Puerto Limon Costa Rica

Puerto Limon, Costa Rica
We had a great day in Costa Rica. It was the first port after a couple of days at sea. We got off the ship and walked around town close to the port. There was a beautiful park close by and as we entered the park we met 2 young barefoot boys who were eager to show us a sloth in the tree and also an owl in the trees. We also saw an older homeless type man leaning up against a wall going # 2 in the park. That was kind of disgusting. We also saw several people laying around on the sidewalk kind of like the stray dogs did in Ukraine. Rain forest area here was so beautiful but the city area was similar to most of the Caribbean towns that we have been to. People living in dirty conditions and poverty but they don’t really mind while they are surrounded by some of the most beautiful creations on Earth.
We had booked a zip line tour that was a day line adrenaline course but there were not enough participants so we had to take another tour. Since the average age of the people on our ship is about 80 (I am not kidding) I can see why they didn’t have enough sign up for the big time zip line. As it turned out, it had quite enough adrenaline for me  Dave said that he could have gone twice as long but I was happy with the tour.
As we got off the bus to get set up for the tour. I stepped up on a little hill to take a picture but it was really slippery mud and I fell flat on my side and seat and hopefully everyone saw me so that they didn’t think that I was so scared by the zip line that I had an accident. We met some really nice people on the tour and there was even a guy who did it who was 90 years old. I hope I am still up for adventures when I get to that age.
We saw some little red frogs that are poisonous. You can’t touch them and then touch your eye or mouth or get it into your blood stream or you could die. This island is also famous for hummingbirds that have teeth. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of those.
We learned a lot about Bananas (their big export) and the yellow fruit that I am posting a picture of is the fruit that we get chocolate from. I didn’t know that cocoa beans come out of a fruit. I thought they were in a pod like beans but they are in this fruit and they dry them out and grind the seeds to make cocoa. This information strengthened my interest in making sure the rainforests stay safe, even more 
Costa Rica is a very beautiful place. We were on the Caribbean side which from what we understand is more impoverished than the other side where it is mostly Europeans that live there. We feel blessed to get to see the beauty that is here.

Update on the Family

Update on the family
I haven’t been very good at blogging lately. Usually that is either a good sign or a bad sign. In this case it is a good sign. Everything is going well and we are gearing up for some big events. Here is an overview:
25th Anniversary; Dave and I are in the Caribbean celebrating our 25th. Today we went to Costa Rica and tomorrow we go through the Panama canal. We will also see Bonire, Aruba and stop at the Bahamas
on the way back. I will try to post about the ports as we go.
Bryan is coming home: We are very excited that in only 15 days our son Bryan will be coming home from Ukraine where he is serving a mission. We are anxious to see him after 2 years and also anxious to hear about all of his adventures.
Sealing the boys: After Bryan gets home we are going to all go to the temple and have the boys sealed to us. We are all excited to make them a forever part of our family. Vitaliy even put on his Christmas wish list that he wants to be sealed to us. Ahh.
Devin’s mission call: Devin can turn in his papers on Dec 30. We can’t wait to see where he is going to go. What a fun time of life this is.
Scott’s baptism: The last of our kids will soon be accountable and be baptized. We are excited to share that wonderful experience with him.
When I told my sister about all that we have coming up she said “Your life would be pretty boring if you weren’t Mormon.” So True. So many blessings and happy times to enjoy thanks to the Gospel.
PLUS…. We just got a text from Tyler and he said that he is ENGAGED!!!! We are so thrilled. We hope it is really true. We can’t talk to him by phone on the ship but we are trying to text him back. We don’t know the date etc. His fiancé’ is absolutely amazing and we could not have picked out a better spouse for him if we had looked for a million years. CONGRATS Ty and Janalee.

Remembering 9-11

It was 10 years ago that we saw great tragedy followed by a great outpouring of love. I thought it was interesting to see this week in our town this same attitude that we witnessed after 9-11. A car and a motorcycle collided and the motorcycle driver was trapped under the car. Good people, complete strangers rushed to the burning area while risking their lives and lifted the car and saved the life of the young man. Perhaps you saw it on the national news this week. I was so proud to be from Logan. Just like I felt so proud to be from America right after 9-11. I believe that it is within our natures to rush in and even risk our lives to help someone in need. I believe that when all is said and done even when bad things happen, love prevails.



In memory, I wanted to share a song I wrote after the original 9-11 10 years ago. The link to hear the song is here: This song is performed by Angela Winston. I will also write the lyrics below.

http://www.heartrisemusic.com/Downloads/Music/Winston-Prevail.mp3

Love will Always Prevail
You show your hatred, you bring us pain
But we always find a way to love again
You cause destruction, you tear apart
But you’re never going to stop our beating heart
Because
America is built on Love
And the heart of this land will never fail
When all is said and done, we will still be number one
Because Love will always prevail.
We’ve been scarred by you before
And I’m sure America will see some more
But your hatred cannot compare
With the love you’re gonna see this nation share
Because
America is built on Love
And the heart of this land will never fail
When all is said and done, we will still be number one
Because Love will always prevail.
Try to tear us apart
And watch us pull together
America’s heart
Will keep beating forever.
Because
America is built on Love
And the heart of this land will never fail
When all is said and done, we will still be number one
Because Love will always prevail.

Expensive Lessons

Vitaliy (13) has been begging all summer to get the job of mowing the lawn. I think it has something to do with him liking to ride the big,new,green John Deere riding lawnmower. I finally ignored my gut feeling and assigned him the job last month (August.) We gave him lessons but I guess we didn't think to tell him everything that he could do to break the machine. During the first week of him doing the job we had to send it into the shop (a $60 pick up fee) to have something fixed with the starter. I don't know if this was his fault or not but he did keep the ignition going and going and going. even when it was started and it did something and it broke. After getting that fixed, he drove it into a ditch (we don't have ditches in our lawn, but he found one by the neighbor's corn field.) This broke another major part and we had to fix that. Then this week we are replacing the whole ignition because he couldn't find the key and decided to use a pair of scissors to start the mower and somehow stripped the ignition. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. The lawn looks nice, however.

New Family book published

Dave and I were engaged 25 years ago today. It was the best decision I ever made. To celebrate we had a book that we have been writing together for a few years, published. It is called Our Fight For the Family and How You Can Win Yours. Right now it is on Amazon.com for $2.99. The link for the e-book is:

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Fight-Family-Yours-ebook/dp/B005FZ1BSU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1313003214&sr=8-3

If you don't have a kindle, you can put a kindle app on a computer, I pod or smartphone etc.

We are not expert parents, but we have been blessed with good information and experiences that we hope will be a help to other families.

New Baby Penrose

Here are pics of Holly and Brian's new baby. He is so sweet and Holly looked like she didn't even walk a mile let alone deliver a baby. What a sweet happy family.

New Baby Penrose