Deep thoughts by Josiah

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

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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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)

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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

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

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

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.