Our Costa Rican girl

Lucy has stayed very busy here in Costa Rica visiting many different stores around the city to try to get our home set up. Here we are strolling around the town. It is very hard for us to go on a stroll because of the sidewalks here (or should I say lack of sidewalks).

Our team mate, Erin, gave us this great idea from another missionary family here and that is to bath Lucy in a rubermaid container that we used to pack in. Lucy didn't seem to mind the cramped space and I think we are going to try to stick with this rather than the pool, since it is not inflatable.


This is Lucy's bedroom, and although it is not a great shot you can see the basic layout of the room. We use the twin bed in her room as a changing table for now but if anyone wants to come visit we have a bed for you to sleep on:)


Lucy loves her new crib and has slept amazingly well in it. The streets here are very noisy and so we are quite surprised at how well she can sleep through it all.


We were sad to find out that we can not get Sesame Street on our cable but today we found Barney in Spanish and she seemed to really enjoy it. Hopefully it will make her learn Spanish even more.


Lucy has found her new favorite treat here, and that is bread from a local bread shop right down the road. The only problem is that the bread is so soft and moist it gets stuck on the top of her roof- we think it is funny that Lucy only has a few words in her vocabulary and now one of them is "stuck".



We are trying to get Lucy to speak some words in Spanish. So far she has only said agua (water) but hopefully she will learn "hola" and "chao" soon because for right now she just looks confused when any of the locals try to talk to her.

COSTA RICA!!!

We are here at last and so far it has been quite a adventure. Lucy seems to like our new home, she has had so much fun exploring and loves sitting outside on the porch. The weather here is great for her, cool in the evenings and warm in the afternoon with a cool breeze. Lucy has also slept pretty well so far too which is a blessing to her parents.

We had a extra seat on the plane so Lucy loved sitting by herself and pretending she was a big girl.



This is our new home. It is wonderful, we will post pictures soon of the inside once it is all set up.


Here is a street view near our home. It is beautiful here and you can see the mountains in the background everywhere you go.


This is the porch Lucy loves. There are lots of dogs here so we sit outside and count the woof woofs.


Hanging out with Aunt Erin, our teammate. Lucy has loved spending time with Erin, Mike and especially Maddy so far. They have taken such good care of us and we have loved going around the city, shopping, and visiting all the places we need to know where they are.


This is what bath time will look like for the next few months since we don't have a real bathtub. Lucy loves her pool, it is great entertainment which is a good thing because judging by the amount of dust we got on us today I think Lucy will be getting a bath pretty much every chance we get.

And She's Off...

Today Lucy decided at last she wanted to walk. She has attempted to take 2 or 3 steps before but today she was ready to let go and try. We didn't count but she probably got up to about 10 or more consecutive steps at a time. We think being around Caleb the past few days has really encouraged her to "branch out". She loved all the attention and affirmation she got every time she tried so I am pretty sure in a couple days she should get the hang of it. You will see in the video that Caleb wanted some of the attention too, he always pretended like he was learning to walk when Lucy was- so cute!

Sam comes to Appling

We are so thankful for the friends we have made during our time in seminary at Charlotte and one of those friends are the Hunts. It is always fun when your two worlds collide and that is what happened when the Hunts came to Appling to visit.


This might look like Lucy is tackling Sam but really she is hugging him.


Don't we look like we should be on the cover of some outdoor mom magazine?!






You have to love naked babies in the bathtub, it doesn't get much better than this!

Go Duke!

This post is a little late but this is in celebration of the Blue Devils defeat again UNC last Wednesday night. Go Duke

Grandfathers

We have enjoyed some special time to spend time with our family before we prepare to leave the country. Here are some sweet picture of Lucy and her grandfathers.

Rocking Horse

Gannie and Mac have a rocking horse at their house from when Sean was younger. At first Lucy seemed very scared of the horse and wasn't willing to venture near it, but now she loves it. This is a funny clip of Lucy trying to rock with the horse. To interpret Lucy's language in the video she first says "rock" then she says "down" and when she rubs her stomach she is saying "please" in sign language. I hope you enjoy.

Roadtrip to Virginia

This past weekend we traveled to Richmond, Virginia to say goodbye to some friends. We first met up with the Marusichs, a family we got to know well during our MTW training in New York this summer. It was a blast to see them again and to hear how their lives have changed since July.


Then we went to visit the Purdys, dear friends from seminary. We loved seeing what their lives in Richmond looked like. Lucy fell in love with Owen all over again and the kids had so much fun playing together.


Lucy loved giving high-fives to Owen.


Working together to put together the train. This is a great picture because it actually shows Lucy sharing, something we have been working really hard on to teach her.

15 Months

Today is Lucy's 15th month birthday, it is hard to believe our little girl is growing up so fast. I was sure that she would be walking soon but other than 3 steps we haven't seen much progress. One thing Lucy does do though is talk up a storm here are some words in her vocabulary: duck, ball, book, turtle, kitty, dog, octopus, blueberry, banana, hat, shirt, shoes, chair, rock, walk, hot, more, one, truck, and I am sure there are more that I am forgetting but the favorite right now is Mac (Granddaddy McCanns' name). 

Check out Lucy's new sweater, knitted by Gannie with lots of love and effort.

This is pretty much what we have looked like the last week- bundled up and snot dripping out of our nose. 

Pull up a chair and have a seat. 

The First of Many Goodbyes

Since this blog is focused on Lucy we will focus on the many dear friends she had to say goodbye to this last week.  Lucy has been so blessed to have so many friends during our time in Charlotte.  Even though she doesn't understand that she will not get to see any of these friends for a long time, I know that she will miss them dearly. Honestly, as a mom this is one of the hardest things about leaving- watching Lucy say goodbye to all that is familiar and go to a world of complete unknowns. If you think about it please pray for Lucy in all these many transitions that she is going through, it is hard to watch her struggle to understand why her life is changing so much. 

Bennett, Graham, Celia, Amelia, Sam, and Lucy.

Elizabeth, Lucy's first friend (because she was born only 3 days before her).

Maggie- don't ask why Lucy has no clothes on in this picture or why she looks so distressed...just a rough night all together.

Lucy fell in love with Cammie during our time we stayed with the Waters in Charlotte. Lucy finally had the big sister she always wanted.