Kyle Turns "6"

Happy Birthday to Kyle, who turns "6" today!! He's been sooo excited this whole month, just waiting for his birthday to get here! We have a birthday party scheduled for Monday afternoon...actually, it's going to be an all BOY party! What fun!

And for all our family and any interested peoples, I decided to put together some random pictures from each month of Kyle's 5th year (with the exception of one month...I guess my camera was hibernating, or something!).

• At the park - July 2010 •

• Kyle starts kindergarten - August 2010 •

• Spending quality time with Aunt Brenda - September 2010 •

• Checking out cousin Dereck's doe - October 2010 •

• With his brothers before church- November 2010 •

• Christmas in Mexico - December 2010 •

• Playing with legos - February 2011 •

• Playing with a friend - March 2011 •

• Climbing a tree - April 2011 •

• "Monkey-ing" around - May 2011 •

• At the Pacific ocean - June 2011 •

• After a haircut - July 2011 •

We love you, buddy! Happy Birthday!!!

(Continue reading previous birthday posts...)

A New "Tasty" Tradition

There are some simple pleasures of living in Mexico...and 'tacos al pastor' is one of them! In fact, it has become our new Wednesday night tradition.

We eat on a entirely different meal schedule here. I'm not even sure it's entirely Mexican time, but it's just how our meals have evolved while living here. We eat breakfast between 8-10 am, lunch between 1-3 pm, and supper usually between 7-9 pm. So with this schedule, Wed. night church kind of comes in the middle of our supper time. But, we found a great solution! Enter, 'tacos al pastor!'

- Yum! Just add some onion, cilantro, pineapple bits, and salsa. -

After dropping people off from church, we just swing by our favorite taco stand, order some 'tacos al pastor' to go and then head home. For less than $10, our whole family can eat some of the best food ever created...and the best part, I don't have to prepare a thing for it!

I have tried making them once myself, with okay results. I will definitely keep trying different recipes until I find one that works for me. Obviously, most of us don't own a spit/rotisserie to give the authentic taste, but below I listed two different sites that give some background on the dish itself, and then includes a recipe if you would like to try this deliciousness at home!

Link 1 for 'tacos al pastor' recipe

Link 2 for 'tacos al pastor' recipe

Let me know if you try them, and if you can find the dried chiles in your local stores. Oh, and I would definitely recommend the longer marinating time.

[ Just a Glimpse ]

I saw something interesting yesterday...and then learned something new! You see, our pantry (a dark little "room" beside and underneath our stairs) seems to collect cockroaches. I walked in yesterday, turned on the light, and went to get something, when I saw a white cockroach! I ran and quickly got my camera because I had never seen anything like it. After looking online, I found out that this is part of the cockroach's maturing process. They shed their skin to grow a bigger one. In the 8-12 hours during this process, they are white. Interesting, eh?

La Campaña 2011 :: The Day After

It was such a pleasure to be able to have Bro. Rigo and his wife Ana stay in our home during the campmeeting. They were a big blessing to us and our church people.

Monday morning we dropped them off at the border of Guatemala so they could spend some more time there before they had to return to Florida. But before we dropped them off, Bro. Rigo was really wanting a shrimp cocktail. So upon invitation, we went and visited one of our church families. The man, Isaac, pedals around Tapachula in his tricicleta (photo example) and sells shrimp/seafood cocktails for a living.

Seafood cocktail for breakfast anyone?

They also showed us their beautiful little pet loro (parrot).

After dropping Bro. Rigo and Ana off at the border, we decided since we were already halfway there, we would drive up into the mountains to about as high as they have roads. We went up past Unión Juárez to a place called Talquián. On the way back down, we pulled in to this little place to check out the view. This is a hotel, restaurant, and lookout tower.

This is to the right of the above picture. You can see the restaurant that hangs out over the mountain and the beautiful view, although it was somewhat obstructed by clouds.

Michael, Kyle, and Taylor. Parker was sleeping in the truck. :-)

And this is one of those great self portraits - you know, the kind where you hold your arm way out in front of you and snap a picture (sight unseen) and then wonder why you look kind of goofy!! lol

So now, after an exciting weekend, things are getting back to "normal." Although, we have plans to start a youth Sunday School class, and Michael is just starting teaching/tutoring some men in their Bible School classes... You just never know what great things will come to pass around here, so keep checking back!

La Campaña 2011 :: Day 3

Sunday was another beautiful day with great services! It was also very HOT, but we managed! It was really great to have Bro. Rigoberto Vasquez with us this weekend, and once again, he did a great job preaching.

The small crew from the Motozintla church were not able to attend on Sunday, but we still had a decent crowd with some visitors. Below is a view of the adults listening to the message.

The children all went to Sunday School during the message.

We enjoyed another good meal in between the morning and afternoon services. This little girl thinks the food is 'finger lickin' good!! =)

Parker finally gave in and decided to sleep during the afternoon service.

We decided to take some group pics after the afternoon service. The below pic is of Michael and Bro. Rigo with the guys from Tapachula and Santo Domingo who are currently studying to become pastors.

From staggered left to right: Guadalupe, Benjamin, Bro. Rigo, Antonio, Michael, Abdi, Humberto

Below is Michael and I with the group of men who are studying, along with their wives. (All except Abdi - he's still looking!) They're a great group of people.

And then Bro. Rigo had a great plan to have all the women that were still there to get a photo taken. Michael (who took this picture) asked all the women to open their mouths so he could take a final pic...after questioning looks, smiles, and comments...this is the result! After the pic, Michael told them that this was just a natural look - women have their mouths open talking all the time! =) Although, I can tell you that this is NOT true in our household!! Ha! Ha! =)

All in all, it was a great weekend! The Lord's presence came and met with us, several people re-committed their lives to the Lord, we had several new visitors, great fellowship, and it did not rain at all! And even though we're unable to attend our "home" campmeetings in the U.S., these weekend meetings really felt like a "real" campmeeting to us! I think we'll make this a yearly event!

Stay Tuned: Tomorrow in my [Just a Glimpse] post, I'll try to post a few pictures from the more relaxed events of today.

La Campaña 2011 :: Day 2

It was another good day! We started off the morning by meeting Pastor Javier (from Motozintla) at a restaurant in town for some breakfast, although by the time we got there, most of us decided to order lunch food. Good food - good fellowship!

We all went different directions in the afternoon. Michael had to take a family an hour out of town to pick up the man's work money. Bro. Rigo and his wife went with Bro. Javier out to see the ocean, and I spent the afternoon at home, baking some of those cookies I was telling you about, and preparing all of our stuff for the evening service.

I didn't take many pictures last night of the campmeeting per se, but we had another wonderful service packed full of people. God's presence came and met with us once again.

I love the pictures below of Parker with one of his buddies! He was acting very goofy...he would close his eyes and then open them and giggle - so cute!

(click on the picture to enlarge)

Check back tomorrow for more pictures from Day 3 of our campmeeting!

My apologies...we just got home and got the kiddos in bed, and right now I'm just too tired to upload pictures and blog yet tonight. You'll have to wait until tomorrow... :-)

In fact, I think I'll just finish this peanut butter blossom cookie and head up to bed myself...

La Campaña 2011 :: Day 1

Our weekend campmeeting started tonight. I thought maybe I would try to share a little each evening of how our services went.

(And please excuse these pictures...in fact, I'm almost embarrassed to post them. I was holding Parker in one arm for most of them, and was using my older camera in the other hand...hence, the VERY blurry pictures! Hope you get the idea anyway!)

We about filled our little church up to the brim. I didn't take a head count, but I'm guessing there were about 60-70 people there. The churches represented were: our congregations here in Tapachula and Santo Domingo (plus some local visitors), as well as a crew from the church in Motozintla.

I stepped across the road and took this picture of the whole scene.

Some of the ladies at our church decided to set up a little food stand for after service. The proceeds will go towards the campaña expenses.

Enjoying some yummy quesadillas!

We had a good service tonight (minus a few sound system issues)...and we're looking forward to tomorrow night to see how the Lord will come and meet with us again!

[ Just a Glimpse ]

Well...it looks like I'm a day late on my weekly [Just a Glimpse] posts. My mind just kept drawing a blank as to what I should post. So, I guess I'll just mention a few little interesting things that have been happening around here.

• Our roof is leaking again. Michael went up last week and applied some thick, gooey tar thinking that would stop/slow down the leak. For whatever reason, it didn't work. We got a good dousing rainstorm the other day, and we're back to sking on our hallway floor lake again!!

• And the church roof is leaking too. A few guys from the church are supposed to be working on that roof before the campaña this weekend.

• We caught another mouse today! It seems like we have an endless supply of them...

• We've always known our freezer doesn't always freeze things real solid (like ice cream), but I didn't realize how "well" it worked until I pulled some homemade "frozen" dinner rolls out today and they were a little soft and squished all together! Hmmm...at least ice cubes and meat seem to stay solid! =)

• Bro. Rigo and his wife arrive on Friday, so we've been preparing for house guests and also for the weekend campmeeting.

And because I don't like posting without a picture, here's a little cultural tidbit.

This is how we buy our milk from the store. They don't carry the refrigerated cartons/plastic jugs of milk - it's all shelf stable milk. I usually take a black magic marker and write on the top the date that I opened it so I can judge an expiration date. Of course, they only come in 1 liter cartons, so it doesn't take too long to use up one!

That's it - for now! I hope y'all have a great day!

Upcoming Campmeeting

A week from tonight, we start a weekend campmeeting at our church here in Tapachula. Others from our H.I.M. churches in Motozintla and Guatemala will be attending as well. Bro. Rigoberto (Director of H.I.M.'s Hispanic Churches) will be the special speaker and Michael and I will provide the singing. We are looking forward to having Bro. Rigo and his wife visiting with us. Would you help us pray that 1) the Holy Spirit would come and meet with us each service, 2) that our present believers would become more grounded in their faith, and 3) that new people would be won into the Kingdom? We deeply appreciate the thoughts and prayers that you (our family, friends, acquaintances, and even blog visitors) lift to the Father in our behalf. ¡Muchas gracias!

Bro. Rigo and his wife have already been on the road traveling. Read about some of their visits here at Eric Kuhns' blog.

Celebrating the 4th

I hope y'all had a happy 4th of July! We spent a very relaxing day together. Of course, the day would not be complete without trying to get some pics! =)

I gave the table a little patriotic love.

Time to eat! While listening to the a cappella group Voices of Liberty, we enjoyed grilled hotdogs, mac-n-cheese, chips and dip, and of course, some good 'ole Mexican coke!!!

I even tried my hand at making cake pops! I followed the directions from this blog. They were surprisingly good, but very rich!

And, we ended our day by making smores with our charcoal grill!! The kids loved it!

Even though we're celebrating July 4th this year far from America and family, we're PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!! May God Bless the U.S.A.!!!

Kyle's Kindergarten Graduation

This past Saturday evening, before our regular church prayer time, we were finally able to have a small graduation service for Kyle.

Kyle successfully completed all his work for kindergarten a few weeks ago! He has learned to read and write and he really enjoys his math work. And I would also say his Daddy has done a pretty good job of homeschooling him this past semester!

We were wanting to do something special for him since he wasn't able to graduate from Penn View with his classmates from first semester. The service was simple, but Kyle thought it was special and enjoyed all the "hoopla" involved.

And of course, we're in the middle of rainy season here, so photo ops were limited...but an umbrella definitely painted a picture of the current weather! And Kyle at least thought it was fun. While I, on the other hand, was having trouble trying to hold the umbrella and a big heavy camera and get clear shots!

Kyle receiving his diploma from Daddy.

I had made a whoopie pie cake to serve after the service. This is Paulita, one of Kyle's church friends, enjoying her piece of cake.

And this is a family picture of us - albeit, a little blurry! =)

CONGRATULATIONS, Kyle!!!!

4th of July Table Runner

In browsing through some blogs recently and gathering ideas to make our 4th of July special, I came across this nifty, patriotic table runner. I instantly knew I wanted to try something like it. You see, I love all things stars, gingham, rag quilts, and country decor.

Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of scrap gingham I had laying around. I guess I've gradually used most of my stash for other projects and didn't replenish it before we moved down here. Oh well, after searching, I came up with some suitable plaids - and it works for me!

You definitely spend most of your time cutting and snipping, but overall, the project doesn't take too long! I'm happy with the finished project and can't wait to use it for setting a pretty 4th of July table!

*I'm linking this post to:

Nap Time Crafters

The Frugal Girls

The Shabby Nest