Decisions Decisions

As most of you know we have been waiting and waiting and waiting to figure out exactly where Gregg and I will be living once we come home in August. Well, this week I finally heard from University of Washington and unfortunately I wasn't accepted. Definitely a bummer but honestly when I heard I felt more relief than anything. Ever since I decided to go back to school, Gregg and I have been praying that God would make it painfully clear where it is that He wants us to go. And what better way to to be both painful and obvious than with a rejection right? Seriously though, we would have loved to move back to Seattle in August but we truly feel that God has a very different plan for us. Of course only He knows what that is right now but we are excited to have faith and enjoy the ride.

A great example of God preparing the way is our trip that we are going on tomorrow. Three weeks ago we had no plans to return to the states during our time here but one thing led to another and pretty soon we had a two-week, four state trip planned! Its pretty cool how God goes ahead of us to plans things we don't even know we need. So now that we are down to the two schools, we are really praying that God again makes it painfully obvious which of the schools is THE school. If you think about us in the next few weeks, we would really appreciate your prayers!

In preparation for our trip I did a bit of baking today. Since we are poor (or cheap, or both), we really don't like buying expensive, yucky airport food if we don't have to. So, I braved the challenge that is baking in Guatemala and made these delicious goodies...

"Convenience foods" are so hard to find in the stores here I decided to try to replicate some of our favorites. More specifically;  Blueberry muffins, Granola bars, and Cheez-it crackers! Actually the Cheez-its recipe is actually for Goldfish Crackers but since there is not a huge market in Guate for fish cookie cutters I had to make due with boring circles. Everything turned out pretty delicious but I am exciting to try them again in the future when I have an oven that actually tells me where 350 degrees is...another of the joys of baking here.

ummm..where is 350 degrees?

And since it has been a while since I put a photo of us on here...here we are. Yes Gregg's hair IS out of control. He's really let himself go...

This post brought to you by the WWW

The Internet...seriously. Have you stopped and thought recently how freaking awesome the internet is? Have a question about how many ounces of butter are in a cup - the internet. Want to keep in touch with friends from another country - the internet. Do I need to go on? Gregg commented the other day that our kids are going to be so much smarter than we are simply because of, you guessed it, the Internet.  Working in a village with NO internet connection has also made us profoundly thankful to have such an easy time accessing the internet. Can you even imagine trying to do homework without the use of the internet? And to make matters worse they don't have a library in Yalu either. Anyways, all of these things combined inspired me to do a list of things I am thankful for, internet style.


Funny Skype calls with slightly intoxicated friends...


Megavideo...did you know that you can't watch videos on Hulu, abc.com, etc outside of the US? Totally lame. But Gracias a Dios we can watch pretty much anything on Megavideo a whole 72 minutes at a time. Show of choice right now is LOST. We purposefully didn't watch it in the states because we didn't want to get addicted to a show but now we are happily making up for it.


Learning about all the awesome things people are doing around the world. One of the perks of not having a 8-5 job is the freedom to explore, research, and listen to things we never would have had time for in Seattle. Some of our current favorite, mind-blowing sources of information; TEDtalks, This American Life, The Guardian global development page, and Humanosphere (based in Seattle!).


and of course, Friend Stalking on facebook...yes we mean you. By the way have you noticed some people are giving up FB for lent? Now thats hardcore.


Thank you Internet, for all you do. You truly make our lives better and much much more interesting. And on a non-internet related note - We learned today that 12 kids from Yalu accepted Christ last Monday! There is a tutoring group of about 50 who meet every Mon, Wed, Friday at the feeding center to work on homework and have a bible teaching as well. It's days like these that make being away from home, out of our comfort zone, and feeling rather useless totally worthwhile. Like the MCM founder said, "We don't want to send fat kids to Hell."

This made me very homesick today...

By Photographer Paul Octavius. I don't know where this is exactly but it reminds me a lot of Gas Works. Oh Seattle...I miss you.

Wait...what are we doing?

So as you may have seen on FB we are heading to the States in two short weeks! Unfortunately we won't be able to come to Seattle but we will be hitting up Chicago, St Louis, Kansas City, and Austin - whew! 'What prompted this craziness?' you may be asking yourself. Well let me tell you...Gregg's friend Chris Pycor is going to marry beautiful Nia on March 26th and we had really wanted to go to the wedding but when we moved down here we really didn't think we would be able to afford to come back at all. However, we randomly got a deposit in our bank account from Heaven - aka Boeing but we all know where it really came from - as part of an employee incentive thingy that I don't understand. Add that to the fact that I STILL haven't heard from UW (which I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing) and I really don't feel comfortable picking a school without ever having visited and BOOM...you've got yourself a trip!

We're pretty excited! Especially now that my mama is going to be joining us in Austin - Yee Haw! Now the only question is...Whose going to come hang out with us in Chicago?

oh and side note: if you wanted to send us something for much cheaper than sending it to Guate, email us and we'll send you Gregg's parents address...just a thought :)