My Birthday

My birthday was full of surprises, both good and bad. I started off the morning with cream cheese stuffed french toast with an orange-guava sauce...yum! Then a frantic rush to get ready for work and Zachariah to school, all to end when my housekeeper called to say she couldn't come, her 3 teenage boys all have dengue!

Steve had planned to head out to the countryside to watch a well pumped dry and then cleaned but after talking with our boss, he was able to stay home and do some work from there.

We had planned for some friends to come over and watch our boys so we could have a nice quiet dinner together. The day before, I went out a bought a dress and some shoes to match. I think it's the first dress I've bought in over a year and a half. So before dinner I headed down the street to a salon run by a mother/daughter team in front of their house. As usual in Nicaragua, I waited about 45 minutes before starting...you pretty much have to wait for just about everything here, doctors, supermarkets, buses, etc. We had a fun time chatting...turns out the husband of the lady who did my nails (the daughter) is the nephew of the lady who lived across the hall from us when we lived in the 2nd floor apartment (did you follow all that?). He is American and she is Nicaraguan, so we had some good conversations. In the end she asked if I might be interested in teaching English to her 3 daughters during summer vacation, which starts in a month. Sounds interesting, so I might go for it.

I also had my hair "ironed" for the first time in my life. I didn't think it would change my look that much, since my hair isn't extremely curly, but I seriously did not recognize the lady in the mirror when the woman finished! My husband didn't recognize me either, and he prefers it more "au natural", but it was fun to try it out. I always enjoy trying out new things with my hair...I figure, if I don't like it, it will grow out or eventually come back to normalcy. In this case, all I had to do was wash my hair and bang! Back to me again.

You can tell I don't wear dresses much. When I was all ready to go and came out of the bedroom, Nathaniel looked at me and asked me, What was I wearing?? I told him, it is a dress. He stated that HE wanted to wear a dress too. Well, you can't, I said. Only girls wear dresses. Boys wear pants. No, he said, shaking his head. He pointed to me and said that I was a boy and HE was a girl (sounded more like "gorilla") and he wanted to wear my dress, haha!!

After a long discussion about the difference between girls and boys, Steve and I headed out to a nice restaurant in town and ate a nice quiet meal. Steve ordered the seafood soup, complete with whole crabs, fish, lobster and snails, while I ordered some lobster with cream sauce, yum! It was very relaxing and a nice end to a full day.

Jacqueline´s Birthday

We went to a birthday party a few weeks ago and enjoyed a fun Sunday afternoon.
I made my second "professional" cake last week for a friend's birthday. Decorating cakes is my latest hobby...I had to find something to do besides the kids and it's too hard to leave the house. So I bought a book and the tools and here I go!

Here is a picture of the birthday girl with my little man. Jacqueline is the niece of Roberto, the Nicaraguan family that is like our family as well.



Lunch is on, Steve and Roberto joke around while slurping down the chicken soup with corn tortillas. But you have to understand...to eat soup in Nicaragua is to eat enough soup for two meals. They don't skimp on the soup..the bowls are massive and make you sweat even more than you already are!



Zach plays with his friend, Evert (or Evercito as we like to say. It means "little Evert).


Smile!

Land of huge flowers

Steve worked a lot last week, and had a 2 day workshop for the campesinos (farmers) teaching them on how to take care of their rabbits and goats, including an 10 hr day on Saturday. The workshop went well, and the farmers seemed to really take an interest in all the information that the teacher gave them.



Upon returning home on Saturday, he surprised me with these massive sunflowers (one of my favorite flowers) from the market down the street. I have to admit, after I got over the initial excitement of getting flowers from my hubby, I was confounded in what to put them in. They obviously weren't going to fit in your average vase!! After a bit of head-scratching, Steve came up with the idea of our huge pitcher, and they fit quite nicely :)



Sebastian has been getting around more and more, and started to get up on his knees this week...at 5 months old! He is really quite the mover and loves to watch his big brothers.



Yesterday we had a meeting in Managua, which went well. It was a long day, we left at 8 and got home at 4. Once again, it was a tough night with Sebastian...I think he got up about 4 times, but I'm starting to lose count. The nights seem to blur together and the days are getting fuzzy! But it's true...His grace is sufficient for me. I used to LOVE my sleep..if I didn't get at least 8 hrs, I was quite grumpy, nobody wanted to be around me. But I'm learning that no matter how little sleep I get, my attitude is my responsibility..plus it's a lot easier to smile than frown!

Leon

Last week we were able to get away overnight (with our little man in tow :) to Leon, a very old city about 2 hrs west of here, close to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way we enjoyed the nice scenery of hundreds of acres of both beef and dairy cattle, as well as some volcanoes in the distance. We stayed at a nice and quiet hotel and enjoyed the view from our room...we could see several centuries old cathedrals in the distance and listened to the bells chime. For dinner we tried out a fabulous Mediterranean restaurant, ate cold cucumber soup for the first time (delicious!) and walked back to the hotel in a thunderstorm.

In the morning we passed through Nagarote, a small town famous throughout Nicaragua for it's quesillos (flat piece of cheese wrapped inside a tortilla and smothered in fried onions and cream) on our way to Managua. Overall it was a nice quick getaway and we enjoyed our very quiet meals!

The view from the road to Leon...Volcano Momotombo.


Trying out cucumber soup while Sebastian sleeps peacefully


Us, wet but with full bellies, after braving a thunderstorm to get back to our hotel after supper


The hotel Perla


The view from our hotel room...beautiful!