It's been over a month since my last post and I really have so much to comment on that I don't even know where to begin. I think my reaction to having so much going on it to wait for it all to pass before I say anything, as opposed to trying to write about every little thing. I'm pretty sure that's a little annoying to some people because they want to hear about every little thing, so I apologize for that and will try to do better in this new year.
Part of my busy-ness in December was a VERY short, but wonderful trip that I took back to Texas to be in the wedding of two of my best friends. Don't you love it when two friends get married? I also got to spend time with my parents and my sister, brother-in-law and wonderful nephews in the four days that I was there.
Mom even made turkey and dressing for me! What a blessing!
By the time I got back to Morelia, Sam, Ann and the girls had already left for South Texas for the holidays. They were able to spend almost three weeks with family and friends. Victoria and Sofía had a great time hanging out with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Sofía was very impressed that so many people in her family speak english AND spanish.
Summer and I stayed here for the holidays this year and were able to experience our first real Mexican Christmas. We went to two different parties for Christmas Eve with families from church and neither of us made it home before 3:30 in the morning! That's right, the main celebration here is on Christmas Eve. All the family gets together and hangs out until midnight, when they have a toast to ring in Jesus' birthday and the eating begins. It was really wonderful getting to see how things are done here, but it was a little weird to be up to late on Christmas Eve! That may be why Santa didn't visit our house this year.
Christmas Day, Summer got to drive to Guadalajara and pick up her family for a five day visit. This was the first trip for half of them and the second trip for the other half. Summer had a great time showing them around Morelia and then we all went to the beach for a couple of days. It was the first visit ever to the beach for Summer's 15 year old brother and he LOVED it. We packed a lot of activity into those five days, but everyone had a great time. Because of a bad traffic accident that we came upon when we took them back to Guadalajara, they missed their flight out and ended up getting an extra day together as a family. Blessings sometimes come in interesting packages, don't they?
To close this off, I wanted to introduce you to the newest member of the Río de Vida church. Blanca gave birth to a healthy baby boy on Saturday, January 7th. His name is Leopoldo, but his sister Blanquita has taken to calling him 'Pollito' (little chicken). : ) He's adorable! He weighed in at 7 lbs 11 ozs. Please pray for Blanca as she recovers from the C-section and for this new family.
