[ Just a Glimpse ]

In keeping with my last post, here's a look at some of the nicer (!) fishing boats that dock in the village near Puerto Chiapas. You can buy fresh fish, shrimp, and crab from vendors who are set up all around the docks. It's an interesting place (smelly, too)!!! =)

[ Just a Glimpse ]

This past Sunday we were taking some pictures to be sent to H.I.M...so I thought I'd share one of them with you. This is our regular group of church attendees. We were missing one family and two men. We also have another little family that periodically shows up. They're a great group of people that we enjoy working with and doing our best to teach them in the way of Biblical living.

[ Just a Glimpse ]

It seems as if I'm running out of ideas here on what to take pics of and post...so I decided to just post some "randomness." Hopefully that's okay!

The below scene is taken on "el Par Vial." We travel this road every time we go to church. It's a few streets over from "el centro," and we use it a lot because it moves along at a much faster pace!!

And, we've found a new spot for tacos al pastor! This place adds fried onions on the top of their meat, which makes for a different spin on the traditional taco. It's VERY good! And only 50¢ per taco! Double good!!

[ Just a Glimpse ]

This is a large monstrosity of a church that's not too far from our house. Our boys call it "the castle!" This church proclaims to be "Christian" and part of the first true church founded by Jesus Christ, and then later restored by their founder in 1926. Unfortunately, they seem to be more of a "cult-ish" type group with some pentecostal culture thrown in for good measure.

In other news, ants have invaded and are eating one of our trees out in front of our house, carrying the little pieces of leaf down their trail to our neighbors drain pipe!

[ Just a Glimpse ]

Last week, we started a mens and ladies group at our church here in Tapachula. Each group will be meeting alternatively every other Saturday.

This past Saturday was the first time for the ladies to meet. They decided to go out for some coffee and to just talk. I must confess to not understanding everything that was said, but I did understand some of it. We had a nice time together and lots of laughs were shared.

The men have named their group, Men of Integrity (Hombres de integridad). Their goal is to be more of an accountability group and to learn and encourage each other to be godly leaders in their homes.

We are excited to see how the Lord will lead these two groups! Our prayer is that we would be a godly example of Biblical living and a blessing to these new believers.

[ Just a Glimpse ]

Today we made a trip to the barber - for all FOUR of the boys in this household! This was Parker's very first haircut, and as you can see below, he was in desperate need of one - although, this Momma really liked his curls!

But alas, I would have soon been needing to make hair bows and ribbons...and that wasn't an option! =)

After.

A little different look for the little man - but cute, just the same!

Our Recent Trip to Guatemala

Well, we arrived safely home late Sunday night! Monday we spent the day recuperating from our trip! Tuesday morning, I had every intention of finishing the edits on these pictures to share with you, but our normally steady electric, decided to go off for 5 hours. So after it came back on, I was trying to finish the pictures and to get them uploaded, when a bad storm came through, and the lightening zapped our modem...hence, no internet until this morning when we went into town to get a replacement modem.

Whew! So anyway...here we are, and I've finally got all the pictures uploaded. I hope you enjoy this little pictorial journal of our recent trip to Guatemala! Consider this post, yesterday's [Just a Glimpse].

* Click the arrow below to see a slideshow of these pics, or click anywhere else in the box to be taken directly to Picasa where you can view the pics a little larger.

[ Just a Glimpse ]

We were privileged to have a baby dedication at our church this past Sunday. What a special time it was to see the parents vowing to raise their child in a godly way.

Isn't he cute?

The family: Humberto & Edith, Paolita and baby Humberto.

[ Just a Glimpse ]

The other Sunday, we took some people from our Tapachula church, up to our church in Santo Domingo for a special service. On the way, our truck decided to overheat, and we had to pull into a gas station, let the truck cool, then add some more antifreeze.

A classic picture: standing in the light rain looking at each other,

and wondering what to do next. =)

Parker wanted to see what all was going on too!

House Tour - The Upstairs

Well, my friends, another week has gone by and here's the "long awaited" pics of our upstairs. And really, I'm almost embarrassed to show them, because we definitely have not spent significant time trying to "prettify" the rooms!

This is the stairway leading upstairs.

The school room.

I have some great ideas for this room, but no money or motivation!

The other side.

We usually have our keyboard along the wall to the left of the chair, but it is currently at our church, since our church keyboard is having electrical/power issues.

The boys room.

Nothing fancy here. The walls sport the original bright yellow paint along with the light pink ceiling. A bare lightbulb hangs from the ceiling and I have a dark blue sheet hanging over the original (nasty, light colored) curtains.

Here is our guest bedroom in its original form. We put Parker's crib and the boys' lone dresser in this room along with a very lumpy, uncomfortable, double bed.

Then, we decided to paint the room since we had guests coming to visit last March. The new green walls really made the room seem cool and refreshing. We took out the double bed, crib, and dresser, and put in two single beds.

Well, then we had another brainstorm! We moved the boys' dresser back into the room, took out the single beds, and moved our nice queen size bed into the room.

I also use this room to do sewing, ironing, fold clothes, etc...

Where did the single beds go, you ask? Why, they went into our room. We pushed them together and made a nice king size bed!! Now don't get too excited, we actually don't own any king size bedding, but that just makes life more exciting, right?

With the king size bed, a dresser, a nightstand, plastic organizer bins, and the crib all in the same room, it's pretty crowded. We'll soon need to come up with another plan. I'm still thinking through the thought that 3 boys in one room might not be a good thing!!! =)

We're still gazing at the yellow walls and pink ceiling in this room, but I'm dreaming of some great changes! The when, where, and how to start? Who knows!

And this is the main bathroom. I painted the walls a medium aqua blue color - and I haven't decided if I really like it yet.

And that's pretty much all there is to our house. We have a backyard, but it's not very pretty. We have an outdoor laundry room/storage room attached to our patio, and it's not pretty either! =)

I hope you've enjoyed this little tour. If you missed the downstairs tour, click here. And if you really, really, like house pictures, click here, here, and here, to see some pics from our house when we lived in Guanajuato, Central Mexico.

House Tour - The Downstairs

I've been wanting to do a pictorial house tour for some time...but I kept telling myself I should wait until I fix something, or decorate something... Well, time keeps passing, and I really haven't done any of those things, so I decided I might as well just go ahead and show it like it is. So...

Welcome to our house!

(the peach colored house in the middle is ours)

The entrance way: my book corner and a small bathroom through the door.

The living room.

The living room/dining room is one of the places I haven't done a lot of decorating. I just can't decide what I would like, or what would look nice. Any suggestions? I've thought of maybe a small country quilt to hang behind the love seat with a shelf above it...

In the living room looking towards the dining room and desk corner.

The grand kitchen! =)

If I was rich, I'd love to completely tear the whole kitchen up and start from scratch. It has a terrible layout for such a small place and upper cabinets would be nice (as well as a non-tile counter top...)! =)

I've also thought of painting the cabinets white to make everything feel fresh and clean, bright and cheery! What do you think?

Our family wall. This is in the hallway that runs between the entrance and kitchen (also at the bottom of the stairs and across from a small pantry).

And our small pantry under the stairs. Since I don't have a lot of cabinet space, a lot of food items gets stored in here, and it's also a catch-all kind of storage space. Unfortunately, this space is always in a battle of ownership between the mice, cockroaches, and me!

And, that's the downstairs. I hope you've enjoyed the pics. I know I love to see photos of other people's houses, so I thought my blog readers might too! Check back next Tuesday for a house tour of the upstairs of our place! (Update: just click this link to see the upstairs pics.)

[ Just a Glimpse ]

Today was the first day of school here in the Mason Academy! The picture below shows our first grade student with his two teachers! This year, we decided to split things up a little. Michael will teach math daily, plus history, science, health/manners, and music once a week, while I (Crystal) teach phonics/reading, writing, spelling/poetry daily. Today went very smoothly, so here's hoping the rest of the year will go the same!

Thanks to Taylor for the above photo!

After about three tries, he finally got our heads included in the picture! lol

[ Just a Glimpse ]

I went to the store today, and this is what I saw...

[ Just a Glimpse ]

I'm starting to think we live in the castle of creatures! About the time I think I've seen (and taken pictures) of them all...another one comes for a visit. The other week I was out in the laundry room (outside our house, in a separate little room) and I saw something flying around over my head. I assumed a bird had gotten inside and didn't realize he could fly out the door to freedom. After this "bird" landed on a lightbulb right outside the door, I realized he was no bird, but a bat! So what did I do? After informing my husband, I grabbed the camera and tried to see how close I could get to him. I must say, this bat sure looked like he was giving me the "evil eye!" What do you think?

And just so you don't think all I ever blog about is creatures...here's our littlest guy taking a snooze in his highchair. I love how he props his feet up like that!

[ 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!