Oh yea, I have a blog

So, to be honest that statement above is not entirely truthly. I've REMEMBERED that I have a blog. Also, many of you have reminded me. However, in the very small amount of free time that I have I'd usually rather be relaxing, working on covenant school work, playing with my kids, exercising or just about anything but blogging. When you have so little free time, its hard to give it up doing something that can often times be mini yelling sessions at blogger while trying ot arrange pictures. Also, I honestly think that my first forray into teaching has been so frustrating (at times) that if I bring out the usual sarcastic Josh in writing blogs - it could turn into a whine session which would not be good for you guys or for me. All that aside, I think I'm ready to begin again in ernest - so I here I am tonight.

So much has happened sense the last time I wrote anything. Can you believe its been so long. I can not. The first (and probably most important) thing that many of you missed was my birthday. Fear not you late folks, I'm still excepting gifts whenever you would like to send them. I only expect 2x the gift for each month you have failed to send me anything. Although Christy and I are notoriously bad at taking pictures to 'capture the moment' I do have a few from this day. Once again, Christy put me to shame by making a better cake then I ever make her as well as buying more thoughtful gifts then I can dream up. I'm so grateful to have her as my wife - and so grateful that she is quick to forgive after I forget (I've actually only done that once) her birthday. The picture with Sammy is my new favorite with him and is now my desktop. I like the one with Elizabeth as well as its a good action shot. Lastly, in the shot with Christy and I - us being the only people we trust with our camera in our family of four - we took our own picture. The flash didn't go off and the picture is not centered - but the slight craziness of that picture reflects how our life is right now I think.

My parents were in town last week to spend some time with us. It was great as it was a week off (more or less) from La Palabra - so we had some time to just spend with them. First of all, big props as they brought down the maximum limit of luggage, packed to the brim, with stuff for us. It was a little odd that they wore the same clothes everyday, but then I had to remember that the rest of their bags were filled with stuff for us. I'd say at least 50% of this was gifts for the kids - lucky dogs. Even though this was the case - of course Elizabeth said 'Where are more gifts?' after opening the last one. They got Christy and I the new NLT study Bible additions which are great. At first I did not think they were too different then my old study Bible - but I was wrong. It is much more 'academic' in the approach of what information they give you. I love the book introductions and also how they give information on translation descrepencies and other things like that.

We spent some time here in San Jose showing them our lives at La Palabra, our old lives on the other side of town in San Francisco de Dos Rios, and just hanging out. We also spent three days out at the beach. We decided to go to Punteranus at the old Fiesta Resort. To be honest, the beach in Punteranus is really ugly. Its at the opening of a bay, so basically nothing gets washed out once it gets washed in, so there are logs, sticks, dirt, trash, etc on the beach. However, the hotel was amazing as it was huge, the food was amazing and it had about seven pools. The only major down side was the tropical storm that was passing through during our whole time there. I've included a picture of a tormenta so you could see what it looks like - the only difference between this one and what wewere experiencing is that we saw nothing but clouds, no clear skies. It literally rained for about 55 hours straight - awesome. All that aside, we had fun anyway. Lizzy and I would swim until her faced started turning blue - after which we would run upstairs and take a hot bath. The adults got some good card playing in - and the kids got to watch the new Veggie Tale and some Bob the Builder - everyone had a great time. The only downer on my trip was that I was hoping to have more time to study covenant and Spanish - but it just did not happen. Honestly, it was more my motivation then anything else, but we will blame it on that today.

Well we were driving back I got to experience many new '1sts'.

1. I had my car break down on the highway

2. I had to use the Costa Rican insurance company hotline (INS)

3. I had to try and explain, in spanish, that my car had no collant and was burning up. (I think the direct translation was 'The tank in my car for liquid that makes cold broken, car hot, FIRE!') Whatever I said they must have believed me as they sent a tow truck and a taxi.

4. I rode in a towtruck that was about the same size as the car that it was towing.

5. I helped (okay, watched) my friend replace the collant tank in my car

For your pleasure, I've attached a picture of the old tank in here so you can see what happened. You usually think there might be a small little crack in something like this, but oh no. Look at that picture and you can see the fracture running the whole length of the tank. My engine temperature went from cool to above red line in 30 seconds. The thing that I am so greatful for us that there was a 20 minute stop with traffic/construction (very common in Costa Rica) that gave me both the time and the patience to get out of my car, look for a problem and notice there was one. My friend said its good that I noticed the engine temp gauge as most people don't even look at it. He also said if I had driven on it - I would have destroyed my engine (few!)

To leave you all with today, I have a few shots of La Palabra de Vida where Christy and I are now. These shots are a bit heavy on the library because I originally took them for a work team that is coming down from my Church in Richmond, VA. However, I did include some other shots as well.