Scenes from Christmas Day

We were able to spend Christmas with both sides of our family this year. We were with my family (Crystal) in the morning to open gifts and eat dinner, then we went to Michael's Mom & Dad's late that afternoon and spent the night there.

Below are a few pictures from the day.

Scenes from Christmas Eve

We opened our stockings tonight...

My favorite picture of the evening...
Daddy and Kyle.

My "baby" sister.

This picture is "just because"! My mom hates to have her picture taken...and I just knew she'd "love" for me to post this one!!

We are staying at my grandfather's house while in PA. The kids have enjoyed spending time with him...this includes eating and telling hunting stories!

Saying Good-bye to Mexico...at least for a time...

Here are a few pictures from our last few days in Mexico.

Moving the washer...again! If you're not familiar with this story, go here to read about it. At least we had a little more help this time. Philip came over, and Juan, the groundskeeper, also helped!

I was tired of packing boxes...

Me with Lupita and her grandkids - a sweeter lady you'll never find! She would just rattle away to me in Spanish as if I understood everything - and really, I understood nothing, but that was okay. Somehow, you can still be friends without all the words!

The group of people who came to church the last Sunday we were there.

Taylor was sleeping and didn't make it into the above picture.

At HOME!!!!

Well...sorry for the long delay...but we've been busy!! Due to the kindness of one sweet person, we were able to come home for the holidays!! We actually kept it a secret from Michael's Mom & Dad ~ and they were very surprised! Because of this, I wasn't able to post some pictures. We have already moved all of our stuff to Texas, and will be all ready to start language school as soon as we get back!

Meeting my Mom, Dad and sister at the airport.

Our nephews, the Durkee boys, also didn't know we were coming home - but they were very happy to see us!
(This is Dustin in the photo below)

We ended up staying at Dan & Michelle's for one night. It had snowed the night before, and Kyle enjoyed looking out the window at the snow.
Cold weather travelers...not used to these coats and hats :)

Decorating my parents' Christmas tree.
You might want to keep up to date with our stay by watching my sisters' blog too...

Freezing Strawberries

Yep, this is what I've been doing recently...Monday evening, we stopped and got two baskets of strawberries...and I did actually manage to get some froze without eating them all!!!

Out For A Visit

Below is a special family from the church in Salamanca. We (along with Philip & Collette) were invited over to their house. They are so sweet! She fed us chicken cordon-bleu, green beans, cheesy spaghetti, and bread. It was very delicious!! Kyle and Taylor also had great fun playing with their kids!

Taylor found an old camera to play with. This is the progression of him taking a picture...
READY...
SMILE PRETTY...
WOW! THAT WAS FUN!

Oh yeah...and if you click to enlarge one of these pictures with the Christmas tree in it, check out the Hershey Kisses acting as ornaments...I thought it was a really neat and creative idea...looked cute, too!

Just me...dropping in to say "Hi"!

Sorry for the lack of blogging recently...not too much going on...except I need to be working on another newsletter and then get going on the packing process for our upcoming move!

Here's a recent picture of the kids.

Taylor - caught in the act of playing in Mommy's cupboards!

For those interested, here is a picture of where we will be staying in Texas. This is the row of apartments...

...and the door on the right, is the apartment we'll call home for a while.