Pics from the fair and Father's Day bbq

At the fair there was also a pink gingerbread house that sold hot chocolate. That was probably my favorite part of the whole day!
Today we had the Heida's and the Power's over for Father's Day. It was a lot of fun and of course, everyone only wanted to be with Santiago. I feel like such a third wheel with him around!
This morning before church Beto and I and Santiago had the priveledge of having breakfast with my good friends John and Linda Price who were missionaries with me in Watts. Thanks guys! We love you!

The Day at the Fair

well i've decided that if you have nothing to say in a blog, go to the fair!
wow, i have almost toomuch material.
now i'm pretty tired but some of the highlights actually started at the restaurant where we had breakfast on the way down to San Diego.
My nephew Marcus was invited to be a backup dancer for his friends cousin so we mainly went to see him, but after his performance we stayed so the adolescentes could go on th rides and the adults could test their patience and wear down their feet walking around looking at the seeminly hundreds of booths filled with a bunch of stuff people really don't need but think they want.

We saw for the first time chocolate covered bacon and my sister Glenda and Beto actually tried it, and didn't LIKE IT!

They also sold chicken sandwiches with Krisy Kreme donuts instead of buns. We didn't try those.

That's all I can remember for now. I need to go to bed.

Happy Father's Day , Dad!

i've been thinking about doing this blog for a few days, when i finally get in bed but my mind won't turn off. having a baby is such hard work! i love my kid but i'm not in love with being a mom yet. when i want to sleep, he doens't and vice versa. when i finally sit down to eat after he's been calm all day he starts to cry or when i finally sit down to use the computer.

i havn't wanted to blog about my dad. i'm sure most of you have heard about him now. he passed away june 3rd while i was in guatemala. unfortunately, we were'nt able to get Santiago's VISA before he passed. my dad had been sick for many years but still his passing came as a surprise becuase he was due to get discharged from the hospital the same day. i felt that if i wrote about it, it would make it much more real and i wasn't ready for that. i think i'm still in denial. i'm still expecting my dad to walk through the door smiling, singing, and shouting "Sing it Sister!" to a Diana Ross CD.

But for Father's Day, as a tribute to my dad, i wanted to give some snapshots, not so much in actual picture form but in memories. Here are just a few of the special memories I have of my loving father...in no particular order...

1. Riding in his orange Fiat standing up on the passenger seat with my head sticking you of the sunroof, hair flying behind me, smiling and laughing. such joy.(if he did that these days he'd be in jail with britney spears)

2. Like I mentioned above, my dad would blare his blues, jazz, or opera and on the especially high or climactic notes, he'd shout, "Sing it Sister!" or "Amen Brother! Hallelujia!"

3. When he took me practice driving in his root beer brown pickup and i only made it one block before i got scared, started crying, and he had to drive me home. Before he took over tho, at my request, he was so patient and really encouraging.

4. His great cooking skills. Before he stopped drinking coffee, he'd make coffee you had to chew and special potatoes for breakfast and great ham and beans with corn bread!

5. My dad's love for all cultures and foods. I'm sure before I ever left the country for the first time I had been exposed to a variety of cultures within the comfort of my own home through my dad's different music, love for food, and interest in all kinds of shows and movies about different countries.

6. Dancing through the house to "I Will Survive!"

7. Laughing our heads off to the movie "Auntie Mame", or Blue Collar Comedy Tour, or the Carol Burnett Show, among others.

8. Eating at a little beach front cafe on the border of Long beach and Seal Beach. I don't remember the name but i only ever went there only with my dad.

9. Talking on the phone with him more often after Santiago was born and dad's love for him before meeting him.

10. Saying goodnight to him with a hug and kiss every night before going to bed whenever I was home.

I love my dad and am so sad he never got to meet Santiago but know they will meet in heaven someday. There are so many things that will always remind me of my dad. Especially concerning movies, music, food and cultures. It's not surprising that two out of four of his daughters married latinos. he was a proud member and donar of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long beach. Tho my dad never traveled outside the country, you'd have thought he had if you ever talked to him about other countries. he was a very intellectual man.

i am so happy he got to meet beto. he connected with beto right away. it was love at first sight. one other great memory is when beto told me that my dad had told him "you are myson."

i love my dad and am grateful to God that we can celebrate Beto's first father's day this year.

just pictures

last week we went to visit the school where i worked in august. my friend is the kinder teacher and her kids wanted to see the baby. it was a lot of fun, especially to see the four year old boys tickling santi's chin and saying, "koochi koochi koo."
last sunday was our last sunday in la esperanza for awhile and we had santiago dedicated and prayed for. it was very special and also our "good-bye" to the church until we return, Lord willing.

don't you love the picture of the moto? that's how we roll.

the last picture is of the church's logo that beto painted on the side of the classroom building. it reads Evangelical Holiness Church of Honduras

more santi pics

here is beto talking with santiago, with aunt rhonda again, and in his new shoes daddy bought him in teguc. he had an outfit to match but he stained it with a huge BM...too bad

santi

besides tapeworm, santiagos nickname is santi.

here he is at aunt rhondas house and with her. she is the nurse that helped me in my delivery. we are doing wel but i have to write later bc santi is crying

daddy and santi

they already like watching tv together. dangerous! so happy together

santiago turned 2 mo. on may 13th and is 2 pounds overweight, just on milk! he is very healthy and already shows signs of being a flirt. yikes! the dr. says he is advanced for his age because he smiles, and can support his own head, can roll over and can"talk!". but we arent bragging or anything of course

video of santiago smiling and "talking"

Here is a taste of what we enjoy on a daily basis. I thank God that so far Santiago is a very chilled out and laid back baby. He is a very happy baby but probably because we are such great parents! The latest here is that we have to move out of the apt. at church by June 1st becuase groups are coming. Nobody thought we would be living there as long as we have, but it is God{s perfect timing, of course, becuase we are going to guatemala and will be able to stay longer than planned. We made another appointment at the embassy to get Santi{s passport june 23rd. hopefully by that time we will have the last paperwork we need. The government office still hasnt found their very important books but i called the embasy and explained the situation. After the woman on the phone stopped laughing about the books being lost, she said that if "honduras" isnt able to give us the paper we need in time for the appt, they can make us up a letter saying they couldnt make us the certificate we need and we can take that letter to the embassy. so we at least feel now that there is a solution one way or another, thank God. we are plannng on going to guate at the end of may until about june 17 so we can get back to tegu a few days before the appt. and get the paperwork we need.

beto hopefully comes back from teguc today. i havnt been able to reach him since he didnt take the phone charger with him.
we are pretty frustrated with the situation. like i mentioned, beto met the woman in charge and she said they were going to diligently look for the books needed to make out this last paperwork we need to get santiago{s passport. well, yesterday beto had me call also. he told me that they told him that they found the books and had made out the paper, that they were just waiting for the boss to come into the office and sign it. so i called and asked to talk to the boss thinking she wouldn{t be in, but she answered the phone. so i asked if she signed the paper yet and if it was ready to pick up. she says, no, we still havnt found the books. we are still looking for them. they may be in another office. i was thinkin, but you told my husband a completely different story, but i wasnt in the mood to get into it with her...yet.

so i called beto back and told him and he of course was really upset of course and decided he would come back to la esperanza without the paper and call them from here and when it{s ready, when could be anywhere from a day to six months, he{ll go back to tegu and pick it up.

so i made another appt. at the us embassy in teguc for june 23d, hopefully we will have all the paperwork by then, and then it takes 2 weeks to process.however, if we can get on a plane and they let us board without santiago{s us passport in teguc. to LA we can get his passport in the states. once he steps foot in the us he{s a citizen because he{s mine. ive been talking to my cousin who works in immmigration. my goal, my hope, is to be home by july 4. you{d think it wouldnt be so hard. it shouldnt be so hard. but we will appreciate being home all the more once we finally make it.

tegucigalpa and what happened there

beto was asked to preach at amber´s church when the pastor called at the last minute to say he couldn´t come bc his mom was sick.

one day he went with another missionary,will, and amber´s boys on a hike will works with his wife rachel along side amber. they went up to a rain forest above tegu and hiked all day. they had a wonderful time.

at church it was great to see old friends, one who had a baby in nov and i saw him for the 1st time.

well we still havnt gotten the american passpòrt for santi. in tegu the registrar told us we had to get the ¨literal¨birth cert in la esperanza, even tho we were told that everything is nationalized now, but la esperanza,no. remember we live a 4 hour bus ride from tegu. so we come back home and they say, oh, the books we need with the codes and all to print it just got sent to tegu! and they wont be back for 3 to 6 months. so beto went back to tegu. at the office there God put in bveto´s path the boss lady who is a christian. she listened to our story and demanded they find the books right away. she did tell him to come back mon., today, and so if yopu can pray with us that he will get the paper today.

we are happy at least that beto has his visa. it´s only a mater of time to get the passport. thanks for ur prayers.

thanks to rhonda who´s lwetting me stay at her house these days that beto´s in tegu. i used to live ALONE in WATTS, NO PROBLEM, now i can´t even stay one night alone in a quiet country town where the only threat are mosquitos, june bugs, and the occasional cow.

update

Thanks everyone for your support, prayers, and encouraging comments.
After finding out we'd have to wait more than another month, perhaps, until arriving in the States, i was feeling pretty depressed. i'm sure once i get to LA i'll start missing honduras a lot,but i was feeling frustrated because we are here just to wait for santiago's passport. i don't have a job or anything really to do, except take care of the baby, which is a full time job. Beto has some projects he can finish up and the extra time will be good for him. But we were PLANNING on leaving around may 12th so when we realized that probably wasn't going to happen i was really disappointed.

Then I starting wondering what God is keeping us here for...what is He doing? What awaits us here as we...wait? And i started to feel better and asking God what He wants me,us, to do in the remaining time we're here. Instead of just wallowing around feeling sorry for myself, i should put myself into action, asking God to open my eyes to the opportunities He gives me to bless others and how to do that. To use my time wisely becuase it will go by fast and a month really isn't that long of a time. We were really only disappointedbecasue we were ina hurry to get home for "Laguna" at the end of May, but now that we've pretty much ruled out that possibility, we are a little more relaxed, althoughI'm still sad we won't be there.

So we are happy where we are now while excited about leaving perhaps sometime in June.

I am reminded of the scripture about not bragging about tomorrow, saying, "Tomorrow we will go here or to that place" because you don'tknow what God has planned. and also matthew six says not to worry about tomorrow becuase it will have its own problems. each day has enough trouble of its own. AMEN to that!

we appreciate your prayers and will keep you updated.

Will we ever leave Honduras?

Well, first of all we went to the dentist here at the Baxter clinic today to get our teeth cleaned and i have 8 cavities! i havn´t had those since i was real little! i guess that´s what happens when you stop using an electric toothbrush and don´t go to the dentist for a year and a half.

Beto and I have been here in Teguc. about two weeks now. Beto got a ten year visa! praise God!

but we need your PRAYERS becuase we are having trouble getting Santiago´s american passport, ironically. we had an appointment last monday. we thought we had all the correct paperwork. she asked for the literal birth certificate and i handed her what i thought was that. we had two different original types of birth cert. neither of which were acceptable. DON´T KNOW WHY! why cán´t they just acceptthe birth certificate??? well, she said, that´s ok. i can accept it with what you have. ok, not let me see your proof of your physical presence in the US. i told her, ¨that´s on that app. right there!¨she said, ¨no, i need like, transcripts, or something aboutyou that proves your physical presence in the US beofre movin to Hondruas.¨ i told her i honestly didn´t know i had to have that. she showed me the info sheets and i showed her mine that the office faxed me and THAT INFO HAD BEEN CUT OFF THE BOTTOME OF THE PAGE!!! well, she didn´t feel sorry for me. she said we had to have the documents and i have to make another appointment, the earliest of which wasn´t until june 11th!!! we can´t wait that long! ugh! but sh was very strcit and unhelpful, and the laws about this are so ridiculous. obviously he´s mine and i have my american passport. so frustrating.

sooo...she said, well, if you can´t wait for another appointment you can go up to San Pedro where you don´t have to make an appointment but then they send all the paperwork down here and the process takes 4 weeks instead of 2. san pedro is about 5hours away from tegucigalpa.

beto went yesterday to get the literal b.c. but they said we ahve to get it in la esperanza, and in la esperanza they said we have to get it in teguc. so what do we do? well, wait four months, they said! what??? and i thought we´d be home in april! guess not. after all this is Honduras! so we are making lots of calls and trying to figure out how we can leave Hondruas asap!

right now we are blessed to be able to stay with amber. she is so hospitable. right now we are going to be in teguc. until at least next mon. or whenver beto´s passport is ready to pick up with his visa, whichever comes first, and then hopefully we can get the b.c. here and take it up to san pedro. and hopefully we can fly out of here in about 5 weeks.
please pray that God will open the doors. we really weren´t expecting all this hassle, and just for a birth cert. if someone here at the us embassy in teguc. cancells their appt. we can go do it all here, but please pray that God opens that door. we´d reallylike to be able to make it to my family reunion in Laguna at the end of May, but now i´m not holding my breath.

santiago is doing ok. adjusting well now to the heat and humidity of teguc. he seems to have a cough and respitory problems but is doing better. please pray for our health in the midst of all this traveling.

In Tegucigalpa

Here in Tegucigalpa we have had to put the baby in a bucket. Good thing he's not any bigger yet! There are no such things as bath tubs here, although there are sometimes exceptions.
We enjoyed spending time with an old friend who used to work at the Southwest School, and his mom and sister came along too.
The other day when we went to get Santiago's Honduran passport it was pretty easy. After we left there we went to pick up his authenticated birth certificate. We were pretty happy because we thought we were all done with the paperwork but turns out we had to go to one more office to get it apostilled or somthing like that. i guess it's like a notary, making it doubly official. of course to do that we had to run to the complete opposite end of the city, but luckily it's close by to amber's house. i think they should just put all these offices that are interconnected in one place, but i guess that would make too much sense.
so later today we have the American Passport appt. at the US embassy. ironically it won't be as easy as getting the Honduran one. we have to have a lot more paperwork and proof that he is ours, including pictures of us together all through the pregnancy and with Santiago after the birth. If you read this in time please pray for us.
Tomorrow of course is Beto's VISA appt. and if he gets it we can pick that up later this week, so maybe this weekend we'll be headed back to La Esperanza.
The American passport won't be ready for a couple weeks perhaps but once we find out we will be able to book our flight. Hopefully we will fly to Guatemala in just two weeks and from there to LA, in a little less than a month.

an excerpt

well, this isn´t really an excerpt because i don´t have anything to take it out of, but i feel like this is a parenthesis from yesterday´s blog and i like that word...ëxcerpt¨funny word.
so yesterday we go to the immigration office, because here we are actually illegals. but that´s another story. we´re working on getting legal. don´t judge.
anywho, we thought the office opened at 7.30. but when we got there at around 8.30 there was a line outside and they opened at 9. when we get to the door, the man asks if we have an appt. We said no and then he said, well you have to go to the bank and pay for one first. I looked at Beto and thought, great! Amber did this before with you boys and she didn´t say anything about having to go to the bank first!
I told him that we didn´t and he just kept letting others go in front of us and ignoring us. and kept asking us if we had an appt. we did this about three times before he finally let us in and told us that there was a bank right inside the offices. so we waited in line about an hour before the bank that opens at 9 opened at 10. Not surprising. Then we paid and got an appt. for the next day at 8.30am. We went to ask exactly what documents we would need because there in the offcies i read something tht made me think we might have to go to the embassy´s first of each of our country´s to get our passports authenticated or something, but we were confused and found out too that we could pay a little more and get the passport the same day. the money we paid would´ve been used on taxi´s going back and forth again so we decided to pay a lil extra and save time too. this way we got to sleep in another day too! so anyways, the appt. was fast and we were out of there quickly.
but my point of this blog is to tell a littel story.
so we´re in line at the bank and i see this woman come in. she´s maybe 50 years old and she´s with a teen girl, probably her daughter. she goes over to another line, cuts in front of an elderly woman with a cane...the older lady doenst say anything b-c that´s the way it is here, but if i were her i would´ve used my cane! she´s also pushing her daughter in front of other people and pinching her arm to manipulate her where to stand.
a few minutes later she comes over and puts herself at the front of OUR line! and i hate when people do this and it happens all the time and usually i say something, so i gently tap her on the shoulder and tell her there´s a line...duh, like she doenst see it. and she very rudely says, ï´m a senior citizen, i get to cut. and i just stare at her and then look back in the line to point out an elderly man much older than her who didn´t cut, and i look bck at her and she repeats herself and than says,
¨Do you understan??¨ uuuuuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhh....yes, i understand that you´re RUDE! beto made me let it go, but it was very difficult.
i am looking fwd. to being in the states where people don´t cut, or do they?

The Promised Land

The kids on the 4 wheeler were riding around at church after service. The kid who´s driving is a former student of mine, a 2nd grader. I have never seen a 7 year old driving!
Santiago is a pretty calm, happy baby(from Beto), but sometimes he gets angry and shows his independent side(that´s from mom).



Many would disagree but for me coming to Tegucigalpa is like coming home! the land of milk and honey, that somewhere over the rainbow, a land flowing with malls, internet cafes at every turn, coffee shops, fast food restaurants, Chili´s! etc. Of course all those things mostly have to do with food.

The best thing about Teguc is friends! We are blessd to be able to stay with Amber and we are having a lot of fun!

Beto and I have been busy getting passport fotos and all kinds of paperwork done, but we are ready for the baby´s appt. and Beto´s VISA. Santiago now has his Honduran passport. It took literally about 25 tries to get his picture right. We had to wake him up out of a deep sleep and one picture actually came out with him sticking out his tongue. We finally got an acceptable one but he looks angry! probably becuase of being woken up!

last sunday when we got into town we celebrated Amber´s Birthday at Chili´s, a new fenomenon here in the city. The heat and humidity have been difficult to get used to, esp. for the baby, which is our excuse for spending so much time in the malls!

a day at the beach...well, sort of

santiago has already learned how to make funny faces at the camera. Monday our pastor invited us to go to a nearby pool park with his family. the music was awful and loud, but santiago slept thru it for about 4 hours. it was a lot of fun and very hot!

more exciting news

i want to share also that God has given us land for the Street children{s home! one brother and friend from our church has donated a large piece of land to us to build the home on when we return to honduras. God is good and we are still in bit of surprised shock. it doesnt look like much now of course but we are dreaming of how it will look with the home on it. it is across the street from our old house and ver close to the church, also close to the center. we are very happy. it{s still hard to beleive! excuse the bad spelling.

march update

Here I am again after nearly three weeks in the house. It’s been very difficult being inside for me, but God has taught me patience, trust in Him, and sensitivity to those who are stuck in their homes and beds for one reason or another.
After 13 hours of labor in the hospital, Santiago was born march 13 at 3am. I was in the public hospital, the best public hospital of all, so I’ve heard. I was in one room with two other women. We are kept to labor and push in one room and when the head is visible I had to walk across the hall, climb up myself onto another bed and push the final two times, and there is where they clean and fingerprint the baby. After that I was put in a recovery room with three other women and was going to be discharged from the hospital at noon, only 9 hours after giving birth, but later they decided to discharge me later that night.
Now I’ve learned how different my experience was from giving birth in a United States hospital, but at the time I didn’t feel uncomfortable there. All of it, including two vaccinations for the baby and iron vitamins for me, cost us about $7. The best part was having our missionary nurse friend Rhonda there with me throughout the entire labor and delivery. She stayed with me all through thte night and let me squeeze her hands, HARD, during every contraction. I think she had just as long a recovery as me!
We are doing better now, getting a little more used to the baby each day. I’ve learned that life will never be the same! For example, the other day I wanted to take the baby outside on the porch to rock him in the rocking chair, while reading a book and eating ice cream. First I had to take out the rocking chair, then dish out my ice cream. Great, I sat down and he started to cry. I never did finish my ice cream. Most of it melted by the time I could actually eat it, and I never even opened the book!
Santiago has proven to be very active. Today he slept about two hours, all day! And he hardly slept last night. I think I’m going to have to stop eating so much sugar! I was told that all newborns do is sleep. Hopefully he’ll sleep more in the night, but I’m not holding my breath.
Santiago has an appointment to get his U.S. passport at the U.S. embassy april 28th and beto has his visa appointment april 29th. Please pray for both of these.