Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Notes from Anaheim

1. It took us waaay too long to get here. We had several flying delays which extended our trip by 11 hours, then had to wait around LAX for four and a half more hours for my parents' (delayed) flight. Add some more amazing hours and you get a classic trip. But we all made it--Mom and Dad from Winnipeg, Joel and Susan from New Mexico, Dave and Liz from Washington. We wish Mike and Jacque and the girls were here!

2. Our vacation rental is great and just a 15 minute walk from Downtown Disney. Not too shabby! (Thanks Mom!)

3. I hurt my back last night when I bent over to pick up my screaming child. I don't know what I did to it but I'm sure a little time in the hot tub tonight will help!

4. We finally feel like we're on vacation. We never go on vacation. We usually tack our vacation time on to furlough so it just ends up feeling like more furlough. This is wonderful!

5. California is COLD! When we landed yesterday morning the pilot said it was 45. That may seem warm to you (and my parents) but we're coming from Brazilian summer. Salvador never even gets CLOSE to 45 in the winter!

6. I am quite proud of myself: I have been here for almost 36 hours and have only been to Target and Starbucks once.

7. It's awesome to get to meet my new sis-in-law, Liz. Welcome to the family!

Monday, December 07, 2009

One more post. Good thing, too, because my brain hurts!

But I have not posted pictures of Jackson in a long long time and I just wanted to take a minute to tell everyone what an AMAZING kid he is. I know you think your child/grandchild/niece/nephew/best friend's kid/whatever is cute and smart but Jackson's got them all beat. But I try not to let HIM know that so he can be humble, too.




English Class Christmas Party

Yet again we celebrated Christmas with our English students in the "North American style". I think this party could also be referred to as "Missionaries-Pig-Out-On-Christmas-Goodies Day". My tummy hurts! So it's hard to post this first picture.

(Truth be told, I didn't really eat that many goodies yesterday. It was more all the days leading up to the party when I was baking.)

The kids helped me decorate. They were really into it this year so we let them decide where to hang things.


We played a gift exchange game that almost ended in a catfight.

Well, not really, but there were tears and screaming (mostly kids, I promise!)

And of course a special visitor stopped by!


Some of the students from the beginner class with their wonderful and beloved teachers.

(Yes, Santa was one of my students.)

This year the party was a little bittersweet because we're not going to be able to offer English classes next year. My plate is going to be pretty full with the addition of the children's ministry responsibilities and my co-labourers in the English ministry, Heather and Travis, are both bailing on me. I pray that in the future we'll find a way to get this great outreach going again!

And next year we missionaries will have to come up with another excuse to do our holiday baking...

Lourdes' Baptism

Here are some pictures from Lourdes' baptism.

Lorena and Gustavo

Here I talked about Lorena and Gustavo's reception. Here are some of the pictures from it. The only problem is that I didn't manage to get a decent picture of the happy couple. So here's Lorena and Gustavo's reception minus Lorena and Gustavo:

We had a potluck lunch. Always tasty!

Some of the amazing servants that make days like this possible! We've started using glass plates for all our events which means the workload is greatly increased.

We've all of a sudden got a bunch of little girls at church! They're all just precious...most of the time!

Women's Conference

(You don't need me to tell you that I haven't been blogging very faithfully lately. Today I'm trying to play catch-up on a lot of things, including uploading pictures, so today I'll be posting a lot of pictures.)

A couple of weeks ago several of us went to the annual state-wide women's conference. Actually, there were women from several states.





There were about two hundred present. The organizing congregation went all out with the decorations.


The meals were especially excellent, with a huge breakfast spread and the hottest pepper sauce I've had in a while at lunch. It looked like it wasn't hot, more like pico de gallo, so I piled it on (I'm not a fan of hot stuff). Big mistake. I wanted to cry. But I dutifully finished my plate.