Ok, so we are a little worried about the bugs in Costa Rica!

A week ago, Lucy was playing near me on the floor, when I hear her say, “OOOHHHHHH!! That, That!!!”, pointing at the floor.
Wondering if she was overreacting or if there really was one of the giant wolf spiders hiding under the stool,I asked, “What?”.
“THAT, right there!” she said, rather excited.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a, it’s a THING!” she stammered.

[I still thought she was overreacting...]

Since I was holding Samuel, I called Rachel in, and after close inspection and Lucy continuing to go on and on about “the thing”, Rachel allays all of our fears by saying,

“IT’S A HAIRBALL, Lucy!”.

Internet

We bought a 3G wireless USB plugin and a wireless router so we could do all of our online work at the same time, rather than in shifts, late into the night. It was a great plan, and it would have worked perfectly, had we had all the directions. (or maybe it had something to do with the directions being in Espanol, though I doubt it, since we weren’t the only ones who couldn’t figure it out!) Even the guys on the other end of the 1-800 Latin America, Costa Rica division number hadn’t heard of this model, and it was only sold in Costa Rica!

However, after going over directions over and over and following through online at D-Link, Jocelyn was finished with it, and we were using the 3G USB individually anyway for a couple of weeks….

July 21st rolled around, and we still had limited internet access. Then, Matt called the D-Link guys back and after disabling the password code on the USB, it was all set! So, we were all so glad that Matt got the network hooked up.

Planning our visa renewal trip…
We have known since we got here to Tilaran area that we would be making this trip to Nicaragua before the end of July. Little did we know that the Father had it all set up that Joel from CLMinistries would also need to go.
As for when we had too leave, most of the countries I had checked on, in relations with US citizens, are every 90 days you leave the country. You do NOT have to return to the States. You can go to whatever country you choose. Costa Rica is this way. We need to renew our visas every 90 days until we leave the country.
We talked about a couple of places and were looking for what they call hostels there. There were some in the other towns, but not in Rivas. We chose Rivas due to ease of getting there by bus and taxi. So, after looking , we made reservations at The Hotel California”. Yep, it was weird to me, and I couldn’t get that stupid song out of my head for days. erghhhh.

Paypal
This went on for a couple of weeks that Paypal limited our acct. Our crime? we have been accessing it from CR. We had NOT TAKEN ANY MONEY OUT, mind you, but ACCESSED it. WHAT?!?!?!?!?
So, for a couple of weeks, we couldn’t get the money out of it. Paypal’s idea to confirm our location – where we hadn’t even taken any money out of – was to send us a letter, we had to take a pic of it (yeah, right! Our camera was stolen!) to prove it’s our acct and that we are here…
ACKK!!

Thanks to my sister, Jen, for taking that photo and emailing it to us so we could send it to them and clear our good name!

I heard about this new HR5741 on Friday.
“To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and
42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed
services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense
and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the
uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements
of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.”
One thing I began to understand in the past 2 years is this: We have to go through these times. The world WILL get worse, and the GOV, both – all- parties, will be party to its demise. I mean, let’s face it, it will be the systems of the world against Yah. THAT is what we are looking at to happen.
SO…. there will come a time when the people will be ignored and the GOV will press on against the people into the one world anti-messiah system.
I believe that is already happening. So many things will be happening that we don’t expect….
The Father is ready to allow these things to happen, and we need to be prepared as all these things come to pass…..
It’s just Matt. 24, in the words of our Messiah…

Making the Trip to Nicaragua

We hand-washed most of the laundry for the 3 days before we left, and on Thursday, Rachel went with Matt to a friends’ and finished up a few loads before our trip to Nicaragua.

Got up early on Friday morning and caught a bus at 5am. Someone (I won’t mention Jocelyn’s name) left two of the passports in the printer, but we checked for them at the but stop and had time to run(literally) home and get them before the bus came….
(more to come on that whole Exit Trip thing….)

It was hot and muggy in Nicaragua. We were told that there are fewer ants, but many more mosquitoes!! And the mosquitoes are on full alert. Yikes!
To me, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and prob most of the world, look just like other parts of the world to me. No culture shock for any of us. The grassy roads reminded us of home and cities are cities, you know… peaceful, like our country road. More horses, cows, goats, chickens and dogs in the road, but reminded me of good ‘ole Pook Rd.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm!! One thing we ate plenty of in Nicaragua was messy, sloppy, sweet watermelon. It was only about 0.75US, so it was a good deal, especially for those of us who love it!! Let’s face it: watermelon is delicious in any country!! We did get sick of eating chicken hot dogs, bread and turkey sandwiches, though… but we aren’t complaining. There were plenty of fruits: oranges, apples, and watermelon, so it was all good!

The trip went well. Not so much puking this time, but a little more waiting. We did have trouble getting back into Costa Rica, but that was our fault, and it just delayed things was all.

Shabbat – Torah

For Shabbat, I watched this video. If you want to know more about the Narrow Way, YHVH has given us the directions, all we have to do is to set ourselves apart and do them.
It is a Scripture study this week by Paul Nison.
Torah Parashah 45: Obedience to Yahweh

Jocelyn has been looking for some jewelry for us all to wear now for awhile that says the Sh’ma, to wear them on our wrists and found these: http://www.etsy.com/listing/6633581/white-shofar-sterling-silver-and-white

Family Accomplishments

Samuel’s been working on the Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma for a few weeks, getting that and putting the hand across the side of the chin(he actually just bends his fingers to me)… and today, he has the Mamamamammamamaaa down instead of just the bending the fingers to call me.

And, check out these photos of the girls from before we left the States:
A Pondering Heart » Do Something… I Dunno… Weird.

I will leave you with a quote from my friend, Ruth McLean, at But First, We Have Coffee:
“Real love is an act of the will, a determination you make in your mind that it is what you will do in spite of your feelings.”

Shalom~

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I have gotten into the habit of checking email, posting on my FaceBook Wall and updating the DFM FaceBook page. I need to get back into the habit of updating here and DFM instead. However, we are currently using a 3G Broadband USB for internet. It is what you have to use here for high-speed. We brought our router, but it is not for 3G, so we had to buy another router. Yeah, and we haven’t been able to get it set up yet – and we can take it back for credit, but not for our colones back. SO, all that said to make the point that Jocelyn, Rachel, Hannah and I, who blog and run businesses online, as well as Matt, who gets online to research and read… are doing it on the one connection.

As I went to update my FaceBook Wall today, I thought, why am I not just writing about this here on my blog? [that's easy: it's just so easy to post on FB, and I have instantaneous replies from friends!] A friend posted what she did today for school, and I thought, hmmm…. what have we done for school? Barn chores and cooking/baking as life’s lessons have changed dramatically since we arrived here. We have no barn and no oven presently. Kinda’ hard to do that as Living Learning Moments, huh? Time for a new Home School Schedule 2010…

So I pondered what we did today for learning. I updated our Passports and have been trying to take it easy with a sore back. Of course, all day, I am nursing, holding, playing with/caring for Samuel. Matt and Eric went into Tilaran to get groceries, and I know that Eric always learns when he goes, because he has to think converting colones to dollars to find out how much it is, not to mention that everything is en Espanol, so he learns as he reads it and hears it. He always has a story to tell me.

Isaac and Caleb are learning how to read by sounding out letters ALL DAY. Isaac has gotten into the habit of answering me, “Si’, M-O-M.” Or my personal favourite, “Gracias Senorita M-o-m!” They count all day, en Espanol. Lucy even counts in Espanol. Grammar in our home is a given. I have workbooks, but haven’t delved into them quite yet, becuse at any moment we can have a discussion about their grammar or even Espanol.

Presently, we are planning our visa renewal trip to Nicaragua, which made me think we need to get back to our clases de Espanol, and then Eric asked me the same thing yesterday. So, confirmation, and will do. The Master Bedroom is actually outside, though still attached to the house, and we have most of  play things and school books out there. I really wanted to give Jocelyn and Eric their own rooms, but this is how it worked out.I really had hoped to give all the girls the master bedroom when we moved, so they had plenty of room, but I’m not ready to have all the girls out there with an outside entrance when there is not one to the house. Weird. But, it will be nice for guests! ; )

So, a good reason to keep up on our Espanol is because we will be going to Nicaraugua before the end of the month. We get to go with a friend who has to renew his visa also and who has already been there, so that’s really nice.  I can’t believe it has been 90 days. In a way, it’s as if  “it has already been 90 days?” and then, in a way, too, it’s like, “It’s only been 90 days??” Life is just life here, but it is so different not being life. If that makes sense…

All righty, well, I need to go. There is a gecko everyone is all excited about that is chasing a bug around. I’d better go see… Living Learning Moments are alive and well in the Dixon household!

[I do miss having a camera though... hopefully we can get another soon!]

Shalom friends!

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We are in Costa Rica, in case you haven’t heard. We have also created a main site for all of our ministries and blogs. You will find that here:
Dixon Family Ministries http://dixonhomestead.com

I hope to get on a better schedule blogging soon, but I am on FaceBook right now. Yeah, FB isn’t blogging, and I can’t believe I am on there rather than here, because I LOVE to keep memories and journaling all together HERE. Alas, my friends are there. I have family there, and Jocelyn and Rachel keep me company too!

It is also easy to post links there and share really quickly what I believe. I need to just do that here. That will be coming soon!

You will find Dixon Family Ministries on FB here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dixon-Family-Ministries/129843340377805?v=wall&ref=ts

I am working on Newsletter updates, but for now, I am going to just post it here, there, somewhere… lol

We are settling into a new place few hours northwest of Heredia, where we had been for the past couple of months.  It was quite a trip here. So, I will be officially posting CR updates on the DFM site, but I want to share it here too…

We so appreciate the support in love and prayers we have gotten from friends! Believe me, on the trip down here from Heredia, we sure needed them! We loaded up our belongings onto a 20ft. box trailer that Wednesday and slept on the floor on blankets that night (those of us who actually slept that is!). Then, at 4:30am Thursday, we woke up the Littles to go to meet the bus to San Jose by 5am. We were not sure we were going to make it. LucyLillie, Samuel, and Hannah had been feverish and feeling sick for the two previous days, and that night before, Caleb had come down with a fever. We had a last-minute decision to make to either catch the bus or wait to see if they were better the next day. We were meeting the movers the next day and had literally nothing there at the house to eat or sleep on or do. I had made some Goot and rubbed it onto their faces, their chests and feet late that night, hoping it would infuse into their systems and give them enough to keep them going that day.

It was a tough decision, but we decided to go ahead and wake up Caleb and the others and go. Caleb got up and was fine and ready to go. After that, we woke up the others, and we were assigning and grabbing bags and heading out the gate just in time to walk to the bus stop, just a short distance away. I still can’t believe we managed to do it.

We boarded the bus from Heredia to San Jose, and soon the sun was coming up. We were looking forward to finding the bus to Tilaran and getting on our way. One thing I will remember to do on the next trip is to pack plenty of rags, wet cloths, and plastic bags… as we had several get carsick on the trip. Caleb and Lucy started before we got off the bus to San Jose.

Once in San Jose, Matt had the task of remembering where in the world the bus station was downtown. He had made the trip a few days before to sign the rental agreement, but all the shops were open then, and he had gotten off from a different location than we arrived at. On that day, at 6am, the closed shops all looked the same with their gates and large metal garage doors! Needless to say, we walked around for a little while, asking where it was before it all became familiar.

Once we found it, we had plenty of time before the bus was leaving for Tilaran at 7:30am. It didn’t seem quite so long, and we took the time to have get our faces washed and get some water and a snack before we were to get on the bus. Matt bought the tickets: it came out to 3320 colones or about $6-$6.50 per person. We were looking at a 4 hour trip. Considering the lack of sleep most of us had, we were incredibly cheery and awake! When 7:15 rolled around, we took our luggage over to be put under the bus and headed to our seats.

As I sit here and type, the bus trip is all a blur. Imagine traveling from 80mph down to 40mph around curves, on the side of a mountain, through traffic, uphill, downhill, starting and stopping in an instant. And carsickness! Out of the ten of us who made the trip, four of us got carsick. All but one of us slept at least part of the trip, and several of us slept most of the trip. Samuel, almost 8months old, slept and nursed a lot, so that was a blessing for him and all of us on the bus!
The trip was all right, and the people were friendly. We had a break in the middle at a large outdoor cantina for a bathroom and snack break for a few minutes. Eric and I got to take a look out across the most breathtaking view. I so wished I had a camera at that time. Green, green, green hills, trees, farm land. We could see garden plots and sheep grazing. It was beautiful.

As we got closer to Guanacaste province, the landscape had changed. It was green with farmland and the homes were further apart. When we started seeing cows all over, I knew we had to be close! It was a good thing, too, since it was getting so warm on the bus that the rest of us were getting pretty uncomfortable. Even Samuel had woke up and did not like sitting with the back of the seat in his face. I felt so bad for the passengers who kept having to hear our children get sick, but as a man and woman and their little girl exited and she looked like she was not going to make it off the bus without being sick, I knew it wasn’t just us. It was a rough ride there!! I felt so bad for our children. We tried to get them to sleep as much as possible to deter their carsickness… but we were so thankful when the bus finally rolled into the stop in Tilaran…

Can you say, “AAAHhhhhhhhhhhh……………..”?

Matt got two taxis and our driver was over to get our things right away. Soon we were again traveling down the road, heading to our place, anxiously awaiting a nice, quiet, cool place with water to just relax and let our bodies catch up with the experience we had just had. We arrived, and ohh! how I wanted to have a camera to share the moment with you all!

Before we got there, we knew there were coconut trees. We knew there was a gate and plenty of tall bushes surrounding the one acre the home sits on. We knew it was a single level home. What we didn’t know was that we would open the door to furniture!! Just a little info Matt kept to himself as a surprise….

We were awaiting the arrival of the moving truck, looking forward to the rest of our things arriving. Shortly thereafter, as we were still discussing the land, the fireplace, the furniture – BEDS! – we were greeted with a most wonderful surprise. We already knew that Joel and Gaby of Crucified Life Ministries would be coming over. They were so gracious to help us as we were looking and emailing before we came. We were looking forward to meeting them and their family. When the doorbell rang,  it was Mr. Hemingway who introduced himself and let us know that he and his wife were friends of Joel and Gaby’s and were there to welcome us to the neighborhood. They brought some drinks and ice! Then came a few more new friends and Joel’s family and his mother and grandmother also came. How awesome is that?!?

We have not gotten everything unpacked but we are doing well unpacking. We have bedrooms all situated, the kitchen tubs are unpacked, and we are working on getting school books out and organized. There is a bookshelf here, which is presently holding our Scriptures and references, Spanish books, and some books for the Littles, Battleship, and a large checkers game.

We are still in need of a washer, and can you believe it? An OVEN!? Matt overlooked the fact that the stove is a stoveTOP and not a stove when he came and looked at the house – OOPS! He has been looking, but there is no used appliance store here in this area that he has found. So, needless to say, we have had no baked goods… and I am getting pretty good at hand-washing clothes… [no comment] Actually, I will be going over to the Hemingway’s to do a couple of loads tomorrow.

I still have much to tell you about the creatures and plants here, how it compares to Indiana, the fact that Samuel is 8 MONTHS OLD!!! OH MY! Where did that time go?!

Hopefully, in the near future, I will be able to get some semblance of order to be able to post about the trip to Miami when we left the States. And, I STILL owe the awesome folks at Tropical Traditions a bunch of reviews!! -which is GREAT for you all, because that means GIVEAWAYS!! But, I will be doing that at The DFM Store!

As always, you can keep up with our lives through our multiple websites. Hopefully we will get a new camera soon so we can share photos!

Shalom~

“My promise to my children:
I will:
*stalk you,
*freak out on you,
*lecture you,
*drive you crazy,
*be your worst nightmare,
*embarrass you in front of your friends,
*hunt you down like a bloodhound
until the day you understand why I do it.
Then I”ll know you are a responsible adult. All because I love you. You will never find someone who loves you & cares about you more than your Mother.
I AM your biggest fan!”
(from Jocelyn) THANKS MOMMA!

You are welcome, Jocelyn. -and you are also welcome, Amanda, Rachel, Eric, Hannah, Isaac, Caleb, LucyLillie, and Samuel!!
I love you more than you will know!

Keep ‘em close Mommas! Time passes before your eyes, and so much will try to take you away from your role as Momma. Don’t let it. Don’t be deceived by the world and the worldly ways of Believers today. Follow in the paths of YHVH and teach these ways to your children.

Jeremiah 6
16 Here is what ADONAI says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask about the ancient paths, ‘Which one is the good way?’ Take it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not take it.’

May you have peace in your home and may you seek his ancient ways~

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If you want to see some Virginia Reel dancing, we had our friends, the Farm Girls and family, over for Shabbat last week, and Amanda posted a video on The Daily Planet: Dance, Dance!

I will be adding to this video, and I linked it on a the Photos page too. I also posted a slideshow of some photos our children have uploaded to our family ning group, in case you are interested.

Shalom~

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