Reception

David and Dana's wedding reception was held at a place called The Ship. They had little stations of appetizer-type food set up all over the place. This station had all sorts of things to dip in melted, dark chocolate.


The party started at 7 pm but the bride and groom were fashionably late at about 8 pm. Here is Uncle David with his mom.

One of their friends came dressed as a gorilla because David really likes them. Samuel was fascinated by this guy. Hannah and Samuel wanted him in a picture with them and Aunt Dana.

Hannah made friends with the cotton candy guy. After he made cotton candy he would give her the little pieces left in the machine. He also sent some home with us when we left!

Samuel tasted cotton candy for the first time at the party. The cotton candy was green apple flavored and the best Don and I had ever tasted. We are thinking we need to warn the kids that most cotton candy does not taste like this kind! Don took a picture of Caleb and I partaking in the sweet stuff!

We also ate popcorn, pretzels, hot dogs, tacos, philly cheese steak sandwiches and on and on and on. The kids had so much fun.

It was a great weekend. We are so happy for David and Dana. We are praying the Lord's blessings over their marriage and future together.

Wedding

We braved the snowy, slushy roads at about 5:30 this morning to get to the wedding of Don's brother in Kansas City. The ceremony was at the courthouse and we needed to be there at 9 am. We actually made it there before the bride and groom! : ) Here are a couple pictures.

Uncle David and Aunt Dana after the ceremony.

 

Exchanging vows and rings. The ceremony was very nice.

 

After a few pictures, we went out to lunch with both sides of the family. The reception will be held Saturday night so after lunch we were on our own.

We decided to head to the museum. Bethany and Samuel admiring the art.

 

We brought Don's mom with us to KC for the wedding which means she also gets a trip to the museum! It was a great way to pass the time.

 

We are now all checked into the hotel. The kids are taking a quick break from swimming for a snack and then back off to the pool! It is suppose to snow/rain here tomorrow so we will be looking for indoor activities to entertain us! There is always the pool! : )

We are Home!

We arrived a half hour late into the Chicago airport at about 11:30 pm. We grabbed our luggage and our rental van and headed for the hotel. Everyone was in bed by 1 am - very long day!

Most of us made the free breakfast in the hotel on Tuesday morning. Some of us chose to sleep a little bit longer! We found a redbox, rented a couple movies and got on the road by 10:30 am. We had 8 hours to drive from Chicago to Omaha.

The kids thought the van was great and we loved that it had a DVD player!


The weather reports had said snow but we only had to deal with rain. We stopped in Blair for a few groceries and made it home at a little after 7 pm. We rushed to unpack the van so Don and I could return it to the airport by 8 pm.

We all slept great in our own beds! Thanks for going on this journey with us. Our trip went so fast! We really appreciate your prayers and support.

On the Plane

We left the highlands of Guatemala at around 10:30 am this morning. Duane and Joseph flew us to Guatemala City in 30 minutes (the car ride takes us 5 to 6 hours). It was a great flight. Everything was smooth sailing at the Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City. Unfortunately, Duane and Joseph were not able to join us on the flight. We will continue to pray for the Lord's timing for their trip to the States.

The flight to Atlanta went well. We are now hanging out at the airport until our flight leaves later tonight. Here is a picture of Don and Samuel drawing on the flight to Atlanta.

 

Just got an update. We are delayed 10 minutes in Atlanta. Hopefully, that will be all. Thanks for your prayers!

Some Last Photos

We are packing up and getting ready to go, but I wanted to post some last pictures quick. Abi is the Ficker's youngest adopted daughter. Her and Samuel were best buddies during our time here. Watching movies was one of their favorite activities!

 

Here are a few pictures from the baby shower as promised. Leslie and Hannah are getting balloons ready before the party began.

 

Rachel and Bethany were in charge of the sign.

 

Katie Ann made the cake.

 

This is Rosa's family waiting to surprise her.

 

We played several games. Katie and Rosa are feeding each other blindfolded to "teach" Rosa how to feed her baby. We played several other games as well. As in the States, it was a time of lots of laughter and fun!

 

Everyone took turns giving Rosa advice.

 

Here is Rosa opening her presents. She is so sweet and cute!

 

It was so fun to be a part of this party. Katie Shaw was the hostess and organizer. She has such a sweet heart and is a mentor to the young girls who help in the clinic in San Andres as translators. There are several more young girls so I am sure that there will be many more showers! I pray that they see the joy of the Lord and how special they are to Him.

Updates

This week has flown by! We got back from the children's home on Monday night. Tuesday was clinic for Don in Chiminisijuan. The kids and I cleaned up the house and caught up on some things until Don got home. Later we went to the Fickers for worship and the start of our Sabbath.

We had a great day off on Wednesday. It was chilly and rainy all day so we huddled in the kitchen and watched a movie. We all needed a little bit of catch-up rest after our busy days at the Home.

Thursday was moving day! We are spending our last few days living back in the clinic on the Fickers property. We wanted to move back so we could clean up our rental house before we left. Also, by living in the clinic, we get to spend a little bit more time with the Fickers. It felt like being back "home" once we got all organized.

Friday we went to market for the last time and did a couple loads of laundry to get us through the rest of our time. Katie Shaw had also asked us to help her organize a baby shower to be held at her house on Saturday so we worked on that for a while. Friday night we had a bonfire. Don needed to finish up a science experiment and needed fire to do it! Great fun for all!

Saturday was Don's last clinic in Canilla and the baby shower for Rosa. I will post some pictures and more details on the shower later. Today is Don's last clinic in San Andres and packing day.

We will fly to Guatemala City in the morning to catch our flight to the States. Our time here has gone so fast! It has been an awesome trip for all of us. It is going to be hard to leave and makes me sad thinking about it, but we know that the Lord has us in the States right now. We need to get home for the commitments that we have there.

There is your update of the week. We will post some pictures of the shower soon. Thanks for reading and for praying!

TIme at the Home - Part III

Our last day at the Home was on Monday. We had an activity planned for the kids in the morning and there was a birthday party planned for the evening. They celebrate birthdays in groups. This party was for everyone who had a birthday in January and February.

After lunch, Norm decided to take the kids to the river. We went along to help with the kids and because our kids wanted to swim. They have this neat swimming hole they walk to so we all headed out following Norm's lead.

Here are some pictures at the river.
The water is deep enough (maybe 8 or 9 feet) so the kids jump off the rocks.

 

This is Beni getting ready to hit the water.

 

Manuel was also having a great time jumping in.

 

Gris is jumping with Hannah looking on.

 

Bethany's turn.

 

This is Sebastian with Tiana.

 

One of the highlights was this crab that the boys found.

 

Once we returned to the Home, Vickie and I started to make chili for the big party. It was a huge pot of chili to feed all of us.
Here is a picture of Don and Tiana waiting for the party to start.

 

There was lots of food and cake and presents. It was a fun night. We had packed our truck that morning so as soon as the party was done we got on the road back to Canilla We were all exhausted but we all agreed that we had some great days with the kids.