Nuestras cosas favoritas

Here is a list of some of our favorite things:

JUANITO:

*Lizards (big and little ones)

Sorting cards with brothers

Boogie-boarding/Surfing with Daddy

Eating pancakes

Pinata candy

ANDRES:

*Daddy not working

Going surfing with Daddy

Playing double solitaire with David

Eating cacahuates (peanuts)

*Making a robot and marble track out of trash

*Walking the Andador

*Drinking Aquas Frescas

*Playing at Diego y Angie's house with weapons and 2 dogs

Lifting bricks at the orphanage

Swimming with Miguel who might be stronger than Uncle Brad

My birthday - getting presents and candy from the pinata

Going fishing and catching the first fish

Being visited from the Mexican tooth fairy and getting pesos and dollars

DAVID:
*Daddy staying home

*Playing cards with everyone

*Playing Bookworm

Watching Star Wars

*Aquas Frescas

*Experiencing another country

*Going to beach every day

*Seeing Juan y Luis

*Spending time with Sierra and Diego Palladino

*Seeing turtles in the boat

Watching a soccer game

*Making a dog out of paper

CHRIS:

*Lots and lots of family time
*Visiting the zoo in Tuxtla

Day surf trip to Chicawa

Fishing with David & Andres

*Special times with Juanito

*Learning Spanish better

KRISTA:

All of the *ed ones above. :)

Watching the boys meet Juan & Luis (our sponsored Compassion International kids) for the first time

Staying at a hotel in Tuxtla where we could drink water out of the tap

AND here is a list of our least favorite things:

JUANITO:

Seeing the doggy with the bad owie on his leg

Watching the bad doggies be mean to the nice doggy with the owie

ANDRES:

The flies at El Mercado and in restaurants

The dog without an eyeball

DAVID

Dogs barking all day and night

Roosters cock-a-doodling all day and night

40 mosquito bites in one day

Cockroaches, bugs, ants, bats in our house

12 hour bus rides

Loud cars: selling tortillas, empenadas, gas & with mufflers breaking off in the road

CHRIS & KRISTA:

All of the above +

Blank looks from locals

Fires to burn trash day and night

Rain that brings mud that brings bugs which bite and sting us

Poopy toilet paper in the trash next to the toilet

Sand in our bed

The freaking heat that has reminded us how thankful we are for our eternal salvation in heaven and not in hell.

We have loved our time here AND are thankful to be coming home. :) Our flight leaves today (Friday) at 3:15 (PE time - 2 hours ahead). We have a layover in Mexico City and then we land in LAX at 9:30 (SB time). My mom is picking us up from the airport and then we drive home and sleep in our own beds!!!

Hasta pronto, amigos.

Mas Fotos

2 Juanitos. The elder Juanito is deaf and is showing a Palomera bird to the younger Juanito with hand signs.


The Palladinos met a man named Jose in SB who is from Puerto and this is his family. I got to go to their dinner as the "translator". One of the most amazing things about the Mexican families we have met is the way they love to share. We were blessed with the most delicious dinner (and as you can see, soda, which is like water here). I even ripped the heads and legs off of the shrimp all by myself. I'm excited to meet Jose now too. Heidi is really sick with the Mexican sickness and Chris was home studying.

Steve and I have had lots of time together since we went to church together too. Chris stayed home with Juanito since Juanito-nino is quite the pistol at church.


This is in our kitchen with our neighbors Felix, Maria, Erika, Javier and baby Felix-Jesus. Also, our #1 teacher Angie and her son Diego (far right next to Andres) came too. Our friend Alejandro, took the picture.

Famila Frohling on another Andador walk with the Pals.

Alejandro, Ari (our other #1 teacher), me and Chris on Ari's last day of school.

This is Felix and Javier, our neighbors with the Fro boys at the place where Felix works. It's about one block up from our house and he cuts fish that the fishermen bring in. I didn't go b/c I wasn't feeling well and I'm so glad I didn't. David said there were more flies there than he's ever seen in his life. And Felix wanted to show them how fast his hands were and he was able to catch 7 flies in one try. This whole experience was a highlight for the boys. Huge fish. I'm so glad I wasn't there (did I already say that?). Andres and Chris ate bugs that are dried from the water or something like that. I'd rather not think about it. Felix brought us over some amazing shrimp and fish that he cut up and his wife cooked. They are another example of delicious cooks and great share-ers.

I'm so thankful for this experience. It has been so great for our family. Although, Andres did ask Chris and me the other day as we were walking to the beach, "Do you guys even know what you're doing here?!?" Not disrespectfully at all, just reflective. We didn't really have an answer at that moment in time. David came up into our room a couple nights ago holding back tears because he "missed America." I think it will be so great for us all to have more grateful hearts and to thank God for all the things in our life that we used to take for granted.

My Spanish isn't that great, which is very frustrating for me, but I'm trying and I am praying every day that God would remove "los paredes en mi mente" (the walls in my mind) that don't allow me to get the words out of my mouth.

This Friday we leave on a 12 hour bus ride (yes, with Juanito) for Tuxtla Gutierrez to meet our Compassion kids, Juan y Luis. We expect it to be a highlight of this trip. David and Andres pray for their "brothers" almost every day and I think it will be great for them to actually get to meet them and see where they live and go to school. We leave at 9:30 pm on Friday and return Tuesday morning. We will play in Tuxtla during the weekend and meet with the boys on Monday.

Only 3 weeks left until we come home. I hope you all miss us! :)

Pura Vida

This is a great picture especially for la familia Leon y Pura Vida...

Por mi mama

Chris talked about how he misses his brother, Brad... he misses Timbo, too. I really miss my mom. And my friends. And Pura Vida church. And my bed. And Trader Joes. But I do not miss my work or other commitments. I feel so thankful for this "do-over" of life as Cari refers to it. I'm having fun with the kiddos and having Chris around so much.

My mom wanted to see a picture of me, so here is one of the kids and me on the way to Playa Angelito (we were the only white people there and many people wanted pictures with los gueros - "pale skinned" - it was a little uncomfortable since I was in my bathing suit!).

Some Ramblings

David had a great time yesterday afternoon at a soccer practice with some local kids who play together twice a week. David did well, and it was fun to see him getting along with the other kids and talking in Spanish with them. I was able to talk in Spanish for about an hour and a half with a really nice guy named Oscar who is enrolled in a seminary. After the practice we got a ride back to the main road in the back of a pick up truck with about 20 other people. On the way down a big hill, I mentioned to David that we would probably not be doing this again when we return home!

Yesterday afternoon I had such a fun surf session. I surfed for an hour and 15 minutes, but it seemed like 3 hours. I got some great waves, and I surfed well. I surfed to the side of a crowd, and I caught all the waves that I wanted to go on. The last couple of days have been smaller (only 1-2 feet overhead). It is still really powerful, but it is very playful compared to the earlier days. I have been able to surf on my shorter board. On most of the surfing adventures in my life, I have had my good friend and brother Brad with me. I have missed him. He is so fun to surf/hang with and he always gets me fired up to surf better and charge harder plus we always have good laughs together. Yesterday I was thinking a lot of how much fun it would be to have him here and I was also thinking about how hard he would have been ripping during that session. As a side note, I pulled into a big right (about 3 feet overhead) the other morning and got a big heavy tube, but I did not come out (next time).

At church on Sunday I met a guy named Willy who has only been a Christian for about 3 months. He surfs a lot and we are going to surf together soon. He also offered to go on a little surf adventure with me to some really good breaks that we will need to get to via bus.

We have been having fun times at the beach with our kids. On Saturday afternoon we were at this one beach, and it started raining really hard. We kept swimming for a while (the beach water was warmer than the outside temperature) and then we finally got a ride back to our house. On Sunday we went to a different beach, and we took a boat ride. We found some big turtles in the ocean. I jumped into the water with Victor, our "captain". We swam with the turtle for a while and then he brought him up on the boat so the kids could touch him. Based on the large size of the turtle, Hector guessed that he was over 100 years old! It was a really fun boat ride, and toward the end of the ride David told me, "This is going to be one of my favorite memories. I'm going to write 3 pages in my journal about today."

Our Spanish is coming along. Krista and I are trying to take a lot of time to study and we are also trying to talk mostly in Spanish. We are also watching movies and news in Spanish. David and Andrew have been completing lessons on our Rosetta Stone computer program, which helps to reinforce what they have been learning.

This week: tonight I'm going to a Bible study in Spanish. Tomorrow we are going to the beach with our new friends (Krista mentioned Sherry and all of her kids in an earlier blog) after classes. On Thursday afternoon, this guy named Mondo is going to take us to the orphanage. This should be a good experience for all of us. They have about 20 kids at this orphanage.

Krista and I had a fun time talking last night about what it is going to be like to be back home. We feel like this is such a great opportunity to prayerfully re-evaluate our committments back home and how we live.

As soon as Johnny wakes up from his nap, we are going to walk down to the beach and enjoy a couple smoothies (agua fresca).

Hasta pronto,
Chris

Fotos

The boys checking out el faro on our walk on the Andador (see previous post).


Here is Chris checking out the waves (and keeping an eye on these 2 naughty dogs who tried running away with one of Andrew's sandles and who wouldn't stop mounting each other... quite disturbing. We just tell the boys that they like to shake their booties.)



David on his way in from the beach.


The boys LOVE swimming in the water...

Juanito y una sonrisa

On the way to the beach on the street outside our house.

Eating lunch (served by la unica mujer) on one of our terraces while checking out the waves.

El Andador y La Lluvia

Okay, so the rain didn't stop for 6 straight days. Some may think that this was a nice break in the hot weather, but they would be wrong. It was still hot (although much cooler) and the rain makes the unpaved roads turn to mud so when you walk, the dirt/mud flips up onto your calves. It also multiplies the mosquito popluation. And our ability to connect to the internet is based on the weather (it's via satellite). All that to say, I am so thankful for the beautiful sunshine no matter how much it makes me sweat.

We've had a couple changes with our Language School. It really isn't a school for ninos, despite what we were told, so we felt it would be best to find something else for the kids. And thank you, God, we found a curso de verano (summer course) that is full of kids. There are many great things about it: the whole month of July costs less than one week of school (!!), it's right between our house and the school, there are tons of fun things for the kids to do (swimming, PE, drawing, soccer, etc.), and there are lots of Mexican kids who only speak Spanish which is a better way for our kids to learn anyway. Es mucho mejor and we are all feeling so thankful.

For Chris and me, our homework is typically to write a story about something in the past (to practice the imperfect and preterite tenses) and the last story I wrote about was very close to perfect. :) I'm still having difficulties getting the things I know out of my mouth in any conversations with people besides my teacher and Chris. I can write well, but speaking is another story. It's how it was for me in college too. I did have some conversations with people in el mercado today... vamos a ver.

Last weekend we went walking on el andador in the rain. It was a beautiful 1-mile walk along the water on cobblestone pathways. We saw lots of crabs, powerful waves, and couples making out. When Chris told me (quietly) that there was a couple making out, Andrew overheard and asked, "What does 'making out' mean?" Without thinking (because, you know me), I said, "It means they're kissing with their tongues." I had to answer many more questions as a result of my un-thought-out response... even from Johnny, who kept saying in his not-so-quiet voice, "What?!? Kissing with their tongues? They are kissing with their tongues?" I hope the couple couldn't understand english!

Sorry, I keep trying to downlowd a picture of the boys checking out el faro (the lighthouse), but it's not working. I don't know why it's so hard (Rich, any ideas?!? :) ). I'll try again later. Hasta pronto...