Happy 7 Years

Sunday, P and I celebrated 7 blissful years of marriage. Sunday is a crazy day for us so, we waited to celebrate on Monday.

The MatusSoto family babysat for us and we had the entire afternoon to ourselves. We went to a lovely beach front restaurant, where we enjoyed fresh seafood meals. P had seared tuna and I had seafood enchiladas. We had fresh (non alcohol) mango and strawberry daiquiris and an ocean breeze blowing in our faces. It was beyond pleasant. We were able to chat and enjoy the love God has given us and the amazing journey we are on together. I know I wouldn't trade these 7 years for anything! P is by far the best thing that could have ever happened to me. We just kept telling each other all day..."we are so thankful we found each other."



Thank you God for bringing us together and giving us a love that comes from only you. Looking forward to the year ahead and the adventures that will come our way!!!!
LOVE you PG!!!!

Birthdays

Yesterday our baby niece turned 3!!!! It is absolutely hard to believe, and then Saturday my baby brother will turn 25!!! Where have the years gone?

I told my sis in law, Steph, that we need to figure out a way to stop the clock!! Our babies are growing up way too fast.

Emerson, I hope you had a great birthday our sweet princess!!! We love you.


Bob-O, enjoy your special day. We send you lots of hugs and kisses!!! Love you!!!

Mothers

I am blessed to celebrate my 2nd Mothers Day this year. Today is a special day for me because my first born turned 15 months old and my soon to be second child turned 20 weeks old (half way point). So I can celebrate today knowing I officially have 1 1/2 kids!!! :)

Our Mothers are just incredible. It never fails that our Mothers spur us on to be better people and draw us closer to the Lord. When we have bad days, who is the best person to call? Our Moms. When we don't feel well and want to know what to take to feel better, who do we call? Our Moms. When we say we had a bad day, who calls us the next day to make sure it was better? Our Moms. When we feel bad or sad what is one of the first thoughts...."I want my Momma!".

Moms are the best! I am thankful to have 2 amazing Mothers in my life. My mom, Terry and Preston's mom, Betty.
They chose to have us, carry us for 9 months (me 10), labor and birth us, keep us, clean us, feed us, love us, change our diapers, teach us, play with us, put up with us, lose sleep for us, work diligently for us, cook for us, clean for us, taxi drive for us, pay bills for us, care for every need, train us, discipline us, teach us of a Savior who loves and died for us, released us to follow His plan for our lives, encourages us to continue on this journey, and still to this day is a foundation for us.

When I was in the hospital my Dr. told me. You can be anything in this world. You can be a Dr., a lawyer, a chef, a police officer, or a secretary one day and the next not. But, a mother, you can Never stop being a mother. As I think about our 2 mothers, they are just that. They still to this day take care of us and are our Mothers!!! Thanks Betty G and Terry.

Thanks to all the special women out there who have given their lives to call themselves Mothers. We are forever grateful and us young mothers will carry on the great legacy you have set before us.

Happy Mothers Day!!!!

Really, 6 Years

I remember it just like yesterday, sitting in the hospital waiting room and praying earnestly for God to protect and deliver our first nephew. The Lord was faithful that day and heard our cries. 6 years later we are still thanking that faithful God for our 1st and favorite (I say that while I still can) nephew.
Watching this sweet boy grow up has been a shear joy. We love his passion for life and his love for our family. This year we get to celebrate Elliott's life and birthday along with the most important day of our faith, the resurrection of our Savior!!

Happy Birthday Elliott, our precious nephew!!

Happy Easter and thank you Jesus for dying, rising and being our faithful Savior and King!!!

College Trip

For spring break a group of college students from Second came down to help us. When we planned this half a year ago who knew our lives would be SO crazy. Amongst the stress of the move and everything, we had a great week.

The students were troopers and put up with Preston, Callie and I!!

They spent the week meeting other college students on campus.
They had a game night/hang out with students and then one night they had a Q&A time for the students about God. It was a great night and there were a handful of students there and we really feel like God is moving in their lives. We felt like some are very much seeking and we pray they keep coming!!


On top of all that, the group held a VBS each night in the neighborhood park. They did a story/skit, crafts, songs and of course soccer!

Here are some pictures from those kid's events.









Of course, they sang Sube al Tren.....Get on the Train!!!


Thanks college students for your hard work. We sure do love you guys and we appreciate you spending your spring break with us. We pray the Kingdom will forever be impacted from your efforts!

BTW: This man is ultra amazing. He never ceases to amazing me. He does such a great job running the teams and getting out there to love on the kids and meet the parents. What would I do without this man. Love you babe!

Lost a Dear Friend

This weekend I lost a dear friend.

She was so faithful to me and has been in my life for almost 15 years.

Yes folks, my first t.v died and was put to the curb only to be snatched up before we could even get the remote control out there!! She is gone but my memories of her will be with me forever. My favorite memory is: after I was supposed to be in bed and have turned the t.v off, I would watch the same channel as my parents (who were downstairs) and put my t.v on mute or really, really quiet so they couldn't hear!!! Ok, so that is a sneaky sin and I guess you can see she was also my partner in crime!!
I will miss you my dear t.v. I worked so hard to get you and you were the best 19" top of the line color t.v of your time. You did a great job and made it through many years and a trip all the way to Mexico. May that Mexican man take good care of you. Adios.

October Women's Trip

We have been beyond busy and we are just now getting to the women's trip video from October!! But at least we got it finished. Enjoy this video and keep praying for the faces you see. Pray God would touch their hearts and bring them into our path.

Women Trip 2010 from prestonmex on Vimeo.

The Manger

Do you see something different with the manger scene here in Mexico?

Baby Jesus is not there. He won't be added until December 24th!

Christmas Party

Sunday was our church Christmas party. We had a great turn out. There were 29 people there.
We played games...


Ate tamales and watched a Christmas movie....

Look who is in town...Brigida!!

and then ended the night with a piñata!!

The youngest (aka, Callie) started off







Here is a video of how crazy they get into the piñatas!!



They demolished the piñata and scrambled for the candy in 5.2 seconds.
Overall, it was a great night and a wonderful time of fellowship. We pray some of those people will begin attending services on Sundays. Here is a group picture...sorry it so blurry. This was taken after several people had already left.

Merry Christmas from La Esperanza de Vallarta!!

Silvia's Wedding

Saturday was Silvia and Sergio's wedding. It was a beautiful day for their wedding. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and the wedding reception was A-mazing!! It was right next to a river downtown that leads into the ocean. So we had ocean and river view. It was just a dream wedding.Here are some pictures and videos.

Sergio entering

Silvia the mom

the bridesmaids

the ceremony

This is Silvia coming down the isle.



The air was really cool that night so Preston volunteered to take Callie home. It was SO nice of him to let me stay and enjoy the party. I had such a great time and I am so thankful for him and for the selflessness he showed by going home and taking care of our daughter. I love you P.

My table at the reception



The couple looked SO in love the entire night.




This is a picture of the view from the dance floor. Those lights are a bridge that is above where the river and ocean meet....too cool.

It was SO much fun. You could pretty much always find me on the dance floor :) and I was usually with Silvia and Lupita.

There were lots of props and decorations to dance with.
That made it extra fun!

Lupita

Silvia Magdalena

The beautiful bride!!

This is the bride and groom dancing to the mariachi band. Sorry the quality is not that great.


Silvia, tu boda fue un dia perfecta!!! Ojala que lo disfrutaste como nosotros. Todo fue perfecto y creo que toda la gente se disfrutaron su tiempo. Era una novia MUY bonita y una pareja TAN linda. Espero que tu matrimonia sigue con la alegria y amor que te sentiste este dia. Gracias por tu amistad y por compartir este dia especial con nosotros! Les queremos mucho!!

Women's Conference

We had a great women's team who came down here in October. There were 8 women who came on this trip. The picture above is missing dear Dorothy. She had to leave a day early so she wasn't in this picture. In this picture starting with with back row: Me, Callie, Nancy, Donna, Candy. Front row: Sarah, Kaila, Allison and Janelle.

We had LOTS of laughs and good times with this team but we also got a lot of work accomplished. We held 3 craft nights in our home. We had a great turn out each night and we were more pleased with the relationships that were formed.
The last two nights we held conferences for women in a local neighborhood that we are targeting. The topics were grieving the loss of a loved one and raising children. The women who came on the trip were the speakers and Erika from the church, translated them into Spanish. These lessons were VERY good. I was thinking they would be great for everyone to listen to. Preston has uploaded them to our church blog

I have attached the link and the topics below. When you get a chance check some of them out. I am sure they will bless your life like they did mine!!

Grieving by: Dorothy

Grieving by: Nancy

Disciplining with love by: Janelle

Putting rules and limits on your kids by: Candy

Being a Mom in difficult times by: Donna

Overall, the trip was amazing. We are still trying to follow up with the relationships that were made. We are SO grateful how God does answer our prayers and how He totally showed up and changed our lives. Now, we pray for those women who came. We pray their lives will be drawn to the truth and that He will be evident in their lives.

Thank you women from Second!! You will never know the impact you had on the Kingdom. May God continue to use each of you everyday like He did while you were here!! We love you all and we were grateful to have had the opportunity to work hand in hand on the fields together.

Preston and the giant grapefruit

We were walking through the grocery store and I spotted the largest grapefruits I had ever seen. P was with me so I pointed them out to him. His eyes lit up...."can we get one?" he asks. "Of course" I reply.

Check it out:


Here it is next to a large baby food jar

This is half of it in a regular cereal bowl

It was awesome!!

RAIN!!!

Rain, rain go away!!!!

We are in rainy season right now and we are always amazed at the amount of rain we see each year. We can never get over some of the images we see. Here we are the other day stuck in traffic and I happened to have our camera. BINGO!! great pictures at the expense of some poor red car. Check them out for yourself.

traffic jam

we are coming up on the red car which is causing the jam. Well traffic was backed up because we are also driving up a small river!!

the fire truck is here to help

and there it is

sorry buddy, I couldn't resist.
now, the tow truck has arrived

All in an afternoon's rain folks!!!!

P.S. I never appreciate complaining about Springfield's drainage system~~~