Sept to Dec 2009...

Samuel and Rebeca

September came and went... October is gone... November also is behind us.... If this blog were a true measure of our lives and activities, you´d think we´ve been hibernating. Truth is we have kept ourselves so full with life and activities that we have not been intentional to share what has been going on. For those of you who check on our monthly happenings, here´s a summary from September to now...

September - full swing with school, both Lina and Matthew on PTA board for Rebeca´s kindergarden. Began kids club in two locations - four sessions on the story of Christmas. Began "Firepfroof" marriage series every Wednesday evening. Our neighbors decided to attend! Samuel and Rebeca began swimming lessons.

Marco, Dayra, Cynthia, Yolanda - our neighbors...

October - helped organize a catered dinner for young adults with special speaker. Continued with kids clubs. Matthew ran a 10K in Mexico City. We coordinated the purchase of 140 mariachi costumes for all the kids in Samuel´s grade (second grade - 3 classrooms)

Catered dinner for young adults at church.

November - More kids clubs. Neighbors still attended faithfully. Delivered the costumes. Electrical installation for our Bible institute classroom. Lina tried a few more recipes (mmmm!). Samuel and Rebeca participated in special swimming presentation.

Kids in San Jose reenacting the nativity scene.

We´re gearing up for the end of the year, with a reader´s theatre and special song. In January we´ll have a church retreat. And we´re already starting to plan on next summer´s campaign...

... we´re trusting God for year two!

Musicals, sledding, birthdays

We are already in the middle of December and have enjoyed a number of exciting activities. Samuel turned 6 on the 14th. We had a few friends and family over and had a great time enjoying pizza, cake, some gifts and running around the house playing hit-daddy-with-the-balloons, and other random games. A week before, we had to say goodbye to grandma Margarita who went back to Mexico. It was sad, but we also have the joy of knowing we will see her in the not-too-distant future when we go to Mexico for good. Since it had snowed a few days before, we decided that on the way back from the airport, we would go sledding. We did and the kids had great fun. After getting sprayed in the face with snow a few times, Rebeca preferred going down facing uphill with her head in daddy's chest. Meanwhile, Samuel was braving the descent solo and only fell out of the plastic blue saucer once. As far as Lina goes, it was her first time going downhill sledding and she had a few bumpy moments.

Our church put on a musical called "The Innkeeper's Tale," written by a young lady who is a member. Matthew participated in the choir and a few extra "fill-in" parts. There's a high-energy gospel-like song at the beginning called "Sing the wonders of His love" and after the first presentation on Friday night, Samuel and Rebeca requested to hear it in the van over an over the next few days. They also went to the Saturday night presentation and that was all they needed to learn the choreographed motions to the song. It's neat how something special like this really impacts them. Last year Samuel was involved as the little boy in a musical called "One Bethlehem Night." So this year, he called the musical "One Bethlehem Night 2: The Inkeeper's Tale."