Catching up with Instagram

This post is just dedicated to posting pictures that my Instagram followers have already seen. So, for those of you on IG, don't bother looking at this post!!! I will warn you in advance that these pictures are all completely jumbled and out of order! I'll just put captions with them to keep you straight!

Our parents secretly planned a surprise 10th anniversary party for us with the help of our local need-greater buddies. This is before we left the house to go out for a meal together. The surprise almost fell apart because we were home earlier than we were supposed to be, but they managed to pull it off!! We had a good laugh about that.

I thought Charley was joking when he said one night, "There's a horse in our front yard". Poor skinny little thing was helping us cut the grass. But then the police who ride around on bikes doing nightwatch chased him away, poor guy!

Another surprise from my parents. The lovely Brenda delivered this fabulous arrangement for us the morning of our anniversary. Enjoyed having it around the house while it lasted.

This was the night we had our young ones over to study the Watchtower and play games. We have a good group of teenagers.

Collage of the surprise anniversary dinner. We had some fabulous pizza at Monna Lisa in Granada, about 20 mins away. The picture with a beer in my hand - I wanted a shandy but they didn't have any Sprite or 7UP so one of our friends, Jenny, decided she'd go buy some from a local corner shop. She came back with two bags of 7UP!!! That's how they serve it here out of a glass bottle, but it was funny to have that on our table in the restaurant! THANKS JENNY!!!! Enjoyed the shandy! We are also still enjoying the presents. We got some whiskey, homemade starfruit wine (tastes like sherry, yum), French Vanilla coffee creamer (it's a luxury here!) and homemade chocolate. Thanks everyone!

The day we spent in Granada on our anniversary day. We had some great food, and a chocolate body scrub and deep tissue massage! Wonderful treat!

My new comfy seat on the bike! HAHAHA! Just kidding. Charley was going to care for a brother at the hospital and if you want to sit down you have to take your own chair - the health system here leaves a lot to be desired.

Fun with my study Anai. After we read the story of Moses we did some coloring. I love coloring and counting my time. Doesn't get much better than that!!

Remembering our wedding day 10 years on.

Spent $3.60 on all of this at the market yesterday. I love living so close to the Masaya market.

Visitor we found in our bathtub the other day!

Charley is tiling the kitchen. So far, so good.

Then we found another one the next morning!

My new haircut. I'm hopeless at selfies but I love how it turned out.

And I leave you with a shot of Granada's lakefront with Mombacho Volcano in the distance.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Sums up what we've been up to lately, more or less. We have our convention coming up in a couple of weeks so hopefully I'll have some good pictures from that. We also have to make a visa run soon before the convention. Our 90 days is about to run out, so we have to either buy an extension, or take a daytrip to the border with Costa Rica. I hate it every day 90 days starts to roll around! Amazing how time flies and that we're already thinking about that.

Well, back to the housework. I keep getting distracted!

The person faithful in what is least...

Well, dear friends, I just realized yesterday that it's been a month since I posted anything! You'd think after a month I'd have all kinds of things to say, but I can't think what's been happening!

I do want to tell a little story of a young brother in our congregation. His name is Isaac. He's 11 years old and a very bright young man, but also a little timid. A few weeks ago Nicaragua was celebrating it's independence and the kids are all involved in processions carrying the flag around the streets during those days and wearing banners and stuff. The kids with the best grades are the ones who are chosen to be at the front of such parades. Obviously, to remain neutral at such times, our kids have to take a stand for the truth.

So, Isaac told me a couple of days afterwards that he always gets at least 90 on his tests in school. And his teacher told him he'd be one of the kids to carry the flag, because he's such a good student. He told her that as one of Jehovah's Witnesses he wouldn't be participating in the procession and she told him he would! So, when the next test came around, he purposely got 80 on his test! His teacher guessed that he did it on purpose, but he said he just said Huh? when she asked him about it!!

I just was really impressed by this. It may seem like a small thing, but I know Isaac made Jehovah's heart rejoice that day. He wasn't concerned about breaking his record of high scores in school, if it meant he could be obedient to Jehovah.

Telling this story reminds me of his little sister, Jael. She is 8 and also really shy. She is a publisher already, but gets nervous about talking or reading out in service. I showed her the new video, Jehovah Will Help You to be Bold on Tuesday morning. Her mam told me yesterday that as they walked to the meeting on Tuesday evening Jael suddenly said, "Mam, I'm going to talk out in service now, because Jehovah helped Sophia to speak up, so I can too". I was so touched that just seeing that little video once, had such an impact on her. What a beautiful gift from Jehovah these Become Jehovah's Friend videos are.

Speaking of gifts from Jehovah - you know what I'm going to say! tv.jw.org!!!!!! WOW!!!!!! I spent Monday morning in front of the computer laughing and crying my eyes out and thanking Jehovah over and over again. What an AMAZING gift. We are such a blessed people. There just aren't even words...

This past week or so has meant a lot of phone calls between Charley and our other elder in the congregation. Our congregation "grandpa", Brother Taleno, fell in his house and fractured his pelvis area. He's been in the hospital a week now and today they're going to Managua to get a part that will be used in his surgery to fix it. It's been a nice opportunity to see the love of the brothers, since he has to have someone with him all the time in the hospital. Hospitals here leave a lot to be desired, at least the local, public one does. To receive proper care someone has to be there with him, take him his food, and if you want to sit down for the shift while you care for him, you have to even take your own chair!

So, the brothers in our congregation, and neighboring congregations have been taking turns spending 6 hour shifts with him in the daytime, and a 12 hour shift at night to make sure he's okay. He's doing well though. They don't like to let people in to visit, so I haven't seen him, but Charley says he's handling it all well and is in good spirits. The doctor says the operation will see him up and about pretty quickly, so hopefully that is the case. It's times like this that you realize what wonderful healthcare is so easily accessible in the developed world. But everyone is doing what they can to help, including pitching in to pay for the part that is needed for his surgery.

Service has been going very well. My attempt to keep my number of studies down so that I can give each of them proper attention has worked out pretty well. I still have a dozen studies, but it's less than I had before, and I feel like I'm able to care for them better and my service days don't consist of just running from one study to another! 

Well, what else? Just been busy with the usual mostly. We've added some personal touches to our little house, pictures that I've taken over the years, and still have a couple of other projects lined up to decorate a bit more. It makes such a difference having those personal touches. I feel like this place is our home now, not just a house!

Oh, yeah, funny little thing. The friends tried to have a surprise party for us, but their lack of communication meant it didn't end up being entirely a surprise! We were still a bit surprised though because we thought it was for our anniversary, just a little early, but when we got there it turned out to be a "welcome" party!!! That tickled me because we've been in the congregation since it was formed over a year ago!!! Haha, the friends are so appreciative here. It was a nice gesture and I danced until I could hardly walk! And it was a perfect opportunity to give out all the lovely gifts that so many friends gave us at the International Convention. Everyone loves all their bookmarks, and postcards, and other little things. And the kids were delighted with their new toy cars, and toothbrushes, and the big bag of candy was devoured in 10 minutes by young and old alike!!! For any of you reading this who gave us something - thank you so much! Your brothers and sisters in Nicaragua send their love and thank yous!

So, yeah, anniversary. It's our 10th anniversary next Thursday! Can't believe how quickly it came around! Our first decade - we survived it and actually thoroughly enjoyed it! We were going to go to Little Corn Island, which is a beautiful isolated island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nicaragua, but the place we wanted to stay turns out to be closed for maintenance until mid-November, so it might end up being a trip we'll do for 10 1/2 years of marriage! 

But we are planning on treating ourselves to a day off next Thursday. We're going to have breakfast in Granada at a place called Kathy's Waffle House that does American-style breakfasts!!! And then go to Cocoberry Spa for a chocolate body scrub and 60 minute massage!! And then maybe pizza at our favorite pizza place in Granada, and some kind of chocolaty delight at Hotel Dario. I'm so excited about our little splurge day!!!

Well, that's all for now. Hope you're all doing well and enjoying all the latest treats from Jehovah and his organization! That new song, 138, man, made me cry!