We're back in Mexico...

After a rain delay and a piece of lost luggage, we arrived at our house about 12:15 a.m. We came home to a clean house, thanks to my Erika. We also came home to some homemade cookies, thanks to Mandy our house-sitter. We also came home to no power, but thanks to Andy the self-made electrician, we have power. D is trying to pay all of the bills that need to be paid. We won't have much down time because, DUH, DA, DUH, DAAAAAAAAAAAH, my bff, her hubby, and 4 of their six kids are coming this Saturday for a well-needed, long overdue visit! They will be here for ladies Sunday (also my 32nd birthday) which means that they will hear me take up the offering in Spanish at church. Not only will my bff be here for my birthday, they will also be here for Mexico's Independence Day, September 16th (NOT Cinco de Mayo) :-). It will be a wild time and they will hopefully see some cool celebrations. We are planning on having 6 kids sleeping in one room. Are we insane?!?! Maybe, but we'll just chalk it up to making memories.

OK, off to take care of house stuff.

Signs that you've been in Mexico too long...

Here in Mexico, as with other countries BESIDES the States, the kids do things at the red lights to try to make money. Many of them juggle. When they are done they walk around to the cars with their hands out so that you can give them money. Shiloh was just trying to juggle 2 bouncy balls. He said with all seriousness, "Mommy, I should go out on the street and juggle and then I can walk around and collect the money." I'm speechless....

Fun times with old friends...

Derrick and I did his Bible school internship here for 4 months in the year 2000. We made a lot of friends and that was really what helped us in moving here again permanently. Two people that we were friends with were Celso and Cristina. Celso was the youth pastor at the church that we attended. Cristina was a friend, and a tri-lingual friend at that...she speaks Spanish, English and French. She was such an asset in helping me with my Spanish. At this point Celso & Cristina weren't dating, and they weren't even thinking of dating each other. Some time after we left they fell in love, got married, and moved to the country, where they have been up until recently.

They recently moved close to the Bible school. Celso is a teacher for the government and it is a much closer commute. They visited the Bible school the other day and it was like 8 years had never passed between our friendship. They invited us to go today to their daughter's birthday party. It was at Cristina's parents place out in the country. It was beautiful and another true Mexican experience. It was also so wonderful to spend time with my dear friend and her amazing family.

Their home is on some property that has been in their family for over 50 years. Not only is it home for them but they also raise cows, chickens and they grow corn. They truly live off of their cows and the land. Imagine this, we had steak for lunch :-). OK, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell the story with the pictures.





This is the house that Cristina's dad grew up in. It is a one room house. Cristina's grandparents raised 14 kids in this house. You know not all at once, but nonetheless, imagine trying to be just a couple in that house.





Here's the inside. They now use it to house the food for the cows. The house is made of adobe bricks. It keeps the house cool in the hot season and warm during the cooler season.





This is a view of their property.






This is Cristina getting some guayabas, which she made me eat, skin and all. They're not too bad. A little sour. My kids didn't like them but the Mexican kids ate them like candy.




This is Cristina's mom cooking some chorizo. I didn't get a picture of it, but before she cooked this she had the steak, whole onions & whole peppers all cooking together in the pan. When she served it on tortillas it was the steak mixed with the chorizo with beans and salsa.




This is our daughter after she fell into a SERIOUS mud puddle. Being the good Mommy that I am, I grabbed my camera to get a few shots before I stripped her down and threw her in the shower.




The birthday girl, Johana, biting the cake!



Cristina and I.



Celso and Derrick!



Cristina's parents gave us some fresh cow's milk. I have never, ever, in my life, EVER had fresh cow's milk, let alone have to prepare it. I was told to boil it for about 30 minutes. Something else that I also noticed in this picture. I have my eggs on the counter. Many people do not refrigerate their eggs. If they are sold in the refrigerated section, then we have to refrigerate them when we get home. But if they are in the fresh section, we don't.

We had a wonderful day! I know that this blog will have many more posts about our adventures with Celso, Cristina, and their daughters, Fara & Johana.

A new experience...

If you know me then you know that I am NOT a high-maintenance babe. My hair is almost always all long with layers, ready to be pulled back into a pony tail at any given time. That has also made it easy for me to just get my hair cut every time that we visit the States. This past February, my friend, Darcy, was here to visit. She's a hair dresser and she trimmed my hair. So I have had a hair cut here. Lately I've been at my wits end with my hair. All of my layers had grown out and my hair was one insane mass of thickness in the back. I got the phone number of Kelley's hair dresser. I called to make an appointment and no one answered. I was fed up. That was it! I was going to the mall.

I walked right in. Since I've never had to get my hair cut at a salon here before, I didn't know all of the vocabulary for it. So on top of losing 5 lbs. of hair, it was a learning experience. The girl that cut my hair was an apprentice, which also made the cut less expensive. I was a little concerned at first because "stylish" mullets are very popular here ( I don't think that they are stylish and I don't like them, but all of the Mexican girls like them). I was so praying that when I said "layers" that she didn't think "mullet". Well, I don't have a mullet, THANK GOD!! She did a good job on my hair. I think that I will no longer have neck pain since my hair is so much lighter. And I'm not going to post a picture because it's not a drastic enough of a change to make that big of deal over. If I post recent pics of the family and you notice it, that's great. This story was really more of a "I HAD A NEW EXPERIENCE IN MEXICO" story.

Funny stories from my daughter:

Let me preface this with the fact that our daughter is insanely serious. She does not get jokes, take jokes well, or make jokes. She's just no nonsense. This past Wednesday, we were sitting in the food court waiting for our pizza order. She looked at her older brother and said, "Ha ha ha ha ha...that's not funny." And she did it where she was laughing during the "ha ha ha" part and then totally straight-faced. We all busted out laughing. She maintained her composure and said, "That's from 'Zack & Cody'!" It was like she was doing it to show her acting ability and not to really tell her brother that he wasn't funny. She was getting frustrated with us that we were laughing at her because she was totally serious in her ability to recreate a line from "Zack & Cody."

Another one: Last night we had a cheesecake sitting out to thaw. Our daughter really wanted some and was having a hard time being patient. We were upstairs in our room and she was downstairs. She yelled upstairs, "I really hungry! My tummy is growling! Can you hear it?" We died laughing. We know that she really thought that we could hear her stomach growling all the way upstairs.


Time to go fix lunch for the kids! I have an almost 7 year old boy...his stomach is a bottomless pit and he eats ALL OF THE TIME, no joke! He's reminded me 3 times already that it's lunch time. :-)

And it don't stop...

OK, where do I begin?

Derrick made plans to go to a cell church tonight. Andy is in the mountains and Scott & Melody were on their way back from the border, so Derrick agreed to go. Well this morning we get a call that the guitar player (barely pictured in the pics below) was killed by a tractor trailer early this morning. He is also the Pastor's son. They were holding a memorial service for him. We thought that it was at 2 p.m., but it turns out it was later. See as this church is about 45 minutes away from our house Derrick couldn't come home. So Derrick hung out for a while and then went on to the cell church and decided to go to the memorial service afterwards.

During the cell church Derrick gets a phone call from Scott & Melody. They were about and hour or so outside of the city and they had a flat tire on their trailer with no spare. Derrick & Ken (a Mexican Pastor) came to our house to get the spare from our trailer. Remember, Derrick is 45 minutes from our house and then had to drive about an hour & a half outside of the city the other direction. Talk about a late night. They drove out to find Scott & Melody to help them change their tire. The tire is changed and they are safely home, thank you Jesus!

On top of it all, I was cooking a delicious steak dinner with some homemade macaroni & cheese. The mac & cheese was a last-minute deal because I had noodles left over from spaghetti last night. For not having a recipe and shooting from the hip it was dang delicious! Ken tried it and loved it.

A side note about the death of the young man. Our oldest had made plans to go with Daddy to the cell church. But because of the memorial service we thought it would be best for him to stay home. When I told our son why Daddy had to leave he said, "Oh to go pray for him?" And I said, "Pray for what?" And he said, "For him to come back to life!" Our son has prayed for sick people before and seen them healed. But we've never talked about praying for the dead. We've heard testimonies of other missionaries & ministries seeing people raised from the dead. We've never, ourselves, prayed for a dead person to come back to life. So I was so amazed that that was his initial thought...that Daddy was going to pray for this guy to come back to life. Then he asked how he died. I told him that he was killed in a car accident (this was before I knew that he was hit by a tractor trailer). He came back with, "See! This is why we need to walk every where so that we don't die in a car accident!" You gotta love the mind of a kid. Like Bill Cosby says, kids say the darndest things.



This is the church. Melody turned around just in time for the picture :-). As you can see, the church has no roof. Deal with that during rainy season, folks. It ain't easy.



Another shot of the Pastor and his son is off to the right playing the guitar.


On top of everything else, I got all of my kids clothes organized into girl & boy containers AND separated by size. I refuse to get rid of our kids' clothes until Derrick has a vasectomy. I've heard too many stories of people getting rid of all of their stuff and then showing up pregnant again. Just trying to be a good steward of what God has blessed us with. And since we don't have a Babies-R-Us down here, I'd be struggling because that is my absolute favorite baby store.

Frijoles...

When I was growing up, we always ate beans from a can. Both of my parents worked, so who had time to soak beans over night and then cook them? Since we have been here I have learned the wonderful art of cooking beans. My favorite beans are pinto beans. There are so many things that you can use them in. We love them as a side dish, with quesadillas, and I also put them in chili. They are so much better fresh than out of the can. I have a batch cooking right now. I wonder what I will do with them tonight? :-) Side note: I steer clear of doing refried beans because they aren't the greatest for your health.


Another thing that I love fresh is tortillas! In true Mexican fashion, I love corn tortillas waaaaaay better than flour tortillas. And the only way to have your tortillas is fresh off of the stove. I haven't attempted making tortillas yet; mainly because it's just so easy to walk to the corner store and get them. I'm sure that if I ever try them it will be interesting. When we lived here in 2000, a fellow missionary tried to make them for us and she had a hard time...and she was MEXICAN/American!!! For now I'll just stick to the tortilleria.


Speaking of fresh, we have learned that things don't last as long here because they are fresher. It doesn't matter if we freeze our steaks or not. If we do not eat them within a week, they will ruin. Chicken isn't exactly the same because we can buy the bags of Tyson chicken at Costco. Fruits & veggies are the same...eat them within a couple of days or they are wasted, especially bananas. You know, we get some strange looks when we go to the grocery store here. Because we are still in our American mindset, we buy groceries that will, for the most part, last us for a couple of weeks. Most of the Mexicans go every day, or every other day, to the market to buy their produce, meats, bread & tortillas fresh. So when they see us with our cart piled high, we get some strange looks. Will we ever get used to the stares? I hope so because we get stared at all of time, like no one in Mexico has ever seen a Gringo before.


Here's a picture of a funny sign that we saw last week...

You can't really read what the sign says that well, but it says, "This place is yours. Take care of it!" How appropriate that there's trash & cut off branches behind it. Plus all of the graffiti even further back.

VBS Part 2...

Whole lotta kids there...about 135!



Once again, this is our daughter's 5 minutes of participation. We thought putting her on the same team as her brother would help, but it didn't. Our son was a trooper and had a blast, as usual.



She decided she would put rocks in the drain. I then had to stop her so that Jer & Kelley don't have a flooded church.



When she found out that you needed an art project to get a snack, she quickly participated.



Valarie wondered where the baby was. He was with us, just in the background of most of the pictures :-).


SHRINES TO MARY...

As most of you know, Catholicism is the main religion here. They are very devoted to Mary and they have shrines and altars to her everywhere. These are some pictures of just a few within a 5 block area.











We finished off VBS today! It was fun and crazy all mixed together. Now it's time for a nap.

Vacation Bible School...Part 1

Taking a head-count before we walked to the park.



As a friend of mine put it when she saw this picture, "VBS, brought to you by Corona". This is us walking to the park for VBS.



These boys swarmed Chuck and wanted him to take their picture so that they could look at them.



Our son & Monica doing the moves to the song.



Kelley (with Sophia in toe) and I helping with the moves.



Our little girl singing but definitely not dancing.



She actually stayed in her group long enough to participate in a game.



He's a pro!



The group from Florida leading in "The Great Adventure" by SCC in Spanish.




They got some swing time after it was over.



My little princess & Brittany.



Crazy kids!



Anna looking cute as always.



Monica swinging with her friends. Her Dad was one of our language school teachers.



This past week has been VBS for a friend of a friends ministry. We are friends with Jer & Kelley. The have a Saturday Awanis program for kids in El Colli and they also planted a church there about a year and a half ago. There is another Saturday kids program that's on the other side of El Colli run by some other missionaries, Chris & Julie. This year they combined their VBS's. And to make it even better, a missions team from a church in Florida has come to do all of the work. Tuesday and Wednesday we took our kids to the VBS. We will probably go again tomorrow. Our daughter stayed with her group all of about 15 minutes. However our son L-O-V-E-D it! He loves playing with other kids. That is why he understands & speaks more Spanish than his sister because he just gets out there, plays and listens; that forces him to communicate with the kids without us to translate.

These pictures are courtesy of my father-in-law, Chuck. He was able to come the first day. Tomorrow I will post my mother-in-law's pictures. She came on Wednesday. There are just too many pics for one post.

It's freakin' early...

I went to bed at 1:00 a.m. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. I woke the baby up at 6:35 a.m. We are on our way to the Consulate to apply for the baby's citizenship & passport. Pray, saints, pray that we have all of the paperwork that we need!

****************** UPDATE ******************

We went, we waited, now we get his birth certificate & passport. Even though we had an appointment it still took 2 hours. Thank God the baby slept the entire time, right up until we got our names called.

After our time at the Consulate, we went to the house to get the kids & Becky, ran through McDonalds for breakfast & then went off to VBS. Now we are back home & we are tired.

THANKS FOR THE PRAYERS!!!

Backtracking...

Since we had company I did not get the chance to share about the evangelistic outreach that Derrick's students did in El Colli, a small town here in Guadalajara. It was this past Saturday. The event was done to assist some other missionary friends of ours, Jer & Kelley. They have a church that they planted in that area. All of the people that received Jesus into their hearts or needed a church were directed to them. Here are some pictures & highlights from the event.




Carlos (aka Pato) speaking to the team of students & workers before going out into the streets of the town of El Colli.



Emma helping with the food.




Erika (not the Erika that cleans our house) singing on praise & worship.



Carlos sharing the Gospel in the town square.



The crowd that was there.


We just received a phone call from our friend, Jer. He said that there were several people from this evangelistic meeting that were at his church this past Sunday. Many people gave their hearts to Jesus. Another cool thing about the outreach was that Carlos planned the entire thing. Carlos is a student at the Bible school. It was really cool to see him take the initiative and that it was so successful. Derrick is planning to incorporate more events that the students can plan & take charge of, to give them experience and understanding of what they are training to do.

We have lived here for 2 1/2 years. For 2 1/2 years we have gone to the mall, atleast once every other week. For 2 1/2 years, EVERY SINGLE TIME WE WENT TO THE MALL our kids would ask to ride the train (that equals about 60+ times if you take away when we were in the States). Yesterday it finally happened. They rode the train around the mall. Toot, toot! Best $6 we've ever spent.

Happenings...

This past week our son became a Mexican! In order to get his U.S. Passport we had to get his Mexican birth certificate first. It was an ordeal because they don't understand (and their computers can't either) why women in the U.S. take on their husband's last name. Here, the women keep their last name and their husband's name. Therefore most Mexican babies have two last names. In order to make it work in the Mexican computer system, our baby's Mexican name is contains my maiden name as his last name. It won't affect anything on his U.S. passport or anything like that, but according to the Mexicans, that's his name. We did this entire ordeal with Jer & Kelley. They were our witnesses and we were their witnesses. It's so great to have them here. They are great friends and they have helped us through so much. They are also helping us as we go to the U.S. Consulate to apply for his U.S. passport.


My Dad came in this past Tuesday. We had a nice visit with him. He enjoyed hanging with his old grandkids and his new one. We went to the Zoo on Thursday. It was fun and the rain held off. It sprinkled right as we were leaving. Here are a few pictures from the Zoo and another one of my Dad & Israel.
















As I have been sitting here writing this, our baby was taking his first bottle! I pumped as soon as we got home and Derrick gave him the bottle. We are trying to work it in so that I don't have to try to nurse at church and so that someday Derrick & I can go on a date. That probably won't happen until family comes to visit again or we go to the States. But whatever.

My dear blog friend, Valarie Lea, has shared her 5 a.m. bootcamp stories. I'm not a 5 a.m.-er (except to feed a baby), but I have started a bootcamp of my own. I asked my husband to be my personal trainer, but he respectfully declined for fear of me getting mad at him when he pushes me too hard. So I'm forced to push myself, along with Billy Blanks, Mari Windsor & all of the other wonderful people on the workout DVDs that I have. Thankfully, my kids like working out with me. My son will ask me, or remind me, to work out...he prefers Tae-Bo because it has guys in it and not other things like Pilates or the Firm. I am going to buy the kids 1 lb. weights so that they can workout with me and not drop my 5 lb. weights on the floor and crack the tile...AGAIN!

We have a wondeful chicken place here, Pollo PePe. It's very similar to Pollo Loco, if you have those in your neck of the woods. Derrick found one that delivers to our house. That's what we had for our Sunday/after church/I don't feel like cookin'-lunch! It was delicious. A bonus is that there's enough left over for dinner...WHOO HOO. I love it when things are made easier for me.

It's a week overdue, but here's a shout out to my favorite NASCAR driver, Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr., for winning last week! We are watching a re-run of the race right now, while waiting for today's race to come on.

I think that's a pretty good update. Have a great week!

Dr. Velasco...

Call me a bad mother, but my 2 older kids have not been to the pediatrician since we lived in the US in 2005. Not that they really needed it, but nonetheless they haven't been. Since having baby #3, we figured it was about time to take them. I know that you have read where I have talked about our dear friends here, Jer & Kelley and their 3 daughters. We love them & trust their opinion on many things. We asked them about their pediatrician and they recommended Dr. Velasco.

We had our first appointment today for all 3 kids. We L-O-V-E him! We love him and his nurse! They were so great and helpful. They really took the time to get all of the kids information. When the nurse found out that our daughter doesn't understand that much Spanish, especially medical terms, she spoke to her in English. Dr. Velasco has a Wii in his office that the kids (or Dad :-P) can play while waiting in his office. And when our daughter was a little apprehensive about being checked out, Dr. Velasco took the time to talk with her and gain her trust. By the time we left she was laughing and speaking to Dr. Velasco. He also took the time to explain everything with the kids to us. It was a wonderful experience at the Doctor's office. We are so thankful to Jesus for leading us to this Doctor.

Just as an update, the baby has gained 1.5 kilos, which is little over 3 lbs. That's a lot! Dr. Velasco was impressed to hear that he has gained that weight only by nursing. I've always had rich milk and that is a blessing. For those of you that remember my other 2 babies, especially our oldest, you know that my kids get chunky. Anyway, Praise God for healthy kids.

From that appointment, Derrick is now praying for a Wii :-)! Maybe for Christmas.

Taking a few minutes...

I have a few minutes, so I thought that I would give a slimmed-down version of the birth story.

Sunday morning, May 4th, I woke up at 7 a.m. with what I thought was gas, but it was contractions. They were 4 minutes apart. We waited about an hour to call the doctor. By the time we called him, the contractions were 1 1/2 minutes apart. We went to the hospital. Thank God it was a Sunday morning b/c there was no traffic. When we arrived I was triaged and I was 5 cm. They took me to my suite to get me ready to go to the labor & delivery room. By the time I got in the L&D room, I was 7 cm. I received my epidural pretty much immediately...THANK GOD! They had me lying flat on my back on the L&D bed, so I was not able to handle the contractions very well. Also, b/c of being on my back I about passed out. Not sure what it is about pregnant women here, but they must be able to lay on their backs...I couldn't. ANYWAY, about 15 minutes later I was ready to push. I felt a ton of pressure. But they thought that he was high and they were telling me not to push and just to let him come down a little. I was trying to breath through it, but my body was naturally pushing...I COULD NOT HELP IT! I'm yelling at them that I need to push, but they're all telling me "NO". Needless to say, when it came time to push, I pushed for a few minutes. It was about 3 sets of pushes. Out he came at 10:38 a.m. Because this is Mexico & a little bit more old fashioned, they took him straight to the nursery to bathe him & dress him. I did not see him for 3 hours. It was very difficult, but I finally got him and I haven't let him go since :-). That's the speedy version. I'm not sure if I'll publically tell the detailed version...it's not gross, it's just a lot of culture stuff that's different & hard to explain.

Blessings!

Derrick preached at "El Encuentro" (the Encounter church) on Easter Sunday! There were not as many people there because most people take the week of Easter to visit family. But we had a great time with the people that were there!





Yesterday was moving day for the Pricer's. It was CRAZY! It was an all-day event for us. The kids had a blast, playing in the dirt & "helping" to carry in boxes.

Afterwards, we went to Scott & Melody's to visit. We ended up eating some DEEEE-LISH-USSSS broccoli & cheese soup, homemade by Melody. Well, one thing led to another and Derrick went somewhere with Scott. Needless to say, because of all of the adults talking & kids playing, we didn't arrive home until about 1:30 a.m. I'm typing this at 11:22 a.m. and my kids have both JUST gotten out of bed. And Chila the dog was crazy-insane by the time we got home. She was starving, thirsty, & hyper. It was all worth it though, to hang out with some great friends and let our kids have some great playtime together.

That is my update for now. My mind is still asleep.

Horton Hears a Who...

Our little girl had her first movie theater experience today! The funny thing was that it was in Spanish. They usually don't do cartoons here with subtitles. So we watched the movie in Spanish. She loved it! Our son did, too, but he knew what to expect. About half way through the movie, our little girl moved to the edge of her seat because she was so interested. She sat there until the end of the movie. She won't have to wait long to see another movie in the theaters. When the new "Narnia" comes out, we are going to see it. I know that I will have Israel by that time, so we'll have to work something out. We all can't wait!!! We saw the preview for it today and we're pumped!

BTW, here's an updated picture of how grande I have become. We have to take pictures of me being pregnant with the kids, so here's one of them.

Holy Days, Holy Week...

This week is Holy Week, here in Mexico. Holy Week is the week before Easter. We know that many people take this time off, but we didn't realize how many until yesterday, when we attempted to go grocery shopping...along with the rest of the city :-). It was crazy-packed! Almost worse than Christmas, but not quite. While we were out, we ran into our dear friend, Pastor Moises. I asked him why it was so crazy and he said that it was because everyone was on vacation. I'll tell you what, these Catholics take this time seriously. One thing that other cultures know how to do, much better than the States, is take vacation. I remember when we first moved here that the kids' school was closed for 2 weeks because of Holy Days. And if we still needed them, we had to pay almost a month extra in pay for them to watch our kids. Like I said, they take their vacation time seriously.

Derrick is preaching this Sunday at the church plant. They have had a consistent 40-50, I think, each week. We missed a couple of weeks, due to sickness. But we did attend this past Sunday, and there were about 40.

Also, this Saturday is the last day of school for the first term of the Bible School!!! Can you believe it? It seems like they just started. Derrick has had 15 students, consistently, each week. We're really looking forward to seeing these students grow MORE in relationship with God & in ministry. They all have hearts to serve in some capacity. It's an awesome process to watch.

It is insanely windy here. It has been so windy, that our hot water heater has blown out about 5 times in the last 12 hours. Just a little info, hot water heaters are on the outside of the houses, here. In order to protect ours from blowing out all of the time, Derrick & Scott put a cover around it. It helps the majority of the time. But the wind has been so fierce that it has blown the cover down. Also, it's so windy that our curtains will blow sky-high, even with the windows closed (which they are fan windows, so a little air can still get through).

OK...pizza is ready for the kids' lunch. Gotta go!

Err on the side of parasites...

Update on my daughter. She was up various times during the night, needing to "USE" the restroom (if you know what I mean) and she even went in her pull-up, which is very rare. She also continued the fever, which does go away with medicine. We're continuing the Vermox. At this point our diagnosis is parasites. Thankfully it's a very common thing here, so it's easy to treat it. Not that I would ever want anyone to have to go through it. Also, the medicine that she is taking is supposed to protect her from parasites for the next 6 months. If it turns out that she doesn't have parasites, then she's protected anyway.



On a Mommy note, I am INSANELY tired!!! Not only do I have the pregnancy thing going for me, but my little girl woke ME up in the night. I don't do well when I have disturbed sleep, pregnant or not. I am looking forward to her nap. I know she will want one because she woke up at 6:30 a.m. Which means I get a nap.



I have a couple of pictures from the first day of the Guadalajara Training Center. Here they are.



Derrick & Pastor Jorge Villa Senor (the guy that owns the building) talking to the students.



Here's a group of the students, in class!