Oh the things kids do...

Oh what a day!  Rain all day + two 2 year olds (no, this is not a typo!), a 4 year old & a 5 year old makes for some crazy happenings.  The 2 year olds keep stripping down to nothing in their separate cribs during nap time.  River is now sleeping on the floor because he kept getting out of bed to play & finally passed out.  Well, at least he finally fell asleep, I guess.  Then I caught the older boys throwing toys and food out of the upstairs window onto the cars in the driveway!  Before all of that, Ryder poured milk into the cable box.  Thank God for Lexapro!  LOL.  And comfort food!  Nana's making homemade chicken & dumplings for dinner. (mi favorito!!!)  I think I could actually eat a whole pot of this stuff myself. 

We're going to see our boy Jack tonight after we put the kiddos to bed.  Good times!  Tomorrow I'm getting my hair "did" from my wonderful friend Jaime.  She is one of those people who is so much like you it's crazy, so that should be fun!  Then we'll be crossing off the Japanese steakhouse from the old Operation Pig-Out list.  We are then going to see a Grateful Dead cover band and do a little dancing~ can't wait for that!  Friday sounds like a great day for the beach.  (Please stay away tropical depressions!)  Lovin' me some Estates Unidos!  (USA for all of you non-Spanish speaking folks!) 

P.S. But I miss NicaLand more every day!!!
P.P.S. Still no camera.  =(

There's no place like home!

We are back in the US of A & loving it!  Don't get me wrong, Nica is amazing, but gotta love being back!  We've crossed a few of our fave food locales off the list this past weekend and have enjoyed spending a lot of quality time with Chris' family in Hilton Head, SC.  The journey home began last Wednesday when we were forced to drive to Managua a day early due to the heavy rains expected the next day because of the lurking hurricane.  We enjoyed some American cuisine and a nice hotel room and then flew to Florida the next day and stayed in another nice spot and enjoyed some Outback...yummy!  Next stop:  South Carolina!  There's nothing finer than Carolina!  (and relaxing with family and football all weekend!)  One thing we had to get used to about being back in the States is the fact that people are very cautious.  When you are pulling up to a red light and need directions, they just stare at you like you're going to rob and murder them.  That would never happen in Nicaragua.  People are jumping to help you there.  (Which comes in handy being that there are barely any street signs in their country?!)  It's still AWESOME being home, though!  Gotta love paved roads, grocery stores and ATM's within a mile and good service!  (but don't worry Nica, we'll be back! :))  We are so happy to be enjoying the 3 F's:  Family, Food & Friends!  The friend part is up next!  So, what, when & where are we going guys??!!  Can't wait to see everyone!

P.S.  My camera took it's last beating from my 2 year old, so no pics for now.  Anyone have any recommendations on a good digital camera?

Realization Recognition

Don't we look so happy?!

I came to a few realizations last week.

#1:  I NEED to exercise regularly.  Not only for my ever-aging tush but for my mental well-being.  I think I've know this for a while, but I'm finally willing to embrace it and actually execute the idea!  Last week I did an hour hike, two 2 mile runs, lifted weights twice & played tennis twice.  Oh and danced for about 30 minutes at Rumba, although in white girl fashion. 

Recognition #2:  I like tennis!  I haven't played in AT LEAST 18 years, but we played on Saturday & Sunday and Chris (who has never played before) loved every minute of it.  We're both pretty competitive, so it's a good game to play together.  Ryder went with us and really loves it as well.  (No big surprise there.  I think my 5 year old was born an athlete!)  I almost broke my neck playing yesterday because it rained the night before and EVERYTHING is different in Nicaragua.  The rain turned the court into a slippery obstacle course.  Although, we tried to aim around the neck breaking puddles, we're beginners, so you can only imagine!  No falls, though!

#3:  I LOVE it here more every day!  Most women I know don't get my love of living in Nicaragua being that the nearest American-like grocery store  or any other "real" store for that matter is 3 hours away.  I love not focusing on all the commercial driven fun I used have in the U.S.  Here, I'm embracing things like hiking, running, surfing, horseback riding & tennis!  And I'm not spending $100 every time I go into Target.  (This alone is saving us TONS of money!)  Although I can't wait to step into a Target when we head back to the states for 6 weeks on Thursday.  I guess you can take the girl out of Target, but good luck taking the desire for Target shopping from her!  Lesson of the day:  the simple life is a whole lot cheaper and more fulfilling!!!   Cheers to everyone in the blogosphere & operation pig-out will begin in T minus THREE DAYS!  (I think I might just take a bath in cheese!)  Can't wait to see everyone!

Sabado Bonita

Last weekend in paradise for a while!  We have it all planned out already just to make sure it's a great one!  Ryder & Daddy are about to go for a horseback riding adventure.  During this, I'm going to run with Rio in a stroller. Pushing a 35 pound 2 year old + giant hills makes for a GREAT workout!  Afterwards, I am picking up our nanny from La Virgin and we are going to a little local art shop to buy some cute gifts for our 7 nieces.  We are then beaching it for the remainder of the day.  (Someone's gotta live the rough life! ;))  Tonight is date night and Chris and I are going to a local restaurant, Yolanda's, that has huge fresh fish plates for $4.  We've only decided on one thing so far for Sunday:  FOOTBALL! 

Just another day in paradise!

 We have the NFL ticket all the way down here in Nicaragua and it's sooooo worth it.  When we ordered it, it also came with lots of other awesome English speaking channels.  My favorite:  The American Channel (what else?!)!  Thank you God for Oprah & Dr. Phil.  They come on at night down here, so little things like work & the outdoors don't make you miss them!  It's a little humorous watching episodes on people that spend $10k a year to look good (a recent Dr. Phil exploit) when you live in such an impoverished country where all the locals wash their clothes by hand and walk miles a day just to get to work.  Happiness does not come about by the reflection in the mirror folks!  It's all about the memories, not how you look making them!  Not that I want to look awful all the time, but just sayin'!!!  Happy weekend to all!

Operation Pig-Out

Okay folks, we are T minus 6 days until our departure to the good ol' US of A.  (Don't worry Nica peeps.  We will be back in 6 weeks!)  I can't wait to see family & friends and to start the mission I've coined Operation Pig-Out.  Being that we have to drive 3 hours just to get a block of cheddar cheese here, I'm having visions of us eating our way through Florida, Georgia & South Carolina.  There will be so many options that Thank God there's 3 meals a day (4 if you count Taco Bell's fourth meal!).  Maybe I should just run to all of our favorite dining establishments to avoid the bulge?!

Here's a few items/places I can't wait to sink my teeth into:

Steak & Shake, Chic-fil-a, Olive Garden, Carraba's, Five Guys, Buffalo Wild Wings, McDonald's, Burger King, Jersey Mike's, Amigos, Chinese food, Japanese steak houses, Kickin' Chicken, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, IHOP, Charleston Bookstore Cafe, Truffles, Chi's, JPaulz, Publix, Fresh Market, Thai food, Basil, Magnolia's, Blossom, Charleston Grill, Indian food, crab cakes, mixed greens, cheese, cheese & more cheese, burgers with USDA meat, Publix, Wild Wings, Mondo's Delight, french fries with malt vinegar, potato salad, Jim & Nick's, Outback, sushi!, Garibaldi's, Urban Bistro, Monster Pizza, sweet tea!, Miller Lite, Newcastle, Firefly, Dairy Queen, Kaminsky's and of course Nana's chicken & dumplings!

Don't judge!  This size 4 mama is a really huge fat girl at heart who has good genes from her dad.  Plus it would be just awful if I didn't stimulate the economy with my pig-outs while visiting the homeland.  Can't wait to see all of those that will help on this mission!  And to of course to write about it for all of the blogosphere to read.  Feliz fin de semane peeps!!!

Giddy Up!

Don't I look a little silly on such a small pony?!

This weekend rocked!  We went out for an awesome dinner with my good friend Isabel on Saturday and had yummy lobster.  My babies and I danced to the song "La Bamba" performed live by Ryder's future music teacher Josalito!  He is awesome and the kids loved dancing with their mommy.  (I wonder how long that will last!)  During the day, I did an awesome run/walk/hike through the hills and got some much needed work done and made a few hundred bucks...cha~ching!  That will help fund Operation Pig-Out when we head back to the States for six weeks!  (Pig out wish list coming soon and mission starting in T minus10 days!!!)  Yesterday started out fantastic with a horseback riding session with Isabel on the beach.  We rode the whole length of Playa Santana and it was absolutely beautiful.  My pony got a little carried away at one point and started galloping really fast without warning.  (Not sure what the warning would have been, but it would have been appreciated.)  Otherwise, it was muy tranquilo.  Today my bootie is hurting very, very badly! We then got our fubol Americano on while watching the ever so hot Tom Brady and company whoop up on the Bengals.  I had to laugh when T.O. & Ochocinco left the field before the first half even ended.  Batman & Robin flew the coop a little early!  It was truly an 'Ex-Pat' Pats celebration!  Luckily, you can get the NFL ticket all the way down here in the third world!  My favorite Nica meal arroz con pollo finished it all off.

And then there was Monday!  The Spanish name Lunes sounds so much more endearing, but it still (even in paradise) always seems blahhhhh!  I had a rash of A-holes on the phone today while trying to work, but the good news is that Monday night football comes on in one hour here and it's only 4pm due to the time difference.  Are YOU ready for some football?  At least now that football's back there's ONE good thing about Mondays!!!

Let freedom ring!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful mother because without you, I would never have been born!  lol.  Seriously, I'm glad to hear that she and my father are going on a cruise today to celebrate.  This will be #47 for them.  They sure do like to cruise around.  I just got back from a 35 minute run/walk/hike through the hills of Rancho Santana.  Anyone familiar with this community knows that these hills kill!  They are sooooo steep so they make for a very good work out.  Boy it's good to be alive!  Exercise for me is more for my mental well being than physical.  (Though it doesn't hurt the bootie!)  I also worked for a couple of hours today and cleaned for a couple of hours, so it's been a mighty productive Saturday so far. 

On a more serious note, how could you not forget where you were nine years ago today?  I was actually sleeping because we were living in Maui.  Being that there's a 6 hour difference there from the East coast this time of year, we didn't find out until much later.  I remember my then fiance (now hubby) coming in and waking me up after a surf to tell me.  I shot out of bed, turned on our computer and just bawled.  I'm glad to say that at the time we didn't have a tv, so I didn't have to see it all over and over.  I could only read and see pictures on the internet, but I still cried for days.  I will never forget what happened that day and how grateful I am to be the citizen of such a great country who will do whatever it takes to let freedom ring!  My heart still goes out to all of those affected by this enormous tragedy.  God Bless you all!

BUEN DIA

Recipe for a great day:

1 hour school lesson for four awesome little kids
30 minutes of watching Rio "swim" on his own
45 minute surf session & first time paddling all the way out in Nica (Ok, so I sucked, but I paddled out!)
5 hour play date for Ryder
2 chicken quesadillas for lunch that I didn't have to cook!
30 minute run
Kid-free night out for gorgonzola pizza with new friends!
Zero work, all play!

Gotta LOVE days like this AND it's only Thursday!  Feliz proximo fin de semane por todos!  This probably doesn't even mean anything in Spanish, but what I'm trying to say is:  Happy almost weekend folks!!!  =)

LOL

This lil cutie laughs all day long!

We were watching one of those FBI file sort of shows the other night.  (Thank God they have SOME English programming down here!) My hubby and I heard something that made us laugh out loud.  A man was describing a witness to a case and said, "She was good looking, you know the type of girl you'd see working at a truck stop."  Really?!  I really never thought these two characteristics would EVER go together.  Maybe they should start model scouting at our national truck stops?!  This sounds mean, but come on! 

I had another really good laugh the other day when I went on a play date with two other ex-pat dads and their kids.  My five year old proceeded to tell these dads (who know my hubby) that his dad has the biggest balls he's ever seen and a really furry butt.  He told them these things like he was telling them what he had for lunch.  They were dying of laughter and now my hubby keeps telling them that he'll prove to them that he doesn't have a furry butt!  Joking, of course. 

Gotta love a good laugh out loud!  I was crying I was laughing so hard at the above.  Wouldn't it be awesome if we could laugh off those extra pounds?!

Labor Day Weekend Celebration

Check out the awesome dragon fruit on top!

Whoops!  Didn't realize it had been so long since I posted.  I guess the AMAZING weekend I had left me with no time to blog about it!  Thank goodness I didn't really spend this weekend laboring:  baby making or working!  We are lucky little Ex-Pats.  The locals here have a standard six day work week and work 12-16 hours a day.  It's really crazy!  Be thankful for that one Monday off a year folks!

Last Friday was another Rivas run and our fave Pili's Kitchen for pesto~ yummy!  We had to turn on the four wheel once again and basically mud it through the roads to get there, but we got there.  Saturday was an awesome party with live music right on the beach.  We met lots of new friends.  And I just have to mention the lobster kabobs.  Wow is all I have to say!  Ryder met some new friends during the day and got to hang with them all night.  He was very excited to play with another little boy whose every other word isn't MINE or ba-ba.  Sunday was a chill day and we had our favorite fish tacos around at Surf Sanctuary.  And yesterday I went to Popoyo with Isabel to finalize things with our teacher.  I would rate that meeting a success and we are so excited about what's to come.  The school year will run from November to July.  Playa Rosada Kindergarten, now that has a nice ring to it!  When my boys are happy, I'm happy so =).

We picked up the lovely and very delicious fruit above on our latest supply run.  This will only last us about a week due to the fact that all members of this household are piggies.  But really, who doesn't love fresh fruit?!  We also bought about 60 oranges to make fresh squeezed oj and it is so good.  I can't take the credit, though.  That would go to our awesome cook Catalina.  She also introduced us to my favorite new beverage:  Dragon Fruit Punch.  It also has fresh squeezed lime and a little bit of sugar and it's purple.  Best thing since beer was invented!

Just Dance...

We've had a great week so far! On Tuesday evening, Ryder's three girlfriends (or so he says!) came over to swim and then proceeded to have a dance party in the living room. What a stud! ha ha! They had so much fun, including the two year old. (No, Ryder's not dating a 2 year old. That would be his brother.) Then we got to watch some English speaking Biography channel. Gotta love English!

Yesterday was a very productive day. We got lots of work done and had a great meeting for our new school here in Rancho Santana. We are so excited that Ryder will be starting kindergarten down here in an awesome school! Can you imagine being steps away from the ocean while learning?! He's a lucky little guy.

Today I gave Ryder and one of the girls a two hour lesson on the letter G. (No, this did not include any education on that notorious spot. lol. ;)) They did so well. We only took one short break to have a snack. I was very proud of them, but even more so of myself. I made my own little lesson plan and they actually remembered the words they learned at the end. I'm no dumby but teaching is a whole different ball game than what I'm used to doing. I can see how great teachers love their trade: it's soooo rewarding! The day continued with my short trip to the store in our neighborhood to buy a loaf of bread for $3. I don't see how that store is going to stay open with their prices. It's $8 for a bag of cheetos there! (Yes, you read the 8 right!) Oh well, I won't be buying bread there anymore, or cheetos EVER! (Note the won't not can't.) Work and football (Go Pats!) will round out my day. Oh yeah, and Chris invited the organic farmer to hang out tonight. This should be interesting...