For the Love of Ibuprofen and Spanish Subtitles

The last week has been really long and super fast at the same time.  How does that happen?

Celebrating David's Birthday- the girls started the "Happy Birthday" song in English and finished in Spanish!

David's family came to visit us, and that evening, David began a high fever.  The next day, I began to have a sore throat... but we kept on, finishing classes and spending time with our family.
Such was life for the next week- we've been through at least a bottle of ibuprofen, but our time with family was sweet and encouraging- at least what I remember of it!
Here are a few photos from our time together:

The cousins had a slumber party!

The cousins- except the babies Reide and Caleb

Emmie and AG- water ballet

Eliza & Abe- always up to something...

And now that we are home... this is a normal scene- especially when both parents are still not feeling 100%.  Now before you think how detrimental all this TV watching is for our children, it helps to focus on the positive- they are getting extra Spanish learning time by watching Spanish cartoons and movies!  Actually, we have found that watching Spanish cartoons and movies (which is our comprehension level of Spanish) and reading subtitles has been a good way to continue to grow in language learning.

Classes resume tomorrow (the Institute allows short breaks for students to travel to renew their Costa Rican visas), and hopefully my mind and body will be functioning well enough to concentrate.

Thanks for praying for our family!  And praise to Him who has kept our little ones healthy!

Caleb's favorite toy- he carries it with him everywhere.

Family Day

Family Day at ILE

The language school in Costa Rica has been such a blessing, not only for learning Spanish, but for our family. They have really thought well for our family, marriage and especially our children.

The girls' teachers have been excellent, and this has freed us to study Spanish without concerns of if our children are being loved and engaged both spiritually and educationally.

The other week, the school planned a "Family Day" in which the children sang a song, the school principle encouraged us as parents with scripture, and then we sat together as a family to do a craft. It was a sweet time, and a great remembrance of the blessed call of parenthood.

Don't want to leave out little Caleb!
He is into everything and is completely boy (which I love!) Though I am glad I have this picture of his sweet little front teeth, because yesterday he chipped off a little bit of one while crawling at a reckless, high speed down the hallway... Hope this is not a foreshadowing of things to come with our only boy!