AMP in Guatemala

 

 By far, one of my favorite parts of our Guatemala was watching AMP serve there with the kids and teens.  I've seen him with the boys several times, but nothing like this, where patience and high-energy was required every day.  It was so fun to observe!

Adam has always had a soft spot for those who struggle with physical and mental challenges.  Brario (in blue), captured his heart this time.  He's been at the camp for a long time, and his family comes every year.  He is very sweet natured, and with the help of the translator, Adam was able to get to know him.

 

 You can see the little kids out here on the field where they played games all morning.  I'm convinced it was about 15 degrees hotter out there than anywhere else at camp!  And Adam and the games team were out there for hours on end.  Despite that, he always had a smile and more than enough energy to show the kids how to play the water games and ultimate frisbee.

 

On Thursday, some of us went to a school nearby.  We did two programs for older and younger kids.  Keep in mind there are no window units or AC, so as the morning came to a close, it became quite warm inside.  We slipped out the back during the program and talked with the kids that were out there eating lunch and having recess.  

 

We had lots of spanish songs with hand motions.  I caught AMP doing this one at the school!!

And of course, as a paramedic, I knew he'd be helping with any number of ailments that our group had, but it was really great to see him in action.  I don't often get to see his "work side," and he is incredibly tender, a great listener and very knowledgeable on how to care for so many things that come up.  

Catching up: Progressive Dinner

Early in July, we had a Neighborhood Progressive Dinner with two other Baylor couples that live nearby.  We love our little neck of the woods and are so thankful for friends to share it with!

First Stop:  Appetizers at our Casa

We served Mango Salsa (ps. mangos are really hard to cut up), Spinach Artichoke Dip and regular Chips and Hot Sauce

The main course was at the Cash's house!  They served a delicious roast, potatoes and salad.

Nathan has a real "man cave," and the guys hung out in there for a while checking it out.  Pretty sure there was some drooling going on.

Molly and Nathan with Patriot...the reason we have Rye dog!

Then we headed over to the Philip's house for homemade ice cream!

Kyle and Bethany

Group shot at the Philip's house!

It was great to all hang out together.  I think the hardest part was moving from one place to the next.  As soon as we'd get in deep conversations, it was time to move on to the next house.  Our schedules are so crazy that we needed to do it on a "school night" (does anyone still call weeknights that, because I totally do...), so we had to move it along a bit so we could get home at a decent hour.  (Man, we sound so grown up.)

Molly and Bethany and I have gone thrifting together, and they are so fun to shop with!  Both of them are really great bargain hunters, so now when we see a garage sale or something, we tell each other.  They are the queens of repurposing, hunting down and refinishing things.  Check out Molly's blog here and Bethany's blog here.  Fun stuff!

We're back from Guatemala!

We are home from Guatemala, and it was an incredible experience to serve together.  Social Media has made it pretty darn easy to share our experiences, so chances are, if you're reading this, you've already seen our daily Facebook Posts of what we did each day. 

Since the trip was so eye-opening for us, we are still processing all that we saw.  There is just so much poverty--both physically and spiritually--in the community of Rio Hondo.  BUT, the best part is that there is HOPE!  We saw first hand how the Awanas program and food kitchen are changing little lives and big lives in this area.  It's been a long 10 years, and it will continue to take many more before there is a huge change, but the best part was getting to meet someone who has been through the Awanas and discipelship program and is now in college.  His name is Armando, and he also serves at the church, giving back what he's been given. 

In an effort to mentally go through what we've seen, I'm hoping to do a series of posts about other small things that I learned on this trip that I didn't post on Facebook.  There were certainly many!

It's a challenge going back to this life of luxury, knowing what our Guatemalan friends live like, but our hearts are changed and our eyes are on the bigger picture now.  I'm not really sure how to go about posting about "regular life," because I don't want to seem like we went on a mission trip and then came back and didn't change.  We did.  So finding balance is the key.  I'll let you know if I find it.  Ha.

Here's the recap letter we sent to those on our email list...

Celebrating Amanda's B-day

Sweet Amanda moved from Waco to Houston last month...which means further away from Dallas.  So, I schemed with her hubby Joey to surprise her for her 25th birthday weekend!  Her mom, Lisa, picked me up at the airport, and we shocked the birthday girl!  I talked to her at work several times earlier in the day, and she really had no idea.  It was awesome.

Saturday we did our typical duo activity and wandered the aisles of TJMaxx/Homegoods.  It's a good thing I didn't have a car, because I would have loaded up the back of my car with some really great stuff!

That afternoon, we went over to her parents' house and swam and had a yummy dinner.  It's so fun to be around her family with all her younger siblings (three!), and they are full of energy!  The boys and Joey played game after game of H-O-R-S-E basketball in the pool.  :-)

Have you ever had a "Nothing BUNDT Cake" cake?  We would all highly recommend them.  They are available in mini sizes, too and tons of great flavors.  (They have them in Houston and Dallas.)

We ate lunch at Cafe Express both Saturday and Sunday--Amanda's trying to make up for all the times she wanted it while living in Waco and couldn't get it!  This picture was taken on Sunday after we went to church at Bayou City Fellowship--a church I've wanted to visit since I heard about it!

It was a great weekend full of lots of good talking and quality time.  

{Amanda blogged about the weekend here.}

Tips for a Speedier Computer

At the risk of sounding like a big nerd, I'm sharing some computer tips that were so helpful to me, and I'm just so excited that I had to share, in case it helps you, too!  Recently my computer's been SO slow, and I've been trying to get to the bottom of it.  After lots of Googling around, here are the things that worked for me:

1. Back it up!  If you have precious photos, documents, or other stuff on there, back it up.  I have an external hard drive that works great and is small in physical size, but big in holding space!  Sometimes I forget to do this, but it would be great if I did it every month, or even every time I uploaded photos.
2. Empty the Trash Bin--I realized that I've had my computer for five years and never emptied it out.  I thought about how often I go there to dig something out, and couldn't remember the last time that happened, so I felt comfortable just emptying it out without going through it, but you may want to scan through it just to see if there's anything you may want to keep in there. 
3. Clean up the Desktop--I'm so guilty of just saving things on my Desktop!  I read a few tips online and it reminded me to file them away on the actual Hard Drive.  it makes my Desktop look so much neater, plus it helps with the speed factor.
4. Clear the Cache--this is where online cookies are stored.  On a Mac, just shoose "Safari" at the top left, and then "Clear Cache."  On a PC, you might have to Google just how to do it, but it really made the biggest difference in making my internet run faster. 
5. Close windows and programs not in use--this one may seem really logical, but I usually have a ton of windows open and programs that run.  By remembering to close them, everything went faster and looked neater. 

That's all that I did yesterday and it's made a huge difference.  I thought my little red MacBook was on its way out the door, but thankfully she's up and running well again.  Hooray!

Project: Slip Cover

When we moved in to our house last November, we had an ottoman from the big red chair in our front rooom that wouldn't fit.  So...we found a spot for it in our bedroom and covered the red fabric with a quilt. I wasn't crazy about it, (because who recovers with a quilt?!) but I also didn't want to just put the blanket away and not use it.  Adam used to have it on his bed before we were married, and it's particularly special because Adam's Grandma Millie made it for him when he was a baby. 

Since Rye now sleeps in our room, he's been sleeping on the ottoman, and...the quilt.  I wanted to remedy that quickly, so I ordered some indoor/outdoor fabric from Fabric.com

I recruited my creative/crafty/logical friend, Lyndsy, to come over and help me figure out the best strategy to cut and sew this together.  I was a little nervous since it was more 3-D than just sewing two flat pieces of fabric together, and I needed her to talk things through with me.  She was a huge help!  Plus it was a great excuse to catch up!

After measuring, cutting and laying it all out, we did it!  We were so excited to see how it turned out.  We ran into one minor problem of sewing the first two pieces together inside out, and then the Bobbin on the sewing machine got jammed, but once we fixed that, we were able to sew our little hearts out.

The measuring and cutting was the most tedious part, and then it got really fun to see it all come together.

And voila!  Here it is back in our room with Euro pillows on the back.  I decided that this type of fabric would probably be more durable than most other things, plus it has our blue, cream and beige colors in it.  You can order a swatch of fabric from the store ahead of time, but I just decided to go with it.  (They have free returns!)

And, it's Rye-Approved.