Vermont

Yesterday we drove from boston to stowe vermont. instead of 3 hours it took about 7? but we took our time, relaxed and stopped at some beautiful scenery places and tourist traps. our hotel is really nice and stowe is a beautiful little town. today is the most gorgeous day. the leaves are starting to change colors, which i've never seen in person. it is amazing! we are having a lot of fun and we are happy to be here. of course, santi is the tropper as always.
please pray for honduras and tomorrow friday pray for our nation whenver you think about it. thousands of muslims are scheduled to pray in front of the nation's capitol in D.C.

Vacation=Rest...?

Monday Sept.14...Leave home at 6am for Boston
Tuesday Sept. 15...get to know Melrose, where AMy lives (takes about an hour walking)
Wednesday Sept. 16...leave for NYC, four hour car trip
Thursday Sept. 17...get to know NYC all day until 1am. Oh yea, Santi? Still smiling!
Friday Sept. 18...leave NYC at 2pm, instead of 4 hours it takes 9!In bed: 12am
Sat. Sept. 19...leave at 6am for flight to Baltimore. In bed:10pm. Santi does NOT sleep well at all. But during the day we got two good naps.
Sun. Sept. 20...Awake at 6am. Two presentations in friend Dani's church went very well! Beto's cousin lives close and comes for a P.M visit.
Mon. Sept.21...up at 5:45am, take train to D.C. and walk all day touring the city. In bed at 11pm. Santi sleeps all night! woo hoo!
Tue. Sept. 22...today. awake at 7, pancakes and sausage for breakfast.

That's a brief overview. We've had a very busy time so far obviously but a lot of fun. Santi is avery good traveler. We've counted that he's flown six times already and he's six months. Today we fly back up to boston to stay with my sister another week and the flight back to LA will be his seventh flight already. Too bad he won't remember any of this!

BOSTON

We're here! We made it and the flight wasn't bad at all. It went by a lot faster than i excpected, and Santi did really well. He slept a little bit but mostly liked looking aroudn and at the little t.v. on the back of the seat in front of us. Love Jet Blue! It almost took us longer to get from the airport to aMy's house in the rental car than it did to fly from LA! We had directions from Mapquest (need i say more?) and ended up having to call my brother in law who's out of town in St. Louis and he helped us out. We finally made it after driving around in a circle for about an hour when it should've only taken us 10 mintues! These new england streets are beautiful but more confusing.
We had a good night sleep last night. Santi slept really well for being in a new house and new crib. This morning he woke up around 7 so we went to Dunkin donuts and walked aroudn the little town for about an hour.
My sister's "new" house is really beautiful and so huge. I still get a little lost. it has so much character it's so old. each room is decorated and painted differntly and even the bathrooms have wall paper. I don't see a lot of wall paper in California Heights, our Long Beach neighborhood, which is voted best neighborhood in Long Beach, by the way. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Today we are just hanging out at home. Beto and I want to go back into town to a running store we saw that wasn't opened yet when we made our way back home. Tomorrow, New York City! for two nights.

VIEW VIDEO!

Until I figure out how to upload the video directly to the page, this will have to do.

Please enjoy viewing our NEW ministry video put together by Allan Heida.

Go to youtube.com and search "Hope in Honduras" or "betoandlaura". Pass it on!

Thanks!
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HEY! So this is Allan and I posted the video! It will also be permanently on the side bar, to view in the small window, or click on it to get the full size. I hope you enjoy the video.

Allan

Vacation

Last thursday we came to our second home...Laguna Beach. Well, we only come once a year but we've been coming for the past 17 years or so, which makes me feel really old. I can't believe it. Time goes by so fast. I remember th fist time we came mary wasn't married, i was in high school, and Shelby and Lindsey were just around 2 yearsold. Ok, so then I guess it hasn't been 17 years. But anyways, the point is that we got to come this weekend when usually we come memorial day weekend, but this year Charles and we weren't here so mom made us an extra trip. It was glenda's family and us and it was a lot of fun. Santi loooooves the pool and the beach. he's truly a calm beach baby!
Mom invited beto and i to see the Pageant of the Masters. Every summer laguna beach hosts the sawdust festival and the art festival. we didn't make it to the sawdust festival but the pageant was amazing. i can't explain everything in detail and even if i could it wouldn't even come close to actually seeing it in person, but it's a presentation of classic paintings but with live people. but the makeup and costums are so amazing the real people stay real still and you think you're looking at an acutal painting. I highly recommend it for anyone for next year. It may not sound like"your thing" but it's very impressive nonetheless.

yesterday we drove up to go to church in long beach where beto and i gave our first presentation to raise funds for our honduran mission. it went pretty well but it was good to "practice" on our church first becuase we saw a lot of areas that need improvement and what to say/not to say. overall we were happy we got to talk about what we'd like to accomplish once we get back to honduras.

aunt romaine came back with us yesterday and we went out to dinner, swam in the pool and just relaxed. now we're headed home where we'll need to rest up from our vacation.

Professional Portraits

Beach and Uncle Orval

Grandma and Santi always laughing



Us with my great uncle Orval. He's great to spend time with! santi loves to play with his hair.



Aunt Romy with Uncle Orval




Mom and Uncle Orval



Santi "eating" Chinese food with his bib from Uncle Charles that reads "Probably the best baby in the world."



So relaxed at the beach



Uncle Charles



LONG BEACH!



Gabe and Marcus ready to go on the boat!



Delicious!



Santi looooooooooves his Uncle Charles!

The beach is the bay in Naples area of Long Beach. We went with the Sosa family from church and Laura Heida. It was really fun, a perfect day.
We visit my uncle orval often. Today we went in the morning and sat out on the patio. Aunt romy always makes sure he gets a sinful treat from us. Today it was four donut holes, which, she reminds us, don't count becuase they're just holes! Uncle Orval is my late Grandma Ethel Walker's brother.

Adventures in LA

I wish I had pictures...wait, just picture the one square mile in downtown LA of Los Angeles Street between Temple and oh nevermind... here's what happened.
We went to the federal building to get some paperwork straightened away. That took us about five minutes, a lot shorter than we expected. so since we were parked by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) we decided to make the trip worth it. Well, the campus that was right next to where we parked was closed till Nov. but another campus was a mile away. So we decided to drive there. When we got back in the car for some reason we changed our minds all of a sudden to go to the La Brea Tar Pits. So we get out the Tomas Guide and start looking for the freeway on ramp. Now any of you who have driven downtown know that there are...let me count...6 freeways? that converge at around the same time down there? So we first have to try to figure out which freeway we need. As we come upon the signs we dont know which way to go so we go back to Main street. Then I think we should go right (west) but we went left instead. We ended up going through chinatown, past Overa street, through Little Tokyo, and Filipinotown. I can't remember all the details now but we drove in circles for what i think was 45 mintues, took city streets most the way, went back to find the freeway again, finally got on and finally made it to the Tar Pits, but b y that time i was tired and ready to go home.
We had a great time at the Tar Pits and the Page Museum. We all liked it and afterwards treated ourselves to Marie Callendar's, which by the way is super nice there in Hancock Park. And at the Page Musuem you can learn not only a lot about fossils but about LA History and Mr. Hancock himself. Fascinating man.

CHarles comes home!

My Brother in Law came home from Iraq after a year there. Here are some pictures. Santiago is so loved!
See where we're wearing blankets inside in July? The airconditioning was cooooold!
For those of you on Facebook you've maybe seen some other pictures. I'm trying to keep both equally current but it's hard.

San Francisco, Etc.

A couple weeks ago we drove up the 5 to San Francisco area and stayed with a friend who's a missionary teacher in La Esperanza but was staying with her parents on her summer break. We spent a day in the city, and another day seeing the redwoods at Muir Woods and Wine Country in Sonoma. On our way back we drove down the 1 and stopped all along the way to admire the most beautiful scenery ever. We had lunch in Santa Cruz and spent the night in Salinas. On the way down the 101 the next day we stopped in Solvang for lunch, toured Pepperdine with Beto and then headed home.
While in San Francisco we ate dinner in Chinatown, took a tour on a double decker bus, ate lunch at Fisherman's Warf, saw the sea lions at Pier 39, basically did all the touristy stuff...which was fun for all of us.
Stephanie our friend from HOnduras also had another friend visiting, John, so we had a lot of fun with him too.
Santiago is a great traveler!

the baby...of course!

Do you see those two teeth? That;s esp. for Aunt Rhonda and Uncle TR.

Daddy and Santi play time. Santiago looooves his Papi!

And our first trip to Costco! Sooo exciting. Santiago loves free samples! woo hoo!

Reading with Aunt Glenda.

and Beto working at the church King's Kamp car wash. He is such a hard worker!