Family Updates: Fishing and Stealing

Troy went fishing at a Tilapia farm. We took the girls so they would have a good time fishing but neither of them wanted to participate. Troy caught four fish and then they cook them up at the restaurant. The girls still do not want to eat fish. They have been eating beef and pork which is a nice change. We could not get those two meats in India so these girls ate a LOT of chicken over the past three years. Later we walked down to a waterfall and you can see Jadie is freaking out in the picture. She was ripping off Troy's hat and crying while Ali relished the noise of the water and was screaming "woo hoo." At the same time mommy tried to take a photo. Any parent reading this can appreciate the absurdity of the moment.

I added a photo of Jadie at the river because she just looks so darn cute and because I don't have a photo for our the stealing portion in my title. Troy and I were looking at our bank account yesterday and some creep had gone in there a few days ago to buy some shoes and plane tickets. Creep or creepette, is what I'll call her because I doubt some guy spent all that money on shoes. Well creepette spent about 900 dollars. Luckily, we called the bank right away and I am so thankful that my husband is so disciplined about checking our accounts. Apparently creepette bought a flight from STI to JFK and I hope that dumb move helps them catch her. I doubt that we'll ever know.

Yurt Living: The pics of the land before the yurt

Here are three photos of the property. The first one is what the property looked like before cutting down anything. It is just pure jungle and we want to keep as much as possible, but you do have to cut some down to be able to set up a home in there. The second picture is the section where we plan to put the yurt  and a garden. The rest of the rainforest on our property is still there so don't worry. We also plan to plant plenty of trees since we had to cut some down. The third picture is our view from down low. It should get even better once we get the platform up. We can't do anything right now because we are waiting for all the paperwork to pass all the legalities to begin construction. Luckily, here in costa Rica, a yurt is just considered a tent, so we really only need permission for the platform, garage, and whatever else we decide to do. We are awaiting arrival of the yurt and in the next post, I'll list all the options we put on our yurt.

Family Updates: The Big Move to Costa Rica

So we left India and moved down to Costa Rica. We found a great Tico style house to rent while we wait for the yurt to arrive. It is supposed to be here on July 16th. We got a little dog named Biggie Big E. He is only 10 weeks old, but check out those huge paws. He is going to be an enormous German Shepherd but for now he is a fluffy, sleepy, quiet dog. Well except for the fact that he fell off a friend's balcony yesterday down 8 feet, and then rolled down into a gulley for another 40 feet. After the shock wore off and a few scratches, Biggie is totally fine. We are happy with puppyhood so far.

There are no shelves or closets in the house so Troy has been building us simple ones with pine. This is good practice for all the carpentry skills he will need in the future. In the photo he added chicken wire so that we can just wash our dishes and then when we put them on the shelves to dry, they just stay there until we are ready to use them again. It drips right down into the drainage tray. We are eventaully going to put our kitchen herbs under there so the water drips right down into the plants. No wasting water! I would love to claim the credit for that one but I saw this type of ideas in an ad in a Natural Home magazine last year. We also recently found out that our shipment is already coming in from India. We asked them to hold it for four months so it would arrive in October. Apparently, they held it for four days. Crap. There is always a solution to any problem so we will get this one figured out. Ali has already been belly surfing on Troy's board completely by herself and Jaden is absolutely scared of rain. I am blessed with completely opposite children. In the mornings I am practicing TurboKick which I just got certified to teach and Troy as you already heard is busy with a circular saw.