Grandpa & Grandma

My parents got here on the 20th, and are staying until the 1st. Aside from a little gringo gut, they seem to be having a good time, and Guildy and Hadley think it's great having them here!

They are always game to play with Play Doh.

And read piles of books. We're so glad they got to come!!!

Hadley Turns 2!

Hadley turned 2 on the 21st! We had a little party for her, which she seemed to enjoy immensely, along with everyone else.

Grandma Susie brought a gluten free cake mix from the States, so she (and Josh and Guildy) even got to have regular birthday cake!And no birthday in Honduras is complete without a pinata! It proved to be a little tough for the kids, so Josh had to beat on it a little to get it to break open. Hadley, Guildy, and Linda scurried around picking up the candy.After the pinata, Grandpa Ernie played the guitar. Below Linda and Guildy sang "Away in the Manger," which they had performed together the night before at the Christmas program. And just for comparison, here is Hadley as a newborn....

And as a 1-year-old...

And here are a couple recent Hadley Stories, for everyone's reading enjoyment:o)

Over Christmas, we went out to the island of Utila, and Guildy and Hadley were laying down in the same room during nap time. Guildy had fallen asleep in a most angelic fashion, but Hadley was trying to stay awake. I heard a terrible ruckus of shrieking and went into the bedroom to find Hadley "spanking" Guildy. She had pulled Guildy's sheet off, pulled down her undies, and was spanking her as hard as she could. Of course, Guildy was not pleased with having been woken for a sound sleep by this monstrous little deed. When I asked Hadley why she did it, she said innocently, "I wanted her to wake up." You have to wonder what made her think, "Hey, I bet I could spank her!"

Then yesterday, after marching in from outside, she declared, "That is the saddest cow I ever seen." I don't think there was even a cow, but it must have been something she has heard said recently. At any rate, it was hilarous.

Who knows what she'll be up to next year at this time!!

The Christmas Program

Last night was the missionary community Christmas program. Guildy was an angel.

The Browning girls and the Tumlison girls. Hadley and Lisa were supposed to be sheep, but they boycotted that plan. Linda and Guildy were adorable angels!

Guildy and Linda singing.

Waiting angelically while someone else sings:o)

Things Kids Say

Honduras is a land of many, varied, and unusual smells. One day last week, a mystery smell appeared in our bed room. It smelled just like pee. I sniffed and searched and couldn't find its source, and opted to ignore it in hopes it would go away. Later in the everying, it had, in fact, not gone away, so with Josh's help, we investigated a bit more.

Hadley is going through a phase where she'll answer "yes" to just about any question. So when Josh asked her if she had peed in the bed room, she said, "Yep!"

"Where?" I asked.

"Under the bed," was the reply. She toodled over the edge of the bed, lifted up the bed spread and said, "See!" Of course, there was no evidence of this, so it was just a story rolling out of the one-year-old.

It turns out the mystery smell was something outside wafting in, and it went away without any intervention.
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Hadley also really likes to use the phrase "of course" right now.

Hadley: I'm cold.
Me: No you're not. It's 90 degrees.
Hadley: Of course I'm cold, Mom!

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Guildy and I just finished reading "Heidi," and at the end Peter the goatherder maliciously pushes the wheelchair down the mountain and is subsequently tortured by guilt and paranoia. So it was a good opportunity to talk with Guildy about the difference between intentional and unintentional sins and confessing our sins and asking God for forgiveness, etc. She piped up and said, "Yeah, it was like the time when I broke your yogurt cup on purpose." She has in fact broken two of the glass cups that go to the yogurt maker that came with our house. I thought both were accidents. When I asked her why she broke the first one on purpose, she said, "I just had a wicked thought, and I did it!" I had a hard time not laughing at her naughtiness. I can just imagine her thinking what a delightful crash the cup would make as it hit the tile floor.

Although it's sometimes (actually most of the time) exhausting to be the introverted mother of an extreme extrovert, I'm thankful that she is such an extrovert that pretty much everything she thinks has to come as words. It makes her very transparent, and I appreciate that immensely. I need wisdom on how to balance punishing her for doing wrong things with encouraging her to not be afraid to confess.

Hadley hoisted atop Dr. Daron's shoulders at Hannah's birthday bash.

Random Misadventures with Fruit

One sunny morning last week, the girls and I went to the beach, as we often do on mornings when I don't have classes. All was tranquil and well as we locked up and left the house, with no hint of what was to transpire.

Upon returning several hours later, wet, sandy, and needing a round of showers, I unlocked the door and was greeted by a most disagreable smell. A little investigating revealed that the cantaloupe that had ostensibly been ripening on the counter for several days, had, in fact, been rotting and had conveniently chosen to rupture while we was gone.

A friend of Josh's once told him the worst thing he had ever smelled was a field of rotting melons. Well, my encounter with this singular rotten melon was enough to convince me of the veracity of that statement! It was putrid.

Clean up of this mess was a rollicking good time! Murphy's Law of drainage states that floors, counters, window sills, and drains must always slope in the most inconvenient direction in the event of a flood or major mess. The cupboards in our house are in several movable pieces, so the melon-y nastiness had run to a crack between sections and dripped down. Fortunately, I was able to slide out a section of cupboard to get it mopped up underneath. I'm not a big fan of bleach, but it required quite a bit of it to knock the smell back a bit. After several days, there was just a hint of it, and now it's all gone, for which I am very thankful.

So I guess the moral of the story is to keep an eye on my 'ripening' fruit!

Just Turn the Lights On!

The following is an article I wrote for the Circle Banner awhile back. Now that it has appeared in this prestigious periodical, I thought I'd post it for the blog reading audience.

Electricity is expensive in Honduras, so being the budget conscious consumer, I always try to minimize unnecessary lighting. We live in a fellow missionary’s casita (small guest house), which is delightfully comfy and cozy, but lacks a washing machine. So I take our laundry across the yard to my landlady’s house. She has been gone to the States the whole time we have been here, so upon entering her empty house, it had been my habit to only switch on a couple lights, just enough to see to get back to the laundry room.

Well, I soon learned my lesson about inadequate lighting. As I prepared to leave her house one evening, I picked up my dark colored laundry basked full of dark clothes from the rather dark-ish space where it had been sitting next to the kitchen island. Something caught my eye, and I looked down to see a very hairy tarantula about 4” in diameter hop from the basket onto my shorts and proceed to skitter around and up the back of my shirt. As you might well imagine, this evoked a strong, involuntary motor response! In a series of events that was entirely out of my control, I simultaneously shrieked, threw the laundry basket, and took off bucking and shaking through the kitchen and dining room. The thought of touching the aforementioned creature with my hands was completely out of the question, so I had no choice but to run and shake until I was sure its hefty body was no longer in contact with mine. After a full lap around the kitchen table, I finally slowed down enough to assess the situation and determine it was gone. Of course, I still had enough adrenaline in my system to accomplish some Herculean feat, which was a good thing because I now had to hunt down and kill my new-found foe.

Now we all know that tarantulas are actually shy, docile, rather delicate creatures that pose no threat whatsoever to human life. However, I opted to smash it anyway, because a.) anything that scares me that badly deserves to die, and b.) the alternatives (leaving it in the house to jump on me again later or catch-and-release in the yard) seemed completely ludicrous. After some searching (remember, I still only had on one light), I finally located my tarantula under the kitchen table. I generally prefer to kill creepy crawly things with some sort of long-ish implement, like a machete or a shovel, but in this case I had to settle for smashing it with a flip-flop, lest it scurry away while I hunted up such a tool.

While horrifying in nature, such close encounters with tarantulas seem to be blessedly rare. So if you’re planning a trip to some jungle-y foreign land, fear not. Just turn on the lights!!

Guildy and Barney

I'm completely in love with the "Blog This" feature on Picasa. I just snagged this pic of Guildy and the McKenney's wee dog Barney off Dr. Renee's Facebook and sent it to the blog.

3-D

Josh and Guildy watched a short little 3-D Shrek movie awhile back, and they looked too hilarious with their glasses and bags of popcorn. Incidentally, you can't buy regular popcorn in Balfate. So many people have microwaves now that the pulperias (tiny stores that sell a little of everything....food, snacks, machetes, bike parts, a few clothes, etc) only sell the microwave kind.

I'm experimenting with uploading pictures directly from Picasa to the blog. We'll see how it works. So here's your random photo for the day. The flowers these pear trees shed are amazing. They make a flourescent pink carpet under the tree that always makes you look twice.

Successful Elections!

Yay for the elections yesterday! All seems to have gone well. The following Wall Street Journal editorial is short and good.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703939404574566150432623012-lMyQjAxMDA5MDIwOTEyNDkyWj.html

Italian Garifuna Food

Since we can't eat gluten, we're always on the lookout for practical gluten free alternatives. The Garifuna people, who are black descendents of slaves who were shipwrecked or dumped at sea for various reasons, have a very distinct culture. One of their typical foods is casabe, which is shredded, baked tapioca root. It comes out looking like a thin crust, which works quite well for pizza. It's also very tasty as toast with garlic and butter or sugar and cinnamon. The girls eat it like it's going out of style.

Complete Randomness

Here are some completely random, but nonetheless entertaining, pictures from life here. Below are Dr. Don and Dr. Jeff loading up their motos for their respective work. Don was headed off to teach his discipleship classes, and I'm not sure the purpose or destination of the gigantic pipe Jeff was packing.

Back in October, a woman from the other side of the country passed away from AIDS. After a memorial service at the hospital, Iain was assigned the task of hearse driver. The woman's daughter, now an orphan, will stay at the Children's Centre indefinitely. She is a delightful little girl and, thankfully, does not have AIDS.

The first week we were here, some of the guys found this big boa. They are endangered and protected, so they released it out in a field.

This is Josh's homemade BBQ stove. It's a powdered milk can stuffed with saw dust. It actually cooks quite well. How's that for a random assortment of pictures!

Girls and Dogs

The girls are good buddies with Timber, the giant geriatric lab who gaurds our house. And this was just such a cute pic of Hadley and her pigtails!

Road Work

The road between the Hospital and Balfate has been getting some much needed maintenance, including grading, addition of rock and sand, and lots of other processes that we gringos watch with confusion, unsure of their purposes.

The company contracted to do the work has a fleet of trucks that have been steadily running up and down the roads hauling sand, red clay, and rock. All of them are frightfully overloaded, and in the past couple weeks, two have had wrecks. The first one blew a tire and tipped right over.


The second one broke the suspension right off the frame. It sat disabled and loaded in the middle of the road for a couple days. Then, to unload it, they backed another truck up into it to keep it from falling over and dumped the load. Although you can't see it, the rear driver's side tires were completely off the ground, so the only thing keeping it upright was the other truck.

When I'm out motating about on my bike, I always try to give the trucks plenty of room, lest one of them tip over on me!

Transportation

We live about 2.5 miles from Hospital Loma de Luz in the the little town of Balfate. Josh works at the hospital every day, and I have classes there 3 days a week, so to get back and forth (when it's not pouring rain) we ride our bikes.

Josh's bike is an old-style "veinti-ocho," which just means 28. I think the name came from either the tire size or the frame size, but it refers to any bike of this style. Unbeknownst to Josh when he bought it, ownership of such a bike is quite the status symbol among Honduras. So wherever he goes, people comment and admire it. Note the custom built kid seat on the back.

My bike isn't quite so fancy, but it is really tricked out out. It has two kids seats, a basket, a super cushy seat and taller handle bars, all courtesy of Josh. Although you can't see it in the picture, I also have my very own machete hooked onto the frame for easy access in the event I would need to chop up something I might meet on the road, like a snake or nasty dog. And the beauty of customizing a bike in Honduras is that bike parts are ridiculously cheap, so it's both a practical and affordable endeavor.

Browning's in Balfate: November 2009

Of Burns and Benefactors
God uses all kinds of people to get things done. About two months ago, a 37-year-old Balfate man named Enil received 2nd degree burns over 45% of his body when some gasoline he was working with caught fire. His family owns the little hotel just behind our house, which, up until the time of his accident, also sold gas and diesel fuel. All told, he spent 7 weeks in the Hospital, receiving 1-2 hours of daily wound care. He needed skin grafts on his calves, but Loma de Luz only had a dysfunctional, archaic dermatome, the cheese cutter-like device for harvesting the healthy skin. Dr. Leon Greene, our very humble world class cardiologist, and his wife Judy were in Washington visiting a new grandbaby, when our surgeon Dr. McKenney wrote, asking if he could track down blades for the old machine or, preferably, find a whole new dermatome.

Dr. Greene located a supply house in Seattle that had the blades, but during his first visit, an employee told him they didn’t have any dermatomes. He began looking elsewhere for a used one, knowing they cost $14,000-20,000 new. He found a used one in Oklahoma for $6,000, but that was far out of the price range. At a second visit to the Seattle supply house, Dr. Greene commented that it was too bad they had only the blades and not the machine itself. The lady behind the counter said, “Oh, we do. You must have talked to Cathy. She’s a bit confused about our inventory. We have 2 or 3 Army surplus dermatomes from Desert Storm. They cost about $500.” Not having the money at the moment, Dr. Greene asked them to hold one for him.

The following excerpt from Dr. Greene’s recent newsletter describes just how God provided the needed funds: “Still wondering where the money might come from, we went to a dinner gathering that night. A dear friend who had worked with me for years gave Judy an envelope at the end of the evening and said, “Here, use this for anything that you need at the hospital.” (You can see this coming, right?) Inside the envelope was $500! And we’re still surprised when God answer prayers through unexpected channels, and at unexpected times! So we were able to bring the dermatome to Honduras when we came back, and Enil was able to have his skin grafting. He went home a few days ago. Rarely do Honduran men cry in public. Enil cried with joy when he was finally able to go home.”

Now at home, Enil comes to the hospital every week for continued wound care. His hands and face have healed perfectly with no scars, and the rest of his burns are also doing well.

Josh’s Jobs
As always, there are lots of jobs, both big and small, to keep Josh busy. Most of the hospital’s housing is built on hill sides, so with the rainy season comes landslide cleanup and repair. Aside from regular maintenance things, most of his time in the past month has been spent finishing a house for one of the missionary families. Work is just beginning on two suspension foot bridges which span a large ravine connecting the housing area to the hospital area. Another large project is replacement of the original metal water storage tank built in the mid-90’s. Over time it has rusted out and is losing structural stability. A second tank was installed in 2006, but the combined 17,000 gallon storage lasts less than a day if the system goes down. The construction guys are currently putting together a cost estimate to construct a larger concrete tank to solve the water storage problem. Below is a photo of the top of the storage tank with several supports rusted away.

Teaching
I have been thoroughly enjoying my students! I am teaching 5th, 7th, 9th, and 10th grade math students, as well as one 9th grade physical science student. I have classes three mornings a week, and during that time, Guildy and Hadley are with a wonderful Honduran teacher named Lyndi. She takes great care of them, and they are learning lots of Spanish! Below are Lyndi and the girls.

In Closing
And now for the weather report. Everyone wants to know what the weather is like in a foreign land, and in a nutshell, the north coast of Honduras is HOT. Hurricane season is just drawing to a close, and rainy season is just kicking off. With the winter rains come wonderful moderate temperatures, lots of mold, and perpetually wet shoes. The minute the rain stops, it gets hot again, but we can‘t complain. It’s better than shoveling snow!

Thanks so much for all they ways you support us and the Loma de Luz ministry!
Blessings,
Josh, Linzy, Guildy, and Hadley

Please Pray For:
Fair, peaceful general elections on November 29th
Staff needs at Loma de Luz, including a surgeon, anesthesiologist, family doctors, and nurses
Hospital finances
Our Spanish skills
Safety and protection

Political Update

Below is a long, but very good report about the current political situation.

Dear Cornerstone Friends--
You likely have heard that Honduras has come to an agreement; what you may not have heard (and probably won't hear from CNN and similar sources) is that the news is good news and constitutes a victory for what is right and for the legitimate Honduran government.

Since early October, a dialogue has been underway--a dialogue which the United States and the OAS pushed for. Honduras has been under pressure the whole time--not just from the OAS and the (bizarre and troubling) United States position, but also from ALBA/Chavez/Oretega (whose techniques included--in one 24 hour period--the killing of a key police Colonel in his front yard, the kidnapping & killing of Micheletti’s nephew, and the kidnapping of the 81 year-old father of the Vice Minister of Defense). Through all this--even the kidnappings and murders--Honduras has held its ground; through all this, the pressure brought to bear did not succeed.

Friday (Oct. 30), however, an agreement was signed, but because Honduras waited until Oct. 30 to sign it (as well as to the items in the agreement which Honduras persisted in requiring) this signing was a win for Honduras. Here's why:

In Honduras, the presidential elections are run by a sort of committee--the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. And for a prescribed number of days before the election, the military command is taken away from the President (normally the commander in chief) and put under this election commission. This helps ensure that an outgoing president will not be able to use the military to try to keep himself in office or to--through force--make his favored candidate or buddy become the winner of the election. Friday was the day on which, for this election, the military was to be transferred to the election commission. And that's the day Honduras signed the agreement. The agreement says that the Honduran Congress (under and advising from their Supreme Court) will decide whether to reinstate Zelaya. It is very unlikely he will be reinstated, but even if he is, because of the timing of the agreement, he will not have control of the military and police. From now until the elections, the military and police have as their boss the election tribunal (a tribunal which ruled against Zelaya on June 28th). Thus--even if Zelaya should be reinstated--he would have no power, and his term would almost immediately come to its end anyway.

The other provisions of the agreement also constitute a win for what's right. Here are some of these: 1. Zelaya will receive no pardon or amnesty for his crimes. He would still be tried and, if convicted, punished (and the usual sentence for such crimes is execution or life in prison, so he may decide to stay in the Brazilian embassy for the rest of his life). 2. There will be international recognition & support of the upcoming elections regardless of what is decided in the Congress about Zelaya 3. A truth commission is convened to investigate crimes (by Zelaya) both before & on the 28th of June 4. a government of reconciliation is formed along specific guidelines (that Zelaya can’t control even if Congress does vote to re-instate him in some kind of token, lame-duck presidency). 5. The military & police are under the control of the electoral commission (not Zelaya if he is re-instated) 6. There will be no referendum or question of change of the unchangeable articles of the constitution at this time (the parts that stipulate only one term for the president, etc.).

Because something was signed (and most of the world won't pay much attention to the details of what the accord said), Shannon and Hillary and President Obama can act like they won (which is indeed what they are doing and which is the spin most of the news media are propogating) and thus will have found an elegant way to exit from the corner they backed themselves into. Honduras is humble enough to not mind the USA getting the glory for this so long as they (Honduras) succeeded in getting the right thing done. This is antipathy to what their enemies' values and priorities are. Ronald Reagan once showed his wisdom by saying something like "you can get a lot done if you don't care who gets the credit for it." Honduras, with God's help, has demonstrated that sort of wisdom and humility.

Praise to our God. He was Honduras's only defender and help (well, outside Israel and Taiwan, but their support was a result of the fact that both stand firm in matters of right and wrong and freedom and tyranny more so than does most of the rest of the world, and that they do so is evidence that they allow, whether they know it or not, God to do good through them--without Him, they would not and could not persevere as they do). So God was at work in Honduras, is still at work in Honduras, and deserves bounteous praise and thanks.

So...please keep praying for Honduras. Pray that the right decisions are made concerning Zelaya. Pray that a godly man will win the upcoming elections. Pray that the world does recognize and accept the elections. Pray for those whom the crisis has hurt (the withdrawal of financial support and credit from the world had already pushed many into greater poverty, brought about the loss of many jobs, etc.). Pray that the work of God and the growth of his kingdom in Honduras grows yet more and more.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for praying. Please now bring before the Father prayers of praise and thanks. And keep praying for Honduras--one battle lost by the Enemy and his earthly allies means other attacks will be launched. But it is also right and fitting to offer songs of thanksgiving for this particular skirmish won.

I'm including below a url to a nice news piece from WSJ.com. It provides a succint and good presentation of the events in Honduras, and it makes a good news article to send to friends who aren't acquanited with Cornerstone Foundation or Hospital Loma de Luz but who would be glad to hear the truth about the victory in Honduras (and who the victors are).

Here are some specific prayer items:
1. Pray that the vote in the Honduran Congress (regarding Zelaya) will be in accordance with the law, the constitution, and the truth. 2. Pray that the votes would be cast in the best conscience of each legislator (they are called "diputados") and not influenced by threats or intimidation or anything of that sort. 3. Pray that votes will not be bought. (Zelaya via Chavez has access to a great deal of money, and Zelaya is no stranger to buying votes. (e.g. In June he offered somewhere around $15,000,000 to the mayor of Tegucigalpa to try to get his support for the illegal referendum.... The mayor refused it and instead went public with the attempted bribe.) 4. Pray that the United States, the OAS, the EU, etc. will still honor the elections even if they don’t get the results they want. 5. Pray that the elections go off peacefully, without more violence and sabotage by Zelayistas.6. Pray that justice be done in the case of anyone who has broken the law.7. Pray for God's grace upon all of His people there.

Lord bless you all, and thank you again!

--Sally Mahoney for Cornerstone

Watermelon Patch Party

One of the other families here hosted a "Pumpkin Patch Party" last weekend. But since pumpkins don't grow here, the kids carved watermelons instead. They actually turned out very cute. We didn't have much to work with for costumes, so Hadley wore her pink leotard (which she still refers to as her 'pink retard'), and we made masks. Below are the girls and their masks with Mike and Peggy.
Guildy was very impressed with her first face painting experience, and Trish (the hostess with the most-ess) gave her a cute rainbow and a heart. Guildy keeps asking if we can do it at home.Liz is such a sport. Sporting her cow costume, she brought about 6 of the kids from the Children's Centre to the party. Hadley wasn't quite sure what to think of her.By far the favorite activity of the under 5 crowd was the tub of rice with candy buried in it. The girls spend most of the evening pawing through it.

Random Photos

Here are a few random photos from our little lives here. Below is Hadley with one of the puppies that live in our yard. Poor skinny Millie is in the background. I'm pretty sure the 10 puppies combined now weigh more than she does. No wonder she looks so rough. Fortunately the babies are getting big enough to eat dog food soaked in milk, so her job should get easier. The girls LOVE playing with them. Hadley is constantly filthy and smells perpetually of puppy. She gets 2-3 baths/day, just to keep her from ruining the furniture!

These boys stopped by go gather coconuts last week. They shimmied up the trees like little monkeys!

On Sunday, we strolled on the beach a bit. Guys putting a new manaca (palm leaf) roof on one of the bars down by the beach. If they are done properly, they are a very good waterproof (but not bugproof) roof.

The Compromise

The following link will take you to a good Wall Street Journal commentary on the recent compromise reached by the US and Honduras regarding ex-president Zelaya.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505541545624488.html

Good Article

Here is a short analysis of interest regarding the Honduran political situation from a professor at Grove City College in PA, where a couple of our missionary kids attend(ed) college. Enjoy! http://www.visandvals.org/Honduras_and_the_United_States.php .

At Home in the Casita

Since arriving on the beautiful North Coast of Honduras last week, we've been busy getting settled in at home and at work and enjoying catching up with all the great people here, both Honduran and American.

Here is our very cute, very functional house. The giant mangrove tree in front shades most of the house for most of the day. God always provides us with just what we need.

We planted a garden, which, after only a week, is sporting 6" tall green beans and gobs of lettuce, zucchini, and watermelon seedlings. Having just come from Montana, where weeks elapse before seedlings emerge, this is amazing. Gotta love gardening in the jungle!

We also have lots of coconut palms, and our house came equipped with a grinder. It's yummy!

We've already had our first significant plumbing problem: tree roots clogging the kitchen sink drain. Fortunately, I'm married to Josh, who has the skills to remedy such problems. He took a picture of the root ball he pulled out of it, but we'll save you all the gory details.

We live in perhaps the most beautiful yard ever. (Incidentally, the last house we lived in here in Honduras had the best shower ever. Our new place can't boast such a fancy shower, proof that you just can't have it all:o) Anyway, the yard is huge and lush and has a wall to contain the kids and dogs. At present, we have 13 chocolate lab/weimereiner dogs in the yard. Fotuntately, 11 of them are currently blind, immobile, and weigh about a pound. I think most of them are already promised to people, which is great, because in a month or two, nothing will be safe in the yard!

The wall around our yard has big windows covered by wooden shutters. Here are the girls sitting in a widow with the river in the background. Last spring, they killed a 10' 9" crocodile in that river. Apparently it ate a cow, and that was the final straw. Glad there's a wall between us and its babies:o)

The girls are still getting used to things here, especially Hadley. In the last week, she has boycotted her crib, deftly exiting it whenever she wants. When Guildy learned how to climb out of hers, I nearly panicked. I had no idea what to do. But this time, it's not so scarry. She has been getting some rather difficult Staying In Bed At Naptime lessons, but I'm sure she'll give up and not fight it soon. So no both girls sleep in the same bed, which gives them ample opportunity to kick and fight and wake each other up at about 4:30 every morning, activities they both seem to enjoy immensely. Josh might make have to make a little bed for Hadley, as we don't want to keep starting our days quite that early!

Three mornings a week the girls are with a lovely Honduran gal named Lyndi. She is a young teacher, but isn't currently working in the schools. She reads to them, plays games, works on vocabulary, etc. Guildy is picking up a lot very quickly. Hadley is mostly mad because she can't come with me, but I'm sure she'll adjust. This morning when I left, she tried to pack her sippy cup in my bag and went over to Guildy and hugged her and kissed her and said good bye. She was sorely disappointed when she had to stay, but Lyndi said she only cried for a minute and was fine, so at least I don't have to feel guilty about her crying all morning.

Well, I think that's it for now. I'd like to post more pictures, but the internet is too slow, so it will have to happen another day.

Getting Here

Our journey to Honduras took us through Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California, and Florida, with lots of visiting and tons of driving along the way. We went through Yellowstone Park on our way out of Montana so Josh could look at a property for his dad on the east side of the park. We didn't have much time to stop and be tourists, but we did see a few things quickly. Travelling with the recently potty trained is never efficient!Once we got to CA, we got some good visiting in with Grandma Linda......

Cousing Tilly..... Jackie and Baby Oatus....

Sydney turned 12 while we were there. Guildy felt so grown up hanging out with the big girls. She even got to stay up for part of the sleep over! Below is Josh's Aunt Patti showed them how to make little clay figurines.