Earthquake Vacations

Due to a stream of earthquake activity in and around Managua the last few weeks, the Nicaraguan government has decided to close all schools indefinitely.  This decision came just following Semana Santa, or holy week. So we are on our second week of forced school vacation (the third week of schools being out) and can only cross our fingers that schools reopen next week.  Although, many of us are preparing for bad news Sunday night this weekend. It is not totally clear to me why the schools are closed because no one can predict of course when an earthquake might happen. We've been on Red Alert for a while now since all this plate movement started and had a few biggies that even woke us out of our beds in the middle of the night and had us running to grab the kids to get outside. But in the last two weeks we haven't felt much of anything. Supposedly there are many small tremors happening all the time but we just don't feel them. Schools have already reviewed their structures for security and all the safety plans must be in place now...so let's get back to some normalcy please!!!

But,since my opinion clearly won't have any influence, I've accepted that my job now is to keep my 3-year old entertained and stimulated with something other than hours of TV and iPad.  But, it gets challenging with the heat we are facing here as we wait for the rains to arrive sometime in May. Some of us have resorted to crazy ideas like filling our inflatable pool with sand for instantaneous naked sandbox fun.

 

 Eli has exhausted his and Isi's toys at this point.

Friends have even gone out and bought trampolines or planned last minute beach trips in a desperate attempt to keep themselves and little ones sane.  I hosted a spontaneous brinca brinca party today where all the parents chipped in to pay for the blow up castle we had at Eli's birthday party recently.  It was much appreciated by all and everyone got some energy out, including the wee little ones.

 

 Tomorrow we're going to a bakery owned by one of the parents from Eli's class to make and decorate cookies. Creativity is clearly the key in times like this!  I know we will all survive this but it is only Tuesday so I better get to filling up the rest of the week with playdates and contemplating what it will mean if they mandate another week of forced vacation....eeeeek! Serenity now....

Isletas

With my parents in town visiting Nicaragua, we're taking advantage of getting to know some new places along with them. It always seems that we get out the most and explore new places when we have visitors. So today we explored the nearby town of Granada, a neat colonial town with plenty of old buildings some of which have been beautifully restored and painted in bright colors and others that look a little worse for wear. After grabbing an iced coffee in our favorite local spot in Granada, Espressonista, we headed out for a stroll with 2 kids and our parents. Despite only being 10am, the sun was strong and we soon overheated and had to rethink our plan. A toddler and baby in strollers in the heat can only go on for so long. We took a break in the town plaza under a tree and decided we head in the car a few minutes away to an area called Isletas. Granada is on a huge lake, Lake Managua, and within the lake are 300-something small islands, some of which are inhabited and others which are tiny bits of land with nothing more than some birds and trees.  We had no idea what we'd find but it beat the idea of dragging the kids through the hot streets of town. Being that it was Easter, we drove the troves of people cooling off in the lake, sitting by the lakeside enjoying street food, and having what appeared to be an all-day party.  We finally made it to the peninsula that leads out to the Isletas and found a quaint restaurant which offered little boat rides through some of the islands.

We spent about 30 minutes weaving in and out of beautiful little narrow waterways giving us great views of the mountains around us. Eli just sat quietly taking it all in, Isi sat on my lap eating Cheerios and we admired the picturesque landscape around us.

You can't see it in this picture above but as we went past these lilypads in the boat, we happened upon a pig, yes, a pig, swimming happily through the pads. He stayed there frolicking while we ate our lunch occasionally getting all tangled up in the lilypads. That image kept us laughing throughout the day.

Afterwards we all enjoyed delicious fresh fish for lunch before heading back.

Back to Blogging...This Time from Nica

It has been ages since I've been on my blog. Perhaps having a baby and moving to another country (again) has something to do with my absence. But being far away from friends and family and having them miss out on the little ones' growth and our new adventures has prompted me to get back on here at the very least to share photos of our new life in Nicaragua. There is no way to start where I last left off so I will start with what I know our families to the North and to the South would love to see...Eli's big third birthday party! I can't believe the boy is already 3. We hosted some families we've met through his school and through other networks here in Nicaragua to our house for some home baked goodies, some brinca brinca time, and of course a piñata all in the spirit of fire engines, Eli's obsession.

Here are some shots from the day (thanks to my dad for the photos as I did not even remember to take out my camera for the day).

 We go a little carried away with the fire engine theme and decor but we had fun making it all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stubborn piñata. I even broke the bat trying to break that thing open.

 

Notice there are no pictures of Eli hitting the piñata because he refused to leave his post of jumping in the brinca brinca. I even tried carrying him over to the piñata only for him to run back to his preferred position. He had no interest in the big firetruck hanging in our backyard or the loads of candy that dropped down. But all the other kids did!

 

 

 

It was a fun day and at the end of it all we had an exhausted 3-year old and a defeated piñata.