I have been trying for a really long time now to get a good picture of the kids. I finally got one!!

Marathon

I am so proud of Cory. Yesterday he ran his first Half Marathon!! He ran it in a little over 2 hours. I believe it was 2:05. The most amazing thing about it is that he took the summer off from running and just started back about two weeks ago!! How many people can run a half marathon after only two weeks of running?
The run was part of his training for a Full Marathon in December. I think I am more excited about the Dec Marathon that he is. It is at the beach and a few other missionaries are running in it. I am excited to get to visit with the wives!
At the end of the Half Marathon Josiah got to join Cory and run the last 100 yards. When they got done Josiah said "Dad isn't it great that I can run as much as you!" he is still convinced that he ran just as much as Cory did. This morning Abigail got up at 6. I told her to be quiet so that Cory could rest since his body was tired from the race. She made sure to remind me "and Josiah too!"
Congratulations Cory - you did great.

We are starting the 3rd week of school and the kids still love it. Abigail had her first homework today. She was really excited. She loved doing anything her big brother gets to do. She was suppose to draw a picture of herself. Josiah didn't like homework much last year but he is doing great with it this year. He usually clears his plates from lunch and asks to get him homework done. He knows that once it is done he will get to go outside and play. Our housing edition has 34 houses all inside of a double gate. This makes it great for the kids because they can run around and not have to worry about cars. There are around 40 children in our edition. Just this past year Josiah has become good friends with one of our neighbor kids. Although there are so many kids there aren't really any Josiah's age. The ones that are his age are girls or they are boys that hang out with their big brothers. So he has become good friends with Mario. Mario's dad is a professional goalie for Atlas. Josiah has the jersey, bracelets, and a few signed posters! He is a big time Atlas fan (or at least a Mario Rodriguez fan). His dad played for another team a few years ago and we went to 3 or 4 of his games. He is now on a "better" team and he hasn't been able to give us tickets. Well, last week he gave us three tickets and we were really excited to get to go. We got a baby sitter for the girls and headed to the game. In the previous game Atlas played the Chivas. They are both Guadalajara teams and its is a big game every season. During the previous game Mario (The dad and son have the same name) made a mistake and the other team scored. The whole season the team has been playing horrible so far they have 1 of the 18 possible points for the season. Well, I guess that the fans need someone to take their frustration out on and who better than the goalie. The WHOLE game the crowd was boohing Mario. Everytime that he touched the ball the entire crowd would booh and say "Goal" to remind him of his mistake in the previous game. There were three men (one in front of us, one behind us and one to the side of us) whose only purpose for being at the game was to talk bad about Mario. They spent the whole game yelling abscene things to him. I have never experienced anything like this. The fans were cussing and yelling at their own team the whole entire game. I felt so offended at the things that they were yelling to Mario. They were insulting his character, family etc. I wanted to yell out that he is a nice person and tell them all the good things about him. But, of course I did not do that because I knew it would not be the safe or smart thing for me to do. I was so sad for his wife and son who were in the same stands I was in listening to all that was being said about Mario.
When Cory and I were reflecting on the experience on the way home we couldn't help but think about Jesus and his family. I am sure they felt so much worse than I did when they heard all the insults that were being yelled at Jesus. When he was being crucified so many things were yelled at him and so much injustice was done to him. Thank God that he withstood all the stuff thrown at him and died for us.

Lots has gone on since the last post. I will try and make a quick update.


A week and a half ago we joined a group of around 300 volunteers to plant trees in the forest. It was a Starbucks reforestation project. It was a lot of fun. There were about 50 from our group - members of our church and visitors. I was excited because our neighbors joined us. They are a family that I have been praying about and thinking about a lot lately. Also the maintenance man from our housing edition (Javier - he was baptised in February) and his son joined us. He hasn't really established a place in our church yet. I think he is really reserved and tends to hold back. A great surprise was that our friends from Mexico City - James and Erin Henderson - were also present. They were in town picking up relatives that had flown in from the states. This was also a blessing because they are friends of ours. Phil Miller was in our Aim class and it was great to see him for a little bit. Here are a few pictures of our kids and Javier and his son.


The kids have also started school this week. Josiah was really excited because her two teachers from last year got moved and they are her teachers again. This made me so happy. Its nice to know that she is being taken care of by teachers that already love her and that she doesn't have to get adjusted to new teachers. Josiah is just excited about being the oldest ones in his school. This is the last year before he will go to a new school for elementary. He thinks its great that there is no one older than them. He told me the other day that someone was picking on him at recess and Abigail came to the rescue and told the kid to leave Josiah alone. So even though he is the oldest looks like he can still use a little help from his little sister.

Hannah also has some big accomplishments of her own. We went out to dinner with two other family from our neighborhood. While we were eating I turned to look at Hannah and she was eating with a fork off of Abigail's plate!!! We have allowed her to feed herself since then and she thinks it is so great. She is very proud of herself.





In closing I wanted to share some cute/not so cute things the kids have said this past week:


I bought Abigail some flowers from the market last week and she jumped up and down in excitement and said "Now I can get married!"

Abigail asked me if I made the tree in the living room. I explained to her that God made it and she replied "Oh, Josiah's other daddy did!"


I bought the kids some special kid yogurts for the first week of school. Josiah told me "Its like if you give us a kiss in our lunchbox but in a different way"


This morning Josiah said to me "Mom remember right after Hannah was born and you were still fat. Now you are only a little bit fat. Maybe tomorrow you will be skinny again"


Thanks for sharing in our lives. Toni

Hannah has been doing really well. She is still a very happy girl. She loves doing whatever her Big Brother and Sister are doing. She was so proud of herself when she got up on Abigail's trike.

She only has 5 teeth but loves eating whatever we are eating. Unfortunately one of her favorite snacks is Arthur's (Our Dog) food. She runs over to the bowl puts a few pieces in her mouth refills her hand and runs over to Arthur and puts a snack in his mouth. The kids do a great job of tattling on her when she gets close to the dog food. Cory commented the other day - at least we buy good quality dog food.

She loves to climb the stairs and luckily hasn't had any big spills yet.

She is very much a people person and loves to interact with others. She loves waving and saying "Hola"

Abigail's personality is really starting to shine. She loves playing with her friends. There are 5 girls in our housing addition that are the same age. I have been thrilled because just recently the doorbell has started ringing and its a neighbor wanting Abigail to play. I think she held back for a while because of the language but now after being in school for a while she is really doing well.

Last week our neighbor Monica came over and they made chocolate chip cookies.

The kids took a week long summer Gymnastics class. They went 4 hours a day and learned Karate, Floor, Horse, Bars, Rings, Trampoline etc. Every day before class they wanted me to take their picture. This was on their first day. At the end of the week they had a presentation for the parents - it was a lot of fun to watch them have so much fun.

Abigail loved getting ready for Gymnastics every day.

Josiah on the even bars during the parent program.