Musings on life, parenting, Jesus, and more...

Twas the noche before Christmas and all through la casa, not a creature was stirring – Caramaba! Que Pasa? The niños were tucked away in their camas, some in vestidos and some in pijamas. While hanging the stockings con much cuidado, in hopes that old Santa would feel obligado. To bring all children both Buenos y malos, a nice patch of dulces and otros regalos. Outside in the yard there arose such a grito, that I jumped to my feet like a frightened cabrito. I run to the window and looked out afuera, and who in the world do you think that it era? Saint Nick in a sleigh and a big red sombrero, came dashing along like a crazy bombero. And pulling his sleigh instead of venados, were eight tiny burros approaching velados. I watched as they came and this quaint little hombre, was shouting and whistling and calling by nombre, “Ay Pancho, ay Pepe, ay Cuco, ay Beto, Ay Chato, a Chopo, ay Macuco, y Nieto!” Then standing erect with his han...

God's hand has surely been on this adventure of ours. Today's guest post comes from Rob after winning the grand prize "UberSanta" promotion from Uber and Mastercard. Here's what he had to say about the experience: God's blessing when least expected... Today I won a 30,000 peso (about $1500 USD) shopping spree just by taking Uber. Uber just recently came to Mazatlan and has made our transition here much easier by allowing us to put our destination address into the app and avoid struggling with the language barrior since we speak very little Spanish. It has been our primary means of transportation since we arrived last month. We heard about the UberSanta promotion through an email (which we had to take the time to translate since it was all in Spanish), but we were already using Mastercard for our Uber rides, so Shay and I both entered the promo code in hopes that we might win a small gift.  Little did we know that Rob would be the GRAND PRIZE WINNER of a sh...

Last Sunday, Jenica and I took a fun cooking class from Kahlo's Kitchen  here in Mazatlan.  I heard about the class through a facebook group, and I liked that Sofia (the teacher) described herself as a "young entrepreneur". Maybe because I also consider myself an entrepreneur, I wanted to attend her class and meet her. I asked her to write a little about how she came to start the business. Kahlo’s Kitchen started six months ago when I decided to invest all my savings to rent a house with a big kitchen (due to my house not having a suitable kitchen). I had this idea to show other people about Mexican culture through food. Even though some people told me not to do it because I am not a chef, I decided to pursue my dream anyway. With my mom and our friend Linda supporting me, I did my first cooking workshop and 5 beautiful ladies enrolled in my cooking class and they loved it! Susan, one of the ladies who took the first cooking class offered to let me use her kit...

Hi Everyone! This is Jenica. I want you to meet my new pet. His name is Hermi and he is a hermit crab. I found him on the beach in a shell that I thought was empty. It was a fun surprise to find him inside. I took him over to my mom and she said I could take him home as a pet. He got to have his first pulmonia ride because that's how we usually get home from the beach. At first he was a little shy... But then he got braver and started to explore his new "crabitat." He's really cute. He likes to eat coconut but we also feed him other fruits. We went to the pet store and bought a thermometer and a hygrometer so we can make sure he has the proper temperature and humidity. Hermit crabs like their environment to be very humid. We also put a sponge in one of his water bowls to help keep him moist. I really like to hold him. Sometimes his claws tickle my hands. He's a good climber and yesterday Kenton found him on the rim of the tank....

The street lights in front of our house are so bright that we can play outside at any time... which is nice since it's been so hot on some days that we don't even want to come outside until after the sun goes down (5:30ish). Tonight Rob played basketball with the girls for hours. They had a blast and may have even scored on Daddy a couple of times.  Kenton was happy to just ride around in his diaper and bare feet on the pretty pink bike that a neighbor let us borrow. Oh, and our neighbors put up their Christmas decorations. It looks amazing at night, but during the day when Santa hangs precariously over the side of the roof in all his deflated glory, it's a tad disturbing, I'm not gonna lie.  All jokes aside though, we love our neighborhood. And we love getting in the holiday spirit. So thank you to all our kind neighbors who have decorated so that we don't have to.  (The Christmas decorations were a definite ...

We had a great first week in our new city! The kids love going to the beach and we were able to take a pulmonia tour of the city. So much to explore and learn in the next 6 months!