The clock has spun away 3 1/2 months since our family touched down in Costa Rica.  Over Thanksgiving we were grateful for these highlights:

Our house in Nebraska sold in October.  Hallelujah and Amen.  Huge thanks go out to the crew of folks who made that process such a blessing to our family.

I learned that laundry washes up much faster when the anemic water line to the machine is fortified with basins-full of water from the nearby sink.  The kids and I keep the faster faucet running full speed and make it a water-and-bowl game of leapfrog.

A full pound of yeast went into our first two months of homemade bread and rolls.  We go through about 6 loaves a week.  Low-carb and gluten-free we are not.  Bread is sold here, but the limited whole grain options are expensive and not as tasty as what I make.  Baking is a labor of love that saves us dinero.

We celebrated our 15th Wedding Anniversary.  Our unofficial date was a fun trip to the local mall for a bite to eat and a salad spinner.  Our official date took us up into the mountains for a romantic meal.  That night went down in the “forever” storybook of our family because the speedy/winding cab ride made Kris so carsick she was trembling, the shrimp special was terrible, and the cheesecake we ordered to make up for it was even worse.  Our naive belief that cream cheese makes everything good has been lost forever.  But now we have something to laugh about for the next 15 years, and we are extra grateful for the salad spinner.

Wisdom gained: Homesickness and an extra-large bag of Riesens cannot coexist for long.

At the end of our first 90 days, we had to make a visa-renewal trip to Nicaragua.  Motion sickness meds and toilet paper are required packing for the 6-8 hour bus ride.  And give each person a Ziploc just in case.  Trust us on this, we learned the hard way.  In spite of the rough passage, the required 72 hours out of Costa Rica were glorious.  See the pictures below.

Our residency application process is coming along nicely.  All of our documents are filed with the government, and we got our fingers inky at the police station.  Answering questions and joking with the officers in Spanish was good language practice.  We hope all of our visits to government agencies here in the future will go just as smoothly.

Less than 2 weeks remain of our first trimester of language school.  Brains are bogged down with grammar rules and verb conjugations.  Our first family-wide Christmas break will be a huge treat, topped off with a visit from Matt’s parents.  They fly in on Christmas Day.  Like Santa Claus, but with a frozen ham instead of reindeer.

While there is a lot of hard work for us in this season, there is also a great deal of joy. We get to do life and share history with the incredible missionaries learning alongside us.  We can crack chistes (jokes) with our teachers in two languages as we study our way from knowledge to fluency.  And we can see the doorways opening into cross-cultural relationships and opportunities to expand the kingdom.

We are beyond thankful for this season of language learning and the way that the Lord is using it to grow us up into His calling for our family.  The rains may come from time to time, but the view from here can be breathtaking.

Chairs and hammocks were thoroughly enjoyed by all.

The canopy over our cabin was beautiful and the shade was a blessing.

Elijah loved rolling in the sand and jumping the waves. Pictures were nowhere near as fun.

There was a small army of hermit crabs around the beach. They made wonderful playmates for the kids.

Matt helping Ezekiel hold a crab who kept leaping to the ground.

A small troop of monkeys passed through the forest by our cabin. This one was less than 15 feet away.

These little guys rested just beneath the surface of the sand. As each wave receded, they would unfurl their arms and strain the water for food.

It was amazing to take the 3-E’s out into the ocean waves. Ezekiel summed it up when he yelled “I love this!”

One Tia at the children’s home calls him “Guapo.” Can you guess what that means?

Always ready to smile for Mom and her camera. Melts my heart.

When the tide was out, it was lovely to climb through these rocks to look for shells and see the crabs peeking out of their holes.

This guy was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of crabs.

The texture of the rocks was beautiful.

Matt did his quiet time out on the rocks each morning. His red shirt glowed in the dawn light.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20