Funny Friday, First Nicaraguan Edition

You know how you go on a trip with a group and when you come back you have all these inside jokes? Well, today I'm going to let you in on some of our Nicaraguan inside jokes. You're welcome or I'm sorry, whichever you deem appropriate.

One of the big ones was "Make wise decisions." Whenever we ran an idea past our leader, we made sure to add "...and we will make wise decisions!"
Whenever someone did something stupid, we would scold, "That was not a wise decision."
When someone did something awesome, we would gush, "Look at that wise decision."

Yeah, we kinda beat the horse dead. But we made wise decisions while doing so.


Another funny line came from the leaders' three-year-old daughter. She is in the stage of identifying humor, so several times adults would say something funny and laugh, and she would pipe up with, "That's a joke!" and then join in the laughter.
Her best timing was after her dad threatened warned us about being prepared to share.
Leader: "If I call on you and you have nothing to share, you will have to run up the {incredibly steep} driveway three times."
...
Daughter: "That's a joke!"



Finally, remember that frog in our room? Yeah, that's a story in and of itself. Here goes.

Heidi had been sleeping in her bed next to the wall, but she sat up and said calmly, "Something fell on my head." We were about to investigate when Stella started screaming and we found the scorpion visitor/intruder. Attention diverted.

We Stella killed the scorpion and we were recovering from the adrenaline rush when Heidi {again, perfectly calm and more tired than freaked out} comments: "Guys....there's a frog on my pillow."
Re-enter chaos.

When all eyes were in Heidi's direction, we also noticed that there was a cockroach on her bed.  We killed that without a picture, and then fixed our eyes on the teensy frog making its way up the wall.
How to dispose of such an innocent creature? This was not a vicious beast we could justify killing, unlike the scorpion. Also, how to capture the thing? It kept jumping higher and higher, and soon would be beyond our reach.

Stella again saved the night. She grabbed the lid of a shaving cream bottle and trapped the frog under it, then was able to transport it outside. Phew! No unnecessary deaths, and no unwelcome visitors to Heidi's bed.

For the rest of the trip, Heidi's calm words were a sense of joy and comedic relief to us: "Guys, there's a frog on my pillow." If Heidi could handle a frog on her pillow, we could certainly make wise decisions.


In case you missed it, check out the frog after it left the pillow.

Happy Friday!

Back Home....Cue Craziness

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!

Friends, you deserve a post {or six} about my little trip to Nicaragua. We are in agreement about this. But right now, the introverted part of me {gasp! Introvert!?!?!?} wants to process the trip a bit more before sharing all about it. Right now I feel like I'm going through the motions of being home while my internal conversation is stuck on an island in Central America. Gotta do some thinking, this girl does.

I will tell you that the trip was way more incredible than I had anticipated, that I would go back for another week in a heartbeat, that I want to go back next year, and that the wildlife there is pretty, um, exciting. Yep, we'll go with exciting.
Here is a short, incomplete list of the wildlife that we found in our room alone. Oh, and let us also mention that the first three invaded our room within the space of 5 minutes one night. Did we sleep well? Eh...

• scorpion {see picture, post mortem}
  
                                         courtesy of Stella
• frog {in Heidi's bed, no less}
  
                      courtesy of Stella
• cockroach {also in Heidi's bed. It did not warrant a picture, because we killed it too quickly and we were more focused on the above-mentioned frog.}
• gecko {there were several outside, but one came in for our last night}
• another scorpion {we thought it was dead, but then it ran away outside-eek!}

I promise, more details and pictures of the trip will be shared! Have patience :)

Now that I'm home, it is Go Time! I may have alluded to some upcoming changes, and I still can't say everything that I'm dying to, but let's just say that next week I may be able to share! Which means that this week is...cray cray. That's crazy for those of you who don't speak abreve ;)

Anyway, things are moving quickly, and I'm both excited and overwhelmed! I'm excited that things are moving forward, and I'm overwhelmed by the reality of how fast things are moving and by the amount of work needed. But it will all come together wonderfully, I'm sure, and when it does, you will know!

I leave you with one last picture from Nicaragua. Say hello to our friendly neighborhood volcano!

                                                            courtesy of Levi

Seriously, Nicaragua is one of the most beautiful places, and I can't wait to share more of my adventures with you!