70 Fahrenheit 21.1 Celsius

Today was the first day the temperature climbed above 21.1 degrees celsius. - crystal clear day - no shoes - t-shirt - house windows open - car windows open - people friendly, cheery, smiling Spring is such an amazing time. I had forgotten about this magic!!! Here is Mason playing my 40 year old guitar in disguise last week (I was on hold with the phone company trying to get our service restored). He loves to strum and make up songs especially if anyone will volunteer to do a little jig to the tune (and Aman and Isaiah have created some pretty serious moves to go with some of his original tunes). This week also was one of welcoming a new ruhe-family "member". Our new "used" vehicle has so far been named Forest although I have been hearing some murmurs of protest with that name recently... Well, we will see how long it lasts. So for now it's Ezzie and Forest who will be faithfully getting us from place to place...

I can't resist!!

I can't resist posting a few more images of the kids. I have one from a few weekends ago with Mason, Aman and Isaiah playing cards at the coop before going to watch sheep being sheared. They came home and in a total rush told me of the experience and how horrified they were when one of the shearers by accident cut one of the poor, poor lambs and I won't say where... :( ... Another of the boys being silly... And the last one of the boys and some dear friends they left back in Costa Rica (minus one crucial one, Aleta)

On another note

This one isn't directly family related (or maybe it is) but during this past Fasting period I was just musing... As Baha'is, we are asked to pray and read from the writings everyday. Recently, I have been thinking about the first sentence in the short obligatory prayer that I say every day. It says, " I bear witness Oh my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. ..." I am testifying that my sole purpose is to know God and to worship God. I realized that I didn't know what that meant exactly even though I have said the prayer a gazillion times. I approached it like an engineer would of course creating a table with two columns with the headings: Know God and Worship God. And started to write down ideas as to what might describe doing each of these things. Here's what I ended up with... Here also I include a larger list of virtues I compiled a while back...

Back in Business!

Our phone was shut off since friday and they just connected it back up along with DSL... and wow... atleast for this first time I am getting connected at incredible speeds... I never knew life in cyberspace could be this good from home... let's see if it continues... The Baha'i year 163 began last Tuesday... the boys and I were in the thick of a much-more-difficult-than-usual morning routine on Tues after Britt had gone to work (not planning on taking the holiday off due mainly to the fact that the kids had also had no school on Fri) when the phone rang with an invitation to hang with the Brandon family in Springfield (we had seen them briefly the night before at the Naw-Ruz celebration in Amherst). This call helped me hear more clearly the boy's pleas... So we packed some snacks and drove to the Brandon home 40 min away. We had met them once when we lived in Haverhill 11 years ago. They have three awesome little ones Council, Paolo and Vigil and the boys ran in and disappeared upstairs with these guys and legos for a couple of hours while I sipped a cup of coffee and got caught up a bit with River and Heather. Then we all went to Forest park in the middle of Springfield for a three hour romp. Playscapes, paths through the woods, water fowl, swords, ice, and much much more... We got home exhausted and happy...

2 1/2 Days Left of Fasting!!

Isaiah had a presentation at school on Wednesday. His class presented "Where the Wild Things Are" at an assembly for the whole school. 1 group read the story into the microphone, another group worked shadow puppets and the last group came charging into the auditorium at the appropriate times wearing masks and roaring. Isaiah was part of this last group and they made us all laugh while they "roared their terrible roars...". That afternoon, Isaiah's friend Aiden came over to the house to play. Here's a picture of the boys and their masks.

6 more days of Fasting!

Here's another couple of pics from the hike on saturday. The cousins being statues and a nice one of Alfie and I. Other than not finding work yet for me, the move has been smooth. We are now living in the left half of Alfie and Ericka's duplex (they live in the other half). It has been incredible so far having them right next door. I include a snowy image from this morning before school for reference. All that is now is completely covered in a couple inches of snow which gives it all a magical feel. Another portion of the transition that has made things go much smoother is that Dad and Janet gave us their old car Esmeralda!!! Good old Ezzie (pictured here) gets us up and down the hill reliably and safely and we are incredibly grateful to Dad and Janet for their generosity.

Saturday en el bosque

Friday we had very(?) warm weather with the temps up in the 60s. That set things up nicely for a saturday hike with Ericka and Alfie and our good friend Steve Cotten. It was just what I had been looking for... a walk along a frozen river (I mean if you are going to enjoy winter you gotta go looking for the good stuff!!). Not as warm as the Friday but mellow still. The river of course was still mostly frozen and Aman, Alfie and Mason and I went exploring til we found a sweet sunny patch (not imaged) with tons of yummy ice to smash and walk around on. Logs that you can bounce around on and we had a blast. It was a letterbox hike with four boxes that we had to scamper around and find (all the stamps were Flintstone related but well done). Anyway Sunday we had another great Baha'i school in Northampton. The kids are really enjoying it with Aman going to the Smith College greenhouse and Isaiah making a house of worship out of plastic bowls, noodles and countless other things. Definitely a satisfying early-spring, MA weekend.

Colin's Last Month in CR

Here are a few images of the last month in CR. Britt and the kids had left a month earlier so that we could get the kids in school and start the job search process started. I had to finish out the month of Feb with the job which I owed them. I really missed Britt and the boys but got some time to myself to process in my own unique way this move. I went on a 51 km mt. biking run that ran half way around lake Arenal in the shadow of the Arenal volcano. 3000 people signed up for and biked for this organized, recreational ride! Young, old, women, men, on mt bikes and I saw some BMX bikes! There was even a guy who did it with only one arm! 4.5 hrs later we arrived at the finish line muddy and tired but smiling from ear to ear! I had a rare(?) moment when I caught a great boa constrictor a few days before leaving and drove home one-handed to show it to my sis while we watched The Office together. I also had been pursued by some of the local Baha'i pre-youth for some time to go on one last romp in the woods before I took off... so we did and 6 hours later I was praying for pockets of signal for my cell phone to call Jere to come pick us up... we knew where we were... we were just too far away to make it home by midnight... but it was without a doubt a great hike... vines, rivers, remanents of a 20 year old plane crash, and much more. I include one pic of Shawnie and I right after coming out of the water from a sweet surfing session... I am going to miss that Roshan!!! And a last image of another ride taken on the mountain above our house with sweet views of the valley and down to the ocean...

First Post

Well here goes our first blog run. We are in transition and trying to get settled here in MA. First item on the agenda was to get out in the snow and romp. I sort of conviniently forgot how cold it can get here!!! But the trick to winter is to get out and be active. Britt insisted we steal our old skates back from Alfie and Ericka and we found a perfect pond to skate on. Isaiah and I had a date at the local bagel shop just before picking up Aman in the yellow who was out playing soccer. And the bedtime routine as always is still filled with wonderful unexpected sprints and romps around the house. This one is known as the undierun.