baby update!

Yesterday we went to the doctor for an ultrasound, in which we finally got to see the baby's little heartbeat!! it was just pulsing right along, which calmed our nerves a ton and made things seem a lot more real! The doctor also seems very sure that it is just ONE baby, not twins! so i guess elvis's dad was wrong about that part of my dream, but ive remembered his words "It's already written" (see earlier blog) many times in these past few weeks, especially after reading Psalm 139:16 which says, "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." wow!

we got another fun package in the mail from mom and dad, with an artsy Psalm 139 to hang on the wall (coincidence? i think not!) and these cute outfits:

thanks mom and dad!!!

turnin' el salvador carolina blue...

In light of UNC's recent national championship in men's basketball, Tyler and Chris sent us an amazing package this week to help us celebrate the victory down here in style!! Championship t-shirts for Elvis and I, and tiny tarheel socks for baby!! sooo cute! do you know that i actually did not even have a carolina blue carolina t-shirt anymore? with all the new fashion trends, i have a brown one and a gray one, but no true blue until now. thanks Tia Ty!

more new life!

We have our very first strawberries in our little garden!! we are very excited, even though we will only get to eat 1 strawberry each, but hey, we grew it which makes it so much more special!Also, Polly our dove is back, laying more eggs! i mean she doesnt waste any time. its neat to watch how she and her hubby take turns caring for the eggs, and how he sings to her. elvis is taking notes! =)

Pray for us, we go at the end of this week for an ultrasound to hopefully get to see our teeny tiny baby and hear his/her/their heartbeat for the first time!!!

5 weeks and 3 days...

that's right, for those of you that haven't heard, we are going to be parents in december!!! i'm 5 weeks and 3 days pregnant, and we are super excited, a little nervous, and just amazed at how God has brought us to this point! you see, before we went to do the pregnancy test, elvis's mom had two dreams, the first one was that i was pregnant,and the second one was that she was picking up our son from kindergarten. now she always is right on the nail when she dreams this stuff, and so she swears its gonna be a boy!!

the same night, I had a dream that elvis's dad came to visit us from heaven. i asked him if he knew that we were married (he died right before we got engaged), and he said yes, and that he also knew that the cells growing inside of me were dividing right now, and that im going to have twins!!! i asked him how he knew, and he said, "Don't you see that it's already been written, and i'm with the author?" then he showed me our whole family tree, with our children's names, but in a language i didn't understand. soooo, we will have the first sonogram in 2 weeks to find out how many are in there!!

if you're in NC reading this, and you run into the future grandparents and/or great-grandparents, give them a hug for me! they are just a little bit excited =)

here is the first of many belly pictures to come...this is the night we found out i'm pregnant, after all the crying and screaming and hysterical laughter!

easter in el salvador

Happy Easter from El Salvador!! Down here, no one dyes nor hides easter eggs, but one of the catholic traditions here is that on Friday afternoon, people make these beautiful "alfombras" (literally: rugs) outside their homes or in front of their church, using colored sawdust, flowers, salt, pinecones, etc etc. they can be very elaborate and are really neat to look at. we stumbled across some on friday during our afternoon walk around the neighborhood, then went downtown to see the ones around the big Cathedral. this year, Fernando Llort, El Salvador's most famous artist, designed and made one downtown, which took up literally the length of the whole city block!!! it was incredible. here are some pics, you can see the Cathedral in the back, which Fernando Llort painted also.

Close-up of Jesus:

Fernando Llort's autograph:

me in front of the National Palace

After making the rugs, a processional of penitents, carrying Jesus with the cross, goes right through the rugs, destroying all their hard work. We didn't see that part this time, but here is a picture of that from 2 years ago in Antigua, Guatemala:

semana santa

hooray for Holy Week vacation!! its been so nice and such perfect timing to have this week off from work. we've laid low for the most part, just hanging out with friends and family, but we have taken a few day trips. on monday we went to the lake with elvis's sisters, yesterday we went to the nearest volcano with the fam, and on wednesday we took a road trip with our friends David and Pepon to a bay called Bahia de Jiquilisco where we took a boat ride around all the little islands there, watching the sunset while cutting through mangrove forests. here are some pics:

pool day at school

to celebrate the last day of school before our 10 day easter break, we had Pool Day at school for the little ones. we set up plastic pools all around the preschool, which quickly turned into a muddy mess...so much that we actually had to hose the kids off after getting out of the pools to get all the grass and mud off of them! they had a great time though. here are some pics:

waiting anxiously to get the day started: intimidating crowd, huh??timidly trying out the water:not so timid anymore!

worn out and drying out in the sun:
afterwards, elvis and i took our niece Camila and elvis's mom and sister Kenya to our pool to play all afternoon. We were teaching Camila to swim, and she was a complete prune after not coming out of the water for 2 hours straight! To start our vacation off right, we had sushi last night again with some friends (yummmmmmmmmm), and today just laid out by the pool and now its halftime of the UNC final four game! GO HEELS!!!

empty nest syndrome

all day long our little birdies have been stretching their wings, flapping a bit, like they were getting ready to take off. plus, momma Polly had gone over to the neighbor's roof to watch and give them a little independence, so we knew their short time with us was near an end. so i got closer to watch them and try to take a picture of their flying lessons, and all of a sudden, they both took off flying at the same time! it was like they said, "ok, one, two, three, jump!" one went to the left, clearing our patio wall and over to the neighbors house, and the other went to the right, where the wall on that side is much much higher, and he couldnt figure out where to go from there. so he landed, somewhat clumsily, in our pila, a cement wash basin that every salvadorean house has, usually in the patio:he stayed there for a while, and we got scared, thinking that he didnt know how to fly from such a low spot, so elvis had already put some plastic bags on his hands (so he wouldnt leave his smell on the bird), and was ready to pick him up and put him back in the nest, when all of a sudden, he flew off! i felt so proud of our little birdie for learning how to fly real quick....i guess i would too if a giant bearded thing was walking towards me with plastic bags on its arms! they havent gone far yet though, one of them is still behind the neighbors house with Momma, and the other is on the neighbors roof in front of us. my, how they grow up so fast! it seems like just yesterday that we were expectantly waiting for them!

in yummier news, today when elvis brought me home from school, he had freshly baked foccacia bread waiting for me!! he got inspired today to try out a new recipe he saw, and mmmm mmmmm was it good! heres a pic (we had already devoured half with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar!)