Weekends

Yesterday was a wonderful day for being home.  Aren't weekends the best for relaxing?  Since we have no Christmas related things to do, we did the usual (ate, cleaned up dishes, battled bugs, and I wrote cards to friends back home).  We also did a couple of more unique things:  I went to the organic market in Puyo with some friends and spent a whopping $11.80.  Here's what I hauled home:

Crazy, isn't it?  A pound of mora (blackberries), four large mangos and about 10 small ones, 3 cucumbers, about 10 limes, 8 tomatoes, 6 very large green onions, 2 lbs of strawberries, a bundle of cilantro, a head of red leaf lettuce, a huge head of green leaf lettuce, a pineapple, a bag of spinach, and two packets of ready to be boiled assorted chopped veggies that I can put into a pot of soup.  This little market is quite the find and it only happens on Saturdays so I love hitching a ride and getting to go.  It's dirt cheap--unlike canned and packaged food which is outrageously expensive!

When I got home, this is what I found on the road that leads to our house:

Doug, along with one of the neighbors, one of the neighbor kids, and our kids worked in the road trying to patch the holes with dirt from the side of the road.  They were out there for well over an hour trying to make the road not so rough.  Selah was in charge of scooping up the water from the morning's rain storm into a bucket so that she could pour it into the ditch.

Later in the evening we had lasagna for dinner and invited a friend over to join us.  While the adults talked after the meal, this is what our kids were busy doing:

Sethy and Selah played Monopoly while Darius and Jacobey played cards on the coffee table. 

Today has been a very enjoyable day thus far too.  We slept in, had pancakes for breakfast, and decided to have church at home.  We pulled up our home church website in Katy and listened to Pastor Stan give a sermon from two weeks ago.  In it he spoke about how Genesis 1 and John 1 are such parallel chapters.  It was a great read and you'd be amazed at how similar they are.  That led to a great discussion around our table and helped us to talk about light and darkness.

Then Doug took the kids and went to the covered play area to play some catch with the gloves and baseballs. 

When they returned about an hour and a half later, they reported that several Ecuadorians had stopped to watch.  Apparently baseball is not played much here and they were intrigued by the sight.
While they were away, I had a cup of tea and responded to emails sent in by dear friends from Houston and Cleveland. 

You know, life here is very challenging at times, but when one does not have a TV, video games, car, or a long list of things to do for Christmas, life can be pretty simple as well. 
I pray you'll find the simple things in Christmas too. 
Thanks for reading.
Blessings, kim