Sopocachi stake. . . mmmmmm

I finally figured out how to add Charlie as a contributor, so you should hear from him soon. And I tried for a really long time to add some pictures, the internet is crazy slow. I finally got some to work, as you should see below.

Today we got to go to church and see a lot of friends. I understood a lot more than last time I was here I think. I led the song in relief society since I was one of the few who knew it, though I did really poorly. For one reason because I was holding Owen. But mostly because some of the rhythms were a little different (so they could fit the words in properly), and I was trying to read the words which of course I didn't know, and the few who knew the song kept skipping beats. But most of them didn't know that I was leading off beat and that I kept switching between 4/4 and 3/4 anyway, I hope. I'm just glad my mother wasn't there, I believe I would have shamed her and my family name.

We had a stake activity in the evening that was sort of a celestial marriage class. Really great, though I understood less I think because I was tired. Charlie was the accompanist on the piano, so that was nice. Ha ha. No, Charlie doesn't have a hidden talent, (well actually he does, but playing the piano isn't it). They had one of those new player pianos that have all the hymns programmed in. Only problem is, the titles were all in English. So they enlisted Charlie's help to translate. But its not like the titles of the songs are direct translations of the English, most of the titles aren't even indirect translations. You're lucky if the general idea of the title is even the same. So we worked out a system where they would tell Charlie the song, he would show it to me in the Spanish hymn book, I would sight-read the tune, tell Charlie the title in English, then he would find it on the piano. We were pretty fast at it too. Charlie's role there was pretty important too, although it may not seem like it, since the piano was a little more complicated than we had time for me to figure out right then. I keep trying to think of how I could make a game from that. Kind of like name that tune only all you have is sheet music. Geeky.

Anyway, we still haven't found a house, though we have a few prospects. We'll let you all know the progress.

Here's Lydia and Owen running around like crazies. Lydia is a superhero. I don't know if the stroller is her weapon or if perhaps shes saving a baby.

And here's Owen and I waiting at the airport. We were having a blast, as you can tell. Actually, I was reading hunger games at that moment, so I was having fun. Great book. I'm angry it's over.

We were going to take pictures while we were comming in to the city from the airport, but we were really tired by then so we didn't. We'll post more later

I know Charlie and I haven't been the best bloggers in the past. But we're gonna try really hard to update this every few days. Right Charlie? I am doing the first post, so if you don't hear from us in a while, I'll blame him.

Getting ready for going to Bolivia was a bit of a headache. Besides just the stress of knowing I was going to a foreign country, I was having a really hard time being host to family that was staying with us, and trying to get the house ready for the new renters, and you know, just packing. I kinda felt like I was going to burst out crying every few minutes. I feel bad leaving nicky with so many projects after we leave. We had a ton of help the last few days though, and we never could have finished without it. My mommy came and did the dreaded job of cleaning the oven, and then later came to take the kids over to Faes. And Fae and Lance watched our kids all day long while we were packing and cleaning. And then Elesa and Richard came and helped us clean up to the last minute. Our ward came and moved stuff and cleaned, and wanted to keep helping even when I didn't have anything left for them to do. So nice. It was also nice of Fae and Lance to let us stay with them the last night and borrow thier car the next morning. Thank-you everybody so much! I'm very moved by your generosity. We owe you one.

Well, we arrived in Bolivia finally. 22 hour flight, 6 checked bags, 6 carry-ons, two strollers and two carseats later. We were sure glad we didn't have to switch airlines and recheck our baggage. But the strollers definitely came in handy. The trip actually seemed pretty short. Well, long, but short. The kids were pretty good though. They were always fine once we were on the plane, but the layovers weren't so great. There was just too many places they could run to and get lost or get into trouble. The last airplane left a good hour and a half later that it was supposed to, and since that was already going to be a seven hour layover, we thought we would never make it. We tried to distract the kids with letter factory, but they were having none of it. But we made it and arrived and managed to fit all our baggage into the car including us and Maria and Juan Carlos. It helped that we didn't have to put the kids in their carseats, so we just held them. And then Owen, Lydia and I all slept for several hours and we're feeling tons better. Charlie didn't sleep because it was too light outside, so he went to check out his new work instead. But he was too tired to actually get anything done today, so he came home a couple hours later. The kids are running around getting into all of the cute little breakables around the house, but Maria doesn't seem to mind and Charlie is already working up ways to make the house more baby proof. Tomorrow we'll start to go look for houses for rent. Honestly, I'm hoping that we'll quickly find one we want because otherwise it will probably just be me looking alone and that doesn't sound like any fun. Whew! Right now I just want to read my book and rest. We'll see how that goes. Its nice to be done with all the stress though. I'm not feeling as immediately sad as I thought I would. I'm sure I'll go through that in the next few months, but for now, I'm just feeling blessed that we're safe and that the kids are happy and that I have my sweet Charlie by my side.

I'll post pictures as soon as I can find my camera and the cord that goes to it. And we'll make video of our new house when we get it. Post more soon.