A Very "Special" Birthday

For those who don't know, my birthday is today and I have to say it has been the most unusual birthday I have ever had!  There is never a dull moment living here in Costa Rica.  When I arrived to spanish class this morning, my favorite profesora (teacher) had a gift and card for me.  It was a beautiful bracelet and a very sweet card.  She also had the class sing "Happy Birthday" to me in Spanish.  It was very thoughtful and she really blessed me!  School was fine, but we came home to no power.  We spoke to our landlord and found out that the people who lived here before us did not pay 2 months of power and they were behind 6 months on water so the power company came by this morning and cut our power off.  The water company was on their way to cut our water off as well.  Well, the first thing we needed to do was to get the bills paid, however, here in Costa Rica it is a process to pay any kind of bill.  Our bills are left in between the bars in the gate in front of our home so sometimes you get them and sometimes you don't.  Then you take the bills to any bank or grocery store to pay them.  We left the kids with a Tica friend and walked to the bank to withdraw money to pay the bills and the ATM was broken so we walked to another bank.  We got the money, paid the bills and then had to call the power company and BEG them to come back out today to cut the power back on.  After an hour of trying to get through, I finally spoke with someone who said we would have someone at our house by 5:00PM.  For the first time since we have been here, the electrician arrived ON TIME and we have power again--Praise the Lord!!!  (We also have wet laundry hanging on ropes all over our back yard because we were unable to finish washing or drying anything...we just had to laugh!)  So, we did go out to a little restaurant for my birthday since there was no time or power to cook.  Daniel and the boys made me the worst tasting brownie cake (we all agreed it was terrible!) we have ever had!  Everything tastes different here and the brownie mix here is no comparison to Duncan Hines or Hersheys!!!  But we had fun nonetheless and the boys enjoyed singing to me and blowing out the candles.  We have definitely had enough excitement for one day and this is definitely a birthday I will never forget!  And yet God is still so faithful to us and continues to make Himself known to us on a daily basis!  What an honor it is to serve the King of Kings!!!

Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment...

Here are the boys reading together in our den

   Here is Jacob in his favorite hiding place in the kitchen  Jacob in our makeshift bathtub--they don't have bathtubs in Costa Rica!!  Daniel and Thomas baking the brownie cake...My birthday party...