¡Sorpresa!

On December 31st we took off to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico (aka...a piece of heaven on earth!). We met up with my mom and her husband and my sister and her family. We excitedly planned for our older sister to arrive the next day so we could surprise her for her 50th birthday.

My family, thankfully, doesn't do anything without adding a little (or a lot of) flavor. We couldn't just have an "ordinary" surprise. We had to have a GRAND surprise! (As if Mexico was not grand enough!) We spent weeks discussing options.

We came up with this...

My husband (aka. Creeper) went over to my sister and her partner as they walked into the main plaza for lunch. Creeper went over to my sister's partner and said, "will you take my family's picture? " He hurried her over our direction. I could see the look on my sister's face. It said something like "who is this weirdo? " She hung back waiting for this "weird moment" to end. And as she looked our direction and saw this "weirdo family" all dressed in funny felt and wigs she recognized The Prairie Kid! And she was in SHOCK that this weirdo family was HER family! In Mexico! Surprise! Happy Birthday!

Oh my gosh, he's SO creepy! And SUCH a trooper!

I just don't know why she thought we were weird! Especially my step dad, in the platinum wig. Or my soon-to-be brother-in-law in the sandy blond mullet. Or my Creeper hubby. Or my son, the mad scientist. Weird? What???

From this point on we had a great week in Mexico enjoying each other, the beach, the food, tennis, the food, each other, and did I mention we enjoyed the food??? The weather wasn't the best but we still had a great time!

Our villa was the 2nd floor

The stairway view up to our patio

Inside the villa

There were these big rodents in the trees as we walked to the plaza called Sereque

Poolside Nap

My guys enjoying the water

One of my favorite beaches in the world!

Our last dinner out...

Anyone hungry for some fish?

I didn't want to leave my beloved Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. But I will be back! And I am thankful we were able to celebrate my dear sister together as a family in such a great place!

Christmas Morning

We had a great Christmas. We enjoyed Christmas Eve with dear friends but I don't have any pictures of it because I let my friend take all the pics with her camera and I haven't confiscated them from her yet. : )

Christmas morning was fun. We enjoyed our "tree" with lots of presents together. We went to church to celebrate Jesus' birthday and then to The Prairie Dad's parent's house to celebrate with the whole family.

These were found in The Prairie Kid's stocking...he was THRILLED! I'm so thankful he is so easy to please.

And he had never had spaghetti-o's before!


Checking out Dad's loot

This was the "grand finale"...the remote helicopter he REALLY wanted

What a fun morning!

Ready for church.

Patiently waiting to dive into the next round of presents at Grandma's house!

New Sight

Oh goodness! What happened? It's almost February and I haven't blogged since December 9th!

Well, let's get caught up!

In December, The Prairie Kid told us that he had to squint to see things far away. I took him bowling and noticed he was REALLY squinting. The next week we had an appointment for him and 2 days later he was in new glasses.

I felt bad that we didn't know he couldn't see! His vision was pretty bad! Thankfully we got on top of this and he can see again. : )

I was also really thankful that they let us bring home different glasses to decide which ones we wanted. We took these pictures:


It was NO contest for me! HANDS DOWN, 150% these pictures showed me THE pair that we were going to pick out. Thankfully, The Prairie Daddy agreed and The Prairie Kid accepted the choice.

And, in 30 seconds flat my 6 year-old turned into a 30 year-old business man (in pjs).

I thought I would have a really hard time adjusting to my "new son" but after a day or two I was over it and we're normalized again. Although, I do have to say those glasses REALLY get in the way when I am trying to kiss his face off.

Christmas Galore

Besides thinking about the amazing gift of Jesus Christ, my favorite parts of this Season are baking and watching my son enjoy the Season. : ) I am not working as much these days and I have had time to get a "jump start" on the Season. In fact, here we are the 9th of December and I am done shopping! I am almost done wrapping! The Christmas cards are mailed, the packages are sent, and the baking is done! (Okay, I admit that I will probably create more baking needs!) I have been working on decorating here and there. I think I am going to leave some of the decorations in the closet this year. I can only handle so much clutter!

This is some of the baking that has taken place...

A couple of the pies went for the bake sale we have each year for Moms Together

Hoards of cream cheese mints...

And for some of the baking I had a little helper who was excited about gingerbread men

We got our first artificial Christmas tree. I've been wanting a slim tree and last January when all-things-Christmas went on sale I found this one online. I got it all ready for my little helper to come home to finish it off.

He loved opening the new ornament that my mom sent. She sends one every year. : ) This year he got Garfield!

And his best buddy was over for a sleepover so he joined in the ornament fun

It was a great time together!

And ta-da...the finished product!

K/1 Christmas Program

The Prairie Kid had a part in his Kindergarten/1st Grade Christmas play last night. Although there were only 2 lines it was so much fun to see him in this program.

Here is a little snapshot for you to enjoy:

The Farm

We spent 4 days at the farm. Our plan was to finish building a shelter for hay. We learned quite quickly that things don't always usually go as planned in West Africa. : ) The blessing in this "plan gone out the window" is that the shelter DID get put up! It just wasn't us who put it up. Our trip was encouragement enough for the dairy farmer and her workers to get this shelter up! They were working diligently on finishing it while we were there.

Here is a feed storage area on the farm

A great contrast between old cart and new tractor (in the background)

The old tractor is shot and the new is being borrowed

Corrals

Milking stanchion

Milking machine

Vet vaccinating

I love this...the vet's cell phone : )

View across farm

Rice fields

City America

We set up camp early in the morning the first full day in West Africa after driving to the farm. We left the capital city at about 5:30am to miss the traffic and that gave us the ability to set up camp before the heat of the day struck.

There were a couple of workers on the ranch that could speak a little English. They called our camp "City America." It was fun the way they said it with an accent. : )

There were 3 couples in City America: our friends that we went with, the host missionaries, and us. Each couple had their own tent.

The host missionaries were very good to us and brought some mattresses for us to sleep on. It made all the difference for me. They also brought a solar panel to run 12 volt fans to help keep us all cooler at night. Another blessing! It was HOT and HUMID to say the least (like 90 degrees with 60-80% humidity) . I think I sweat BUCKETS while there!

Now let me warn you...City America was HIGH TECH! Try not to be jealous of all our amenities!

The "bathroom"
(that is a toilet seat on a wood frame on a cement slab over a hole in the ground)

We decided to put a sheet over the doorway when we realized that we didn't have privacy Day 2. Our "signal" that someone was in the bathroom was that the toilet paper roll you see on the doorway branch would be gone. We shared our bathroom with lots of ants, other bugs and even some lizards!

And the "shower"

Our "plumbing" (spit bath, anyone?)

"Clean water" (We used this for everything but drinking!!! That is called SURRENDER! It had leaves, dirt, and sometimes bugs in it)

The "dish washer" (and we used the "clean water" to wash dishes!)

Our "garbage disposal"
The "laundry room"
The "stove"

"Fridge" and "pantry"...the bucket with the hanging cup was our "sink"

Here is what part of our lunch looked like one day
(and guess what? They don't refrigerate mayo!)

We collected some of our trash for the local kids and families...
some people's trash is another's treasure