The sun already set!! woah!

I really appreciate when ya'll talk to my parents and ask them about me. Keep doing it! It's great.
I'll headline the next couple sections so you can chose what to read.


.about my trip to San Diego/my parents and brother/sister/Julia visit.


My parents and sister’s plane got delayed, so I had an empty hotel room to myself for one night!
While I waited for them to arrive I ran errands.
I hate to admit it, but I honestly LOVED going around Walmart and just being in a BIG GROCERY STORE!!!!!
I also went to the mall (where I fought in my mind over what kind of lifestyle I want to have after wandering into Banana Republic and drooling.)
I ran into an employee at the Apple Store who had "Love Is the Movement" written on his arms for Feb 13th. (I had "Love Amor" written on my arms in purple and green. Mom thought it was a tattoo!)
My parents finally came in the next morning…
We had planned to go whale watching but that day we drove around San Diego instead. It’s sooo big.
We saw some cousins I hadn't seen in like 10 years.
My friends Ben and Rich drove us into Mexico from San Diego after my parents spent one day in SD. 7 hours later (because we took some very enjoyable touristy stops) we arrived at my home!
There was a wedding the weekend my parents came, so they had the rare opportunity to meet almost everyone involved in the ministry here as well as see some Mexican wedding traditions.
We ate dinner on the beach and watched the sunset.
I learned so much about my parents that I didn’t know.


.Nature.


The sun sets really fast. There is a fourth of the sun left, then all of a sudden it disappears.

The eclipse was a nice birthday present. I remember the one that happened in August, how I stayed out all night to watch it, and Dad ended up joining me. I knew that the next time I’d see an eclipse I wouldn’t be at my parents home. Eclipses are a magical thing for me. They remind me that I’m not in control of my world.

I’m beginning to appreciate the sky more. There is/are less pollution/clouds here. During the day it’s so blue it looks fake. The only other times I’ve seen such a blue sky was when I was in the Atacama desert in Chile. At night, the sky is so black it’s past darkness, the blackness is creamy, rich and brightly shines back at you.

We found a lost baby seal on the beach Thursday after school. We tried to shoo it back into the water. We tried to go clamming, we got 4 ☺

Sunday we went out clamming again, but instead ended up climbing a sand dune and then checking out a tide pool and volcanic rocks that have tons of muscles. My girls took pride in finding neon green anemones, starfish, and crabs. We saw dolphins in the wild! And froze in the dark at the rocky seashore. I pretended I was in New England. (I also turned into my mother and made it educational. I was all, “what kind of rock is this? What was it before it was rock? Where does it come from?”)

As we looked at the darkness to the west of us we noticed a thin white line on the horizon. It was already an hour after nightfall but it seemed like the sun was still out there. Rich conjectured that it was plankton that glow in the dark.

Now that I’ve seen plenty of sunsets from the beach, I’d like to see them from the mountains, or go to the other side of this peninsula and see sunrise with the ocean to the east of us.

.Environmental Footprint.


Is it better to throw out/recycle a paper plate or to use the energy it takes to manufacture soap and make purified hot water to clean a plate?

There is a link to pictures in the last post if you want to see some of what's been going on. :)

I hope you take a piece of me with you...

so I was without a computer for 2 weeks. whew! that was tough.

I've discovered I still fight with tuna cans everytime I open them.
When I was in the states, I almost always broke the "easy open" cans and then had to use a can opener.
I finally ate tuna last week (the first time since being here), and it took a can opener, a sharp knife, a fork, and various other methods to get it open.

So my parents and Julia have visited and left, and life is sorta back to normal, if there is a normal.

My birthday was nice.

I need to update ya'll on Steve.
He just completed his first week of radiation therapy.
He has 4 more to do.
So far he hasn't had any bad side effects.
They are staying in Tijuana to do it (5 hours away), so there are less adults here, but it's working out.
God really blessed us to have extra help these few months even before we knew about his cancer.
Steve and Johanne are coming home on the weekends to see the kids and things.

I think I'll have hot water starting tonite or tomorrow morning. It's probably been 2 weeks since we've had hot water in my house. (We just shower at the house next door.) It seemed like all the little things that could go wrong with the water did go wrong. (In my helpfulness I ruined the filament in the hot water heater.) It was kinda bad timing with my parents being here, but it worked out.

Our youth group is planning a trip to a conference in March.
We'll be driving 12 hours south (Loreto) of where we live, listening to some preaching, doing some service projects, and even preparing our own presentations for local teenagers that don't know God.
I've never really been a youth leader before, but I think it'll go well.
Churches from all over the baja are invited.
We're still trying to figure out transportation and some other details, so please be praying for us!
It sounds like we'll be camping the whole week, smelly????? ;)
(My girls will need the gov'ts permission to go since it's in another state, and I will need special permission as well. I hear it'll be easy to go mine, but we aren't quite sure about my girls permission.)

Here are some pictures...
http://cedarville.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039635&l=8d91e&id=141300519

I've got to get going for now, but I'm going to try to reply to emails later today!!!!

(oh, and we bought a skirt for $2, and Taboo (the game) for $1.50 at the globos. My girls told me they probably upped the prices since I'm not Mexican. If that's what they call overpriced, then they can overprice me anytime!)


and I want to go here the next time I'm in California...

http://www.theflowerfields.com/

Caveman Olympics

I get to see my parents and sister TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see my brother THURSDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see Julia Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I get to be in a jacuzzi TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I get to use a treadmill TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!

California is totally gonna love me.
and Mexico is gonna miss me.

but it'll be ok.

I have a list
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
long of things I'd like to do in San Diego, but I know it won't all happen.

It's all about priorities.

I went grocery shopping for Johanne today.
groceries for one week for 25 people.
:) :) :)
We did three different trips out to the car
(I think the grocery store really likes us.)
and two roadside stops.
One for oranges, and one for tomatoes.

My girls took two tests today and passed!!! yay!
We just have to keep working.




Have you ever played the Nintendo game "Caveman Olympics" ?

It's like the olympics, except you get points for throwing your spouse the farthest, or by pole valuting over a dinosaur, or by making a fire the fastest (which you can cheat during by hitting your opponent on the head!)

well... there is a race in Caveman Olympics, and if you aren't the fastest one, the wild lion/cheetah/cougar animal eats you! The way to cheat in it is by pushing your opponent in a puddle if you are running next to them. totally wouldn't happen in real life, right?

nope. I SAW THIS HAPPEN ON SATURDAY!

my girls and I were walking home and two were jogging ahead, racing, I suppose.
When one pushed the other into a puddle, and laughed about it.
I wish I would have had a video camera.


ok. gotta get directions, and all kinds of things.

Ooey Gooey!

I made the files smaller. Enjoy!



Puddles on one of the better roads. This is the same road that has the giganto puddle in the post a couple previous.




This is the road outside my house.
The center tire track is the following picture.

Once again, this is the road right outside my house.

Now you understand why I love the rain so much!!! ;)

(and if you visit, better bring a truck. or something that's higher off the ground.)

40 Days...

"I think we will be made clean like the snow
I think we will become new like the snow"


Isn't it glorious to purposefully anticipate...

I would be a horrible detective...

so I come home (to a room that was TOTALLY clean.)
and didn't notice chunks of dirt on my carpet.
or the mud on my bathroom rug.

6 hours later Steve talks to me and tells me that when he was checking out our water problem he went in my bathroom to see if my toilet was leaking (but my faucet was running)...

and then it dawns on me. oh! There's mud in my room!

It turns out there is no city water right now, and our water pump only does like 2 gallons every minute, so while that would be sufficient if it were just auxiliary, it doesn't really work well as a main pump.

anyways, in all the chaos I must have turned on my faucet, but when no water came out I never shut it off.

oops!

I've been in the light bulb box 3 times since I've been here.
I just noticed today that there are air fresheners in it.
I asked my mom for air fresheners like a month ago. SERIOUSLY.

_________________________________

I watched the movie Persuasion with some chicas last night. That was fun!
________________

I'm exhausted today...
My girls had went to a party with our family last night (that I didn't go to)
They came home way after my bed time.
Scurried around upstairs for an hour.
Left my house at 12am to spend the night at the other house.
Came back at 4:30am to get ready to leave for the little family trip.
(They had locked themselves out.
So I obligingly let them back in.)
Totally not 8 hours of sleep.
I bet they are tired to.


__________________________________________

Pictures of the mud and general grossness...

My boots!





A positive consequence of all the rain.


One of the puddles. This is 24 hours AFTER it stopped raining.


I have more photos, but the internet says the files are too big.
Silly internet.

On roading/ Off roading...

...it's all the same when it rains.

I wish I would have counted how many days it's rained here because all this rain is so unusual.

We have clay everywhere, and the water doesn't soak in. It just sits on top of the ground.

We also only have 2 paved roads near by. The main hwy, and the road to the hospital.

So driving is treacherous, even if it's only rained for a couple hours.

It rained last weekend, and driving 4 blocks took like 15 minutes.

slippery and slidey....whew!

Not all the puddles were dried up yet from last weekend and it's raining again now.

The kids don't have school today b/c of some Mexican holiday, but even if it wouldn't have been canceled for the holiday it would have been canceled for the rain.

I have these great black rain boots here that Johanne is letting me use.

Even walking in them my feet still get suctioned into the clay, unable to move.
______________________________________

One of my girls, borrowed my boots last week.

She wore them to walk out to the swing set.

Then when she started swinging, she realized it'd be hard to do with boots on.

So she took them off.

She swung a while, and that included some breaks where she put her bare feet in the wet mud.

I needed to leave, and so I shouted to her to bring my boots back....

...so she sat on the swing and put them back on her

DIRTY, WET, MUDDY feet

to walk back to the house.




I love her.


_______________________________________
Making tortillas went great.

I think I would be able to get them mostly round with more practice.

A lot of mine turned out square. :)

If anything, it was easier to make them too thin, than not thick enough.





In Juana's kitchen.



The bowl of little balls.






Juana showing us the very pvc pipe rolling pin that she uses to defend her tortillas from hungry little mouths.



My first tortilla!



The finished product in a tortilla napkin/challah bread cover.

_________________________________________________

Mexico confuses me. Why after it rains is there no hot water??
You'd think the over abundance of water would cause it to come pouring out of the faucets.
I want to take a shower!
(and we need to wash all the muddy towels in our entry way)


*so I just tried our water every ten minutes until some came!
and that's the way to get a shower!

I need the smell of summer...

I can’t wait until it’s warm enough outside at night for me to just lay on the ground and gaze at the stars. (and listen to podcasts, or music. I’ve been listening to “The Trumpet Child” and I’m reminded of lazy summer nights laying on my porch listening to the cicadas over the music)

Did you know peacocks can fly? They are often on the second story of our ministry building b/c the neighbors have peacocks. Everytime I see them up there I don’t have my camera : (

Peacocks are “royal turkeys” in Spanish.

The other day I drank some delicious Pineapple Grapefruit Twinnings tea that I’d added orange juice to while the girls and I did school. The vapor escaping from it seemed fuzzy. Like brand new baby hair fuzzy. The flavors beckoned me into a maze of familiar memories of Columbus, soy beans, and Julia. I think the girls noticed.
“She’s on the moon.”

I finally had my second Spanish dream. At least it’s only the second time I’ve remembered dreaming in Spanish.

The Way of the Heart by Nouwen is a good book.

I totally scored a DDR pad for $5 at the globos last week.
I’m taking it to the Taylor’s since they have DDR and I don’t.
I hope it works!
(globos=centralized garage sell of different items)

We had a mixed berry juice the other day, and it had a picture of cranberries on it, but the girls thought they were tomatoes. hehe.

Instead of watching the superbowl, I'm going to go learn how to make tortillas.
Is the superbowl on the internet even?

I see my parents in 10 days. I see Julia in 12 days. My birthday is in 18 days.

YOU really should come visit.

It's Dead!!!

I'm finally receiving some of the benefits of living in a farming community that values animals and uses them for their God given talents.

The last few weeks, my girls and I had heard some scurrying, some noises, but not very often.

On two or three occasions the girls claimed to see a mouse.
I thought they were trying to wig me out.
Then Monday, I saw the mouse with my own eyes.

It was in MY room.

Apparently, parts of my wall, down at the edge of my carpet are missing.
I had not noticed this before, but it proved to be the escape route and possible entry way for said trespasser.
So I did what any girl would do...

I screamed for Rich, or Julia, or back up, or a broom.

(The whole time I'm standing there, imagining chasing the rodent out of my room with a broom, an idea implanted by all those cartoons I've seen.)

Rich offered a solution, one that seemed more immediate than putting mice poison in the walls.

"Slayer could spend the night with you. He's both affectionate and a killer. He'll sleep right in your arms unless he hears the mouse. He can take care of your problem for you"

I'm not really a fan of cats. but I acquiesced.

All night long I didn't sleep, and it was not because the cat hogged the bed.

On the contrary, I heard the cat pacing back and forth next to the wall, exploring my closet, as well as little scurrying noises and squeaking.

The next morning, Rich came over and asked for a body count. (Very appropriately because he interrupted while we were reading about gallows in Esther.)

There was no body count however because the mouse never left the wall, he knew what would happen to him if he was careless.

I gave the cat back to him, dismayed that our plan hadn't worked.

....

Later when the girls and I were doing school, the mouse showed up again. They stood on the sofa and the bench at the table and screamed like little girls.

I calmly RAN LIKE A CRAZY WOMAN out of the house to find the cat.

The mouse knew the cat was back in the house though, and didn't come out.

...

As we waited for the mouse to take one false step, I got on a cleaning spree.

I decided to move the couch and sweep underneath it.

My girls were all outside playing and so I recruited some help and we moved the couch.

The cat was watching us move the couch, and sure enough the mouse jolted out from it while the cat just pounced.

:) :) :)

I'm so grateful for this little wild cat.