Yesterday we went to the ocean for a few hours.  When we were there I saw a splash in the water and at first I thought it was a fish.  But as it got closer I saw what looked like two little wings popping out of the water.  For a moment I could see it very clearly…it was a little sting ray!

It was pretty close to where we were.  But when the next wave came by I lost sight of it.  A minute later, when the water was being pulled out for the next wave I knew exactly where it had gone…it ran right into my leg, and Jimmy’s leg!  Of course the girl thing to do at that moment, scared or not, is to scream.  Which promptly scared the kids, especially Jimmy since it touched his leg too.  I was mostly worried about stepping on it because the water was really cloudy.  So I cautiously took a few steps back.

Buy that point Jimmy was convinced it was a shark and he wasn’t hanging out in the water any more.  He decided to play in the sand instead.  Peter was brave enough to stay in the really shallow water with me.

After looking at the water for awhile I saw it again, then I saw a second one.  We got to see them close up a few more times.  Then we realized they were playing!  They were riding the waves!  That made me laugh.  James came to see what all the commotion was about and the three of us (James, Peter and Me….Jimmy was still playing in the sand) got to watch the sting rays play for about 30 minutes.

It was neat to see Peter see them.  So often kids have a hard time seeing stuff like that and they just pretend to see it.  But there was a couple of times that he spotted them a few seconds before me.  It was a lot of fun!

Jimmy being an ant

Peter being cute

Last Saturday (the 12th) we ate out at a restaurant.  James and I had the same meal.  A few hours later we both got sick.  Diarrhea and throwing up.  So of course we thought it was food poisoning.  We were both up all night, going back and forth to the bathroom.  Halfway thought the night we both got fevers.

The next morning we were so tired.  There was no way we could take care of the kids with both of us being sick.  So we called our friends and asked them to take the kids for us and get us some medicine and fluids from the store.  It was so nice to be able to sleep all day without having to worry about the kids.  The kids came home at 9:00 and went strait to bed.

Four days later we were still really sick and had both lost 15 pounds.  We realized this had to be something else.  We called our friends and they said that they’d heard of a handful of people around town with the same thing.  When James looked up the symptoms on the internet it matched up with cholera and traveler’s diarrhea.

Today, 8 days later we are still pooping like crazy.  We feel a little bit better, but we still need to stay close to the bathroom.

It’s been crazy! But we’ve been blessed in a lot of little ways too.

A few weeks ago I started homeschooling the kids. We just started with reading. (We’re using the “Your Baby Can Read” method.)

This last week I found a website with a bunch of worksheets. At first I thought, “Oh man, my kids are really behind.” But when I printed out a bunch of them the kids had no trouble doing them. They really enjoy the extra mommy time too.

Jimmy can read about 30 words and Peter about 10 words. They love to color, especially Jimmy, he says he’s an artist. I even taught them how to cut out shapes with scissors (a big moment for me “my babies can’t use scissors!! Oh wait, they’re not babies any more”). Jimmy is starting to get the concept of adding and subtracting too. I’m really having a lot of fun!

Feeding the birds

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Playing in a little corner

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Jimmy found a little crab by the stairs.  He thought it was cool to to wave his toy shovel around and make the crab move.  One time the crab grabbed the shovel and it freaked Jimmy out a little and he yanked the shovel back and the crabs arm came off!  Yeah, Jimmy freaked out about that.  He’s so funny.

The one armed crab.  The shell on the left is also a hermit crab.
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We went to the ocean and the water level was really high.  The boys thought it was fun to stand on the stairs and get splashed by the waves.

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The boys sitting on the hammock

A few nights ago I was laying in bed, almost asleep.  When I moved my arm, scaring the crab that had been sharing my pillow.  It ran for cover right under my neck!  Of course I freaked out, waving my arms all over the place.  Then I looked around and didn’t see the crab anywhere.  James was already asleep so I didn’t want to turn on the light to try and find it.  I also didn’t want another visit from the crab, so I decided to go sleep on the couch.

When I got in the living room I found Jimmy asleep on the couch.  Instead of moving him I decided to go sleep in the boy’s bed (they share a queen size bed).  I quickly figured out why Jimmy decided to sleep on the couch…Peter was a kicker tonight.  After he kicked me a few times I pushed him all the way to the other side of the bed.

I was finally able to get some sleep.  What a night!

Jimmy:
43 inches tall
43 pounds

Peter:
40 5/8 inches tall
41 pounds

I think it’s funny that their weight is the same number as their height

Look at those muscles!

Our cute little bunny (my favorite of all the pets we’ve ever had) came with us when we moved.  It handled the heat and staying in a little cage while we were on the bus and in hotels.  I was so proud that it was doing so well.

At the new house there isn’t a yard, just a patio/garage area.  During the day we let it out on the patio and brought it inside at night.  The only bad thing about that is we can’t lock the door to keep the kids from loving it too much, like we did at the last house.

Yesterday I went to the store and James was watching the kids.  He forgot about needing to keep a close eye on them when they were outside.  When I got back from the store, poor little train was dead.  The boys were a little too rough when they were playing with it.  I didn’t realize how attached I was to that cute little rabbit until he died.  I cried like a baby for an hour.  I’m going to miss him.

At the end of April, beginning of May we decided to fast and pray about what we needed to do, and what would be best for our family. Our lease was up at the end of May. So we either needed to sign up for another year, or go somewhere else.

We felt it was time to go somewhere else. After a little more praying we decided to go to Nicaragua. After that, everything fell into place and went quickly and smoothly. We had a garage sale and easily sold all our furniture. We were then able to move in one trip. Previous moves James would take a few trips before we all moved so that we could get all our stuff. But thankfully we were able to do it in one trip.

When we got to Nicaragua it only took us two days to find a really nice, fully furnished house in our price range. There’s even air conditioning in the bedrooms!

Jimmy blew up that balloon all by himself, he was very proud.

On May Day (May 1st) there was a little carnival at the grocery store around the corner from us. Because it was at the store, all of the rides were free, but not the food. So the boys spent most of the day on the merry-go-round. They thought that was so cool. They also got their fill of soda, ice cream and candy bars.

For the next few days the boys were constantly asking to go to the store. They were disappointed that the carnival was gone. They thought that it was always going to be there. :-)

The other day Peter found my curling iron and plugged it in then grabbed it and burned his fingers. He’s okay. He’s been getting into everything lately so I went through the closet and moved all the things he could get into and moved them higher.

Jimmy and Peter have a new game where they pretend to take the other one’s keys, then they run away and sing “I got your keys!”

Jimmy found a pair of sunglasses and walked around saying that he was the Monster King, but he was a nice monster. :-D

Jimmy’s been mister bossy lately. He regularly tells us to go to our room, etc.

I helped the boys plant some flower seeds in the front yard a few days ago. All the rest of the day they kept checking to see if the flowers had grown.

Over the last month I lost the 10 pounds that I gained over the Christmas holiday.

I started running again a month ago. When I stretch, the boys always ask me what I’m doing. “I’m stretching” I say. Now whenever they’re doing something weird they say they are stretching.

We’re really enjoying our bunny. It’s so great. When we go in the back yard it comes running like a little puppy. It doesn’t seem to mind the boys holding it. It doesn’t bark and I don’t have to clean up poop. The best pet ever!

We have some new friends.  We met them at church last Sunday.  They have three little girls, two of them just a little older than Jimmy and Peter.  We went to their house for family night on Monday.  It was a lot of fun.  She’s also my visiting teacher so she came visit this week.  Yesterday we went to the park and had a picnic.  We’re really enjoying having friends to play with.  It’s also been great Spanish practice.  The husband speaks English and the wife understands a lot of English but doesn’t speak very much.

Snowball, our little white bunny died today. I think it got hurt when the kids were playing with it. Yesterday I noticed that it wasn’t doing so great. On the other hand Train, the black bunny is getting fatter and doing really well.

We buried Snowball in the back yard. The kids had a little lesson about what being dead means and that we bury things when they die etc. They were mildly upset about her being dead and a little worried about burying her. But they got over it pretty quick because there was still one rabbit left.

On Wednesday and Friday this week I took the boys with me to go running.  I run on the soccer field that’s right next to the park.  They were so good.  It’s funny, because they don’t run around and play when I run, opposed to when I just sit there and watch them.  For the most part they just played in the dirt or sat watching me.

Peter got stung by a bee for the first time on Wednesday, the 17th.  It was actually while we were at the park when I was running.  I was a little worried about an allergic reaction.  Thankfully it was in his finger and the stinger was sticking out pretty far which made it really easy to pull out.  Peter was pretty dramatic about it for the next hour though.

It’s been a year since the bicycle accident with Peter. (Read full post)

Today while we were out running errands we walked past the pet store.  I was hoping to distract the boys from yesterday’s kittens by looking at some of the animals.  While we were there they had the cutest little baby bunnies.  We got two of them, a white one and a black one .

They named the white one Snowball and the black one Train.  They had so much fun holding them and playing with them.  I had to remind them often to be soft and gentle.

It was so cute.  A few times I would look over at Jimmy and he would hold the bunny so he could look at it’s face and say, I love you bunny, I love you so much.

They’re so small!

Today we were watching a video and we heard some meowing. It sounded really close. Jimmy got all excited about it and looked out the window trying to see the cat. A minute later three little kittens crawled through our window. The boys thought that was so cool! We took them into the back yard and played with them for awhile.

It was so cute to watch them play with them.  Jimmy was nervous about their claws so he’d pick them up and hold them out at arms length and walk around with them, then set them down and chase them around.  Peter would just pick them up and hold them like a baby.

When the boys started to get a little rough I sent them to play with the cats in the front yard so that the kittens could runaway if they wanted to.

Our neighbor is a veterinarian’s assistant and was on his way to drop the kittens off because someone had adopted them. He put them in a box on his porch while he stopped for lunch. But of course the kittens got out of the box. The boys were so sad when the kittens had to leave. Jimmy was sad about it all day. But they had a lot of fun while they were able to play with them.

I watched a few home videos of the boys today. They are getting so big! It’s so crazy to see them so little, then remember that moment and feel like they haven’t changed that much, but then I turn around and look at them and they are so different and so big.

They are a lot of fun right now. They’ve moved into a new independent phase.

To see some of our family videos click here.