Four days till Christmas

Here is a sweet picture of Chloe with Daddy. She was all dressed up today in her new Christmas dress and I thought she looked just beautiful. So did Daddy and he asked for a picture with her. Then we took one with the whole family and then the kids and Grandma and Grandpa. And then one with Mommy and her girl.

5 days before Christmas

And the King family celebrated. All the King cousins in one house and each with a homemade personalized stocking handmade by Grandma and filled with goodies. Good times. Love it.

6 Days till Christmas

And the two little ones are spending the day on Grandma King's couch huddled under some homemade afghans and sick with the stomach flu. So much for a big happy Christmas weekend. Oh well, at least it didn't hit in the car yesterday (while Daddy was changing the flat!!).

7 days till Christmas

And we spent the day in the car. On the way to the King side of the family in Kansas. And we were making good time getting out of Illinois before the nasty frozen rain was to hit when a car came alongside of ours and started honking. And pointing to our back tire. And I looked in the mirror and saw it was totally flat!! (how could we not feel it??) So in the below freezing temps, my sweet hubby gets on his knees on the wet snow covered shoulder and changed the tire. He's my hero. He also kept his cool as we waited 2 hours for the next Wal-Mart we came upon to put a new tire on (you can't drive all day on the little spare!!). 2 hour wait for a 10 minute service is hard to swallow when you have a day's driving ahead of you and freezing rain you're trying to stay ahead of. Did I mention he's my hero?

I didn't get a photo of the tire-changing event because it wasn't appropriate at the time. But I sure wish I had it now. I was busy praying that the big semis that sped by and rocked the car would not rock it off of the jack; and I was praying Darrin wouldn't have to get under the car to pry the spare loose; and I was praying we would all get out alive and safe. So pictures weren't at the top of my list!!

8 days until Christmas

My kids made the cutest little gingerbread house with Grandma. What fun!! Everyone got involved and I say it was a job well done!!

9 days till Christmas

And I love seeing the stockings hung by the fireplace!!

10 days before Christmas

And I came home from my weekend away to find my car frozen over and no ice scraper inside. What can I say, we never use them in Costa Rica!! :o)

So I waited, and waited, and waited and after 45 minutes, the defroster had done enough of its work I could see to go!!

See look, it's starting to melt already. And I'm still smiling!!

11 days before Christmas

And I think my Christmas cards are actually ready to go!! Didn't think to take a picture of my envelope stuffing assembly line-- but here's the photo we used!!

12 days till Christmas

And I'm having a girls night out!! Yay for good friends!

December

PHOTO A DAY FOR DECEMBER 2008!!

Dec. 1 SNOW!!!! My Central American kiddos were SOOO excited to see big fat fluffy flakes falling from the sky and coating everything in a layer of white!!

Dec. 2 Christmas Dress! Chloe went shopping with Mommy (and Grandma) and picked out the prettiest blue shiny dress to wear over the holidays!!

Dec. 3 Tree!! We are living in a borrowed house and weren't sure how or if we would get a tree. But lo and behold the house we are in used to be a business and they still had a tree stored in the attic with ornaments and lights that we were able to use!! Yay!

To be continued. . . . .

Thankful

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by my family and lots of food!! I am thankful my brother is home from his 2nd (and hopefully last) tour in Iraq; my new little nephew is growing and getting stronger (and cuter) by the day; all my brothers and sisters were together with my parents on Thanksgiving day --(along with my Grandma; 6 aunts and uncles; 8 of my cousins (and their 8 kids--along with my four-- in other words a houseful!!). We celebrated a few days early with Darrin's family --- and again all his brothers and sisters (and all their kids) were able to be there. So these are special times!!

Here are a few recent pics!! (The above picture is of my Mom & Dad; my family and my four brothers and sisters and their families!)

Below, Wyatt turned 8 and celebrated his birthday first with family in KS (along with the nearby birthdays of his cousin Harrison and cousin Jonathan!!)



Later, we celebrated again with family in Illinois!! Here is the dread Sir Pirate Wyatt and his booty.



My sweet gang on the night of Wyatt's party!!

October 08

Yay!! It's fall in the Midwest, and I am loving it!! Last week on my Mom's birthday we went to a pumpkin patch. Here are my kiddos:




























And my sweet little niece came along with us too:





















And, of course, I can't forget Mom and Dad and me!!





























It was a fun day, then later that weekend we had a joint b-day party for Mom and me!

















So much fun recently. Here is a picture I took on my b-day. I like to look back over the years at how I've changed!! So here is a little time capsule of me at 38. I'll remember this birthday as the one I spent in the US. The living room fireplace and pumpkins behind me will help trigger my memory. And I'll sigh and say, "Ahhh, that was a good year!" :o) Pura Vida.

Fun weekend

Hey friends. I am hopelessly behind updating you with all my summer events. We have done so much traveling. I have great pictures I need to post of my week in Dallas with our great friends the Millers, a fun weekend in Branson with Darrin's family, Chloe's 10th birthday (!!!) and about a zillion other little fun moments here and there. So, I'll try to catch up as I go along.

But I'm going to start with my most recent fun event. Last weekend I met my friend Elizabeth in Tulsa and we spent the weekend together! Oh my, what fun. We giggled like little girls on many occasions, found out we had more in common than we knew, and marveled again at the wonderful world of the internet and its blogs and e-mails which help people in far away places build and maintain friendships like this!! So yeah for fun! And yeah for girlfriends! We just happened to go to a scrapbook store in Tulsa (surprise, surprise) that took pictures in a little booth. Of course we went in!! Here is my set of pics. (needless to say, we thought they'd already taken the picture in that last one--but obviously they hadn't--another moment of giggling occurred at that moment!!) E. has the other set, which is just as funny. It was fun to make silly faces and feel like a little kid again. Thanks for a great weekend Elizabeth!!

Fun times!

Me at the St. Louis Cardinals game in the new Busch Stadium!

Well, I thought I'd add a couple new pictures. We've been busy traveling a lot lately. One fun trip was to St. Louis to see a Cardinals game. It was the first MLB game for all of my kids so they were pretty excited!! Pretty "all-American" thing to do!!


Our whole gang after the game. (It rained earlier and was actually cool that night. I was grateful because it had been in the 99s up until then!!)


My sweetie and I! (photo taken by Chloe!!)


My sister Amy (above with me) and her husband (that still sounds weird to say!!) came up to meet us as did my other sister Jeni and my Mom and Dad. A real family event!!


Ahh, #5. This is just to make all my girlfriends back in Costa Rica jealous. Pujols is rather popular there!! :o)


The real reason my whole family came up to the game this particular night was that my Aunt Sandi is in a Community choir that was invited to sing the national anthem before the game! There she is on the jumbo tron!! (second from right middle row!)

A few weeks ago, we had a special visit! About six years ago, we were living in the US and met several Japanese students at the local state university. I gave rides to Wal-Mart and had them to the house to learn how to make American cookies (chocolate chip, Rice Krispee treats, and no-bake cookies if I remember correctly!!) They taught me to make sushi and made several yummy Japanese feasts for us!! Later in the year, when one of the girls needed a place to stay for the summer we invited her to stay with us. Her name is Yukiko and she became a part of our family for the next year. We were so excited to find out she was making a return trip to the States to visit fiends here this summer and we were able to see her again!! She is a sweetheart and it was so good to laugh and talk together again. I hope it isn't six years before we see her again!! :o)


Yukiko-- Pure sunshine!! What a great smile!!


She couldn't believe how much the kids had grown!!


Such a sweetie!! I miss her !!

PS--- Feliz Día de la Anexión de Guanacaste! (even though I'm a couple days late) In Costa Rica they just celebrated a national holiday celebrating the day that Guanacaste (a peninsula of land on the western side of CR) became part of the country! I am sure that they are very glad it did as if you look at a map you will see that some of the nicest beaches (and most expensive resorts!!) lie along this peninsula!! I wish I could have been there to celebrate!! Long live Guanacaste and their farms and cattle and beautiful beaches and old colonial towns. I feel a bit homesick!! :o)


Ahhh, lying on the beach at Costa Rica is a little piece of heaven!!

Wedding pics!

The wedding was beautiful. My sister was a gorgeous bride. My four kids were all part of the wedding party; I was matron of honor; my husband read the scriptures; It was perfect. I'll just post some pics today as we are all tired from the big day and then traveling back home. But I'll try to tell more about it in future posts! (Although if a picture is really worth a thousand words, then maybe these will speak for themselves!!)


My four kiddos all looked so grown up!!


The beautiful bride and groom arriving at the reception!!


Mother and daughter!! I thought both my Mom and sister looked wonderful!!


Another mother and daughter!! This time me with Chloe!


Can you tell Wyatt was getting a little tired of pictures.


My sweet hubby and me relaxing at the reception!


The three sisters!! (Amy picked this color 'pool blue' and then all four bridesmaids got to pick their own dress style. I thought that was a wondeful idea!!)


My youngest brother was home on a two week leave from Iraq and was able to be there too!!


Parents of the Bride!! My Mom and Dad both looked great. I have sweet parents!!


At the end of the day, a rainbow appeared over the Lake where the reception was held! I think that is a good sign!! :o)

Finally, an update!!

Yipee!!! We're off and traveling like crazy. So many people to see. So many hugs and smiles after such a long time away!! We've been to Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas seeing family first and now starting to work our way through our list of friends to call and visit!! But we are having a ball. We've had so many highlights already that I can't list them all. So I'll add some pictures of a few high points thus far and keep adding more as I'm able in the days and weeks ahead. (Although keep in mind that our life is a bit unordered at the moment!!)


See, I told you we were having fun. My sweet hubby posing once again for me and my camera!!! He is a patient man!! :o)


OK, this is the gang at the airport in San Jose-- ready for our big adventure! (Bonus point to anyone who recognizes the airport in the post below this one--which says "and we're off")


One special highlight for my sweet kids was to finally meet their new little cousin Macy-- who was celebrating her first birthday in this picture!! She is a sweetie!!


Another person everyone was very excited about meeting was Jeremy, my sister's fiance. The kids are already calling him Uncle Jeremy--but hadn't even met him yet. He is everything Amy said he was!! Here he is at a family picnic with Chloe!


Ahh, here I am with my parents and kids in St. Louis the weekend we had a big family reunion with my Dad's side of the family!! Such fun!!



Another good thing is to get our little city kids out to the country! In this picture, they are visiting their cousin Eban's chicken operations out behind his house! We were all surprised to see the eggs he was selling----His chickens lay colored eggs!! I thought he was joking-- but there really are different shades of blue and green (along with the traditional brown and white!) It's like Easter every day!! :o)


Father's Day was spent with Darrin's family. I know Darrin was glad to actually be with his Dad on Father's Day for a change. Here is my gang posing with Daddy!!


Wyatt is enjoying getting to know his little cousins again also!! He and Jackson can't wait to see each other again. Lucky for them, they will get together again this weekend as the kids will go to Aunt Julie's for a visit! Yay!!


After visiting both my family and Darrin's, we settled into our "home" for the summer. One of our supporting churches has a house all furnished just for visiting and fuloughling missionaries to use. We have been so blessed by their generosity and are happy to have a place to use as our home in between all our traveling. Here Austin is in the living room.


Oh yeah, and that house we are living in. . . . well, it is a dream place for four city kids to stay in-- just take a look at that big front yard!! We're in heaven!!


Chloe with Daddy getting up her nerve to go inside and leave for church camp. Although she got a little nervous at this moment, she jumped on the bus and loved every second. She didn't want to come home!! While she was at church camp, Z & A went to their cousin Audey's house for the week. I hear the week was a mix of basketball camp each afternoon-- with swimming, fishing, playing Wii, playing drums and a lot of talking thrown in during the evenings!!


With the three older kids out to camps, Wyatt stayed back with Daddy for some outdoor fun and I headed to Illinois for my sister's wedding shower!! Here I am with my Grandma, my sister, and my Mom.


And here is a great pic of all the sisters. First my sweet sister-in-law April (also Mom to Macy who you saw above!!), me, my sister Amy and my baby sister (who is taller than all of us!!) Jeni.
So fun to see them all again!!


One last silly picture with Jeni. So, as you can see, we are having fun. We are also working. There are lots of churches to visit and lots of news to report about all that we have been doing in Costa Rica. And we are actually enjoying that too!! It's good to see how interested everyone is in what we have done and it is encouraging for us to look back and see all that has happened in the last four years!!

That is only the tip of the iceberg for photos!! We are getting ready to take a trip to the lake with Darrin's family --- so I bet I will have photos to post of that soon. Hope you are all well. And if you live in the US and want to see us, drop me an e-mail. I don't want to post my phone number for the whole world to see but write me and I'll send you our number here and we can see if we can work it out to see one another!! :o)


See-- like I said--we are all having fun!! Plus-- Zach got a haircut-- can you tell? Big change!! But he likes it!!