Fun with family!

Christmas morning, waiting to see what Santa brought.

Our cousin/nephew, Clay is here visiting along with Greg's mom; as you can see he is pictured here with Jer, Alex and Annie 

It's just what I wanted!

Hugging her cousin. How sweet is that?

Greg got just what he was needing, an AARP magazine!

We went to see some pyramid ruins and enjoyed learning about all of the history behind this neat place.

Grandma with some of her grandchildren in front of one of the pyramids.

We went to visit our new village today and had a picnic by this natural spring. They had fun feeding the ducks. This is a rare treat for us b/c where we live now there is NO water anywhere. We had a great day!

This is a picture of Mom with some of our good friends. She had just given them some Bath and Body Works lotion and they were very happy!

We celebrated Clay's 11th birthday by eating at his favorite place here; Pizza Hut! The pizza here is just 10 times better than in the states! He was happy!

As you can see Max and Annie are getting quite close lately. She loves him and he seems to be happy around her too.

Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful week! Hope you have a great New Year's Eve and that you all bring the New Year in celebrating with the ones you love! We are planning on a really fun night tomorrow night. I will post pictures on Saturday. Be safe and know we are praying for our friends all over the world! Love to all! Missy

Wonderful Christmas Day

Merry Christmas my friends! We had a wonderful day yesterday! We celebrated with friends and had  a great meal. Then we spent most of the day decorating gingerbread houses that our friend had made for the kids. It was a great tradition in the making! The kids all loved this and well.... I think Greg and I enjoyed it just as much as the kids did.

Since Greg's mom and our nephew are arriving today we always ask Santa to wait to bring the gifts until tomorrow. So, since Santa has such a tight schedule and other people like us need to celebrate Christmas on a different date, he seems to be okay with this arrangement. We actually like it better because we can enjoy all of the activities and then enjoy our own special day without any pressure. Christmas Day here really isn't celebrated like it is in the states so it isn't that big of a deal. We are looking forward to a great week with family here.

We do hope all of you are enjoying all of the activites that are fun at this time of year. Love to you all!

Santa came early!

 

For most of you, this wouldn't seem awesome. For us, seeing Cool Ranch Doritos and Barbeque potatoe chips, it was a GREAT day! The Doritos were a little more than $5, but the chips weren't that bad. So, we bought 4 bags!

Meet Max. This is our new dog. He is wearing a pink shirt, but he is a boy for sure.

He is really sweet, and loving cuddling with Annie!

Don't know who is happier, Annie or Max. We voted on his name. It was between Hoosier and Max and Max won.

Merry Christmas!!

Hi friends! It has been C-R-A-Z-Y around here! Missing a week with Greg in Costa Rica hurt us big! (I can't remember if I said Greg was in CR or not. I didn't want anyone to know we weren't here, so I don't think I posted that. Anyway, he was in CR for some training.) We arrived back in our village on Monday around 5 and went right to church at 6!

On Tuesday Alex came down with the flu and so he had to stay home. Jerod and I went to town to try and get some shopping done and found my credit card had expired. ;o) We bought some food and some presents for our shoe boxes that we are making and then found my other credit card was blocked b/c the bank thought it was stolen. Hmmm.. just not my day! This is a problem when you live in another country and rely heavily on a credit card. So our shopping was put on hold until yesterday. The entire family headed to town to do ALL of our shopping in ONE day. That is a lot of shopping with 3 kids and a husband. Needless to say, it was a LOOOONG day and I never want to do it again! We did manage to buy a few things that will be surprises, but every time Greg or I tried to get something for each other, we always ended up seeing it. SO... no surprises this year... we will actually like everything we get! :o)

 Anyway, I hope all of you can focus on the real reason for the season and not get wrapped up (literally) in the Christmas hoopla! I will post some pics soon! Love too you all!

 Hope all of you have a wonderful and Merry Christmas! Missy and family!

Doghouse videos!

Okay, I normally don't put things like this on here. However, I think these are toooo funny. I have watched them over and over. Maybe it is because I have a stupid sense of humor but my boys, my husband and I have all laughed a lot when watching these. I posted them in reverse order, so make sure you watch the first one Beware of  the Doghouse first and then watch Return to the Doghouse. The first one is about 4 minutes and the second one is about 3 minutes. I think it will be 7 minutes you will laugh! Anyway, hope you like my Christmas cheer!

I am happy to have my husband back with me. I never really said that he was gone, but he was away in Costa Rica for a week and oh how I missed him! So, no matter what he buys me, he is already out of the doghouse, because he is in my house! I must say these videos reminded me of him 3 years ago when he got me some jewelry cleaner for  a gift. ALL of my jewelry was in a safety deposit box at the time so I just looked at him and laughed. We are still out of our area and will be for a little while longer. Love to you all! Missy

Return to the Doghouse

Watch this one second! It is sooo funny! I had to share it!

JC Penney: Beware of the Doghouse

Fun with friends!

Having lots of fun with friends! We went to a place called Africam, yesterday. It is just like you are driving through an African safari. Or, what I imagine it would be like. The kids loved it and we had a blast seeing all the different animals up close! Hope you like the pictures!

Mexican trying to be African

This is actually from today. We went to our friend's village and saw baby goats. They were so cute!

Okay, I just noticed this, I am not growing horns or antlers! But it sure does make for a funny photo!

This was when we were in the Conner's village as well. We had just arrived when this baby goat was born. How precious.

We had bananas with us and this ape was begging. We finally got permission and started throwing them to him. He kept asking for more. It was funny!

This was part of the park that you can walk through, the kids were a little scared this animal didn't know the rules.

I just couldn't resist! I started singing the song from Madagascar 2, I like um big, I like um, chunky... when I saw this!

Okay, if I were going to pick out a goat, this would have been the one I would have picked!

Santa

 Hi friends! On our way to visit friends we stopped to get something to eat. Not at McDonalds or Burgerking like you might if you were traveling in the states. No, we look for the best roasted chicken place we can find. This place was sooo good and I thought is looked so good, I had to take a picture for all of you to see! Doesn't it look good? Roasted chicken, in Mexico is far better than any chicken we have ever eaten in the US!

We have had a nice time being out of the village. It is definitely a different world once you leave our area. I guess it is like that in the states too, every state is different. The people in our area seem a lot more humble, maybe a lot poorer too. The people in the place we are staying in now are just plain old snobby. They are rich and have nice cars and nice things and are just well off in just about every area. Not all of them of course, but the majority. However, with all of this wealth comes some of the things we miss from the states. Like a mall. We visited a mall the other day and Annie saw Santa for the first time this year. She was so excited. Okay, now we have explained all about Santa. Or.... so we thought. But, for some reason in her little seven year old mind she really wants to believe. She talked to him, told him she wanted a bike, and then asked me why he couldn't speak English. She said, "I thought Santa could speak every language." Then she asked me who would bring her the bike, Santa or Greg and I. So, I have no idea what is going on in her head, but she is confused!

About this picture, I thought this was something I had to tell you. I asked them if they minded if I took my own photo. Of course not they said. The lady jumped up turned on her tiny little camera on a tripod and said, "I will take one too." I thought to myself, okay, whatever. So after we were done the lady says, " That will be 50 pesos. Which is about $4.50. I said, " For what?" She said," For the photo I took." She said, you can take your own photo, but then you have to buy our photo. Well dumby, she didn't tell me that ahead of time. So hers was all printed out and she said, "Thank you!" I felt suckered! Know why? I was!! Oh to live in another country, never a dull moment! Love you all! Missy

Movie night

Hi friends! This week was so filled with fun and exciting things but I never had time to write about them. So now I am going to try and capture all of the thoughts I had and write them down. On Monday night we decided to show our church a night of fun. They don't have a lot of money to spend on having fun, so we brought the fun to them. We had a movie night and watched the movie, " Jingle All The Way." We had sandwiches and popcorn and 54 people showed up and we were even missing some of our regulars due to illnesses!

I have spent a lot of time this week with Mada. She is our neighbor whose husband died a few weeks ago. She has been struggling with being alone and so one night I just went over to sit with her. We sat by the fire and she told me about what life was like in the past. It was so interesting. She told me that when she was raising her 7 kids she had to get up each morning at 5am and walk about 2 miles to get water. She had to do this 12 times a day to have enough water to wash dishes, cook with, drink and bath with. She said she didn't see her first car until the late 60's and she didn't see electricity until the late 70's. She said that in order for them to sell things in the nearest city they would walk there 8 hours  and then they would spend the day selling their goods, then they would have to walk back home another 8 hours. Now that is a tough life. I must say this made me feel sooo lazy. I complain about walking to far in a parking lot, can you imagine walking 16 hours a day and have to work, OH and she had a baby on her back.

I think I am becoming way too emotional in my old age. Today we were traveling through a village and it was so cold. I mean it was COLD! It was 15 degrees and maybe you live up north and this isn't any big deal to you. Well, I would bet that everyone you know has some form of heat. The people we know, don't. So as we were driving and the boys were watching the thermometer drop and cheering with each degree, I was just a crying away. They thought I was losing it. Maybe I am. But for the life of me I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that there were people that were doing all they could to get warm and they couldn't. I mean, all they have to keep them warm is blankets. When it is 15 degrees, it doesn't really matter how many blankets you have, if you live in a shack with dirt floors, you're gonna stay cold. I know how horrible it is to be cold and not to be able to get warm and it just made me sick to my stomach for them. Will you please pray for them? For some reason, unbeknownst SP? to Al Gore, it is ridiculously cold here and it doesn't seem to be getting any warmer. So just pray that the people will be able to find a way to stay warm.

We took the kids to the County Fair and enjoyed a night out with friends! Pictures below show how much fun the kids had!

Cinema food!

Waiting for the Cinema to start.

Start of the movie.

Night at the County fair. This was right before Annie fell off of the horse. She was fine, but every kid waiting to get on, decided they didn't want to after all. :o)

Greg and I celebrating 19 years knowing eachother!

Alex enjoying taking care of our friend on a roller coaster.

Annie playing big sister

Greg and Alex on the bumper cars.

Not the best pictures, but Jerod was having a blast !

Greg enjoying playing uncle!

Annie riding her Harley!

We have traveled out of our village for a little while. Please pray for us as we are visiting with friends. Love you all!