with us in a couple weeks, a reading book for me, new kitchen towels, and a small christmas tree with a few ornaments and a string of lights! I was so excited about that. And we bought one more item for the girls that you will be able to see in the picture link below. They absolutely love it and I only paid $5 for it! Have a great week!

A new toy

The Count Down

In the Kitchen

This was just a regular, boring old week in the country of Costa Rica. Nothing exciting really happened. We did have a short week because of the holiday on Monday so that made it go by really quick. We had our new friends the Gillen's over for lunch on Monday to have grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, and Ghiradhelli Chocolate Brownies! It was a great lunch. The girls were excited because they had other friends to play with them in their swimming pool. We ended our holiday by going over and playing a couple rounds of Golf (new card game) with our friends DJ and Christina Burton. It was a great end to a really long weekend. Which meant Tuesday was really hard to get up and get back to school.

Today Mylee and Evie helped me make some more brownies. Above are a few pictures of them helping me out in the kitchen, with their friends in the pool, Mylee playing dress up in my clothes and a few other snapshots taken throughout the week!
May you see the small blessings this week!

The count down....only 8 more school days!

A Holiday!

This Friday was the Celebration of the Annexation of Guanacaste from Nicaragua. So we were able to attend an celebration to see some Costa Rican dances, performed by some of the teachers and students. It was a great time to see a little bit more of the Latin America culture and to have a day off (Monday) from school!

We also were able to meet our "little brother and sister" the Gillen's! They flew in late Thursday evening with about 20 other IMB missionaries. It has been fun showing them around Costa Rica and getting them set up in their new home.

This week we discovered Evie knows how to count in Spanish better than in English! But have no fear she will learn it all soon enough! Click below for pictures of the Celebration day and a couple pics of the girls!

July5

New additions to our home!

This week has been a pretty relaxing week with the excitement of our new rocking chairs arriving! It was a party opening the big boxes and then Aaron putting them together. We are still waiting on our cup holders but otherwise we are enjoying them thoroughly. So it was like Christmas in July for us!

Saturday we went over to the Blackstock's home (sent out by Kansas City Baptist Temple) so the girls could play. Mylee and their oldest daughter Avigail (spelled with a V-but here they pronounce the V like a B) have become good friends. So they were very excited to get to play together. We also had a good time visiting and talking about all our favorite restaurants in Kansas City! It was a great night of fellowship!

We also found out the greatest news ever this week. Hillsong will be coming to San Jose in October! I am so excited as I have missed them the last two times they were in Springfield, Missouri because of pregnancy.

Click on this picture to see the rocking chairs! Be Blessed!

Rocking Chair

Cultural Day

Cultural Day

This last Friday we attended Cultual Day at our School. It was where the teachers made popular games of Costa Rica and then ended our day with a Tourno. This is a popular tradition in Costa Rica where costumes are made and they dance around with a band. There is even a custom when the crowd tries to aggrivate the people with the costume who has a switch and tries to hit the person messing with him to get him to leave them alone. But it is all done in fun! Click on the picture of the girls above to see some pictures and a couple videos from the whole day and a few extras of the girls! Thanks for visiting our blog.

Happy 4th of July!

July 4th

What a hard week we had as far as language learning goes, but it ended with a bang for us. However, we didn't have a typical 4th of July like we would normally have in the States. There were no fireworks or cook outs and life when on like normal. We didn't have school on the 4th so Aaron and I were able to take a day trip to the town of Sarchi. It is kind of a craft type city where a very popular rocking chair factory is located and where all the colorful ox carts are hand painted. We were also able to visit a wood factory where they make many, many items out of wood. Some of the items were absolutely gorgeous.

We ended up having a bit of our own 4th of July cook out but on the 5th. We had some friends over and grilled hamburgers and hotdogs. Then we had a friendly game of Dutch Bliss (or nertz) to end the evening.

Mylee and I received our first hair cuts since being here. There is another missionary who is finished with Language School who went to cosmotology school in the states. So we set up an appointment with her. What a blessing it was to help out another family but then her being a blessing to us as well. The link above includes pictures of Mylee's new haircut, pictures of the factory we toured of the rocking chairs and our 4th of July meal. May God bless your week!

Saturday Mornings

Not a very exciting week for the Woods. Nothing much happened except school, eat and sleep. But one thing we do every Saturday is we go to the local park and Aaron does some witnessing with David around the park while Ana and I stay with the kids at the play area hoping to strike up some conversation with another parent. This last Saturday some red fire ants were upset with Aaron standing on their hill. So they let him know with a few bites!

Enjoy pictures below from the park as well as some pictures of us opening our first care package that we have received from my cousin Julia in Hawaii! Thanks John, Julia and Joanna! We loved it!

Click here on the picture below.

July 2008

A Birthday Party

I just received pictures from the first Birthday Party we attended here a couple weeks ago. It was a party for our House Helper, Yolanda. It was also a strategic party hoping to be able to invite some of the neighbors to the bible study and it worked! These are the ladies who have been coming for the past couple weeks. Please continue to pray that these women will continue to come and more will be added!


Here are also a few pictures of the Chapel we have every Tuesday and Thursday at the school. This was the particular day that my praise team was singing. Also this particular chapel was titled "Concert of Prayer". This is the second time we have done this. The first time we prayed for our city and the citizens around us, which was about the time of all the robberies. This second time we had a chance to pray for the teachers, who are in a circle and then the teachers were able to pray for us as we recreated a map with the closest people going to Mecico, the middle people staying in Costa Rica, and the farthest people going to Argentina. It was so cool to be able to pray with and for different missionaries going to the same area we were going to. What a wonderful expierence we were blessed to be a part of.

Click on the link below to see more pictures of the birthday party and of the girls and their time here in Costa Rica. Oh there is also another picture of a little "friend" we had in our house the other night! Enjoy.

Birthday Party 4 Yolanda

A very blessed week!

What a fortunate week we were able to be a part of. First, Thursday there was a Parents Night Out that was given by a volunteer group from Mississippi. They watched our kiddos among many other children from 5pm to 9pm. With two other couples we went to eat at a barbeque restaurant and then went to see the new Indiana Jones movie-in English! We made it back at 9:00 sharp. It was a much needed night that was exactly what we needed to get away from the stresses of school.

Second, there was a women's retreat put on through the school that was Friday afternoon until Saturday at 5pm. We went to a resort about an hour and a half away. It was a very fun time to get to know some (about 60) of the fellow missionary women who are here studying with me. The pool was absolutely beautiful with a concrete slide (pictures above). It was fun until I went down on my stomach and slammed my hip against the side of it. Then it didn't feel so good. But I will live to tell the story. All the ladies in the above picture are with the IMB except for the lady in the front next to me. The middle picture is of the pool with the dark rain clouds above it. It did rain on us for about 5 minutes while we were in the pool. Fun times! The other picture is of me going down the slide, aiming for the tube...I think I put one leg in that time!

Again this past Sunday we had all but one show up for the bible study. This week I was able to lead a couple songs for the group. It was a very successful bible study. Last week we walked home in the rain. If you could picture the worst down pour in Missouri and then us walking a mile in it to get home, that is what we did. So the picture below is a picture of our soaking wet pants when we got home. All we could do was laugh our way through it. Have a great week!

Our Church-Amistad

June 2008-2

Not too many pictures from this week because I have posted our first little video below. This video is about a minute out of our 45 minute praise and worship time at the church we have been attending. We worship for the first hour and the second hour the kids go to their class. When the kids are gone we have a meet and greet time, followed by the announcements and then end with the sermon to be out by 12:15pm. This last Sunday we were able to experience our first Latin Lord's Supper. They didn't have the little bread waffers like the US. They use fresh baked bread that was so delicious we found ourselves wanting a little bit more. They also had the grape juice in bigger cups and a few of the little cups like we have in the US. Obviously it is all done in Spanish so we did a lot of looking around and following the lead of the locals. But a very special time, no less.



Last Saturday I also received my first cooking class for Puebla. Our mentor Rebekah brought some Mole Poblano back with her from Puebla. Mole is a bitter sauce made out of coco beans, but taste nothing like chocolate. It was invented right in Puebla, so very popular there. This mole that we ate was VERY spicy for this gringo tongue. I have to say it is definitley an aquired-taste-needed sauce. She had us all over and we cooked it then ate it over Chicken and Mexican rice. I made the manderine orange salad and it was a hit. For dessert we had homemade Flan made by Scott and Sherry. It was yummy! Click on the above link to see pictures of our meal and a few more from the week of the girls.

Please pray this week for the new people we had at our Sunday Bible Study, that the words of God they heard would land on fertile soil and that they would come back for more next Sunday!

The Inside!

Our house

You got it! Finally pics of our house. Thanks to my mom asking everyday when they will be up. I was trying to get the pics when the house was clean! We love our house and really don't deserve this nice of a home and definitely didn't expect it. We feel very safe here and know that God's hand is protecting us. Thank you to all who have prayed for us and our fellow missionaries here. Click on the link above to see our home!

I want to write out a portion from Aaron's journal of some funny things that was said here.

"Today I made two funny language mistakes. This morning I left our house helper, Yolanda, the following note: 'Correr los mangos, por favor', which translates to 'Run the mangos, please'. When I went to class this morning we went over verbs and I quickly realized that I had written the wrong verb. I meant to say 'Cut the mangos, please' which is the verb Cortar. My second mistake happened later in the morning when I asked my teacher the following: 'Como esta su pedo?' Which translates 'How is your fart?'. I meant to ask her 'Como esta su dedo?' Which is 'how is your finger?' She busted out laughing and informed me and the class of what I actually said. Her sutured finger is doing fine!"

Just thought you might enjoy that entry. We have found that my perfectionistic side of me doesn't want me to talk until I have everything put together perfectly. I am trying to break through this and just talk as much as I can. Pray that I will be successful.

Last weekend Aaron and I went on a date to LaPaz Waterfalls. Below is the link to see the most beautiful pictures that were taken there. We had a great day and wanted to try to share some of the beauty with you. Enjoy!

LaPaz Waterfalls

Happy Birthday To Evie

We are officially parents of a two year old. Evie turned 2 on the 15th of May. I had been looking for a certain gift to get her but could only find half of what I wanted to get her and the half I found does not work without the other half. Her birthday ended up getting here and I having nothing to give her for her birthday. I was incredibly crushed, even though she didn't think anything about it. Around 6:30 on her birthday, one of our fellow IMB missionaries called and asked if she could bring a little something down to Evie. She had bought a little princess drum for her. I was so touched by this gesture that the next day I could not control the tears from coming when I thanked her from the bottom of my heart. God is Good!

The next night I did make a chocalate cake for her birthday to serve at our first IMB meeting. I had baked it the evening of her birthday and then was going to ice it before I took it to the meeting the next evening. We returned home from school and Aaron said "don't flip out but, Yolanda (our house helper) ate a piece of the cake!" So I had to take the cake with a piece taken out of it. I guess this is a cultual thing, I have since found out. Oh well, glad she enjoyed it.


Mylee and I also attended a baby shower and what an experience it was. They had a lot of games, a lot of food and a lot of presents. While the new mom is opening her presents they play the game of whosever presents are first, seventh and last will be the next babies in the church. My gift was number 8! Close call!

On Sunday evenings we attend a house church that our supervisors on the field, David and Ana have been trying to get up and running. So far we have not branched out beyond the family whose house we are meeting in. WE are hoping to change this Sunday when we will be celebrating Yolanda's birthday and have invited the neighbors to the party hoping to get some new contacts. Pray this time will be successful. Pray for Francisco, Yolanda, and their son Moises, that they would be used by God in their neighborhood. Yolanda is also our house helper and does a tremendous job, helping us out with household chores so that we have more time with studies and as a family. Praise the Lord for Yolanda.

Click here for some more pics of time at the park, cooking class with David and Ana , "monkey brain" fruit, the flowers I bought for 3 dollars at the market and our little lizard friend we stop and say hello to every day walking to class! Enjoy.

May2008-2