Boyd Bear Tracks

This has seemed to be a week of rushing around and not accomplishing very much :-). The one thing that seems to be progressing well is our radishes. We started a new science project and we are growing radishes. They are growing like wildfire (I suppose because it's so warm here). The kids have really enjoyed checking their radish seeds every day to see how much they've grown. When the first green shoots poked out of the dirt they were ecstatic!! Every day they bring the plants to me to show me how much they've grown.

But, back to our unproductive week . . .
I thought that Marcos needed to get his 15 month shot; so, we found out where we needed to go and we all walked over there. Well, it was too late in the day and they didn't give shots at that time. They told us to come back in the morning. Then, we went to the police station to register that we are living here now. We needed to get pictures so we wandered around looking for a place to get those (we crossed a busy street 4 or 5 times!). Finally someone said, "Go down to that place there where it says Photos." But we had already been there and it was closed. Then a lady standing nearby said, "I'm the owner and I just closed up. I'll send someone to go and take your picture." Once again we crossed that busy road and finally got our pictures. However, by that time the police station was closing so they told us to come back the next day too :-(!

Next day. . .
We went back to the clinic and waited in line. When we finally got to see the nurse she told me that here they don't give those shots until 18 months so we should come back in May! So, once again Marcos escaped the needle :-). Then, we went back to the police station. We were there for an hour and a half filling out paperwork (just to register that we are living in this city--we already did this in Bogota!). It would have been fine if Jon could have just done it himself, but they wanted all of us there. I guess so they could know that we really existed and were living here. I was thankful that I had brought gummy dinosaurs for when Marcos got his shot. They were put to good use to keep the kids busy. I was also thankful that the room was air-conditioned. It would have been murder to be shut up in that room with three rambunctious kids if it had been boiling hot!!

Once a week we usually have a girls' night out. It's great to be able to be away from everything and share with other women (on the same wavelength). This was the second week we had done it, but it had to be cut short because of a little mix up with keys (or lack of them :-)--the spouse with the kids had no way to get in the house).

On Saturday we were planning to go to a beach we had heard a lot about-- "Bahia Concha". But, by the time we were ready to go we realized it was too far away to be able to get there and do anything. Then we were going to a tourist site here (I think it's like a nature walk), but when we looked into it we wouldn't have been able to see much of that either. So, we ended up going to McDonald's. It was the only place that had a kid's play place so the kids could do something and we adults could talk. Kind of a let down--BEACH, NATURE, how about McDonald's! I really shouldn't complain. I got a nice Sunday :-), and it was air-conditioned (Ha, ha, ha!! I just realized how many times I've mentioned the blessing of air-conditioning!).

Although it felt like we were spinning our wheels but never really getting anywhere, after writing all this I see that we did accomplish all we needed to do-- just not in my timetable :-)! Yes, there were struggles but interspersed were little blessings (like air-conditioning and unused gummy dinosaurs). I guess that's why it's good to sit down and reflect. I could get pretty discouraged and start having pity parties for myself if I didn't sit down and think about how God is working in my life, and how he has sprinkled blessings throughout each day to encourage me. My lesson for this week--God works in His timetable, not yours :-)!