Monday, February 25, 2013

Catching Up

Interested in seeing pictures from our day trip up on a volcano? Click here

And there's more than meets the eye in this post where I share about some relational struggles, spiritual warfare and identity in Christ.

Enjoy!




Saturday, February 2, 2013

A Few New Posts

I've got a few new posts up over on my new wordpress site...click HERE if you want to go check them out!


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Adventure of the Flu

Click on over to my wordpress site to find out how our trip to the mountains for Christmas went and how we had a somewhat different adventure than the one we expected!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Merry Christmas! ¡Feliz Navidad!

To find out what we'll be up to for Christmas, head on over to my wordpress site...hope you have a very ¡Feliz Navidad! and a Happy New Year!

Sunday, December 16, 2012

New Post

Dear readers...don't forget that I've moved! 

Click here to check out my new Wordpress site. I've got a new post titled Waiting for the Blessed Hope with some thoughts regarding some recent current events in the news.


Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Moving Notice!

Just a quick note to let you know that this blog is moving to Wordpress...you can find me at www.beckyaguirre.wordpress.com. Please, please, please go find me over there! I will not be closing down this site, just posting new content over there...


Monday, December 3, 2012

Nosy Neighbor

For the past few weeks, we've been following the construction on the house next door with interest as it seems we will be getting new neighbors fairly soon. Workers have been finishing the construction of the walls around the patio, installing the windows and painting the inside of the house. The owners (well, we assume they are the owners) come by every few days and one day we saw them unloading plants and flowers for the patio.


What we're kind of puzzled about, however, is how these people plan to pull their vehicles into the lot! I had assumed that there was another garage door around the corner (to the left of the picture), but no, that black garage door in the center of the page is 'it'.

It's not easy to tell from the picture, but the house was constructed on the right end of the lot with the open patio on the left side. Not only is the garage door really quite small, it is also directly in front of the house. As in the house is blocking entrance to the patio! I am thinking that it will be quite a feat for vehicles to pull through there, since they have to angle in to the left to avoid hitting the house. It appears that only the smallest of vehicles would be able to manage that.

I know, I know...I am such a nosy neighbor, but I am kind of interested in seeing how this works out for them...it would be inconvenient for them to have to open up a new garage door, although not impossible. But frankly, nobody with a medium to larger sized vehicle wouldn't be able to pull their car into the patio! It just makes me wonder what they were thinking...

Sunday, December 2, 2012

A Purple Cow

I never saw a purple cow.
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.
Gelett Burgess

Except in this case, it's a purple pie! That
is certainly something I had never seen before...until now.


Miguel absolutely loves sweet potato pie 
and purple sweet potatoes make for a really colorful pie!


It's a pie that would make even the 
villain that he is! Resident artist Micah 
did me the honor of drawing a picture.


Miguel liked it so much that now there are more 
sweet potatoes waiting to be made into
peculiar purple pies. Sweet potato
season is almost over, so he wants to
enjoy them while he can.


Monday, November 26, 2012

Thanksgiving 2012

It seems like just a few short weeks ago that we celebrated Thanksgiving 2011 and here we are again just having celebrated Thanksgiving 2012! Reading over my post about Thanksgiving 2011 was a blessing because it reminded me that even without an oven or friends to celebrate with, it is possible to be deeply grateful for God's blessings.

This year, however, I do have an oven and I made good use of it! In fact, I have found myself baking several times a week since we moved here...I am quite happy with my new stove!

But I digress...I wasn't sure exactly how Thanksgiving 2012 would go and we'd been so busy in the weeks before that I hadn't been able to think much about it. So it was a pleasant turn of events to be invited over to our friends' and fellow missionaries' house to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal together.  Bill and Debbie are the directors of a Mexican mission agency that partners with Pioneers and some other agencies to help Mexicans connect with missions worldwide.


Their coworker Misa also joined us, which was fun because he is a great favorite with the kids!


So we got together to plan the menu and then got to work...I put together some cornbread dressing, a relish tray, rolls, pumpkin and sweet potato pies and stuffed mushrooms. Gracia made some jello. Debbie baked the turkey, green bean casserole, gravy, and three kinds of bar cookies.


The kids were so excited about Thanksgiving, especially with a real turkey (we don't usually get a turkey when outside the U.S.-it's not that turkeys aren't available in Mexico, they are just kind of expensive!) that they were up early and quite anxious for it to be time to eat...I noticed that Jojo had even gotten dressed in 'church' clothes of his own accord for the special event! It was touching to see how much they were enjoying themselves this year.

I also made a Thanksgiving tree again, although I decided to do a bit of a different model than last year. We scouted out some good twigs to make the 'tree' and used scrapbook paper circles to record our thanks. I hung them on the tree with some fishing line. I grabbed a juice pitcher and wrapped it with some pretty paper and tied some matching ribbons around it. The tree made a nice centerpiece on the table, although we had to remove it once all the food was ready and besides, someone was in danger of getting their eye poked out or something...

There were quite a few 'entries' on the tree...it's good to see a physical reminder of everything for which we are thankful. My favorite, however, was this entry by Jojo...well, that one and the mushy one Miguel wrote about being thankful for me...


Jkaile really enjoyed the mashed potatoes and gravy, but was most excited by the dessert table! And what picture wouldn't be complete without the complimentary rabbit ears...


With all that wonderful food, of course we all felt just like Micah did here...ready to crash on the couch for a while to enjoy some American football!


Saturday, November 10, 2012

Garfield Cake

Remember that Garfield cake I was planning to make? Well, I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out!


I am not a cake decorator, really, and I don't have much experience...I am also usually frustrated at not being able to match the picture I have in my head of the finished product. But I have to say that this one turned out pretty much how I had expected. I do wish I could have gotten the brown parts a little more even, but oh well.

The cake is a 7-Up pound cake with some lemon juice thrown in for flavor. It's a very heavy cake, but really yummy! The icing is just plain butter frosting, although I added some butter vanilla nut flavoring.  I don't have any piping equipment, so a strong ziploc bag with the corner snipped off did the trick. I put some colored shredded coconut on the top for some added texture. Garfield is sitting on a piece of orange card stock so he wouldn't get frosting on him. The coconut covered it up nicely!

I stamped the paper and then attached the sign to a yellow bendy straw. I stuck the bendy part into the cake so that I could lean it the way I wanted. I did have to stick a toothpick through the bottom seam of the Garfield because he kept leaning forward a bit.

My friend was really happy with her cake and I hope she liked the flavor as well!