Burns 5 in Mexico

2010-06-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

This last week the girls had their school program. They were so excited about it and loved practicing at home. Abigails class sang a song from Jungle Book and Hannahs class sang Madagascar. They both did such a good job and it was a blast to watch them.

Hannah with her classmates after their dance.
Hannah and her teacher Lucy (who also was Josiahs teacher 4 yrs ago and
Abigails teacher 2 yrs ago)

Hannah and her classmates singing "I like to move it move it"

Abigail and Hannah before their performance

As we were leaving Abigail started crying. I asked her what was the matter and she said she was sad because she wasn't going to see her best friend, Natalia, again. She thought that the program was the end of year show and now they weren't going to go back to school. I explained to her that there is still a month left of school and that she would still see her best friend. We ended up returning to the auditorium to find Natalia so that they could talk and take a picture.

BOXES, BOXES, AND MORE BOXES

2010-06-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

This morning when we woke up Josiah announced 23 days until we leave for the United States. I do not know if he is correct but he is pretty good at math so I will take his word for it. As excited as I am about seeing everyone in the USA at the same time I am really dreading leaving. I have way too much to get done in the next 23 days! The house is full of piles of boxes everywhere.

Today I was talking to one of my best friends and we both just started crying. I reminded her that it is only a year but that didn't seem to console either of us much. We have made so many good friends here in Guadalajara and it is going to be hard to say good-bye. Our next 3 weeks are filled with goodbye meals and get togethers. Its nice to be loved and know that we will be missed.

A few of my friends and I are going out of town this weekend for a going away trip. We are going to Puerto Vallarta (without kids). We usually drive but this time I found round trip plane tickets from here to Puerto Vallarta with tax and everything for $50! I am super excited about the trip and look forward to relaxing with my friends.

Once I get back there will only be about two weeks left. The kids will finish up their school (although they don't get out till July 9th). Abigails will have her kindergarten graduation which the school kindly moved up so that she wouldn't miss it.

Please be praying for our travel. We have almost always felt safe living in Mexico. Unfortunately we will have to drive through some not so safe areas to get to the USA. Fortunately they are some of the safer not safe areas.

We will be arriving in the USA on July 2nd and then spending a large part of July either getting settled in to our house in Texas or traveling to see family and supporters. Thanks for reading. You guys are so much more faithful than I am. I feel bad when I see that you guys are still checking my blog and I haven't been updating it. Thanks for reading and praying for our safe travel.

Chivas date with daddy

2010-05-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

Abigail has always wanted to go to a Chivas soccer game. Most of the games Cory goes to are with a big group of friends and they are usually big rival games. When they are rival games safety is in question as far as taking a child with you. Tonight she is finally getting her dream. She is so excited. Cory is taking her and only her to the game. She feels super special and I am sure she is going to enjoy every second of it.

Kids Day

2010-04-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today Mexico celebrates Kids Day. My kids have been so excited about it. Yesterday Josiah said " I can't wait for tomorrow but at the same time I don't want tomorrow to come" I asked him why. His answer was "well because if it was already tomorrow then the next day would be Labor day and I don't really feel like working!". Tomorrow is Labor day and I will make sure he doesn't work too hard.

At school today they are pretty much having a party all day long. The kids got to wear costumes to school. There will be pinata, food, candy, presents etc. at the girls school. Hannah decided she didn't want to put her princess dress on at the last minute so we improvised and she wore one of Abigais costumes. Its from a famous Mexican show.

Abigail was so so so happy to wear her princess dress. I am sure she is having a blast showing it off to everyone at school.

Josiahs school is actually putting on a carnival. They have rides and everything. He decided he didn't want to wear a costume so he just dressed in his John Cena T-shirt. I didn't get a picture of him before he walked out the door but here is a picture from last night at the grocery store.

2010-04-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of some fun things the kids did over easter break. They get 2 weeks off from school and a lot of the malls put on shows, activities etc out for the kids.

This is Abigail and Kate working on decorating their purses.

They also had a really cool thing called Splash Ball. I think over the course of the two weeks our kids did it at least 4 times. Its just a big ball that opens with a zipper. The kids get in the ball and then they hook it up to the equivalent of a leaf blower and blow it up. The balls are in a pool of water and the kids run around like hamsters. They loved it! I think it would be a great thing for grandparents to have in their back yard!

2010-04-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Been awhile. This year has been super busy but we are loving it. I am trying to download some pictures of some of the activaties of the year but its not letting me arrange them in the order that I want. So, they aren't going to be in order but oh, well.

We have been trying to get a good family picture but haven't had much luck. This is the best we have come up with. We will have to get a good picture this summer when we are in Lubbock with Amy-Rose (Our favorite fotographer and great friend)

This is Abigail and Hannah with Stacie (One of our AIMers) talking to and feeding a homeless lady. Every Friday Cory and the AIMers take food to about 40 homeless in the center of Guadalajara.

Baseball is year round and keeps us pretty busy. This year they have started a girls team. Williamsburg is going to start a girls league in a few years and the coaches in Guadalajara decided to start a girls team a little early just to get the basics down. The girls practice on Wed afternoons and usually spend more time goofing around than actually playing baseball. Half of the team is missing in this picture.

This is Josiahs team at the inauguration of the season. They pick one girl to be the "Madrina" of the team. During the ceremony Hannah walked in front of the team holding a sign that said "Red Sox".

Volcano trip

2010-01-12T19:34:00.001-08:00

Snow is uncommon in Guadalajara and most of Mexico. It has only snowed once in the last decade (1997) Josiahs friend, Mario, thought maybe snow was made up and not real. Josiah has been assuring him that it is real and that he has seen it. They plan on visiting us in the states next winter with the hopes that there will also be snow. Well, this weekend while we were on our retreat in the distance there was a mountain (I later found out was an inactive volcano) with snow on the mountaintop. When I got back to town I told my friend that I wanted to find out where it was and take them there. She showed me the newspaper where on the front page it talked about the snow that was on the volcano and how everyone was flocking to see the snow. So, after talking for a few minutes we decided to let the kids skip school and take them up to the mountain. It was a really fun trip. We had to go to Walmart last night to buy gloves and hats because we didn't have any (I left all of mine in the states thinking that I would never need them down here, since the temp has been averaging mid 60's).
We got up early this morning and headed to the mountain-volcano. We arrived at the base of the mountain a little after 1 hour but then it took us around 1 1/2 hrs to go up the mountain. The roads were horrible - not paved just dirt roads with lots of holes etc. Once we got there we had lunch in the car and got the kids good and bundled and headed to the snow. Where you have to park the cars is a good Kilometer from the top of the mountain. We climbled till we found a godo spot with clean snow and let the kids have fun, we then turned around and headed down the mountain.

Monteverde

2010-01-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas vacation in the states meeting new family members. Cory and I have 3 new nieces (1) and nephews (2). It was good to spend time with them. We also got to spend some time in San Antonio with our friends the Pruetts. It was really good to see them. They worked in Guadalajara with us and recently moved back to the states. We got back from the USA on Tuesday night and on Thursday Cory decided that we needed to take the AIMers on a retreat the following day. It really was necessary but somewhat shortnotice. We decided that if we waited till school and baseball were back in full swing we would end up never going on the retreat. So, before having unpacked from the trip to the USA I packed to go to the mountains.
We had a wonderful time. We have been to this location 3 previous times but we always had infants with us which added stress. It was nice to be able to relax this time and not worry that the kids were going to fall down the mountain or stairs etc. We had some good time with the AIMers evaluating plans for their last 5 months here.
It was pretty cold although not as cold as you guys in the USA. The guys worked really hard at getting a BIG fire in the fireplace and keeping it big. In 24 hours we went through 9 good sized bundles of wood.
The cabins we went to have recently added an obstacle course. My kids (including Cory) love it and had so much fun on in. I definately think that our family will be planning a trip back there.

Here is a picture of the cabin that we stayed in. Its 3 bedroom and fits 10 people.

Abigail on the course

Hannah loved climbing this but always got a little nervous once she got to the top.

Cory and Josiah during one of their MANY races There was beautiful nature all around us.

Trick or Treat

2009-10-31T19:01:00.001-07:00

There are around 40 kids that live in our housing area. This year many of the kids were out of town since there wasn't school on Friday for many and there is no school on Monday. So, the few of us that were here trick or treated. These are the kids that started out 3 more joined us later.

Every year my friends and I make matching costumes for our three kids. They were all born within 5 months of eachother. This year we went with ghost. It was a lot of fun getting together with my friends and making the costumes. Then of course it was fun watching the kids together. Hannah is the ghost on the left.

This year Josiahs best friend (the brother of the middle ghost) bought Josiah a wrestling costume. Its for his birthday (Nov 17th) but he gave it to him early so they could dress alike for Halloween. His mom and I made the kids shirts with muscles and a few of the tattoos that Rey Misterio has.

Hannah loved her costume.

Abigail was the Little Mermaid in her wedding dress. For some reason right after I took this picture my neighbor decided to paint her eyes black. From then on she was known as Frankensteins bride.

Here are the 3 kids together.

Funny videos

2009-10-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

Here are some videos I thought I would share with you. Enjoy!

http://www.monstermashup.com/c8bd30

http://www.monstermashup.com/9dda5b

http://www.monstermashup.com/478d3f

Virgen de Zapopan

2009-10-24T05:03:00.000-07:00

October 12th is a special day in Guadalajara and Zapopan. (Zapopan is the actual city we live in). It is the day of the virgen de Zapopan.

The virgen de Zapopan is considered a very important virgen to the catholics in this area. She is a statue (I have been told made out of corn) measuring 25 cm. She was made by artisans in the state of Michoacan. They brought her here when Guadalajara was founded.

She is considered the main saint in this area. Throughout the year she travels to all the catholic cathedrals in the Guadalajara area. On October 12th she travels from the main cathedral in Guadalajara to her "home" cathedral in Zapopan. School is cancelled on this day. Thousands upon thousands of people line the streets between the two cathedrals.

There is a procession/parade that accompanies her between cathedrals.

Here she is. Like I said she is only 25 cm high (10 inches). She is enclosed in a bullet proof case atop of an altar.

Here is a picture of the crowd gathered to see her.

This is the cathedral of Zapopan.

Cory and the AIMers decided to go this year to see and learn. Cory came back with a very heavy heart. Confused by the dedication that these 10's of thousands of people were showing
this 10 inch doll.

Praise God that He is bigger than our wildest dreams and He is all powerfull. I am thankful that He is our creator and He is not made by human hands. Glad to know that my God doesn't need a bullet proof case to live in.

great photography

2009-10-09T16:57:00.000-07:00

I have told you guys before about my favorite photographer but I want to mention her again. Please check out her sight
http://www.amyrosekingphotography.com
Or just click on the link under my blogs that is titled Amy-Rose
She does great work and I highly recommend her to anyone that is in or around Lubbock, Texas.

Independence Day

2009-10-06T16:13:00.000-07:00

The 16th of September is Independence Day in Mexico. We had an all church get together on the night of the 15th. Even though the holiday is on the 16th they celebrate on the evening of the 15th. Most people stay up super late partying and then sleep in on the 16th. Our get together was planned to start at 7:00. We were waiting on some friends to arrive from Mexico City and ended up getting to the party at around 7:40. We were some of the first to arrive!! There were a lot of people at the party and it was really nice because some of our friends (not from church) attended also. We had a great dinner provided by 2 of the churches. Each church was incharge of one area - desserts, paper goods, drinks etc. After dinner we spent a good while singing and enjoying eachothers company.

Isn't this little baby adorable!!

Hannah was so proud of her flag on her face.

Abigail getting her fingernails painted red, white and green.

Felicidades

2009-10-06T06:28:00.000-07:00

I was going through my past blogs and found a few that were never posted that I had just kept as drafts. This is from May when we went to the beach with my sister and her family. We went on Hannhas Birthday. We didn't have a Birthday party for her we prefered spending the money on a trip to the beach for the family.

There is a kids club at the beach. They do crafts and activities with the kids during the day. My kids love going there. Well, one day they did pinatas. We were excited because we knew that Hannah would be expecting a pinata for her Birthday. Here she is watching the pinata.

This is the cake that the waiters prepared for her. She wasn't very happy about it. They sang happy birthday to her and brought it out with a candle. I think it startled her and she didn't ever really get over it.

Heres a picture of the cousins.

Another pinata picture. I am having trouble moving the pictures around.

All church get together

2009-09-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

About once a month or every two months all the churches we work with get together on Sundays. There are 5 churches. We get together and worship and then spend the rest of the day fellowshipping and eating together. A few weeks ago we went to Chapala (about 45 minutes from our house). Not everyone came but there was a good turnout, I think there were a little over 70. One of the members dad owns a plot of land and they allowed us to use it. It was right on the lake. The lake is known for being very polluted and dirty. The first pictures is Hannah with a fish that someone caught for her. She was so excited she didn't realize he was upside down.

Here is a group looking at the lake before we had church.

After church we grilled out. One of the visitors brought two big pots of corn for us to snack on while we were waiting for lunch to be ready. Mexicans love corn on the cob. Its not sweet like we are use to and they cover it with salt, lime, chili and cream. I like mine with salt and chili. Hannah is eating her corn with Nicole (she is the grandaughter of the man who let us use his land). Her parents are part of our church.

This is Arturo preaching. He is one of Corys really good friends. He moved away to Leon for a few years but has recently moved back. We are really excited he is here. He and Cory are starting a weekly get together for the youth of the 5 churches.

This is a very small portion of the children that were there on that day.

2009-08-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

Some of you have heard by now that on Thursday Cory was assaulted. He is doing fine. We have talked to many of you through facebook, phone calls, e-mails. Thank you for your concern. We got a call last night from some really good friends of ours that they had gotten an e-mail that had been forwaded to them. Well, I haven't read the e-mail but I guess the facts aren't quite right and a little exaggerated. I thought I would post what happened so that you guys can know the right story and not be worried. Yes it was bad, but not as bad as seems to be going around.
Here is a picture of Cory the day after the incident.
Here is the right version:
Cory calls starbucks his office. For the first few years here we and other missionaries were renting offices. In the end Cory wasn't using the office very often and was paying around $200 a month for it. We decided to let go of the offices since it was cheaper to go to Starbucks. The one he uses actually has desks with plug ins and internet. This way he only pays for his "office" when he is there and in the end is saving a lot of money. The really cool thing is that all the employs know him and respect him. He really has some good friendships at Starbucks. One of the employs even gave him a coffee press for Christmas.
So, on Thursday Cory was at the "office". At 5:25 he was leaving to come home because Josiah has baseball at 6:30. When he got out to his car he saw that a Tundra pickup had parked behind him and two other cars, blocking them from being able to leave. This is not so unusual, often when people can't find a parking spot they will park behind someone. It happens to me a lot when I go to the bank as well as a few times at the "office". So, as we always do, Cory went inside to let the owner of the vehicle know that he needed to leave. The usual response in this situation is "oh, I am so sorry, let me move my car". Then when you move out of your parking spot they take yours. Well, this time the response was "No, I won't move my car you can just wait on me." He told Cory that if he is going to live in this country he needs to do things like the Mexicans do and just wait on him. If he didn't want to do things his way then he could just go back to his country.
While Cory stood there waiting on the guy one of the guys from Starbucks went up to Cory and asked him how he was doing. Cory told him he was doing ok but really needed to leave and he was waiting on this guys to finish what he was doing. Then the guys came up to him and asked him why he was involving everyone in Starbucks with his problems and talking bad about the guy. Cory explained to him that he wasn't talking bad about him he was simply telling his friend that he needed to leave and couldn't. The guy then offered to take Cory to the bathroom (guess thats the Mexican way of saying "take you out back") Cory told him he didn't want to be shown how strong he was and if he was going to do it he would rather it be infront of everyone and not hidding in a bathroom. The guy told Cory to just go outside and wait for him to move his car. Cory went outside. He said that as soon as the guys (the one guy and his two friends) came outside they began speaking perfect English to him and cussing and saying many vulgar things. The one main guy then punched Cory in the chest. Cory put his arms up in the air and said "I am not going to fight you. I just want to be able to move my car thats all". Then the guys swung at him with his right fist and Cory ducked it. Cory turned to go to the car and the next thing he remembers is waking up on the floor. As far as we know the guys swung one more time and made really good contact knocking Cory down. The guys got in their car and drove off.
When Cory woke up the police had already arrived and told him that they caught the guys. This might sound like a good thing but in reality it isn't. He was also told by witnesses that the guys are from a well known drug trafficing family. The police put Cory in a police jacket and police hat in the back of their car with tinted windows. They drove him over to where the guys were and asked Cory to identify them while still sitting in the back of the car. I don't even think that the guys knew Cory was there. After Cory identified them they asked Cory what he wanted to do. He could prosecute them, ask them for money to pay for his medical bill, ask them for an appoligy etc. Cory told the police he didn't want anything from them because that could bring danger to him and our family if they really are who people say they are. If he were to file paperwork against them then our name and address would be on record. These kind of people have connections everywhere in govt and pretty much have free access to that information.
In the meanwhile I am sitting at home thinking that he lost track of time. When he wasn't home by 6 I called him. He answered but wouldn't really tell me what happened. I finally got some of it out of him. All he would tell me was that he was fine but that he had been assaulted and knocked unconcious. He wouldn't tell me anymore. So, I ended up sitting at home for the next hour not knowing what was going on. I didn't know how severe his injuries were etc. My two best friends that live in my housing eddition came over and spent time with me. They were so nice and almost seemed more upset than I did. They feel really bad that this happened to us in their country. They have always wanted us to feel safe, happy and inlove with Mexico. We have felt safe, happy and inlove with Mexico and still do!
Two of our friends went to Starbucks and picked Cory up. When he got home I had already arranged for a babysitter and we went to the ER to get Cory checked out. He had a pretty deep cut inside his mounth that we were pretty sure would need stitches. Other than that his face was pretty swollen with a black eye and a very fat lip.
Just a mile or so from our house the breaks in our car went out. I turned into a small neighborhood since I was on a major street when it happened. Luckily I was driving slowly and nothing happend. We were only a few blocks from the Ford house so I slowly manuvered thought the neighborhood to get to the Ford house. We dropped the car off and got a taxi to take us back to our house. There was a puddle of break fluid in our driveway. We assume it was a coincidence but the mechanics are going to check and see if the break lines were cut or if it really was just coincidence.
We got our other car and drove to the hospital. We checked in to the ER 3 hours after the incident happened!! The first doctor that looked at his mouth said he would probably need 4 stitches. They called in a plastic surgeon to stitch him up. When the plastic surgeon looked at him he said it would be fine and heal on its own. The doctor was really nice to us and in the end they didn't charge us anything. The doctor told us as we were leaving "you need to forget what happened tonight. I am sorry it happened in my country. When you wake up in the morning forget about it and go on with your life".
Two days later we are fine. Corys face is pretty messed up but it will heal. We still feel just as safe in Mexico as we have in the past. It definately shook us up. When I was sitting at home wondering what had happened I called a good friend of mine in the states and I told her "I just want to go home". I really was upset but now that I know the facts I don't feel that way. I know that it was a random act of violence just like the ones that happen in the USA. Cory just happened to run into an angry mean guy that was looking for a fight. This can happen anywhere, not just in Mexico.
We thank God for all of you that have called, written, prayed etc. We really feel at peace and ok with what happened. I really think its because so many of you have been praying for us.
I forgot to mention that Cory and I went back to the "office" yesterday. The employees that were working were the same 3 that were there when Cory was attacked. When we first walked in and the guys saw us one of them got teary eyed. They assured us that they had never seen these guys before. They said they had an accent and probably don't even live in Guadalajara. I don't know if they are just saying that to make us feel better or what but it worked.
Thanks again for worrying about us and keeping us in your prayers.

2009-08-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a month long visit to the states. It was fun but also a lot of work. A few days before we left Mexico we found out that our renters (we have a rent house in Lubbock TX) had moved out and left our house a disaster. The truth is they had been living in absolutely horible conditions. There was urine all over the walls and two of the bedrooms carpet was urine soaked. There were handprints of fecal mater on the bathroom walls. Pizza in the airconditioning fan??? Food on the walls and every rooms carpet had stains from red, orange and brown soda. It was horrible. Anyway a large amount of time and money was put into fixing the house up. It was very frustrating. It is back on the market and we are fervently praying that we can get renters in it soon.

We visited churches that support us in Clovis (NM), Lubbock (TX), Tulia (TX), and Yukon (OK). We also visited a few families that support us in Texas. We were thankful to get to see so many of you but sorry we didn't get to see all of you. Next time when things aren't so hectic with the house!

We have made it a family tradition to take a few days off for a family vacation and see the Red Sox play. Every year so far we have been able to either see them in Houston or Dallas. This year they were in Dallas. We had a great time at the game. A family in Dallas gifted us with tickets which made it even more fun!

We enjoy going to the World Acquarium when we are in Dallas. So, the day after the game we got up, ate breakfast and were heading off to the acquarium. As we were pulling out of the hotel we could see 6 flags. We had previously decided that the kids were probably too young for 6 flags and maybe in a few years we would go. Something got into us and we decided to ditch the acquarium and go to 6 flags instead. We turned the car around and cought the hotel shuttle to 6 flags. It was one of the funnest days! The kids loved it. They had rides for every age. About an hour after we got there we saw some carnival games. I never play the games, they are a waste of money! Well, we saw this big monkey. My little sister is about to have her first son and wants to decorate the room with monkeys. Cory just had to win that monkey for Levi. Well, he did! The funny thing is that we had to drag that monkey around the park all day long! We took pictures of him hanging out with us.

Facebook is giving me a hard time with the pictures and isn't allowing me to arrange them in the order that I would like. Sorry that they aren't in order but I am tired of messing with it.

This is a picture of Hannah on the way back to Mexico. My parents bought the kids a coloring book set that we thought came with crayons we later found out it was markers. I heard laughing from the back and turned around and saw Abigail coloring Hannahs face!

So, while visiting some friends in Childress, Texas, we went to look at their German Shepherd puppies. Somehow a week later we owned one! Everyone in the family is really excited except one. He has been really good for the kids. Hannah loves him and calls him her "my baby" and her "bubba". She has taken it upon herself to give him treats. We have cought her many times sneaking treats to him.

A few days ago the kids were swimming and Youkilis (the dog - named after a Red Sox player) ended up joining them. It was really funny. Sorry the pictures aren't in order.

Here are my parents dog, my sisters dog and Youkilis playing.

Beach

2009-06-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my twin sister and her family came to visit us. It was a great trip. It was the first time our 3 year old niece had been to Mexico. We had a fun time showing her the sights. The day after they arrived we left and went to the beach. It is only a few hours away so we left here in the morning and were there in time to eat a late lunch. Here are some pictures of the second day we were there. At night time they have a kids "disco". The kids exercise to a few songs and then have a competition. Each night its a different competition but this time it was hot potato. There were only two kids besides our four. Abigail ended up winning and she got a t-shirt which she is pretty proud of.

After the kids disco we headed up to the room. This is what Hannah looked like about 10 minutes after getting to the room. She was so tired, she fell asleep sitting up.

The resort has a really cool open air restaurant. The only problem is the birds! Josiah was feeling pretty big because we would let him get the food by himself (its a buffet style). One day he came to the table with his donuts that he had choosen for dessert. Well one of the donuts had a big hole on the side of it. We soon realized it had been made by a bird. So we put it on a tray and quickly another bird came to eat it.
We tried getting a picture of all four kids burried in the sand but the 3 year olds didn't really think it was a good idea so here are the two big kids.

Out with dad

2009-06-22T03:58:00.000-07:00

Abigail so badly wanted to go out with dad on the kayak. The first day Cory went out with Josiah but by the time they got back to shore it was time for the pinata and Abigail decided she wanted to do the pinata and ride the kayak the next day. She was so excited, she kept talking about going out on the boat with dad. Well she finally got to and she had a great time as you can see from the pictures.

Chillin

2009-06-22T02:46:00.000-07:00

We went out to the beach at around 9 in the morning and this is what the beach looked like. We were the only people out. Its kinda sad because between the bad economy and the N1H1 flu tourism is really suffering in Mexico right now. With tourism down so much the hotels are running some amazing deals. The resort we always stay at (its actually where we honeymooned 10 year ago next month) is running some great deals right now. If you are interested in the resort please contact me, I can hook you up with some great deals. Right now I believe the hotel is charging $45 a night per adult all inclusive!!! Yes all inclusive that means your hotel room, all your food and beverages, non motorized sports (bikes, kayaks, tennis etc). Kids under 6 are free and 7-13 half price. Seriously its a great time to come because the resorts aren't packed and the prices are amazing!!

We would love for you to come visit!!!

quick update

2009-05-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

So, I am shocked that some of you still check my blog. Sorry it has been a crazy month but then when isnt it.
Seems like most of the month was taken up by N1H1 flu. The schools closed down for 3 weeks. It was a little crazy. The school sent us homework via their blog. That was Josiah stayed up to date and they are still right on schedule. The govt has extended the school year until the 14th of July but Josiah and Abigails schools have worked it out where grades will end as planned on the 3rd of July. The schools have to stay open until the 14th or the government will fine them (since they are private schools). The three weeks at home were crazy but kinda fun at the same time. Since we weren't allowed to leave our houses it was fun because we often stayed in our JP's all day and just spent time together. We did leave the house a few times and that was also fun because no one was out. We went to Peter Pipper Pizza one day and we were the only people there. It was fun to have all the games to ourselves.
I also took a few days and went to Lubbock - by myself. My little sister graduated with her doctorate in Physical Theraphy and I just couldn't miss that event. Tickets were cheap and I still had some Christmas money left so it was a no brainer. I didn't tell anyone I was coming so it was really fun to suprise everyone. I had a good time and a big thanks to Cory for watching the 3 kids for me.
My twin sister, her husband and my niece are in the air right now. They should be arriving to GDL in about an hour and a half. We are so excited!
We also got 3 new AIMers a few weeks ago. They are doing well and we are glad to have them here. We now have 9!
Well, I just wanted to let you all know that we are doing well. I need to go finish changing sheets and get the kids dressed to head to the airport.
Sorry if there are misspellings or grammar errors. I don't have time to check. Thanks for checking in.

Dump People

2009-05-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

Did you know the average American family spends

$341.98

a week on groceries!

Feeding the dump people in Honduras.
I have mentioned this ministry once before but I want you to check it out again. I know some of you have been able to help this ministry and others might not have been able to help at the time.
Trey Morgan the preacher in Childress Texas is doing a great campaign to raise awareness and funds for this ministry. Its amazing. Please read about it.
http://www.treymorgan.net/

Swine Flu changes our schedule

2009-04-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to update everyone. We are doing fine. There actually haven't been any official reports of swine flu in our state (although there have been some un-official reports).

The Mexican govt decided to suspend classes in the whole nation until May6th (with the possibility of it being even later).

When I found out that school was going to be cancelled I called Cory and told him I was heading to the store! Well, so was everyone else. The store was crazy and so many people were wearing mouth coverings. Lysol was a hot item in many carts!

We have been told that we are to stay at home until the 6th!! I hope we don't go crazy. I have lots of BIG plans for the kids - deep cleaning their rooms, organizing, studying, some crafts, some science experiments, I am even thinking about going and buying a microscope etc. Anyone have any ideas of experiments or crafts we should do?? Let me know.

Tequilla #2 -paper making

2009-04-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago when we were in Tequila Cory, my father in law and I took a paper making class. It was only suppose to last 15 minutes but we were so interested and had so many questions that it lasted a whole lot longer. As I mentioned in my last post Tequila is made from the agave plant. The heart of the agave, or piña, is used for the tequila while the rest is just discarded. Well, the part that isn't used in making tequila can be used to make paper.

The paper is a dark color but can be bleached.

The teacher showed us a few different techniques that can be used to make the paper.

Here I am making my first piece of paper. The first one was made out of Agave, the second piece we made was made of a mixture of agave and recycled paper. The third piece we made was a mixture of the two pieces. First we made a paper of the recycled/agave mix then right on top of that paper we made an agave piece. We then took away parts of the top layer to make a decorative piece.
This is how Cory's decorative piece turned out.

Tequila

2009-04-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

You might not know this but Tequila comes from the state of Jalisco (the state we live in). It is actually patented in a way that it can only be made in Jalisco and a few other surrounding areas. Well, Tequila, Mexico is the home of Tequila. It is about 45 minutes from Guadalajara. Every year the weekend before Easter they have Mariachi and Folk dancing. My in-laws are always in town during that time of year and we like to go hear the Mariachi.

Here is a look down on the town of Tequila from the interstate.

The kids infront of the stage before the Mariachi came out. The Pinneapple looking things in the background are the pines of the agave plant. These are cooked and then the sugars from these pines are turned into Tequila.

The Mariachi playing and the Jose Cuervo mascot dancing.
There are two mariachi concerts. At the end of the first concert the kids needed to go to the bathroom. When I got back Cory told me that I had just missed them asking if anyone was having a Birthday so that the Mariachi could sing to them. I talked to the MC between shows and she said that they would do it again so that Abigail could go on stage and get sung to. I thought she would be embarrassed and not want to do it but she was so excited. She ran up there and smiled the whole song. First they sang to her the Spanish song "Las mañanitas" then they sang "Happy Birthday" in English. When she got back to her seat she said "Mom, did you know that Mariachi know English?!"

Tapalpa

2009-04-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Last week when Cory's parents were visiting we took a little road trip to a town called Tapalpa, about an hour and a half away from Guadalajara. There were huge cactus plants that were flowering. I wanted to get a good picture of the flowers but the plants were so tall that it wasn't possible to get a real close picture. This plant was probably at least 10 feet tall. If you click on the picture it will enlarge and you can see how pretty the plant is.

We went out to a lake and I got some cute pictures of the kids. Sorry they are sideways I still can't figure out how to turn them. If anyone knows how to rotate them please let me know.

We had thought about renting a boat and going out on the lake but since last week was a big tourist week they raised the prices and it was a little ridiculous. We ended up taking a few pictures and heading into town.

There were all kinds of fake animals around the lake. Zebras, elephants, dogs, rhinos, etc.
Here is Abigail under the shark!

Easter and Abigails 5th Birthday

2009-04-16T08:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a super fun day. Not only was it Easter but Abigail turned 5. We got up and hunted eggs and the kids found their Easter baskets (wonderfully filled with goodies my in laws brought us from the states).

We got ready for church and headed to Krispy Kreme for a fun breakfast. Our Krispy Kreme has a great playground and we were the only customers they had. We stayed for over and hour and as we were leaving another family arrived. It was great we had to the whole place to ourselves. We then headed to church and had a good time with everyone there.

After lunch at Sirloin Stockade we came home and had cake and opened presents. It was a lot of fun.

Field Trip

2009-04-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I got to go with Abigails class on a field trip. It was a field trip to a "farm". This farm is booked every school day with school tours. They said not a day goes by when they don't have a field trip.

Here are Abigail and her classmates waiting for the presentation to start. There were many stations that the kids were taken to and taught about farms. Here the kids are filling cups with dirt and planting corn. They had an area set up with corn plants of all different sizes where they showed the kids the growth process of corn all the way to harvest. After that we moved on to the tortilla station where they were told about how the corn is dried and then turned into dough for tortillas.
The kids were each given a small amount of dough that they rolled into a ball and put into a press. Then they took their tortillas to be cooked and later fed the tortillas to the chickens and other animals.

They also had a reptile show at the very end. Abigail wasn't so sure about this baby croc.

Baptisms

2009-04-10T07:00:00.001-07:00

Cory and I have been working with this young couple for over a year now. They decided a few weeks ago that they wanted to get baptised. Two of the churches met at a waterpark for church on Sunday and they were baptised there. It was a fun day. Since it was a Sunday the waterpark was super crowded so we didn't stay real long.

Kike and Monica

Football

2009-04-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

American football just ins't that popular here in Mexico. Soccer football is the dominant sport. There is afterschool american football program. Its pretty intense though. They practice every afternoon and have games every weekend. Half of the games are out oftown and they stay the night there before their Saturday morning games. Well, the football school approached some schools in town and asked them if they wanted to start an aftershool program that competed with the other schools in town. A little less intense than the other program. Well, I was told by the gym teacher that when they made the announcement in gym class Josiah was pretty much jumping up and down. He has loved playing. The season was only mid Jan-1 st week of April. It was a lot of fun to watch him. Here are some pictures of the season.

Josiah is the one closest with the black pants.

Trying to act tough

This was after a really good tackle right before half time. As they were walking in to the locker room he and his coach were reliving the play. It was so adorable (is that an ok word to use when talking about football?)

The team right after they got their jerseys.

The parents had to present the jerseys to their own kids and tell them something.
I am glad the season is over because things are going to calm down a little but it sure was fun.

Science project and Abigails spring

2009-04-09T00:30:00.000-07:00

Every year the kids Kinder has a party to celebrate spring. The kids all come with their bikes decorated for the spring. Some moms even have their kids bikes professionally decorated! In the past I have spent a large quantity of time on decorating the bike but this year I decided not to spend so much time on it. Instead I went out to eat at Chilis with friends and then they came home and helped me get her bike ready for the next morning. In the end I think it turned out 10x better than any other year. It was really cute.
Sorry I cant figure out how to rotate this picture.

Seriously the picture doesn't do it justice! Thanks girls for helping me.

Here is Abigail holding her class sign. They actually ride their bikes around the park with the classrooms. They even have a little race. After the bike parade there are parent/child competitions. It was a lot of fun. She is still talking about how we raced together.

Josiah had a science exam a few weeks ago. For the exam he had to explain to the class the life cycle of a butterfly or frog. He choose the butterfly. He was allowed to bring a visual aid to help him teach the class. This is what he (with the help of myself and Jeff Smith) made. Don't worry he was allowed to have adult help to make the prop. The exam was strictly the oral fluency and ability to communicate the life cycle to his classmates. Cory was worried that there was too much adult help with his prop. I saw some of the other classmates aids and I promise you they had much more adult help than Josiah did. It was probably the same moms that had their kids bikes professionaly decorated for their kinder party. Josiah did a great jog he got a 100%!

retreat

2009-04-09T00:17:00.000-07:00

When we got home from Mexico City we had an all church retreat. It was a lot of fun. The Sunset Church of Christ college group joined us for the retreat. It was great to have them with us - they helped out with the children which was an amazing blessing.

Here is a picture of Hannah at the retreat with one of our Aimers - Aaron.

The youth prepared a skit for everyone. They spent months getting together on Saturdays working to plan this for us. The awesome thing is that the kids live spread all over the Guadalajara area. As far as a 45 minutes drive from eachother. I was really proud of them because they did a great job but even more knowing just how hard it was for them to get together every Saturday.

It was a really good weekend filled with so many blessings.

Gymanstics and Baseball

2009-04-06T06:59:00.000-07:00

I have 6 drafts that I am working on to post this week. I decided too much has gone on since the last post and I would divide it so it wouldn't be

so overwhelming.

We had a great time at the gymnastics show. It was a lot of fun. It was a little different than I expected. It was a show not a competition so the athletes were a little free. They did some silly things and goofed off a lot. It was still fun but not quite as intense as I expected it to be. The girls had a blast.

The day after the gymnastics show we headed to Mexico City for the World Baseball Classic. We had a great time. We sat in the front row at almost all the games we went to. It was general seating in our section so we would always go 3 hours before the games and get in line. It worked out nice that way because we got good seats and Josiah got to watch batting practice. At the last game we went to (Mexico vs Australia) Josiah got two balls thrown to him by players. One was from an Australian and the other was from Miguel Ojeda. He also got his hat signed by Ojeda, Jorge Cantu, and Oliver Perez. It was pretty cool.

While in Mexico City we stayed with our great friends the Brednichs. We had such a good time visiting them and catching up on life. Their kids are great and we had a blast at Pierce's Birthday party.

Today, April 6th has been a long awaited day in our household. Today was the opening day for the Boston Red Sox. Much preparation went into today. I went shopping yesterday to make sure we had the ingredients needed for a proper game day cook out. This morning the kids were warned that at 11 o'clock everyone was going to stop what they were doing and get the house in great shape so we could watch the 1 o'clock game. Without me even having to say anything Josiah began cleaning at 11 and soon was asking me what else needed to get done, what amazing power baseball holds over a 7 year old. At 12 I realized I was missing kidney beans for the chili. Well Kidney beans can only be bought at the import store which is about a 15-20 minute drive from our house. I quickly threw together the Boston Baked Beans put them in the oven and drove to get the kidney beans. I got home at 1:03 and there still wasn't a first pitch. 1:15 still no first pitch, they were showing interviews with the players. Josiah was getting a little frustrated so I got on the internet and what did I see GAME POSPONED because of rain and wind. So, I broke the news to my family. All Josiah could say for the next 5 minutes was "I did all that work for nothing!" over and over. The truth is I was feeling the same exact thing he was! "I did all that for nothing!" Well, the game is tomorrow (Tuesday) at 4:05. I think we will just order pizza or have frito pies because I am not doing that over again.

Busy week ahead - its a rough life!

2009-03-07T04:12:00.000-08:00

There are some sad things about living in a foreign country. We don't get to spend holidays with family, we don't get to watch our niece grow up, we don't get Papa Johns or Mazzios, theres no Cold Stone Creamery here etc. Honestly the only really bad things are being away from family.

There are many really cool things about living in a foreign country though.

Our kids speak both Spanish and English, they are learning about two cultures, they are more tolerant to people that are "different" etc.

Since we live in a city of 7-9 million people there are other perks. Any city that size is going to have really cool attractions. In the past few years Sarah Brightan, Placido Domingo, Yanni, Celine Dion and many more famous singers have given concerts. I haven't been to any of them.

I am still waiting for Josh Groban to come and I promise I will be there!

Well, tonight there is a Gymnastics show. There will be many Bejing Olympic medalists performing. Including Nastia Liukin the all-around gold medalist. I am really excited. I am going to take Abigail and Kim and Karsyn Rush are going to go with us. It should be a blast. I will post pictures later.

Tomorrow morning we (Cory, Josiah and I) are leaving for Mexico City for a 5 day vacation. We will be attending the World Baseball classic. We love Baseball - especially Josiah and Cory. When we first heard about it we thought it would be cool but didn't think there was going to be any way that we could go. As I looked into it I was told that you couldn't buy single game tickets you had to buy a pack that included all 6 games. I thought for sure we wouldn't be able to do that. Then I found out that you could get a pack for as low as $30 and we were in! So, they won't be the best seats in the stadium but it is going to be a blast. We are going to be staying with our really good friends that are missionaries in Mexico City. Its cool because all but the first game are evening games so we have all day free. We are looking forward to visiting with the missionaries in Mexico City during the day. We are really excited. The girls will stay here with our wonderful AIMers who volunteered to keep them for us. We originally were going to take them with us but weren't sure how they would do with 6 baseball games. I don't know who is more excited Josiah about going to the games or the girls about staying with the AIMers! I am glad that our kids love the AIMers as much as they do.

We will get into Guadalajara early Friday morning. Friday night we have a group coming in from the Sunset Church of Christ. They will be here for a week on a spring break mission trip. Saturday and Sunday we will be at an all church retreat and the week is going to be filled with lots of great ministry and cultural experiences for the group. I am looking forward to it.

IM GOING TO BE AN AUNT AGAIN!!! x 2!!!

2009-02-26T13:06:00.001-08:00

PRAISE GOD!

2009-02-24T22:46:00.000-08:00

Its been a long day. I managed to get all the paper work and fines payed to get my car back. It took about 5 hours but its done.
Tonight I had a party with my neighbor friends. 9 of us get together when its our Birthday. We each give the Birthday girl $10 and spend a few hours catching up on things and just having fun. Well, its almost 1 in the morning and I am just walking in the door. The cool thing is we all live in the same housing community. As I was walking home about 30 minutes ago I heard my next door neighbor, who was just leaving the party, yell my name. I turned around to see what she needed and noticed that she was leaning up against a car and shaking. She told me to get her husband (who is a doctor). I ran to the house - funny side note. While I was running to her house the other neighbors dog decided to chase me and bark. Well, by now a few of the other ladies that were at the party are watching and all they see is me running like crazy down the street being chased by the dog. They thought I was scarred of the dog. I went into my next door neighbors house and woke her husband up. He came and helped us take care of her. She has a form of epilepsy but hasn't been able to control it with any medicines. It was really scarry and she was very humiliated. She openly claims to being very vain. She frequently mentions how important her appearance is. We know that she is going to be emberassed tomorrow. We want to help her but know that she isn't going to want to talk to us about it. After she went into the house the rest of us when back into the house where the party was. The really cool thing was that when we were in the house people kept bringing up that we need to be praying for her and that only God can help her.
The seizure wasn't enjoyable but sometimes I wonder how things like that can be used by God. What I mean is, it is making my neighbors think more about praying for their friends. Somehow being in prayer for someone makes you feel closer to them so in the end your friendships grow to a different level. I pray that she can get on medicine that helps control her attacks and that maybe though all of this we (her friends) can help her to see that her appearance isn't what matters to us. Nor should it matter to her.
Ok, so the title of my post. . . . We got a call this afternoon from our friend Brian. I wrote about him in early January in a post where I listed a bunch of sad things that were going on at the time. You might remember that his aunt was kidnapped in mid/late December. They say that if you get kidnapped there is around an 85% chance that you will not be returned. Well her family, friends, families friends, maybe even some of you have been praying for her. We got a call this afternoon that they released her!!!! She will be arriving to Guadalajara tomorrow. Praise God! Thank you so much to any of you that have been praying for her. To be honest with you I had given up hope that she was still alive. Once again I have been amazed!
Good night.

Without a car

2009-02-23T21:21:00.000-08:00

Well, today has not been a very good day. Abigail has been running 102-103 temp since Friday. I made an apt to take her to the doctor at 1:00 today. She is so fussy when she is sick and Hannah want to help her which just makes Abigail mad. Needless to say lots of fussing and lots of fighting going on in our house the last few days between siblings.

I got to the doctors office about 15 minutes early and found a good parking spot (Where we always park, on a street with no no parking signs on it). So I parked and went to the doctors office. 30 minutes later Abigail had been diagnosed with a viral and bacterial infection - sinus and broncs. We head out the door and the street has zero cars on it. I looked again and again and no there were no cars whatsoever on the road.

I went back into the hospital where the doctors office is located. I tried calling Cory on my cell phone and my minutes had ran out. I am on a plan where I buy minutes in advance and they expire after two months. Well I guess the last time I added minutes was two months ago today. So I had to borrow the hospitals phone. In the end I took a taxi home. The taxi driver explained to me that it usually takes a while for the tow truck to get all the paperwork done at the transit office and often there is a long line of tow trucks. He encouraged me to go see if I could find the tow truck and see if the paperwork hadn't been filled if they would let it go. Well, our other car is in the shop - it was supose to get out today but this afternoon the truck delivered the parts and somehow the parts for our car weren't on the truck so we will have to wait till Thursday to get our car back. So, my neighbohr lent me her car. Well, the coral (as they call it) is outside of town and about a 30 minute drive. We got there and there was my car. I talked to the driver of the tow truck and he explained to me that there was nothing that could be done. He did allow me to get stuff out of the car which was super big help.

So tomorrow I have to go to the center (about 25 minutes from here) and stand in line at the transit office and pay a fine and towing expenses. I would love explain to them that there weren't any no parking signs anywhere but I know they won't care. Once I pay the fine and towing expenses then I will have to go back to the coral (about 1 hour from the office where I will pay the fine) and hopefully they will pass my car over. I am not expecting any of this to go smoothely. Luckily I have a super great friend/neighbor and she is lending me her car so that I can do all of this.

To end our day Cory and I went to the movies. We had bought tickets in advance this morning before all of this happened. We saw Slumdog Millionare. Very good. I once again was reminded that no matter what bad things happen in my life I am still blessed. When Cory and I were coming home we decided to fill my friends car up with gas. While at the gas station another woman drove up and only had enough money to buy about 1 1/2 gal of gas. This is when Cory and I were once again reminded how blessed we are. We might have occasional bad days but we are so blessed. We have more than we could imagine or ask for.

Education

2009-02-20T18:28:00.000-08:00

We have been so blessed with Josiah's school. One of the things about living in Mexico is that we have to send our kids to private schools. We found the perfect school for Josiah and we are really happy with it. He loves it, not once has he ever said to us that he doesn't want to go to school. It has been wonderful.

He is now taking after school football at the school. One day when Cory was in Mexico City I hadn't prepared lunch so I decided that we would eat in the school restaurant. I took Josiah, Abigail and Hannah into the restraurant and quickly realized that we were going to go without lunch that day. It was so bad. There were a ton of flies, trash everywhere and just dirty. I directly went to the pricipals office and told him what I had just seen in the school restaurant. He assured me that everything would be resolved. The next day I got a call from the owner of the restaurant explaining how she was going to work really hard to fix it etc. but it was just hard to keep the place clean with 1200 students. Long story short I was told things would get better. A few days later I found myself in the principals office again talking about an afterschool art class where the kids had been left alone so that the teacher could go eat. Anyway while talking to the principal I mentioned that in the states parents are much more involved in schooling than they are allowed to be here in Mexico. (I do realize that parents in the USA are also not that involved but if a parent wants to be involved they are given the opportunity). I explained to him that moms and dads are even allowed to go into the classroom at times and help out or do special activities. This absolutely floored him. He just couldn't believe that they allowed parents into the classroom. I told him that I would be more than happy to be part of something like that at our school. I would be willing to read to the kids in English, do crafts, etc. It was such a novel idea to him. He seemed really interested.

This was a week ago today. Well, this afternoon he came and found me at football practice. He had a stack of papers in his hand. He told me he wanted me to see what the papers were about. He actually followed through with my idea! He had a small group of test parents come this week and take part in activities!! He then had them fill out a paper to see what they thought about it and if it was worth doing more often. Every parent thought it was great and wants to keep doing it! The director was so excited.

I know it wasn't an original idea but I am really proud. I hope this is something that will change the lives of many parents and children.

I will keep you updated. Please post comment if you have ideas of things that parents can do in schools. Maybe something that you are doing or did in your childs school.

new camera

2009-02-14T05:55:00.000-08:00

While in the states a few weeks ago I decided to get a new camera. I absolutely love it. I wanted to share some of my new pictures I have taken with you.

Last night we went to the center of Zapopan. We actually do not live in Guadalajara we live in a city named Zapopan. We went out to eat with the AIMers and some of our friends that are visiting from Texas. Here is a picture of the cathedral downtown.

Our AIMers with Robby, Kris and Pat
Josiah has started playing football. He really loves it and is having a lot of fun.

This is a picture I took while flying over Guadalajara. Look at that polution!

I love this picture of a snowflake that fell on my window while driving through Ohio.

Update on the dump ministry

2009-02-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to send you guys and update on the dump ministry. I know some of you support this ministry and wanted to send you the update.

http://terriltindall.blogspot.com/2009/01/lessons-from-dump.html

Things are going well here. I was in the US for a week with family. I got back on Thursday and Friday at 4:45 AM Cory left for Mexico City. He will be there until Wed night. Its a little crazy with only one parent jugling carpool, school, homework, afterschool activities, housework, a cold etc. Hopefully things will calm down when Cory gets back.
I have some great pictures that I want to get posted but they will have to wait till a later time. I got a new camera while in Oklahoma - thanks to Circuit City going out of business. I love the camera and it takes increadible pictures. Look forward to sharing them with you later - have a great day.

Hospital Trip

2009-01-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I leave for the USA. I am excited to get to see family and especially my niece.
I planned on spending the day doing laundry, packing and getting everything ready for Cory to be with the kids for 8 days. Instead I spent all afternoon at the hospital. Today at school some kids were running and they pushed Abigail down pretty hard. Everything looked fine until a few hours later she started throwing up. We ended up taking her in to get x-rays and then to see our wonderful pediatrician. Thankfully his office is in the hospital. Neurologically she was doing fine. He did a bunch of neuro tests on her (lots of the tests they do to check if people are drunk - touch your nose, walk in a strait line etc.) There was an abnormality in the skull x-rays right where she had fallen so we had to go take more x-rays. Everything ended up being fine but it was a little scary. The abnormality was the line where her skull meets. Her head was turned just right and the line showed up and looked like it might be a fracture - Thank God everything is ok. She is not allowed to go to school tomorrow. I will leave for the USA at 8:30 so she is going to spend the day with dad. She is pretty excited. They are going to go on a breakfast date. She infomed us that it wasn't a real date because a date was when you go out to eat at night time. Well, I don't really have time to be sitting on the computer. My flight leaves in 12 hours and I still have 3 loads of laundry, packing, etc to get done.

update

2009-01-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

I wanted to update you guys on some of the past info.

This morning Mitzi Brown passed away. Her memorial services will be at Sunset in Lubbock on Thursday.

Javier - we have learned that the dad (who is giving us all of our info) has probably been lied to. The info we have been getting doesn't seem to match up. He is being kept in a max security jail - which isn't for small offenses. When Javier has asked his ex-wife for the lawyers info she informed him that he didn't need to get involved he just needed to find the money to get him out. We do know that he is being mistreated and that he has bruises all over him. I feel bad for Javier Sr. because his family isn't telling him the truth. We are hoping that he will see the value of his church family during this time because everyone is so worried about him and his real family is lying to him.

My grandfather passed away yesterday. The funeral is going to be on Feb 2nd in Ohio. I will be flying to the US on Thursday.

2009-01-22T17:55:00.001-08:00

Please watch this video its pretty good.

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msn&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:98d1744c-be9d-4db3-b26a-ca8f421cb600&showPlaylist=&from=IV2_en-us_v11HP&fg=gtlv2

What do you pledge?

Odds and Ends

2009-01-17T07:58:00.001-08:00

I fill like my life gets crazier and crazier every day. Hannah has decided to stop taking naps as of November so I think that is part of what is contributing to the increase of craziness. Usually while she took her nap was when I got quiet time, cleaned house, did laundry etc. Now I am trying to do all of that with her following me around and it doesn't work as well. We do get a lot of really fun playing time together though. Yesterday the chores were neglected so that we could play cat and dog for an hour. She loved following me around the house barking and meowing. I didn't much like it when she decided to start giving me dog kisses.

We are also working on potty training but it isn't going so well - mainly my fault.

An update on some of the information that I had in my last post. Javier - the guy who was washing a car and while he was washing the car another car hit it and ran. He is in Jail now. He was taken to court and found responsible for the damages which are around $500 - this is around 5 weeks of his normal salary. He will be in jail until the money is payed. His dad was baptised a few years ago but hasn't been going to church. He often works on Sundays or spends the day with his family, I pray that this situation might bring him back to church. The churches are currently in prayer about his situation. Often the church is asked to help with money to get out of these kinds of situations but decides not to help because it is reafirming a corrupt government. The truth is that Javier shouldn't be in jail nor should he be held responsible for the damages no more than any witness to an accident. In this culture usually the upperclass controls the lower class no matter who is right and who is wrong. Please be praying for this situation. In the past we have seen judges change their minds and reverse their rulings.

Our friend Mitzi is still holding on. All of her organs other than her heart and brain have shut down. She is still on life support. My understanding is that she is ina drug induced coma but is taken out of it occasionally. They have been able to communicate and she has let them know that she is willing to fight for her life. Continue to pray for her family. She has a 16 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. Like I said before her family is such a good, caring, serving, loving family.

Our friend Brayan whose Aunt was kidnapped: there has been no new news. They haven't heard from the kidnappers as far as we know. Its not something we bring up with Brayan but we know he will tell us if there are any new developments. Tonight Cory and the AIMers are going to a Chivas game with Brayan and his cousin (the daughter of the lady who was kidnapped).

The kids are doing well and growing so fast. Josiah still loves first grade and is giving his teacher a run for her money. I feel like he has a little Denis the Menice in him but at times I really think he is just a little boy clueless to the world around him. This week he got in trouble 3 times that I know of at school. One of the time he got a sucker taken away from the director of the school. They sell the suckers in the school cafeteria and I am still not clear on why he got it taken away. He just told me he isn't allowed to buy those anymore. The good thing is that he usually tells me about it first thing when he gets out of school. A few days ago he told me that he hit a girl on the head with an eraser. He said that two other kids were having an eraser fight and that one of the erasers landed by him and he just wanted to return it to the owner but that he threw it and it hit his classmate on the head. Oops. He got in trouble yesterday because he didn't know it was time to line up to go inside from recess and he was still playing when they headed in to the classroom.

Abigail loves school and is still planning her upcoming Birthday - an ongoing thing. She spends every day of her life planning her future party.

Well, its Saturday which means baseball for our family. Baseball season is year round in Mexico. Little league takes a one month break for Christmas and a one month break in the summer. Josiah has a game in a few hours. Cory is also in baseball but it doesn't start up for another week or two. Thanks for reading

Prayers

2009-01-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

I am so grumpy today. I hate these kind of days. I am sick and tired of bad news.
One of my very good friends house was robbed a week and a half ago. They are a very humble family and didn't have much to rob but the little they had was taken from them. They no longer feel safe in their home and don't feel safe leaving it either.
Another friend had his car stollen last week.
We have a friend named Javier. He works in our housing unit and is very poor. His son washes cars on the streets to make money for his wife and two kids. He charges a few dollars per car and is barely making ends meat. While washing one of the cars another car hit the car and left the scene. The owner of the car is holding him responsible and making him pay for the repair of the car.
Last night we had the AIMers over and one of their friends (Bryan) joined us. We found out that over the Christmas holidays his aunt was kidnapped. It has been almost a month now. The family has handed over $325,000 and still haven't gotten her back. They were told that everything would be resolved this week. Please be praying for this family. She has three kids (in their 20's). My prayer is that she be returned and that she isn't being mistreated. I will let you know when anything changes.
I would also like to ask you to pray for Mitzi Brown she is a friend of ours from Lubbock. She is very sick and things aren't looking good. I heard a few minutes ago that things are going downhill. She comes from a very good family that has always been so kind and generous to others. She is very important to so many people. She has two young chidlren.
I thank God for the health and safety he has given my family.
Please, please take some time today to pray for these people.

Thank you to all of you that are faithful and check my blog way more than I update it. I look forward to writting about our Christmas break at another time.

Whales!

2008-12-17T07:38:00.001-08:00

This post is being written for Mrs. Witchers first grade class in Watertown, South Dakota. Hi to all the first graders and I hope you enjoy the pictures. If you click on the picture it will enlarge (get bigger) and you can see the whales a little better. We got to see a mother whale and her baby. It was pretty cool. The Whales are only in Mexico during the winter time. They arrived a few weeks ago and will stay here until things warm up in the United States.

In this picture the mom showed her tail. This means that they were going down deep and probably wouldn't come up for another 45 minutes.
Here is Hannah playing with the snorkeling equipment.

I heard that you guys learned about turtles yesterday. Here is a picture of Josiah cheering on his little turtle. After the turtles hatch the marine biologists keep the turtles for a few days so that they can grow stronger and have a better survival rate. When they are strong enough they are released into the ocean. They are released at sunset because there are less predators out. The conservationists draw a line in the sand and expain that people are not allowed to cross that line. They then have you rub your hands in the sand (I think so that anything on your hands - germs, oils etc. wont hurt the turtles). After that they pass the turtles out to anyone that wants to release one. Then the turtles are layed down on the sand and they head to the ocean. It's really cool because the turtles have an instinct to head to the ocean so even if you face your tutle away from the ocean he/she will turn itself around and head to the water.
Hope you enjoyed. Have a great Christmas vacation and be nice to Mrs. Witcher!!

2008-12-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

While in Vallarta we went on an excursion. The boat took us out into the ocean and then let us snorkel for a while. It was pretty cool. The fish were amazing and very big.
Abigail once again with her hand on her waist.

Josiah after snorkeling for 10 seconds. He got scared and Cory pulled him right out.

These fish were beautiful and the picture doesn't do them justice. They were probably at least 9-12 inches long.

Once again the hand on her waist.

On the beach there were two groups of guys making huge sand sculptures.

Nativity scene. To help you understand how big it was - it was taller than the iguana in the previous picture. Probably twice as tall.

We got to release sea turtles again. The kids loved it and so did the AIMers.

Abigail named her turtle Abigail and she cheered her on the whole time till she made it into the ocean.

Back from Vallarta

2008-12-15T13:55:00.001-08:00

I noticed that some of you are still faithful and check my blog even though I haven't been good about updating.

We just got in the door from a great retreat. We went for 5 days/4 nights to Puerto Vallarta. We took the AIMers for an evaluation and relaxation retreat. Today the AIMers have been here exactly 7 months which is half of their time. We wanted to take them out of town to have some time of refection on how the last 7 months have gone and what they want to accomplish in the next 7 months. We had a really good time. Cory just asked what I was doing and then replied "because you have nothing else you need to do right now?" This is a very true statement we have been home a little over an hour and I am doing laundry, we just finished lunch and need to be at Josiah's school in one hour for his school program. We didn't have hot water this morning in the hotel so I also need to go shower quick. All that to say that I have a ton to tell you guys about but it will have to wait till tomorrow. Sorry. I will leave you with a few pictures though.

Abigail walking with two of our AIM girls. She feels so big when she gets to hang our with them.

Walking down from our room, heading to the beach.

Abigail loves to have her picture taken with her hand on her side.

Missionary retreat

2008-11-26T05:15:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been a while. Things are crazy around here - like normal.
Some good friends of ours from Tulsa are visiting us right now. They got here on Saturday. Today we are all leaving for a missionary retreat in Guanajuato. Our visitors are the speakers. We are looking forward to seeing all the missionaries and catching up. We will be there until Saturday. I have lots of pictures to post - I will try and get that done when I get back.
Hope you have a great Thanksgiving.

Feeding Dump People

2008-11-15T18:51:00.000-08:00

Please click on this link
http://www.treymorgan.net/2008/11/feeding-dump-people.html
I know that times are tough right not in the USA. This will make you think twice about how hard things might be for you financially right now.
What a great Christmas present you could give these people. Can't think of what you want for Christmas but your loved ones keep asking you? How about if you ask them to donate money in your name as your present.
God has truly blessed us.

FOOD

2008-11-07T07:57:00.000-08:00

Well, different thing bring joy to different people. I love food. I love cooking food, I love inventing things, I love baking, I love eating food. The other day one of my teamates asked me what I liked doing in my free time. I explained that I loved cooking, scrapbooking etc. He asked me if I liked reading and I said that I liked reading cookbooks. He was a little shocked.

One of the things about living in a different country is that we can't get all the same things that are in the states. The other day I was making a mental list of the things we can't get. It went something like this:

Velveeta

Rice a Roni

Instant pasta dishes

Hamburger Helper

Liquid, flavored, coffee creamers

Muffin mixes

Corn bread mix

Rotel

Non flavored marshmallows (the ones here are fruit flavored)

Instant pudding

Pudding cups

Chow Main noodles

Good ice cream

Vanilla wafers

Graham cracker

Heinz 57

Cream of Chicken soup

Reeces

Laffy Taffy, Starburst, Skittles, Twizlers, Sweet Tarts etc.

Ranch Doritos

Cheetos (we can get the ones with Chili on them)

Cool Whip (we can get something similar)

Taco seasoning

Ranch powder

Enchilada sause (wierd?!)

You get the idea. Anyway as I was thinking about the list I realized that most everything on my list was unhealthy. So, I guess in the end we are better off not having those things.

Well, the other day I went to a store that is far from my house and I have only been there a few times. I thought I would go check it out because they are building one a mile or so from our house. Well, I found instant pudding, cool whip, heinz 57, chow mein noodles and vanilla wafers. I couldn't believe it.

Today I went to walmart and I found the best find of all

I was in total amazement. I just stood there and looked at it. There were only 4 flavors but the decision was still so hard. The choices were strawberry, cookies and cream, vanilla, and Dutch Chocolate. It cost around $10 for a half gallon. At first I just admired it and walked away. Seriously who would spend $10 for a half gallon of ice cream. Then a few isles down I realized that I had to go back and get it. Often they will get one shipment of something and then never have it again. I just couldn't risk it! So I put a few items back (I only had $17 with me) and got the dutch chocolate.

I am tempted to have a bowl for breakfast!

What a week.

2008-11-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

This week has been crazy! It was a great week but I am glad that we are back to "normal" life. We went trick or treating in our housing complex again this year. Halloween isn't really that big here but it is becoming more and more of a holiday every year. Once again Abigail was sleeping beauty.

Josiah was Superman.

Hannah was Jessie from ToyStory 2.

This week was cultural week at Josiahs school. Each classroom choose a country and studied it for the week. Josiahs classroom was Spain. They spent all week learning about the Spanish culture, food, art, music, dance etc. During the week they traveled to other classrooms (coutries) and learned about that culture. The school also brought in a lot of artists from around town. They brought in different martial arts, musicians, dancers etc. It was a really neat week. On Wed the classes performed in a singing competition. On Thursday they danced a traditional dance from their country. It was neat because the parents were invited to these events.

Josiah is in the back row, second from the left.

Because of Day of the Dead the kids were asked to make a skeleton out of recycled material. Here is a picture of Josiahs. It isn't at a very good angle but the legs and shirt are made out of juice boxes that are silver - it looked really cool. He named his skeleton "Pelon" which means bald.
On Friday the kids learned about Spanish sculptures. The idea was to bring two tubs of playdough per kid and allow them to copy a Spanish sculpture. Play dough is expensive here so I offered to make it for the class (28 kids) and save some money. I was told that they needed it on Friday so I could just drop it off at the school on Thursday or Friday morning. Well, since I didn't get around to making the playdough till 10 o'clock on Thursday night I took it in on Friday morning. When I arrived the teacher asked me to wait a minute until she got the tables rearranged. I thought it was a little wierd but I waited - all I was doing was dropping off playdough - right? Well, once she got the classroom set up like she wanted she introduced me to the class and explained to them that I was going to teach them how to make playdough. She also told them that I was going to tell them about Spanish sculptures and what they could make with their playdough. Oops wish I had studied up on Spanish sculptures a little more. I explained to the kids how to make the playdough then I had to ask the teacher for help because I hadn't prepared anything about Spanish sculptures. In the end the kids had a blast - although I am not sure they know much more about spanish sculptures than they previously did.

It was a little sad because some of the playdough turned out fine but some of it was super sticky and made a really big mess. Oh well. I talked to moms during the weekend and they said that their kids thought that the playdough was the best part of the week.

On Saturday morning Cory, Hannah and three of the AIMers left for Texas. They are doing an AIM presentation today and later in the week Cory is performing a wedding. They will be back early next week.

On Saturday morning Josiah and I went to a Mother/Child camping trip with the other 1st graders of his school. It was an absolute blast. We had so much fun. The weekend was conducted by a group that coordinates retreats like this all year around. It is led by 4 psychologists. The theme of the weekend was a pirate theme - with an emphasis on obedience and trust. One of the activaties was that Josiah got to paint my face and then I got to paint his. Josiah with his friend Ethan.

This was an activity we did on obedience and trust. I had to crawl while Josiah balanced a cup full of water on my back. It went fairly well until the boy in the blue shirt standing behind Josiah decided to come help Josiah and he pouded 1/4 of the cup on my back. The kid was a terror all weekend long. His mom watched him pour the water on me and she said nothing! When it was her turn she got soaked by her twins. It was a really fun game, after that Josiah got on his knees and I had to balance the water. This was a little hard because Josiah wanted to get wet!

We had planned on staying in a tent with some of Josiahs friends and their moms. The week before the school had a family camping trip and it was freezing so the moms decided they didn't want to do that again. Josiah and I were still planning on camping but their room had two extra beds in it so we ended up staying with them. It was a lot of fun.

The good, the bad and the ugly

2008-10-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

THE GOOD

Warning - this blog entry is going to be filled with a lot of pictures. Lots of good stuff has been going on. We have been getting some good time with our Mexican friends lately. Josiahs best friend in our housing edition is Mario and they both love soccer. They have a lot of fun playing outside together.

Josiahs best friend at school is Santiago. He came to our house last week and we had a great time. He likes cooking so I decided that for lunch we would all make our own pizzas. I was really excited about it. On the way to our house he told me that he loved almost every kind of food but that pizza was one of his least favorite. Oops - I then told him that I was really sorry but that was what we were having for lunch. I offered him a hotdog but he gladly made and ate his own pizza. While we were making them I jokingly stated "ok, I am going to get the onions and mushrooms out" thinking that he would say yuck. Instead he got really excited and said that he loved mushrooms - oops again. I didn't have any mushrooms. Luckily my neighbor did. They had a lot of fun together that day. I really like his family and hope that we will get to know eachother better. This weekend we have a first grade mother/child camping trip. His mother will be there and I am really excited about spending time with her and the other moms.
Hi-5 was in town and we ended up getting really good tickets. We sat in the 5th row middle section. Many of you might not know who Hi-5 is. I couldn't believe it when I found out that my parents and my sister didn't know who they are. I guess you have no need to know who they are if you don't have little children. They are "the" singing group of children 2-8. If you want to know more they have a good website you can look up. Anyway we went with my neighbor and her daughter. When we got to the concert we were offered a ticket to get our picture taken with the group after the concert. I asked the guy "now this is the original Hi-5 group right?" Often they have shows here where it isn't the original but they don't always tell you that. He assured me that it was the real group. So, we bought the ticket to get the kids picture taken with the group after the show. Like I said, we had great seats and when the group came out both my friend and I looked at eachother. It was not the original group. We later were told it was the official Latin American group. Oh well. We had a great time and they sang (lip sung) to all of the kids favorite songs and they had a blast.

THE BAD

This afternoon we had one of our AIMers over for lunch. Today was a crazy day so we had jelly sandwiches on hotdog buns and bean burritos. Not together but those were the two options. After the kids had finished their first sandwich Josiah asked for a second. I grabbed a bun and this is what I saw!!!!

A cockroach cooked into the bun!! Yuck. I asked Josiah if it would be ok if he just had a burrito and he was fine with that.

We have had a really sad weekend. Our dog - Josiahs dog - died last night. He had been perfectly healthy but started having seizures this weekend. He ended up having 6 seizures in a day and a half. After bloodwork and brain x-rays we realized that he wasn't going to have a very good life. There was a small possibility of keeping him alive with a lot of medication but the doctor seemed to think that he would pretty much pass the rest of his life needing to be heavily medicated. We decided that this wasn't what we wanted for Arthur or for our family so we had him put to sleep last night. Josiah is really upset. If it were up to him he would just stay in bed all day and think about Arthur - at least that is what he told me at 6 o'clock this morning when he got in bed with me. He has been crying at the drop of a hat but I am sure that things will get better in a few days or weeks. Arthur was very much a part of our life. When we were home he was always at the kids sides. I thought I would throw in some pictures that I found.

He put up with a lot from Hannah but he always followed her around and wanted to be where she was - from the day we brought her home from the hospital.

He was even kind enough to share chew toys with Hannah - what a great friend.

THE UGLY
Hannah and Abigail share a bunk bed. Abigail on top and Hannah on the bottom. Well, tonight after the kids had been in bed for a while, we heard a loud crash followed by screaming. Hannah decided that she wanted to be on the top and ended up falling out of the bed. She has a huge bump on her forhead. It is so swollen and is going to leave a nice bruise for a few weeks.

Were back

2008-10-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

We had a really great time at the beach but are glad to be back home with the kids. I took a few pictures of the countryside while driving. Some of you might not know that there are mountains right outside of Guadalajara. It is a really beautiful drive. The mountains are increadible but they do make the trip twice as long!

There is a ton of forestation that we drove though. I didn't get pictures of them but we also drove by a ton of banana trees, mango trees, and coconut palms.

Here is a picture looking out of our room. It was a really pretty view. The weather cooperated a little bit. It rained all three days that we were there but it didn't keep us from getting into the ocean - that is until the lightning arrived. I mentioned it earlier in another post but it was an all-inclusive hotel. Which means all meals etc are included. This restaurant is a reservation only restaurant. There are only about 6 tables and two reservations per table - 6:30 or 8:30. We choose the later apt since we didn't have lunch till 3. Right after this picture was taken I noticed something really big moving on the beach just right on the other side of the red wall. It was a sea turtle!

Right now is the time that the moms come onto shore (at night) and lay their eggs. They dig a hole in the sand and lay around 100 eggs at a time. Then they cover them up and head back to the ocean. The eggs take about 1 1/2 months to hatch. These sea turtles don't have a very good chance of survival. They are highly protected. Infact there were 3 or 4 night guards at our resort that all they did was work the graveyard shift and watch for turtles. Two guards were protecting her. They made sure that no one took pictures of her while she was in the process of laying her eggs. They said she could get scared and head back to the ocean before finishing. They also guarded the eggs. They called a marine biologist who later came and picked up the eggs to take them to a protected area to hatch (check out my posts from last November - there you will see our family releasing the baby turtles into the ocean). The guard actually had to move one of the chairs you see behind us because that was where she wanted to lay her eggs. Even with human intervention they only have a 95% change of living until adulthood. The waiter we had that evening told us that often when you are in restaurants in Vallarta they will quietly offer you the eggs and turtle meat. He said the eggs cost $10. He didn't say how much the meat was worth.
We foud out the next day that if you get caught eating one of the turtle eggs you get one year in jail per egg. If you get caught eating the meat you get 5 years. They allowed us to take pictures of her when she was heading back to the ocean.
Cory was taking a picture of me standing behind her and the guard told me that I could touch her. Notice the guard is holding a clip board. They monitor everything, what time she arrived on land, how long it took her to lay the eggs, and what time she went back into the ocean. On Wed we got to meet up with Kris and Barb Smith (my coordinators when I was in AIM and really good friends) and Jeff and Stacy Smith (Cory's coworker at Sunset and really good friends). We had a really good time with them. The guys went deep sea fishing in the morning while the women went shopping in town. Then we all met back up at the resort where they bought day passes and we got to spend some time at the beach and then in the pool. It was a lot of fun.

Phone Number

2008-10-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I wanted to tell you guys that we now have a stateside number. The number is a Lubbock number but it will come through to our computer in Mexico. We are looking into actually buying a handheld phone that will receive the calls through the computer. This will be great because now we have to be sitting at the computer to talk and with three kids that isn't always the most convenient. Anyway, the call will not cost you any more than if you were calling Lubbock, many of you either live there or can call there free on your cell phones.

Last week we got a call from an old friend in Tulia, TX and it was really exciting to get to talk to her. I just got off the phone from talking to some good friends or ours in Oklahoma. Feel free to call anytime - there is even an answering maching hooked up to it so if we don't answer just leave a message and be sure to leave your number so we can call you back. The number is

1-806-589-0911

Tree planting

2008-10-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

Every year Starbucks has a re-forestation program. They plant trees in a nearby forest. This is our second year to attend. We didn't have as big of a turn out with church members this year because we only found out about it 5 days ahead. There were probably around 25 of us. Cory was out of town so I took the three kids and the AIMers and we had a good time. Hannah really thought it was fun and enjoyed getting the trees from me and dropping them into their holes.

I didn't get a picture of Josiah. He and his friend Quincy were on "tree police" duty. They went around making sure that the trees weren't getting stepped on etc.

So as you should know we are big time Red Sox fans. This is how Josiah woke me up yesterday morning. He worked so hard on it I thought it deserved being published on my blog. He made it out of magnetic letter and a board that my parents got him. He loves it and I think it is a great learning tool.

Heres a picture of the kids before they ate up their pink and blue pancakes with their initial on it.

ME DO IT!

2008-10-05T07:14:00.000-07:00

We are right in the middle of the "me do it" stage with Hannah right now. She is definately two and wants to do everything by herself. Even more so than my other kids - I think mainly because she wants to be like the other two. She wants to do everything they do.

Everything is "Me do it" wether its getting out of her car seat, getting out of the car, shutting the car door, opening the house door, shutting the house door, putting my purse up - are you getting the picture? Everything! It gets really old at times and a lot of times I just don't let her. When its not an inconvenience to someone else and we have time of course I let her. Its always fun when she is intent on doing something and after much trying she has to give up and ask for help. She is really good at eating her cereal by herself but once she gets to the end she has a really hard time getting those last few cheerios on her spoon. That is when she always gives in and asks for help. I am only allowed to put the cereal on the spoon and then she wants to have the spoon back and feed herself.

Is this ringing a bell with anyone? It is reminding me of myself a lot (not as a kid) but now. Sometimes I am just too stubborn and want to do it myself when really I need to have help.

Why is it so hard to ask for help sometimes. The sad thing is that God intends for us to ask for help. If He hadn't intended on it He would have made us with the ability to do everything but He didn't.

While we were in Zacatecas we took the kids to a McDonalds. Hannah isn't quite big enough to climb on the playground equipment yet. Usually Josiah picks her up each level. For some reason this time Josiah decided to let her climb on him. It was the cutest sight. He was happy to help her and she looked so proud to be able to do it with her brothers help. They had a lot of fun working together.

This is how it should be in our lives also. We should both be happy to help and proud to acknowledge when we can't do it on our own and choose to ask for help.

Beach here I come

2008-10-02T08:14:00.001-07:00

So, Cory and I just celebrated 9 years of marriage in July. We were in the states and didn't do anything for our anniversary. I had wanted to go somewhere without kids while we were in the states but that seems really complicated. To be honest with you in nine years we have only left the kids twice overnight. I don't think we have ever both been away from them for more than 24 hours.

Two of our favorite couples (Kris and Barb Smith and Jeff and Stacy Smith) are taking a cruise this next week. It just so happens that they are going to spend a whole day in Puerto Vallarta which is only 4 hours away from where we are. They asked us if we would like to come spend the day with them. We love Vallarta, it is where we honeymooned. We talked to our teamates and they agreeded to watch the kids for us. Since the boat arrives early in the morning we are going to go a day before they arrive and since the boat leaves late at night we are going to stay a day after they leave. Thats three days at the beach and no kids!!!!

The really fun thing is that we are going to stay at the same hotel we stayed at 9 years ago for our honeymoon. It is a great hotel and the best part is that it is all inclusive. That means all meals, drinks, snacks etc are included. If any of you ever come to visit it is a great place to go. Right now the rate is $120 with tax - that includes everything for two adults and two kids stay and eat for free (maybe next time)!

This is a picture I got off of the website but it looks like it was taken right out of the window we stayed in 9 years ago! I will post pictures from our trip next week!

Summer pics

2008-10-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

Last night I was talking to my mother in law. She mentioned that she wished I would blog everyday. As much as I would love to both she and I know that there just isn't enough time in my day. She has motivated me to try and post more often but no promises it will be on a daily basis. Sometimes I wonder if anyone is even reading the blog. Then, I hear about people that are reading it.

I was thinking that I had some stuff from the summer that I still hadn't posted.

We had a great time at my parents house in July. We were in South Dakota for a week. Being South Dakota there is a lot of snow but we obviously weren't there at the right time. Well, my parents had made snowballs and stored them in their deep freezer! So we ended up having a small snowball fight - lots of fun.

One of the greatest things about the summer was getting to spend time with people we love. Here is a picture of Hannah and Elizabeth. They had just gotten done swimming after the 4th of July parade.
Of course we had to go for a ride in dads 1949 Jeepster. He has worked really hard on this car it was in pretty bad shape when he bought it some 12 (more or less) years ago. We took the car for a spin to Dairy Queen (which was closed because it was the 4th of July). We ended up at another mom and pops ice cream shop.

This is a more recent picture. It is a picture of the hair that Abigail cut off of herself while doing homework. The section on the right was donated by her Cabbage Patch. It is pretty un-noticeable. In fact I had a really hard time figuring out where the hair had come from. One day as I was pulling the sides up into a ponytail I easily found the section she cut. It is a straight cut about 2-3 inches long on the back of her head at about ear level. Luckily there is hair on top of the part she cut so the only time you notice it is if her sides are pulled up.
Well, against my better judgement we are now owners of a Playstation 3 (Corys Birthday). Of course we also have guitar hero. The AIMers love it and so does Abigail. She is really cute when she plays it because she taps her food and rocks. We also got a guitar for Cory's dad for his fathers day/Birthday present. Watch out Papa you have competion!
Cory is still in Lubbock. He has been gone 6 days and will be back in 6 days. We are ready for him to be back but are glad that he is having a really good visit.

MEXICO

2008-09-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Mexico celebrated independence day on the 15th. They have been independent since 1810. We spent the day with friends eating and just hanging out. My kids love Mexico in reality it is their home. Josiah has spent more than half of his life here, Abigail all but the 1st 8 months and Hannah is actually Mexican and has spent all of her life here. I bought the girls mexican dresses and necklaces. They had so much fun wearing them and acting silly all day. One of Abigails favorite songs that she sings a lot right now is "Mexico, Mexico, rojo, blanco, verde pinta mi corazon!" - mexico, mexico, my heart paints red, white and green. Here are some pictures of them in their adorable outfits.

School uniforms

2008-09-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

I have been intending on putting these pictures up for a while. Some of you have been asking about the kids school uniforms. Josiah has "dress up" day on Monday and Tuesday-Friday are soccer uniforms. Abigail has a uniform for three days of the week and then the other two days she wears a gym uniform.

Here is the picture of us getting out trophy when we won the mothers soccer tournament. We are actually working on forming a womens team that will play against other schools.

Crazy day

2008-09-10T07:29:00.001-07:00

So, Cory has gone out of town for two days. He took the AIMers to Mexico City to get their visas.
When the kids woke up yesterday they all had colds. Abigail was also sick with Mexico sickness. She ended up staying home from school.

I spent a good chunck of the morning organizing Josiahs room - totally gutted out the room and reorganized it. I, of course, kept checking on the girls who were downstairs watching TV. After a FEW minutes of silence Abigail yelled up to me "Mom, Hannah got into the kitchen and is making a mess!". We actually have a child gate on the kitchen door so that children can't get in the kitchen. Recently Hannah has taught herself how to climb over the gate. This makes for a really big problem since I haven't really childproofed my kitchen or Cory's office on the other side of the kitchen. Past the office is the laundry room - with bleach and all kinds of cleaners. Then theres the door to outside. Last week I was upstairs and thought I heard Hannah outside, I looked out and there she was as happy as could be visiting with the neighbors in her diaper. We definately are going to have to do something about this.

Back to my story, I ran downstairs to check on what Hannah was doing in the kitchen. She was standing by the cupboard where I have all my spices and FOOD COLORING. She was standing with a circle of food coloring drops all around her. Her hands were covered in red and blue. I quickly grabbed cleaner and papertowels and tackeled the mess. When I was finished I went into the living room and realized that I hadn't even begun! They had made a huge mess. Now, I am wishing that I would have gotten the camera out and taken a few pictures. What I can conclude using my CSI skills is this: They (Yes Abigail was very much involved in this) took the red and blue food coloring and walked from the kitchen to the couch, then to the dining room table, then outside in the back and then to the front door. Of course the whole time with the food coloring dripping everywhere. They also found a package of black pepper seeds. They put the pepper in a bowl and then doused the seeds in food coloring. After dying the seeds they spread them all over the living room and dining room. If that wasn't enough they also got a few packets of Koolaid and a few of Crystal light. They opened them and poured them out on the floor!!! They did all of this in no more than 10 minutes. So I got it all cleaned up - thankfully we have all tile except for one area rug which now has blue and red spots on it.

So, I cleaned everything up and walked over to the kitchen sink. Since we can not drink the water we have to buy big 20 liter jugs of purified water. We have three of them which we store on the floor right next to the sink. One was still sealed, one was empty and one was 1/3 full. Well, I guess they also chose to put food coloring in the jugs!! So I got that cleaned up. Then this morning I took Hannah to the downstairs bathroom and found blue food coloring on the bathroom counter and cabinet. Once again I got that all cleaned up.

Cleaning this up made me realize why God never gave me twins - I couldn't have handled it!! Sorry mom for all the things Jessica and I did when we were little - the Desitin all over the room and ourselves. The brand new lipstick all over the brand new couch etc.

Here is Hannah standing infront of the gate that she has learned to climb.

Abigail stayed home again from school today but I don't think its possible for them to make another mess like yesterday!

GANADORAS!

2008-09-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

For those of you that don't know Spanish Ganadoras means winners. Yes, they did allow me to play in the soccer tournament. Yes, we did win the whole tournament. There were only two games but we won them both. It was a lot of fun. The best thing about it was that I got to know other moms. I also was able to find out that they have all been receiving notes home saying that their child talks too much in class (you have no idea how good it was to find out that it wasn't just Josiah!). I actually found out that some have already had notes sent to the directors office! Wow, do I feel better. It really was a blessing to be able to get to know other parents.
So, on Monday morning we are to report at the school at 8 o'clock for a trophy ceremony! They want to present the trophy to us infront of the whole school (something like 1300 students). I will try and get some pictures to share with you. PS the men (Cory's team) lost in their first game.
Well, Aaron (one of our great AIMers) has offered to babysit tonight so that Cory and I can go out. I guess I better go get ready - just wanted to share the great news about the tournament and even better news that Josiah isn't the only one getting in trouble for talking in class!!!!

a little of this and that

2008-09-05T17:15:00.001-07:00

So the kids have been in school for a few weeks now. I thought I would have so much more time to get stuff done around the house now that they aren't home in the mornings. I guess Hannah had decided the same thing. She had decided not to take naps anymore. I keep trying but all that ends up happening is she tears her room apart and has a really good time playing during "nap time". I then have more work to do that I had before nap time.
I keep thinking of things that I want to put on my blog but never manage to get it done. I wanted to let you in on a few cute? conversations I have had this past week.

Me "Josiah why are you acting like a kid!"
Josiah "Mom, I am a kid!"

Josiah has two teachers at school one for Spanish and one for English. The Spanish teacher had told me that Josiah had a problem with talking a lot during class. I talked to him about not talking while he is suppose to be working and that Miss Cati had talked to me about it. Then a few days later I got a note from the English teacher telling me that Josiah talks a lot during class and that I needed to talk to him about it. So, I asked Josiah what was going on. I had been asking him every day how he was doing about not talking and he said good. I asked him why he had been telling me that he was doing better but the teacher still wrote me a note. His response was "I didn't know I had to do that in English class too! I though it was just for Miss Catis class".
Details!

Me "Abigail you need to finish cleaning your room"
Abigail "My stomach hurts from all the cleaning I have been doing"
I told her since her stomach hurt she should probably go to bed without dinner because I didn't want her to get any sicker. (Don't worry she didn't starve and we had a really late big lunch that day)

The next day
Me "Abigail you need to clean your room"
Abigail "I think my throat is going to have Diarrhea" (bet you have never heard that one before)

I got sunburned at a ladies retreat two weeks ago. I was talking to a lady from my aerobics class about it. She assured me that she had the cure of all cures for burns. I was interested to hear about this since I use to work in a burn clinic. She informed me that I needed to collect Hannahs urine (she said urine from a young child). Then soak rags in the urine and wrap my legs (the sunburned area) with the urine soaked rags. The told me that I needed to sit with the rags on me until they dried up. Then keep soaking them and replacing them on my legs. She said I should do this for around 3 hours. She promised me that they wouldn't hurt or itch anymore after that! Personally I am too busy to find the time to collect my daughters urine and apply it on my legs for 3 hours. If any of you get burned and decide to try this method out please let me know how it works for you. Then I can contact the burn clinic and let them know about the new wonder cure.

We have another crazy weekend ahead. Both Josiah and Cory have baseball games. Cory and I are also participating in a parents soccer tournament at Josiahs school tomorrow morning. I just found a note and realized that we missed the meeting last night for those that were going to play. So, we signed up but might not actually play since we missed the meeting. We will show up and see what they say. Personally I wont be sad if I don't get to play. I have a pretty bad cold right now and anything more than sitting sounds stressfull to me.
Have a great weekend

back to school

2008-08-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

So, I feel like all I have done for a week is get stuff ready for school.

As most of you know our kids are in private school. That is really the only way to do it here since we are foreigners.

Public schools are really bad and we are thankful that we have great supporters that give us special funds for schooling. We couldn't do it without them - Thanks!

I was talking to a friend who has her children in the public school system. There is major overcrowding in the schools. They have a few different shifts each day. In one day a classroom might see 150 students. There are morning shifts, afternoon and evening shifts. My friend was telling me that her daughters class has 59 students in it!!! Can you imagine. Another friend of mine is running into problems because two of her sons got the morning shifts and her other son got the 2-6 shift. This means her older son (who is on Josiahs baseball team) will no longer be able to to play baseball or do any afterschool act.

Today Josiah had to go to the school and take all his school supplies and see the school. I got to go with him and it was really fun. They have a restaurant at the school so I took Josiah out for breakfast. He will not eat lunch there but he does eat a snack and he can get something everyonce in a while from the restaurant. It was fun to sit at the restaurant and realize just how blessed we are to get to have Josiah in a private school. I was thinking about my friend, while looking at Josiahs school, and how she was probably sitting in a long line waiting to beg for her son to get into school during the morning shift. We are truly blessed.

So, we have to buy all the kids textbooks etc. This is the quantity of stuff Josiah needed (there are 3 books missing)

48 colored pencils, 6 pencils, 6 red pencil, 9 notebooks, 4 glue sticks, 1 bottle of glue, 6 erasers, 2 pencil sharpeners, 15 textbooks, 2 folders, 1 pack of copy paper, 2 packs of clay, 2 scissors,1 ruler, 2 paintbrushes, 1 walkman, 1 set of watercolors, 1 puzzle, 1 board game, 1 pack of colored paper, 1 pack of foamy, 1 box of kleenex, 1 box of babywipes, 2 clear folders, 2 packs of notecards, 5 uniforms, back pack, and lunchbox.

All the books have to be covered with contak paper. The notebooks have to first be covered with colored paper (depending on the subject) then with contak. All the other supplies have to have his name on it. Needless to say I have been spending the last week or so getting school supplies ready. I am glad it is over.

Abigail also started school today. I need to go pick her up in 45 minutes. She was so excited.

We are so blessed to have three great kids. Thanks to all of you that support us and make it possible for our kids to get a good education. Love you!

We are home

2008-08-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Sorry two months have passed since I last wrote. We have been on a crazy trip to the US the past 5 weeks. We had a great time but we are really glad to be home and in our own beds etc.
We had family pictures taken while we were gone. One of our friends is an increadibly gifted photographer and we were blessed to have her take our pictures. Here is the link to her site and a few of our pictures, or you can click on the link under blogs I read (Its the first one listed)
http://www.amyrosekingphotography.com/
Lots happened on our trip and I can't wait to write more about it. But, right now I need to go work on unpacking.

2008-06-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hannah turned 2 yesterday! I can hardly believe it. She had a great day and loved all the attention she got. She got lots of phone calls and singing. The got sung to in Italian, English, and Spanish!

We did not have a party we just had cake and presents with our family. Hopefully sometime in the next week or two we can do something for her.

Our AIMers have now been here for two weeks (part of why I haven't posted in a while). We absolutely love them and really think we got a great team. The kids can't get enough of them. One day when I picked Abigail up from school she looked at me with a disgusted look and said "why didn't you bring the AIMers?".

The team is pictures above with Hannah waiting to eat breakfast. Unfortunately Aaron McCall was absent for the picture.

They are settled in for the most part in their new houses. There are still a few details that need to be addressed, broken fridge and water heater, but otherwise they are settled in.

Today was the annual school program. The kids did a great job and really had fun while doing it. Josiah even read a short little poem about fathers. It was so amazing to see him, on stage, infront of around 600 people, reading in Spanish! I was very proud.

Each class represented a country and danced the traditional dance. Josiah's class represented Brazil and Abigail's class represented the USA (Hawaii).

I must admit the costumes where a little scary when they first arrived at my house. We, as well as many of our friends and family, got a lot of laughs out of Josiah's costume. Luckily it didn't look as silly when the whole class was wearing it.

The kids still have one month left of school. They get out the last of June.

This next month is crazy for us. This coming week a professor from ACU is coming to help our team with evalutations. Our dear friends the Brednichs are also coming, fom Mexico City, to participate and they will be staying at our house. It can get pretty crazy with 6 children!!

The following week 3 elders from Sunset will be visiting us. We are really excited about their visit. They are three wonderful men that we look up to a lot. It will be good to have them here. Then there will be a few days of rest and the youth groups from Clovis and Sunset are coming on a mission trip.

Also wanted to let you know that two new families have recently contacted us and asked us if we can start churches in their houses. We are excited about it. Because the two houses are about 40 minutes from eachother we are only able to meet with each house every other week. They meet by themselves the weeks that we can not be there. One family used to go to church many years ago and then quit. They seem to be good at coming up with excuses, we are praying that this time they are more committed.

Thanks for reading.

PS 28 days and we will be in Houston watching the Red Sox stomp the Astros!!!

and getting Mannys autograph!! Why not dream big! Seriously anyone have any unique ideas of how we can get the players autograph? Let me know.

Please Pray

2008-05-15T14:08:00.001-07:00

I just got off of the phone with a dear friend of mine Claudia. I am so scared for her and her family. I wanted to share this with you guys so that you could be praying for her.

She has been struggling with depression for almost 1 1/2 years now. This week she has become suicidal. She called me to let me know that they were going to be admiting her into the clinic for a while. She wanted to make sure that I checked in with her family and especially her husband.

It was a very sad and wierd conversation. I still feel very "yucky".

The bad thing is that most of the Christians for their church have headed out of town. Her mother just flew to the states this last week so spend the summer with Claudias brothers. Two of the other families that they are very close to have gone to visit their families.

Our AIMers will be landing in two hours. We are going to be pretty busy this week getting things going for them but we are definately going to need to be with this family a lot. Please pray for us to be good with our time and make sure we don't neglect anything because of the over load of things to get done.

Claudia is the lady in the white shirt top left. Please be praying for her and her family. Thanks.

2008-05-13T14:02:00.000-07:00

We had a very fun weekend. The 5 churches that we work with in Guadalajara and surrounding area got together for the annual retreat. There were around 80 in attendance which I thought was a great number. Mothers Day was Saturday and many families were not able to attend because of that. Mothers Day is a very important day here and everyone wanted to be with their mothers.

The retreat was a lot of fun and it was very encouraging. I am including a few pictures to help you see what the weekend was like.

On Sunday after worship there were two baptisms. It was great. These two women that were baptised have a great story to tell. Their family (extended) has had a ton of problems. Even as recent as 6 months ago they were not in speaking terms and had nothing to do with eachother. Now they are living in the same house and becoming good friends. It is amazing the changes that have been happening in their lives.

Each church was in charge of a meal. The church in zero del cuatro was incharge of Sunday lunch. They made Barbacoa. Sounds a lot like barbeque but that is not what it is. It is a soup made out of vegetables and goat or lamb. The meat and vegetables all cook together. They are served seperately. The meat is removed and served on the side to be eaten with tortillas. The kids really enjoyed it and so did I. Here is a picture of Abigail enjoying the "meat on a bone" as she likes to call it.

This is what was left in the pan after we were done eating. I was informed that they will not waste any of the meat. They were going go clean up the rest of the skull (remove the tongue, and any meat that might be in and around it. They were also going to eat the other organs that are not pictured! It really was tasty.

Last night Josiah lost another tooth. I think he looks adorable and just wanted to share a picture with you.

Mothers Day

2008-05-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day in Mexico always falls on the 10th of May. Many of the schools hold a program in honor of the mothers where the kids will perform songs, dance, recite poems etc. Many times the kids will be in costume. Our school chooses to combine the celebration with Fathers Day. This year the program will be on June 2nd. Yesterday we received a note that asked for the Mothers to come to school an hour early because something special was planned. The kids had prepared a song to sing to us. Josiah's class had also learned a poem in Spanish and one in English to say to all the Mothers. The English one was

"roses are red

the sky is blue

sugar is sweet

and so are you"

After their songs and poems we went to the classrooms and got our gifts from the kids.

The gifts are cute although not really my style and the sad thing is that the kids had nothing to do with the gifts. The school bought them already made. They did come with some really cute cards that the kids made which I will treasure forever.

They also hired a Mariachi band to play for us. This is/was a very common thing to do to show someone you care about them. It was much more common years ago and has slowly become less of a tradition. Mariachi bands can be hired to seranade for Birthdays, Anniversaries, and other special occasions. My neighbors talk about how they use to get seranaded when they were in High School but it doesn't happen much anymore. Also, a small cultural fact - Mariachi music originated in Guadalajara. Every fall Guadalajara is host to the Mariachi festival where bands come from all over the world to perform.

Happy Mother's Day!

5 de Mayo

2008-05-05T19:58:00.001-07:00

As most of you know today is 5 de Mayo. The interesting thing is that there are a few misconceptions about this holiday. Many Americans think that today is Mexican Independence Day. Wrong, Sept 16th is Independence Day. 5 de Mayo is the celebration of when the Mexican Army kept the French army from invading. They won the battle against the French in the state of Puebla. Puebla is the only area in Mexico that really celebrates 5 de Mayo as a holiday.

On April 30th we celebrated Kids Day. You know Mothers Day, Fathers Day - why not a Kids Day? I think its kinda funny because here every day is kids day. Mexicans are very good at catering to kids needs and wants. Many times a native has given my child a candy to make sure they won't throw a fit. One time Abigail was upset about not having a certain candy and we were so emberassed we took her in the house to discipline her. Within one minute the doorbell rang and our neighbor had gone to his house to get her the candy she wanted!! Anyway April 30th is they day they choose to celebrate children. They were allowed to dress up for school. I had put curlers in Abigails hair because she planned on being Jazele from Enchanted. That morning I told her that she reminded me of Dona Florinda a character on a mexican show name Chavo del Ocho. Recently the characters from this show have been the toys for Happy Meals at McDonalds. She knew exactly who I was talking about and she decided that is who she wanted to dress up like. Luckily it was a pretty easy constume to throw together and I didn't have to fix her hair.

Josiah once again choose to be Spiderman.
Hannah just wore a Cinderella dress. Sometime in the afternoon I was downstairs and she was calling me. I told her to come downstairs and tell me what she needed instead of yelling at me. She kept yelling. When I finally gave in and went upstairs I realized why she hadn't come down. She was stuck in the laundry basket.

busy week

2008-04-29T18:09:00.000-07:00

Well, we have had an exciting, busy, exhausting week.

Sunday I was stuck in bed/bathroom with a case of food poisoning. I haven't had it this bad in a while.

On Tuesday I took Josiah to the doctor. He has been complaining for some time now that his stomach hurts. He usually just mentioned it in passing and didn't really make a big deal about it. Finally I decided we needed to check it out. The doctor said it is most likely parasites!! Yuck - guess that is part of living in Mexico. So, we put both Josiah and Abigail on parasite medicine last week. It is so common here that many people take the medicine once a year. I think Cory and I might just take some this next week.

I always joke about my pot luck prayer. Its a short and sweet prayer. I simply ask for a strong stomach and that the food will not harm me or my family. They are not as worried about food safety as we are. I know they think I am crazy that I bring a cooler with ice in it to keep my salad cold. Pretty much any time we eat out I make sure to say my pot luck prayer.

On Wed Cory goes to a new colonia we have been trying to reach out to. I think I have told you about Gerardo and Marta. Well, when Cory showed up this week he was informed that it was Martas Birthday. Cory asked if they were going to do anything special and she told him that her husband was too cheap and that he wouldn't even buy her a cake. Cory quickly called me and I got a cake in the oven. Cory told her we would be back in the afternoon and bring her a cake. Right after lunch we headed to their house (about 30 minutes from our house). When we got there she had lunch waiting for us. Luckily we had just had sandwiches at our house so we had room for a second lunch. We had a good time and I think she felt very honored that we took the time to be with her.

Friday Josiah was invited to an art show. One of his best friends has been taking art classes one day each afternoon. The class is at the end of the semester and they have an art expo at a coffee shop downtown. He was excited to go, as was I. It was suppose to start at 5:30 and Josiah was really stressed because at about that time we were still stuck in construction somewhere between our house and downtown. It took a long time to get there and the directions I was given to get there seemed to take me to a part of town that I had never been too. When we were just a few blocks from where I knew we needed to be I saw that I was only a block from the downtown cathedral!! This is a place I know very well (not the cathedral but the area). I couldn't believe I had taken all these back roads when I could have taken a major road way faster. Oh well, live and learn. So we get to the coffee shop about 10 minutes late and find out that only two families from the class had gotten there ahead of us. An hour after I arrived the art teacher showed up. Half an hour later the entertainment showed up. The entertainment was great. It was a band (3 musicians). They used all kinds of kitchen utensils, rubber animals, swimming gogles, etc for their music. Of course they also played real insturments - trumpet, cello, and accordion. I don't know that I would say they were the best musicians I have ever heard (of course not as good as my brother-in-law Trey). I would most definately say that they were the most entertaining musicians I have seen.

Saturday was another great day. We had our regular little league game (we won for those of you keeping tabs). After the game we had a get together for all the families in little league. There are around 50 kids! I don't know how many people there were in total but there was a great turnout and we had a blast. There are a few families that we are really trying to spend time with and get into their lives. After lunch the kids all received a watergun and had a great time having a waterfight. While they were doing that we had a parents baseball game. It was a blast.

Today I was cooking lunch and Hannah fell off of a chair while sitting at the bar. Immediately her head swole up. It was so swollen that her eye was partially shut. My next door neighbor is a surgeon so I ran to his house and had him look at it. He was amazed at how big it was. She screamed for a good half hour. Luckily she allowed me to put a cold pack on it right away so the swelling went down a lot. Now she is left with a nasty bruise.

It didn't hurt quite as much after a glass of coke!

Tooth Fairy vs Raton Follow up

2008-04-18T20:46:00.001-07:00

Well, while I was in Tulsa Josiah lost his first tooth. I just wanted to let you know that it was the tooth fairy that came to our house and not the Raton! Because it was the first tooth she brought $5! Just recently she did her math and realized that in total the Burns children will loose 60 teeth. She is only going to be giving $1 for every other tooth lost.

Parties, Parties, and more Parties

2008-04-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't blogged in a while. I actually went to the United States for a week. I saved up my Christmas and Birthday money and treated myself to a trip to the states, I only took Hannah with me (since she is under 2 and doesn't have to pay for a ticket). It was my first time to really leave the other two big kids for more than one or two nights. We all did well.

I went to Tulsa (Broken Arrow) to see my twin sister and her family. Ok, the truth is I mainly went to see my only neice Elizabeth. She turned two last week (12th - the same day that Abigail and my grandmother have Birthdays). I went to Tulsa the week before her Birthday and my sister was kind enough to bump the party up a week so we could be there. We had a great time visiting them and had a blast at the Strawberry shortcake party. My sister Monica and my grandmother were also able to join us for a few days which made it extra special.

Elizabeth blowing out her candles on her delicious Strawberry shortcake.

The girls had a great time together. This was the first time they really got to spend time together since they have been able to talk and interact. It was really fun to watch them play with eachother. I just kept thinking about my mom and how she had two of us at the same time!

I got home on the 10th and started thinking about Abigails Birthday party. We decided to hold it off a week since I wasn't going to have time to get everything ready. On Saturday, her actual Birthday, we decided to go to Peter Pipper Pizza after Josiahs baseball game (they lost for the first time this year!). We dediced to call some friends to go with us. As soon as we arrived Abigail saw some tables that were decorated for someones Birthday party. She ran over to the table and was so excited that they had decorated for her party. She was so happy. Kim talked to the lady decorating tables and found out that for $1 a child they would decorate the table for us. So I ran and payed my $6 and got the table decorated. While eating I overheard Abigail tell Karsyn that she needed to eat all of her pizza or else she wouldn't get any cake. Cake! Luckily there is a grocery store connected to the pizza place so I ran and got a cake, forks, matches, and candles. In the end she was thrilled about her party. If only I would have known I wouldn't have already invited guests to the real party.

Not the greatest picture but one of the best I got.

Thursday rolled around and I had double booked her school party and her real party. So in the morning we had a party at the school and in the afternoon we had a party at the house.

Here is Abigail standing infront of her classmates as they sing Happy Birthday to her.

The party at the house was a girls only party. We live in a housing addition where there are about 40 kids. No matter what they all end up coming to parties invited or not. I have had around 100 at a party before. Incase you are wondering my house isn't that big and my back yard is only about 30 feet x 5 feet. So, itsn't kinda crowded when there are that many. This time I made it an exclusively girls and their mothers/grandmothers only party. It was a lot of fun there were 7 girls in total and they all dressed up like princesses. We did about 4 crafts, made princess wands, crowns, etc. It was a lot of fun. Abigail is already talking about next years party.
Personally I am partied out for a while.

This is just seconds before her hair cought on fire. Luckily Kim was standing nearby.

This time we did the pinata inside of the house. We got a pinata that you don't hit! This kind has about 20 ribbons attached to the bottom of it. One of the ribbons is attached to the "door" which when opened releases all of the goodies. The kids take a turn and pick one ribbon to pull until the special ribbon is choosen. This year Hannah was the one who pulled the special ribbon and released all the candies.

Tulsa Workshop

2008-03-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend is the Tulsa Workshop. I have so many memories of the workshop and have found myself thinking about it a lot this weekend. I have even had dreams about it. I figured since it is on my mind and since most of the people that read my blog are at the workshop I would write about it.
The first time I attended the workshop was the year my twin sister was an AIMer (1996). It was a little overwhelming for a small town girl. I had never in my life seen so many Christians. I remember one of the days at the workshop I was walking with my friend Felicia. I remember exactly where we were standing when she pointed to a guy and told me "hey he is going to be in your AIM class". I remember we said hi to him and I told him that I was also going to be in AIM that fall. We talked for 30 seconds and then parted ways.
The next year I found myself back at the workshop but now dating the guy that I had briefly spoken to the prior year. I remember we went for a walk in a "park" right next to the main pavilion. While on the walk he told me that he loved me! This was a big deal because a few months earlier I had heard him tell one of his best friends that he had never and would never say he loved a girl until he was 100% sure he was going to marry her. We missed the next year since I was in Slovakia and he was in Russia. But in 1999 we found ourselves back at the workshop. After listening to Terry Rush speak Cory asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. We found ourselves back at the same exact spot where two years earlier he had told me he loved me. Next thing I know there is a ring on my finger and I am engaged. We went right back to listen to the next speaker (Jim McGuiggan). I don't think I heard a word that he said! I know Cory didn't because he fell asleep during the class and Jim called him on it infront of thousands of people! I guess he hadn't been sleeping very well and felt such relief that he had asked me and I had said yes that he fell asleep. Don't think he will do that again!
A few years later we found ourselves at the workshop and pregnant! My how time flew. Three kids later here we are in a different country. We would love to be at the workshop. Maybe we will make it next year to celebrate 10 years since we got engaged! Who knows. There are many people we would love to see, speakers we would love to hear. We would love to see the AIMers flag presentation and most of all would love to be at AIMapaloza. Hope you all had a great time. Can't wait to hear about it.

Tooth Fairy VS El Raton (the mouse)

2008-03-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

Josiah got his teeth pretty late in life. His first tooth cut through right after he turned one. From the moment that he found out about loosing teeth he wanted to loose a tooth. He had his first dentist visit when he was almost 3. He asked Dr Epperson when he would start loosing his teeth. Dr Epperson was great about explaining that it wouldn't be for a long time especially since his teeth didn't come in until late. I am pretty sure that by the time we got to the car he was back to asking "when will my teeth fall out?" He is always telling me that he has a loose tooth. I usually feel and then inform him that it is not loose yet. Today as we were walking out of the movies he had his finger in his mouth. I asked what he was doing and he said playing with his loose tooth. So, I felt and it was moving!! The time has finally arrived - lets just hope it doesn't take weeks for it to actually fall out.

Tonight when I was putting him to bed he was explaining exactly what he is going to do when the tooth falls out. His plan is to put the tooth under his pillow and then in the night time the mouse will come get the tooth and leave him money. Yes, in Mexico it is not the tooth fairy that comes but a mouse! When you live in a foreign country you learn a lot about our customs. I always assumed that the tooth fairy was universal but she isn't. In Asian countries you throw the tooth on the roof (if it was an upper tooth) and bury it under the house (if it was a lower tooth). For more interesting tooth customs here is a fun website.

http://www.toothfairys.net/aroundtheworld.htm

Back to Josiah and my converstation. I asked him how much money he though the mouse would leave. We finally agreed on 20 pesos (A little less than $2 but it is the smallest bill). He quickly decided that he would rather have the tooth fairy come because she could give him dollars and he could buy a skateboard in the states this summer! Pretty smart to know that Pesos are for here and Dollars for the States. He then asked me how many dollars would the toothfairy leave. I quickly looked at Cory, he thought $1 was good, I told him that she wasn't that cheap. I then commented that she will probably just have to leave the smallest bill she has because there aren't many dollars in her house only pesos. I better start digging around the house for some small bills. Its kinda fun that Josiah gets to be a part of two cultures. The Easter bunny doesn't come to Mexico but he makes a special stop at our house! Another advantage is that here there is a Kids day - you know like Mothers day, Fathers day - why not Kids Day.

So I am curious how much does the tooth fairy leave at your house? I would love to hear about it.

Semana Santa y Semana Pascua

2008-03-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while. I have actually been a little unmotivated to do so. My in-laws are coming to visit tomorrow so I have a very long list of things to do. Instead of working on the list I decided to sit down and blog. Today I was thinking about the first time that my in-laws came to our house after we were married. They only lived two hours away from Lubbock. They called us on Saturday and said they were coming to town to do some shopping on Sunday. We were super excited and I was a little nervous. I headed straight for the kitchen to prepare a meal. They were coming in after church so I knew that I wouldn't have much time so I needed to make something ahead of time that I could just throw in the oven. Well, I came up with Chicken spaghetti - I figured its easy, I had everything on hand, wouldn't be much work the next day, and who doesn't like chicken spaghetti? That night I stayed up till two o'clock cleaning my house to impress them with how good of a housekeeper I was. I wanted so bad to make a good impression. Well, as far as I remember everything went well with their visit. We ate and went shopping. I don't know exactly when but sometime later (probably a few months) I found out that my father in-law detests chicken and he is not a fan of pasta!! He sais chicken is FOUL. Oops couldn't have choosen a worst dish to have served. He is a great guy and I am sure he ate every bit of it and might have even asked for seconds just to make me feel better! Believe it or not almost 9 years later and I haven't cooked another meal for them - not because I don't want to but because they love treating us and taking us out to eat.
Well, preparing for this visit is much less stressfull although I did repaint the bathroom and have a very long list of things to do. If they don't get done I promise I will NOT be up scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees at two o'clock like last time.
We are super excited about their visit. They are so much fun to be around and they spoil us.
This week is Semana Santa (Holy week) and next week is Semana Pascua (Easter week). A large part of the Mexican population goes on vacation during this time. Mainly they go to the beaches. It is nice for those of us that stay here because the traffic dies down and things calm down. The kids are out of school for 2 1/2 weeks and many adults get off of work during at least part of this time if not all.

The following is taken directly from a web site. I will give the link and acknowledgment at the end.
This is what a Mexican magazine has to say about Holy Week and Easter Week.

Easter is one of the most important Christian holidays commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ after he was crucified. In Mexico, where 90% of the population is baptized Catholic, although many don't actually practice, Easter is taken very seriously - and literally - with colorful, passionate processions reenacting the Passion of Jesus Christ's last days on earth.
The week leading up to Easter, known in English as Holy Week, is called Semana Santa in Latin American countries and is celebrated with processions, Masses and other events that mark Jesus Christ's triumphant return to Jerusalem, his trial, his walk carrying the cross, and his crucifixion.
In Merida and in many villages, people recreate the Via Cruses, complete with actors and costumes of those ancient times. They also acknowledge the 13 stations, the places where Jesus fell as he bore his burden. It can be quite striking to see a mass of people dressed in the clothing of Jesus' time, walking behind an actor playing Jesus as he struggles doubled over from the weight of an enormous cross, with a crown of thorns on his head. Roman soldiers stand by and the Apostles are there as well. The actors are then hung on the crosses. Townspeople walk in the procession too, playing the role of the penitents who marched behind Jesus. It is moving to watch. Palm Sunday, Domingo de Ramos in Spanish, starts off Semana Santa on Sunday March 16th, this year and the week builds toward Maudy Thursday, Good Friday and of course, Easter Sunday, known as Dia de Gloria - Day of glory. On Palm Sunday everyone goes to Mass in the morning for the blessing of the Palm leaves; when dry, the leaves are made into crosses that people use as amulets, adorning their cars and homes. On Maudy Thursday and Good Friday (March 20th & 21th), the activities become more elaborate. On Maudy Thursday the "washing of the feet" ceremony is celebrated. During Mass, the highest-ranking priest washes the feet of twelve common people in representation of the 12 apostles
http://www.yucatantoday.com/events/eng-semana-santa.htm
There is a little cultural information for you.

Tim Hartman

2008-03-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

We received news tonight that a friend of ours from Yukon, Oklahoma passed away. He was a pilot in the OKC plane crash.

Our hearts are very heavy right now and we are praying and asking you to pray for his family. His wife Audra and his two sons Matthew and Marc.

Tim recently visited us for our sponsors weekend. We grew to really love him. We had a great weekend with him. He had a very good sense of humor and he was a kind and giving man.

We shared many good laughs with him. Here we are eating dinner and talking to the taco stand owner. Tim is on the far left.

The lesser of two evils

2008-03-03T19:05:00.001-08:00

I wanted to talk about Machismo tonight as my cultural post. I must say I didn't find much helpful info on Machismo on the internet. After a long time of reading articles I decided to just relly on my own knowledge of what Machismo is. I did find a decent definition.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about it: Machismo is a prominently exhibited or excessive masculinity. As an attitude, machismo ranges from a personal sense of virility to a more extreme masculism. In many cultures, machismo is acceptable and even expected.
Machismo is seen in many ways in Mexico. From early on in life women are taught to serve the men. You will see this in that men never serve themselves at get togethers or parties. The wife always asks "can I get you something". Often she won't even bother him with that question, she will just prepare him a plate.
The truth is that women have/are taking on a new role in Mexico. They are getting jobs and not fitting into the traditional womens role. They aren't always around to serve their husbands and be at their beck and call. This somewhat has influenced a small decline in Machismo. The problem is that men aren't adjusting as much to the new role because they have housekeepers that still do many of the things for them.
Machismo allows men to get away with having affairs. It is somewhat expected that Mexican men will have a misstress. It is even acceptable that they have two families that they support at the same time. One being their wife and family the other being the misstress and any children they might have. Machismo is also part of the reason why I feel that strip clubs are so successfull in Mexico. I often joke that any town in Texas, no matter the population, will have a Dairy Queen and a Church of Christ. Well, any Mexican town will have a strip club.
You might have heard that when Mexican girls turn 15 their families throw a big party for them to celebrate that they are entering womenhood. Well, it is not unheard of for a 15 year old boy to be taken by his father to a prostitute to have sex. This is their way of celebrating entrance into manhood! It is completely accepted by the culture.
Machismo can also be seen by the "right" men have to shout unacceptable remarks and whistle at women. In December I was putting the kids in the car after their school program and a pickup drove by and the "man" in the passanger seat grabbed my rear end and yelled obscene things to me. This is just part of being machista!
Well, there are other things that can be said about machismo but I will leave it to you to find out more about it. Please remember I am not saying this is how all Mexican men are. I am simply defining Machismo - not Mexican men.
The reason I wanted to write about machismo is because I always joke that the men on Cory's baseball team are Machistas. I do not mean that they are sleeping around, yelling obscene things, etc. I simply use the term to mean that they are very manly men. They are very proud and confident in themselves.
Well, we showed up for Cory's game yesterday. I showed up in my team jersey (as do most of the wives) and with my glove because I wanted to play catch with Josiah during the game. Right as the game is getting ready to start our team realizes they are going to have to forfeit because they are one player short. This is where the two evils come into play. It would be very degrading for them to have to forfeit. Jokingly I said to them. "I have my jersey on and I brought my glove!". They sat and thought for a while - it seemed like a really long while. The l0oks on their faces were great. I could see the debate going on in their head - "which is more degrading to forfeit or to play with a woman on our team?". After much troubled thought they invited me into the dugout. I was shocked, I didn't really mean it! I never thought that they would go for it. Next think I know I am behind home base with a catchers mask on and the game has started. I think my heart pounded faster than it ever has - I just knew I was going to mess up and the Machista men were going to have their way with me. Well long story short, I hit all three times up to bat, I advanced runners, had no errors, over all I did ok.
My tennis shoes are a little old and they are stretched out. The second time I was running to second my shoe went one direction while my foot went another. Next thing I know I am slidding face first into first base - oops it was a little emberassing. My whole knee is black! It was a lot of fun and I still can't believe they let me play.

baseball and life

2008-03-03T18:45:00.000-08:00

Josiah has baseball games on Saturdays. This Saturday some of the missionaries came to watch him. The night before the game, after I had put him to bed, he yelled down to me "do you need to draw them a map so they will know how to get there?" He was so excited that they were going to be there to watch him he could barely sleep. While at the game I was thinking about how much fun he was having. I looked around and noticed that all the kids were having fun and not really thinking about who was the best and the mistake they had just made etc. They were just concentrated on having fun. Not on who was the best or worst - or at least not individually. They are undefeated and pretty proud of that. Josiah was just excited to be playing a game he loves and that his friends had come to watch him.
Cory also has softball on Saturdays although this week he played Sunday afternoon. When I think about his games it is a whole different ball game. They get mad at eachother, mad at themselves, Cory is still talking about that error he had!! I was thinking about what a difference a few years make in how we look at life. Kids are so innocent and just want to enjoy life. We adults on the other hand like to complicate things. No wonder Matthew, Mark and Luke mention that Jesus wanted the little children to come to him. The children just wanted to be around Him and the adults fought over who would be at his right and left hand (Matt 20:20-28).

Monarch Butterflies

2008-02-25T18:15:00.000-08:00

This weekend our team took a long awaited trip. We have been planning the trip for months now. We went to a Monarch Butterfly sanctuary. All Monarch butterflies migrate for the winter months. The Monarch butterflies that live in the United states migrate to a few main areas. The western butteflies migrate to the California coastal areas. The population of the Rocky Mountain area migrates to Michoacan, Mexico. It is estimated that hudreds of million Monarchs come to this area.

It is about a 5 hour drive from our house to the sanctuary. The team went to a nearby city and we stayed the night there on Friday. Saturday we got up and headed to the sanctuary. There are two sanctuaries and we chose the one where we had been told there were horses to ride. The parking lot is a good hour walk (uphill) from the sanctuary. When we first got there they tried selling us walking sticks. We told them we wouldn't need them because we were planning on ridding horses. They quickly informed us that there no longer are horses, it was too dangerous so they no longer have that service. So, we bought some walking sticks and headed up the mountain - along with 1- one and a half year old, 3 two year olds, 3 six year olds and 4 "teenagers" or there abouts. It was a pretty ugly walk up the mountain but the kids all did great and were troopers. When we got to the top of the mountain there was a place they called the Rabit valley. It was a flat open area where there were a lot of butterflies. There were some man made watering areas where the butterflies were drinking from.

We thought we had arrived to the main area but we heard a tour guide telling his group "you haven't seen anything yet!" so we followed his instructions and continued down a path. About 15 minutes later we arrived at what is called the "nucleus". Here there were millions of butterflies. The trees off in the distance looked orange because of the covering of butterflies. It was amazing.

We learned some interesting facts while at the sanctuary (you can also read about them on wipedia). The Monarch butterflies expected life span is about a month. When you do the math you quickly realize that the same butterflies never return to their homeland. The butterflies will die before getting to return. When you really think about it, it is amazing because they return to the same place although they had never been there.
We also learned a little bit about their reproduction. Their courtship is short and simply involves the male butterfly pursuing the female in flight. When they land they reproduce. Well, we just happened to go at the peak of reproduction season. Unfortunatelly we learned about their reproduction first hand. While taking pictures two butterflies landed on my shoulder. And it just so happens that they landed on my shoulder for the purpose of reproducing! It was a little awkward as everyone started taking pictures of me and the butterflies on my shoulder.
Like I said there are many more interesting facts on wipedia.
Here are a few more pictures I thought you might enjoy.
Once again anyone is welcome to come visit us and we will gladly take you to see the butterflies. Just note that they are only here from October until March.

Highlights

2008-02-19T20:05:00.000-08:00

So, I haven't been great about blogging lately. Sorry. I will hit on a few highlights of the past two weeks with plans to later comment more on a few of the things.

We have had a crazy last 3 or 4 weeks. We worked really hard on planning a sponsors weekend. There were 28 supporters that visited us for a 4 day weekend. We had a great time but ended up worn out. We took the last group to the airport on Monday and headed to Mexico City straight from there. We went to Mexico City to meet our new AIMers. We were so excited to get to know them. The kids loved them and can't wait for them to move here. We had a great visit with them but it was way to short. We stayed with Care and Benjy while we were there and as always had a great time being around them and their boys.
Oh, ya, while we were having our supporters weekend our car got broken into and they stole Cory's i-pod, personal computer and a few other things. They broke the lock off of the door which we just got replaced today.
So, we got back from Mexico City in time for Josiah to eat, shower and go to an entrance exam! Yes he is going into elementary next year and here you have to take entrance exams to get into first grade! I will write more about this later in the week. We will get the results back on Thursday and find out if he was accepted.
Saturday we had baseball and Josiah got invited to be on the Zapopan (our city - we don't actually live in Guadalajara) selection team! I had to keep myself from laughing when they were telling me about it. Anyone that knows my son knows that he isn't the most coordinated child. He does love baseball though and he plays pretty well.

Speaking of baseball, our family is BIG Red Sox fans. Cory has been a fan since he was a child, I have been a fan since I married Cory and well the kids haven't had much choice - they have been fans all their lives. Josiah knows the players names, positions etc. The Red Sox are going to be playing in Houston the last weekend of June. We were already planning on being in that area in July so we just changed our plans a little. We went to buy tickets and you can't just buy tickets because the game is in such high demand. So, we had to enter our names into a lottery for a chance to buy tickets. Only one entry per person so we enlisted all our friends and family. Well, my parents got sellected so they got us tickets!! We are so excited, Josiah can't wait and I keep thinking it would have been better if I would have waited to tell him about it. June is far away and he keeps asking if we are going soon.

Later on in the week I will try and post a cultural post for you AIM guys and anyone else that likes to learn about Mexican culture.

Endless day, Lite Bright, Mexican Constitution and much more

2008-02-04T17:41:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have one of those days when you just wish it would end. Today I kept catching myself thinking "is it not over yet!!". The kids are in bed and things are winding down so I am feeling better about the day.

Every year the water company turns the water off for a few days to work on pipes. Well, somehow everyone but me knew that it was this past week. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal except I had set Friday aside to do laundry, wash sheets, towels etc. I found out on Thursday night that the water was going to be turned off so I stayed up till 1 o'clock getting laundry done. We have a tank under our house that holds a few days worth of water in it, so its not like we were completely out of water but we did have to be very careful about not using much or we would completely run out. It came back on today (one day earlier than scheduled). I'm just glad that they didn't turn it off next weekend since we will have 30 supporters visiting.

Today there was no school for the kids. The 5th of February is the anniversary of the signing of the Mexican Constitution (1917). They took today off instead of tomorrow since it fit better with the weekend.

The kids had a great time playing in Josiahs room today. They didn't make much of a mess but I told them they needed to clean up before they came to eat lunch. I explained that lunch was ready and Hannah and I were going to go a head and eat, they could join us when they were done. 3 hours later they still hadn't eaten lunch. Not only had they not eaten lunch they got out every toy that hadn't previously been out. I tried all my love and logic tactics and tried to stay calm. Not much was accomplished. I was downstairs listening to them "clean up" while they were murmering how bad it is to be in this family, they didn't want to clean up etc. The next thing I know Abigail is screaming that she can't breath. Well, I know she can breath or she wouldn't be able to scream. Josiah tells me to call the ambulance because Abigail was dying. I went upstairs and found out that Abigail had shoved a lite bright peg up her nose.

I tried to get it out myself but she had stuck it in pretty far. She told me it was a red one and that she wanted to pretend that she had a bloody nose!! Luckily my next door neighbor is a surgeon and he was able to get it out. She was much calmer with him than she was with me when I was trying to get it out.

This weekend we are having a sponsors weekend. There are going to be 30 supporters here representing the churches and individuals that support the 5 families involved in our work. We are really excited about the weekend and know it is going to be a really great time. There is a lot of work that goes into getting the weekend planned though. We are looking forward to the weekend but will be oh so relieved when it is over. We will drop our last group off at the airport on Monday and head straight to Mexico City. The AIMers will be there on their annual trip and we want to join them and get some time with our AIMers. The kids are super excited they were drawing pictures to give to the AIMers this morning.

I thought I would throw in some pictures of the kids at their Little League on Saturday. Josiah loves playing baseball and is getting pretty good at it. His team is called the "Aztecas". The way it works is they have a baseball "school" that they start all kids off at. They have been in this since August. This weekend they will officially graduate into Little League. They will get their uniforms and have to start following stricter rules. We are excited about it. I will post pictures later of him in his uniform.

Abigail is also playing but with much less interest than Josiah is. She will be staying in the baseball school until next year.

There are two families on our team that we have started getting really close to. They are really neat people and we would love to minister to them. Please keep them in your prayers. I will try and keep you updated on them.

Well, I feel like this post is very long so I will not make it longer with my normal Monday Mexico fact.

Monday again!

2008-01-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

My how time flies. Well, when I first had the idea to post an interesting fact about Mexico every Monday I had a million ideas. Now, just a few weeks into it I feel like I am running short on ideas. Or at least of interesting ideas!

I think today I am going to talk about food in Guadalajara.

Guadalajara is famous for a few dishes. The first dish is:

A Torta ahogada (literally "drowned sandwich" in local Spanish) is a typical dish from the Mexican state of Jalisco, particularly in the city of Guadalajara. Although it is popular in some other parts of Mexico, it is more popular in Jalisco than anywhere else. It is called "drowned" because the sandwich is submerged totally or partially in a sauce made primarily of a dried chili pepper called de árbol. Their flavor, when "well drowned" is so spicy that only people accustomed to eating hot chili peppers are able enjoy their flavor. Less spicy versions of the sandwich, made with a tomato-based sauce are also available.
Tortas ahogadas are made with birote bread (also called bolillo) characteristic of the region. The bread has a thick, crunchy crust and softer interior which is more salty than sweet. The consistency of the bread permits the sandwich to be submerged in sauce without being destroyed. The bread is sliced open on one side and the sandwich is filled with chopped, fried pork. Fillings of chicken, beans and cheese are sometimes available. The sandwiches are served with onion rings, radishes, avocados and chili peppers. (wikipedia)

Definatelly one of the messiest foods to eat but well worth every bit of it.

The second dish that Guadalajara is famous for is Carne en su jugo (Meat in its juice).

This is definitely on the top of my family's list of favorites.

It is a dish made of thinly sliced beef, onions, salsa verde, beans and bacon. The dish is served with bacon bits, onions, cilantro and lime.

One of the most famous restaurants that serve carne en su jugo is Karne Garibaldi. In August of 1996 they entered the Guinness book of world records as being the fastest restaurant in the world. The record was 13.5 seconds from time of ordering to time of service of food. Pretty fast! You must take into account that there are really only 4 items on their menu - small Karne, Large Karne, hot or mild.

I promise that if you come and visit our family you will eat at least one of these meals.

Plastic Surgery

2008-01-21T14:22:00.000-08:00

Ok, its time to write a little more about Guadalajara and its culture.
Todays topic is plastic surgery. Probably not something you think of when you think of Mexico right? Well, other than Rio de Janairo, Guadalajara has the most plastic surgeons per capita than any other city. More plastic surgery is performed in Guadalajara than any other city, other than Rio de Janairo.
Because of a few different factors doctors can charge much cheaper prices. They say plastic surgery in Guadalajara costs about 1/4 of what it costs in the states.
Since the prices are so cheap, people are flocking in from the United States to have plastic surgery performed on them. They even have agencies that will sell "packages" including flights, transportation from the airport, transportation to doctors visits and hospital, housing and food.
Not only are Americans coming to Guadalajara for surgery but the Tapatios (people from Guadalajara) are getting plastic surgery performed. One article I read states "We say that no one is unattractive in Guadalajara," jokes Martha Venegas, a resident. "There are poor people but no ugly ones." Even the poorest people can get plastic surgery perfomed on them at the government hospital. They are charged a very minimal fee.
Just in the past 14 months I can name 4 of my friends from my "coto" that have had plastic surgery. It is a very big trend right now. Appearance is very important here which is part of why there are so many plastic surgeons.
I have attached a link incase anyone wants to read more about it. I think it is an interesting article.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourHealth/PlasticSurgeryVacationsInMexico.aspx

"Neighborhood" meeting

2008-01-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

A good rule of thumb - a very good rule of thumb is to never talk bad about a culture to members of that culture. It seems to be ok for them to talk bad about their own culture but if you even begin to hint at something negative it is very offensive.

I feel like I have to do a little explaining before really getting into my story so please hang in there. We live in what is called a "coto". There are 34 houses in our "coto". From the street it just looks like a big wooden gate, once the gate is opened you see 17 houses on each side of the private drive. All 17 houses are two story, identical in look and side by site (literally connected). I like to compare it to an apartment building but we are all on ground level. It is a great way to make good use of space but still allow people to feel like they are in houses and not apartments, although we share walls with two sets of neighbors.

Well, along side of the 17 houses on the left side of the street is a party place. Mexicans love parties and will throw them for a variety of occasions. In the three years we have lived in this house we have never really been bothered by the party place. They charged $17 a person per party and I think no one really wanted to pay that much so there were never parties which was just fine with us. In the past few weeks we noticed that it changed ownership and a lot of work was being done on the place. Well, tonight marks the 3rd night in 5 days that they are having a party. I can tell you that they are grilling out tonight because my house is filled with a great smell. I can also tell you that it is 10:45 PM and the band just showed up! Yes, for the previous two parties the band hasn't left before 2 AM!!!!! The actual stage where the band plays is less than 50 yards from our bedroom!! We are being told that the parties are for government officials (as well as drug dealers and very corrupt people etc). There are around 40 kids in our "coto" and parents are not happy about all the noise. We are in the middle of getting a petition signed that will get them out of our neighborhood. Some neighbors have even temporarily started sleeping at family members houses because it is too loud to sleep.
I ask that you guys be in prayer for this situation so that it can get resolved fast and easily. Two words that make me want to laugh when I think that I am using them to describe something we want to get done my the Mexican government.

I tell you all of this to get to what I really wanted to write about. Tonight we had a "neighborhood" meeting. Our neighborhood consists of 18,000 people. Some of you might consider that a city! Well, because of the trouble with our new neighbors, residents from our "coto" decided to go to the monthly neighborhood meeting. There were only 4 of us present. When the meeting was about to start one of my neighbors said to the other "I think I have seen something like this in old films. All the town people get together to talk about the cities problems. Their horses are tied up by the trees . . . . ." He went on to explain how old fashion this seemed. He and another neighbor began talking about the corruption and inefficiency of the Mexican government. They kept saying "only in Mexico". They were talking about how they know that most of their efforts are going to get swept under the rug. They also realize that we are probably going to be complaining to the same people that are part of these parties and therefore nothing will get done.

The meeting lasted 2 hours and it was filled with pleas for people to realize that their neighborhood is not going to get better if they are not actively involved in making it a better place. I was encouraged by the ammount of dissatisfaction that was being shown. I think the Mexican people as a whole are becoming discontent with the way things are. They are beggining to see that things need to change and maybe seeing that they need to be involved in the change. It was very encouraging for me. I also was reminded of how important it is to be involved with the people around you. I can say that we are very involved with the families that are in our "coto" but once we get out of that big wooden gate we don't know many of our neighbors. I am going to be volunteering with the "neighborhood" association and I am really excited about the doors that might be opened though this. It excites me because the people I will be around are going to be people that are wanting change and are dissatisfied with things the way they are. I figure these are going to be people that are most open to God and what He can do in their life. They are not going to be satisfied with being a catholic just because their ancestors were. I will keep you updated and let you know what comes of this need project.

Elevation

2008-01-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

Well its Monday once again so I am going to write a little about Guadalajara.
Today I am going to talk about the elevation of Guadalajara. According to Fodder's travel guide Guadalajara is 5,576 feet above sea level.
Here are a few other cities and their altitude so you can compare them.
Lubbock - 3,195 ft
Dallas - 463 ft
Denver - 5,280 ft
Mt Everest - 8,848 ft
New York - 33 ft
Anything about 3,500 ft is considered high altitude.
Ok, so you are thinking whats the big deal about the altitude, right?
Because visitors aren't accustomed to the altitude they can actually get sick while visiting. It is VERY important to drink a lot of liquids while in high altitude (preferably water). We are very big about stressing to all of our visitors that they drink a lot of water. So far, in the three years we have been here, we have only had two visitors get sick. One refused to drink water and the other one got sun burned really bad and maybe a little dehydrated. AIMers drink a lot of water when you are in Mexico City and you will have a much funner trip than if you don't! I promise.
The other thing about the altitude as I mentioned earlier is the sun. We are much closer to the sun and therefore need to be more careful about exposure to it.
The last thing is cooking. Water at sea level boils at 212 degrees F. But because of the change in atmospheric pressure the water boils at a much lower temperature. At our altitude water boils at 201 degrees F (for every 500 ft of elevation boiling point decreases one degree). Because the temperature is lower it takes longer to cook things. When a recipe states 30 minutes I usually expect it to take at least 40 minutes and am not surprised if it takes longer.
Well, that is kind of a boring fact but believe it or not I deal with it on a daily basis. Especially the cooking aspect of it. Hope it wasn't too boring. I wanted to mention it because we are about to have a large group of supporters visit and then we are going to Mexico City to see our AIMers so I was thinking about it. Drink lots of water when you are visiting us!

Blessings

2008-01-11T15:24:00.000-08:00

God has blessed me above and beyond anything I deserve. Sometimes I have days where I tend to forget those blessings. Today I have had a day where I have been able to reflect on and enjoy the blessings I have. I thought I would share a few of them.

1. I am blessed to have two beautiful and healthy daughters that are currently playing house under the dining room table and speaking Spanish to each other. Hannah calls Abigail "Mana" short for hermana.

2. I am blessed that my children can speak, hear, walk, are healthy etc.

3. I am blessed to have a husband that is sitting at Starbucks right now visiting with my handsome 6 year old son.

4. I am blessed to have to pick up toys all day - there are many kids that could only dream of having as many toys as we do.

5. I am blessed to get to go to the movies tonight with a really good friend of mine.

6. I am blessed to have a husband that will watch the kids for me so I can go to the movies.

7. I am blessed to be stressing over finding an elementary school for Josiah. The majority of children in Mexico that GET to go to school go to private schools. The ones in public school share the classroom with around 30 or more classmates. They only go to school for about 3 hours because they need the classroom for another class.

8. I am blessed that my parents came to see me a few weeks ago.

9. I am blessed that my in laws are coming to see me in a little over two months.

10. I am blessed to have a computer and be able to share my life with so many great friends and family literally all over the world.

Rosca de Reyes

2008-01-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I decided to write our AIMers once a week with a cultural fact or cultural experience to help them get to know Mexico better. I have found that learning about the culture you are in is so important. Mexicans are very proud of their heritage and culture. My Mexican friends are always very honored to teach me about their culture. They like for us to take part in cultural experiences with them. I decided that instead of e-mailing our AIMers every week I would just make it a blog entry. That way the rest of you can also learn a little about Mexico.
Today I was going to write about Three King's Day (Jan 6th - Dia de los Reyes). I found a great article on line and decided to just cut and paste a section of the article for you.

Three Kings Day falls on January 6, day of the Epiphany.
In Mexico, it is traditionally on the 6th of January that children receive the majority of their gifts, rather than Christmas, although this unfortunately has been changing with the North American commercialization of the gift-giving process.
Three King's Day commemorates the Three Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and the giving of gifts on this day is the re-enactment of this journey and their arrival in Bethlehem.
A special sweet bread, called the Rosca de Reyes, studded with bits of candied fruit, is baked and eaten on January 6. A small doll which represents the Christ child is baked into the dough. The figure symbolizes the hiding of the child from Herod's army. These tiny figurines were originally fashioned out of porcelain or glass and could come in many cute forms and colors; nowadays, again with the modernization of the ritual, the little dolls are much more likely to be mass-produced amorphous bits of plastic.
Whoever finds the figure in their slice of sweet bread on Three King's Day is supposed to give a party on February 2nd, Candlemas Day, or Día de la Candelaria, offering tamales and atole (a hot, sweet drink thickened with corn flour) to the guests.

We were invited to my friend Glenda's house (she is pictured in my entry of gingerbread houses). She was smart and hid 5 dolls in the bread so that all the children would be able to find one. Now its up to the kids to throw a party!! Let's see how that turns out!
Here are the kids in their Texas Tech outfits celebrating Tech's Bowl win.

AIM coordinators

2007-12-20T07:03:00.000-08:00

We are so excited! We found out yesterday that we are getting AIMers in May.
We can't wait for them to get here. There are going to be 6 of them! Its a little bit bigger of a team then we were expecting but it will be great. Their names are Jessica Ford, Aaron McCall, Brian Hall, Dana Lester, Daniel Batten and Elizabeth Burow.

We know that they are going to be a big blessing to our family. My kids are excited. They have had a chance to spend a little time with AIMers in the past month and they think AIMers are really cool.
On a side note. Amy Jo Smith was a little girl when I went to the field (her parents were my coordinators) and she will be going to Albania as an AIMer in May. I am really excited for you Amy Jo! Her brother is in South Africa also as an AIMer.
On another side note one of our AIMers, Aaron McCall, is family. Well, his brother is married to my twin sister. I realize that isn't blood relatives, but I figure he is an uncle to my niece so we are family.
AIMers we are really excited about you guys. Enjoy the next few months in Mission term it is a lot of fun. We are praying for you and the work you will do here.

WARNING LOTS TO CATCH UP TO DO

2007-12-20T05:57:00.000-08:00

Well, a lot has gone on since I last wrote. I will try to briefly catch you up on things.

One of the things that I love about Mexicans is their love for celebration! We have had many Christmas parties in the past few weeks. We have had parties for Little League, neighborhood, and school. Tomorrow we have our last party. It is with a group from a new neighborhood that we are targeting. Our family has gone into a new neighborhood the last month or so to make new contacts. It is about 25 minutes from our house which complicates things a little bit. Cory has started studying with the dad of the family that we have been in contact with. During one of his studies his wife asked us to come over for lunch. We went to lunch with them after church on Sunday and had a really good time. From there we planned another lunch and they invited us to the Christmas party that is at their house this Friday. It was actually the 15 year old daughter that invited us. It is a party with her friends. They are part of a "recovery" group. I don't really think that is the best translation for it but it will have to do for now. It is a group of people recovering from a life of abuse, alcoholism, traumas etc. We are excited to get to know this group but at the same time a little nervous. I will let you know how this party goes - I still don't have a babysitter.
Here us a picture of the ladies from our neighborhood party.

I had a great experience with two of my great friends and thier kids this week. We got together and made gingerbread houses. They had never done anything like it and they were really excited. After a few hours of working on them we were done. One of my neighbors, Roxanna, said to me "thanks for helping me have the best experience I have ever had with my daughter, I have never had this much fun with her." My other neighbor doesn't spend much quality time with her son either and I was really glad to see them get good time together. Here are a few picture of our time.

Here is a picture of the kids before their school program.

Abigail taking Hannah for a ride.

"Mom im sre"

2007-12-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

Almost two years ago my teamate (Kim) and I wallpapered the kids rooms. The girls room is painted Pink on the bottom half and light green on the top with a boarder in the middle. Josiah's room is Yellow and Blue with a sports boarder in the middle. Josiah has a captain bed which sits higher than a normal bed. This makes it so he is right at the level of the boarder. It has been a real temptation for him to pick at it while trying to go to sleep. In the past he has done a pretty good job of not picking at it. The other day I walked into his room in the morning and he had pulled off the entire boarder of one side of the room. I was really frustrated with Josiah and he knew it. He came into my room a few minutes later and told me to come see what he had done to make things better. I went into his room and burst out laughing. He is in Kindergarten and loves learning how to read and write. Well, he had written me a note on the wall where he had torn off the wallpaper. It read "mom im sre". I had to compose myself and explain that it was not ok to write on the wall.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T19:46:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Thanksgiving. Obviously Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Mexico. Yesterday I was at one of my friends (Norma) house. I was explaining to her that it was Thanksgiving. One of our other friends (Margarita) was also there visiting with us. Norma asked what Thanksgiving was, without giving me any time to answer Margarita chose to answer. She explained to Norma that Thanksgiving was the American version of Mexican Christmas! I couldn't believe my ears. I sat and listened to the two of them talk about what they thought Thanksgiving was. Norma asked me (in Spanish) "so is this the day when the bunny brings the eggs? and where exactly does he hide them?". Needless to say I quickly explained that Thanksgiving had nothing to do with Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. I told them the history of Thanksgiving and explained that it is a time to be with family and really think about the things that you are thankful for. Well, I had to stop talking about it because I got teary eyed. I realized just how thankful I am to have such a wonderful life. I have a wonderful family, wonderful in-laws, healthy family, food on the table, clothes to wear, a house to sleep in, two cars, friends who love me, running water, electricity, and on and on.

It is sad that we couldn't be with family during Thanksgiving but I was blessed with time with my family and friends. Yesterday (thanksgiving) we had ham, sweet potato casserole, pot. casserole, and cranberry salad. It was the first time that the five of us celebrated Thanksgiving as a family. While eating we read a great book called "The First Thanksgiving".

Today we got together with our team and had a feast!!! We could have put the pilgrams to shame! Everyone brough all their favorite foods. After dinner we played cards and just visited. It was a lot of fun.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving - love Toni

2007-11-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

We just got back last night from a Mexico Missionaries retreat. I think there were around 80 of us (30 or so children). It was a great time to study the word together, catch up on friendships, play at the beach, share stories about the work in Mexico etc. It was really good for our family.

The beach was beautiful. I love the beach, it reminds me of my childhood and the beach in Italy.

Josiah is a dare devil and had a ton of fun in the ocean and pool. He can doggy paddle all the way across the pool! Hannah loved the water. She is just as brave as her brother and has no fear of jumping in the pool. Abigail had a great time also there were a few girls her age and she really enjoyed them. She is still talking about them. She wanted to know if Cory and I can buy her a Barbie computer so that she can e-mail Adah Henderson. We will have to think about that one!

We were so blessed to get to be next door to some of our very best friends in the world, Benjy and Carolyn Brednich. Carolyn and I were in Slovakia together for a year and we were in each others wedding. Benjy was Cory's best man in our wedding. They have three adorable boys. As always we were so blessed to get to stay up late catching up (even though Care and I always ended up asleep in the hamocks).

One of the highlights of the trips (at least for me) was the turtles. Turtles return to the beach where they are born and lay their eggs. Well, for the safety of the eggs people watch for turtles that come to shore and lay their eggs. They then dig up the eggs and put them in a "green house" it is a house made out of screen. When they hatch the hotels put the turtles in a safe environment and a few days later release them. Six years after the turtles are born they will return to the same beach they were born at to lay eggs. The sad thing is that only 1% of the turtles live that long. Most get eaten by birds, dogs, etc. Since they have started this program they have been able to increase the percentage that return. If the turtles get a chance to mature they can live up to 150 years! The kids loved getting to see the turtles and then release them into the ocean.

A cruise ship came the day before we left.

To all off you that were at the retreat thanks for everything we had a great time and really enjoyed being around your families.

Deep thoughts by Josiah

2007-10-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Often while putting my kids to bed they say something cute and worth blogging but I don't always have a chance to do it. Well, tonight the 29th of October Josiah stated "If today was tomorrow then tomorrow would be Halloween."

Michoacan

2007-10-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

We just went on a great weekend trip to the state of Michoacan. We had planned the trip so that we could get together with our good friends Carolyn and Benjy from Mexico City. Unfortunatelly Benjy got sick and they were not able to come. We would have loved to see them but we had a lot of fun.

Michoacan is our neighboring state. Three of my good friends and neighbors are from this state so they sent us with a list of places to see and foods to eat.

We started off in Zamora where we stayed in a "Comfort" Inn. To make a really long story short - the toilet was clogged, there was no hot water, there was a spider in Abigails bed, there were hairs in Josiah's bed (not belonging to him), they tried to charge us for our free breakfast, they stripped our beds while we were at breakfast. The one good thing is they did have cable and we were able to watch the Boston Red Sox win game two of the world series. In the end we got our room for free!

Right outside of Zamora is a famous lake. It has crystal clear water and you can see all the way to the bottom. The water rises from underground and you can see the dirt move where the water is coming up. The lake is filled with fish, some turtles, shrimp, snakes etc. You can rent a boat and a guide to take you around the lake. We really enjoyed it.

After Zamora we hit a few little pueblitos. Quiroga is known for its woodworking and leather. We had fun looking at all the shops and markets but I didn't take any pictures of this city. From there we went on to Tsinsunsan this is another small town. It is famous for its Jesus that grows??? They have a statue of Jesus in their cathedral that suposedly grows and gets longer and longer. It is in a glass case and they have had to add on to the case so that he can fit into it. When we got there we saw the Jesus statue in a glass case but his legs which supposedly grow longer every year were covered in a blanket. It was very sad because there were pictures and toys laying around him from people that felt like their prayers had been asnwered by this Jesus. People are searching and wanting answers but once again we see the deception of the catholic church. This city is also known for its work with straw. They make all kinds of Christmas decorations out of straw (sorry the only picture I got did not turn out). This city also has pyramids in it but we did not know about that until the day after we visited.

From there we moved on to Patzcuaro. This is a city that is famous for its Day of the Dead celebration. If any of you took Spanish in High School and studied the day of the dead I can promise you that you studied Patzcuaro. I remember being impacted by the pictures of this celebration when I was in Sr Gross' Spanish class. I dreamed of getting to actually see this celebration first hand. Well the celebration is on the 1st and 2nd of November. I plan on going to it next year without kids because it isn't really kid friendly. We enjoyed this town and were able to buy some Day of the dead candies for the kids.

This was our little "friend" that we found in our Hotel room. We checked out about 20 minutes later!

We also had a chance to visit Santa Clara del Cobre. This is a town that is famous for its copper work. You can buy anything imagineable made out of copper here. Chadd and Nancy were there with their family so we got a chance to have breakfast with them and then we got a chance to go into a workshop and see how the copper is worked. Wow, it is amazing.

One of the things I was most looking forward to during our trip was our visit to Patamba. About 50 years ago the city of Patamba began a festival. It is held on the last Sunday of October before the day of the Dead. Let me tell you this was quite an adventure. We had been told that it was about 20 minutes from our hotel. An hour and 15 minutes later, after having asked intructions at least half a dozen times we arrived. The roads leading to this town were some of the worst roads I have ever been on. I am so thankful for our Suburban which I wasn't even sure was going to be able to handle there roads. This celebration was started mainly to draw in turists and from what I understand has no real history. They cultivate the flowers from the region and decorate the streets with flower "carpets". They have recently started dying some of the flowers to make brighter colors. All the pictures I have are natural colors except for the ones with Josiah and Abigail and the circles (these were tinted with dye and the kids walked around with red hands for the rest of the day)

The way they decorate is they stake out the center area with rope and nails. Then they pour bags of saw dust on the marked area. They then flatten the saw dust with a 2x4. They draw pictures in the saw dust with the fingers and then decorate it with flowers. In the one where Josiah and Abigail helped they used crosstich hoops. It was a really beautiful celebration. If any of you are in town on the last sunday of October I will gladly go back with you!

We are back

2007-09-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

The kids and I have returned from our fast trip to the states. We had a good time with family. I stayed a week at my grandmothers and then a little less than a week at my sister's house in Tulsa. It is a new and beautiful house. I had lots of fun playing with my niece Elizabeth while there.
I was blessed with a car and cell phone to use during the time that I was there. It came in so handy to have my own car when lugging around the three kids. Thank you so much James and Marilyn for lending me the car etc.

We are working on getting back into the swing of things. This Sunday we have a get together in the afternoon with a family that we have been getting closer with and a group of their friends. We are excited about this and can't wait to see what God has planned with these families. Please keep this in your prayers. Norma and Rodolfo are the couple that we know out of this group. Norma and her family have a great heart and are very humble loving people.

Please also keep in your prayers a new outreach that we are planning.
We have been feeling for a while a call to minister to the poor. We would like to go into the poor neighborhood and minister to their needs but also plant some new churches. We are still unsure exactly what our plan is going to be. We don't know the best way to go about it but we feel like it has been on our hearts for a long time and we want to take action. Pray that we will get the guidance we need to know how to go about it.

On a much lighter note I have been tagged. This is a game in the blog world and, much like my friend Carolyn who sent this to me, I am too non confrontational not to play. So here goes.

Here are the rules. 1)Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. (2) People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules. (3) At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. (4) Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I like the color pink. I never would have said that before I had girls. In fact I didn't like pink util Abigail was born. Now I really like the color a lot.

2. I was the football manager for our High School football team. Until I had girls I was much less girly than I now am. I wanted to play on the football team but of course that wasn't allowed. So, I just became the manager. I loved it. I have great memories of my 3 years as manager and even got a Football letter!!

3. I volunteered at the Oklahoma City Children's hospital in the burn clinic. I started there a week before the OKC bombing. Every child from the bombing (except one) came to our clinic/ICU. I was honored to get to change their dressings, care for their wounds and speak with family members.

4. One of my favorite things in the world to do is cook. I often dream of opening my own business. I just can't decided if I would want to open my own restaurant or bakery. Both sound like so much fun to me.

5. I detests cats!! When I was in High School I got a job cleaning the neighbors house. They had a cat that would wait for me to go down to the basement and then would sit at the top of the stairs and trap me in. When I would pass by the cat would hiss and scratch me. It would also hide behind furniture and jump out at me. Before this I liked cats!! Needeless to say they had a really clean basement because I learned to just stay in the basement and wait for the cat to move.

6. I love school. I loved college and would go back in a heart beat. Sometimes I think I would even go back and get the same major just because I liked the classes so much. I dream of going to graduate school one day. FYI my major is in Human Development. FYI I just had to ask Cory what my major was!! Maybe I do need to go retake the classes

7. I am a penny pincher. There is nothing I love more than a good bargain. Coupons are a great friend of mine. Clearances excite me!!!

8. My wildest dream is to meet Josh Groban. I would love to go to one of his concerts and then have him over for a good homecooked Italian meal. Of course Cory would be invited as well.

I am tagging the following friends - Kim Rush, Monica, Timbra, Heather, Lucy, Jessica Johnson, Erin

Alton Gale Witcher

2007-09-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

I am writing from Oklahoma. I am on an unplanned trip. On Thursday the 13Th I received a call that my grandfather passed away. I quickly got on the Internet and found out that the only flight left for the day left in 3 1/2 hours so I bought the tickets and packed fast. I brought the three kids because Cory is in Lubbock.
The funeral was on Saturday. My dad preached and did a wonderful job of remembering my grandad and his great characteristics. He was a very good man who loved people. He loved honesly and fairness. Wish you all could have known him.
There wasn't much time between his passing and his funeral but still so many people from around the world found out about it. I am very thankful for the many people who have shown love to my family during this time. I received a phone call today from Mexico and it was a great blessing to me. We were very blessed by the group from Yukon that attended the funeral. There were three carloads from Yukon and I can not express how grateful I am to you guys for the love you have showed our family the past 29 years and especially this week. God has truly blessed us through you.
I will be in the states until the 26Th. I figured if I was going to buy three plain tickets I was going to make it worthwhile. I will be going to Tulsa on Wed or Thursday to spend some time with my sister and her family. They are in a new house that I am super excited to see. My one year old niece is going to ditch daycare and spend the day with me - I can't wait.
Please say a special prayer for my grandmother. She has been surrounded (literally) by a lot of family. There are 9 of us that are still staying at her house this week. After this week everyone will go back to Croatia, Tulsa, South Dakota, and Mexico. She will be left with no family any where near. She has some great friends but they are ALL sick, having surgeries, loosing relatives of their own, or have sick spouses. Pray that God will give her strength.
My grandfather will be greatly missed. Even Josiah was so sad when he found out. He said to me "I am really sad that Grandad died. We had a lot of fun together. He called me Curly (that was their nickname for each other"

Abigail and Spanish

2007-09-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

Abigail has really been speaking a lot of Spanish lately. The best thing about a kid learning another language is that they don't worry about what anyone will think of them. They are not self concious like adults.
She was outside playing yesterday and something made her sad. In Spanish she told me "I am about to start raining (llover)". She intended to say crying (llorar). Then today she wanted to say that "we were out of ice cream" (nieve) but she said "we are out of a boyfriend" (novio). There was a Mexican in our house at the time and she thought it was really cute and couldn't help laughing at Abigail.

PRAYERS

2007-09-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

Just left Abigail's room from nigh time prayers. Here is her prayer word for word
"Thank you for this day. This is Cinderella and she speaks English. Robots speak Spanish. Amen!"
She is three and it is hard for her understand what she is doing when she is praying. It is interesting to me though because she knows there is something special about it. When she prays she talks different than at any other time. Her prayers are ALWAYS amusing and I know God enjoys them a lot.