mom and dad in el salvador!!

Sadly, mom and dad had to go back home yesterday, but man oh man did we have a fun week and a half!! sorry for not keeping yall updated on the blog, but there was just no time! the first week, they did medical clinics for 80 people a day and prayed for each person afterwards, in which 22 people accepted Christ this week! the team also cut hair, led childrens programs, finished building the church for our friend Jose Luis, did some painting, and Mom and Dad also led a marriage enrichment retreat for our church, preached at my church, mom led my women's group on wednesday, and they both taught my high school class about Communication. we sure kept them busy! then, the team left on monday, and we spent a day out at the lake, a day at the beach, and a day here in the city, seeing the Cathedral, thrift stores, craft markets, and just our everyday life. here are some pictures:

Dad showing off his Coke bottle trick at the pupuseria:The team:Mom with 6 of 7 of Jose Luis's kids:A video of a couple of Jose Luis's kids breakdancing for us:

Teaching about Noah's Ark:On top of the volcano that is here in our city (see the crater in the back!)The team also got to come to my jazz band concert:BEACH!!!

Another highlight of the week was having the both sides of our family over to the house for dinner. Elvis's mom cooked an awesome feast of steak, chicken, chorizo, beans, etc etc etc!

Here are our two moms:

the whole family (insert marty and sara for it to be complete!)

The lake:Mom and dad are gonna bum a ride with the aliens when they come in december of 2012...

Dad working hard:

Looking out over the country:

The couples from the marriage enrichment retreat:

We got a trio to sing for the team one night, and it turns out that it was the same group that Elvis brought to the house to serenade me the night of our batchelor/batchelorette party (remember that stacy and staci?!), which mom and dad were also here for that. the guitar player is actually blind. it is a really funny process to pick up a mariachi band or a trio. you just go to this one gas station where they all hang out, choose which group you want, and then take them home with you for them to serenade you. however, we just picked out our group, and we stayed in the van there at the gas station and had them play a song for us. here is a picture of that night in 2006 and a picture and video from this time:

Thanks mom and dad for coming!!! We had a blast!!

In other news, here are some pics from our lovely Valentine's day yesterday:

country folk in the big city

Mom and dad are here!!! they came with 6 others from their church, and so elvis and our pastor wally picked them up this afternoon (i was at work). since my parents always wear ridiculously silly hats (and force us to wear them) or have some kind of embarrassing sign or get-up to meet us at the airport, elvis took a pretty embarrassing salvadorean redneck hat for dad to wear. i dont think he gets as embarrassed as i do =) anyways, this week, my parents and the rest of the group will be working with wally out in Comasagua (where the squirrel and panda showed up last week), doing medical clinics and helping out some local pastors in any way necessary. elvis will get to be with them too, but sadly i have to work this week (im a tad bit jealous!). we will also be taking advantage of mom and dad's marriage enrichment leadership to do a retreat at church for the married folks (all 3 couples haha!), and they will teach my high school class next monday. then we will get to just play for a few days! ill put up pictures as the week unfolds, and as i get the chance. just wanted to keep you updated! keep us all in your prayers... their time in Comasagua, safety and health for the team, and last but not least...for me because this is the first week i am driving on my own here in this crazy traffic!!

High Heel Marathon follow-up

This past sunday morning, a group of us from our church went out to the town of Comasagua to do a children's program for our friend Jose Luis's church. one of our friends randomly had a chipmunk costume and a panda costume, so i wanted you to see this:

Meanwhile, while we were hanging out with the chipmunk and panda, the High Heel Marathon was taking place! i wanted to clarify that the participants were not just walking, to see who could last the longest...they were actually sprinting in high heels, and the fastest 10 girls won free high heels for a year, and a medicine kit from a local pharmacy (i guess to heal their wounded ankles). the point was to raise money. here's a video of the starting line:

Here's another video, a clip from the news channel...be sure to pay attention at the 1:10 mark...theres a great high heel wipeout that you cant miss!
http://www.esmitv.com/wfDetalleNoticia.aspx?noticia=27008

in other news, the countdown is on...mom and dad get here in 6 days!!! this will be the first time they have been here since our wedding, so we are super pumped!!!

showers of blessings...literally

So, one part of life that i have just not gotten used to here in el salvador is that we have not ever had hot water in our house. now, the cold water feels pretty good in the afternoons, since its so hot here usually, but 5:30am showers before work have just always been a punishment for me. we have checked into getting one of these electrical showerhead things that you install (aka The Widowmaker because apparently its easy to get shocked by them), but it was gonna take a lot of work and money to run new cables from the breaker box downstairs to the shower upstairs. anyways, i had become resigned to the fact that i will always have cold showers. however, this week, we talked to the owner of the house about changing the older electrical outlets in the house (several didnt work anymore), and she agreed, so they ended up having to basically rewire the whole house. so, while they were doing all that, elvis surprised me and asked them to go ahead and do the wiring for the hot water showerhead and to install it! sooo, guess who gets to take 20 min long hot showers in the morning now?? thats right! and they even grounded the shower (i guess thats how you say it in english) so we won't even get electrocuted. so, we no longer call it the "Widowmaker", but rather the "Happy Wife Maker". =)

in other news, you may be aware of the "high heel" culture here in el salvador. women here wear high high heels 24/7, even when you have to walk a mile to work, or hold your baby and groceries while standing up on a crowded bus, etc etc. we have a good friend who wears them so much (even when getting around the city alone with her 2 year old son) that she says her feet actually hurt when she wears flat shoes. we like to joke that her feet are shaped like Barbie's...naturally shaped in that awkward inclined position. anyways, we saw this billboard this week, for a "High Heel Marathon" that will actually take place this coming Sunday. apparently, all these women will put on their high heels, and start walking, and whoever lasts the longest will win a new pair of high heels! im thinking about participating....nah, id rather just take a hot shower.

watch out panera!

So, elvis is finished up with all of his classes, but of course you can't just graduate after finishing your classes. oh no, that would be tooo easy. they actually have a special word for students that have already finished classes, but have not graduated yet, so he is now of that status, which is in and of itself prestigious because it is a feat just to get through all the years of undergrad classes (8 for elvis, up to 12 for some!there's actually a law here that it you are not allowed to graduate from college in less than 5 years.) so, now he has to take a "pre-graduation course" whatever that means, then the normal process would be to write a thesis which could take up to a year and a half more. however, this year they are offering "specialization courses" instead of the thesis, which will only be 8 months, and he will be specialized in a specific area of his major. we have opted for that route, which seems a little more useful.


anyways, the pre-graduation course starts in february, so these past few weeks, elvis has been busy...in the kitchen! after our last visit to Panera Bread in the states, he got the idea that he wanted to learn how to make bagels. so he did! we have had homemade berry bagels from scratch, the apple cinnamon bagels kinda flopped, and my personal favorite, garlic cheese rosemary basil bagels (pictured below)!!! yummm!!

In other news, last night my jazz band was invited to play (only 2 hours in advance!) in a political banquet for international supporters, since the elections here are coming up soon (elections for mayor are tomorrow). So, we got to hob-nob with and meet lots of important people, several mayors, even the candidate for vice-president of el salvador, which according to polls, will win here in march. it was fun, and after our band played, a marimba group played. now if youve never seen a marimba band, it is pretty cool. its like a xylophone, but made of wood, or traditionally made of gourds, like in this picture i found on the internet of a traditional marimba in Guatemala:
Anyways, the cool thing is that the marimba they play here is reallly long, long enough for like 6 people to play on it at the same time. So, last night the marimba band was a big hit because they played traditional folk songs from here, and everybody started to dance. hey, we even joined in a danced a few! this video does not have good sound quality, but i wanted you to see the marimba band:

christmas memories and new beginnings

So, we made it back to el salvador after a very relaxing christmas break in NC- there were so many fun times...playing Catch Phrase with 89-year old Memaw, singing carols with the fam, eating hot white chocolate macademia nut cookies with mom and dad pretty much every night, playing Pit with good friends, thrift store finds, Elvis catching some huge fish for dinner, getting to eat all those comfort foods i sometimes miss, etc etc etc.

Me with MemawElvis with Grannymom and dad with the flamingo flower pot we made them

Here are some pics from when elvis and marty went fishing with some real fishermen out on the open water in 19 degree weather..yeah, elvis learned what long johns were that day....

watch out, they let marty park the boat! Anyways, it´s always interesting to come home and see how the plants survived our absence, what rotting vegetable we accidentally left in the fridge, etc, and yesterday i took the lid off of our compost bucket that we havent looked in on in about a month, and found a pleasant surprise! well, let me back up by saying that thanks to marty and sara´s organic influence on us this summer, we decided to start a compost pile. i wasnt sure how that would work, since we have no backyard, only a small patio, and i was worried about the bugs. so, we opted for a compost bucket, with a lid. we dumped in dead leaves, dirt, fruit and vegetable scraps, etc etc and let nature take its course, i mean the worse that could happen was that it would rot, which is exactly the desired outcome!!

anyways, we took the lid off the bucket to throw in some new leaves, and to our delight, we no longer saw just trash, but rather actual soil instead of trash!! and the best part was that out of that soil was growing a new, very green plant, a cool symbol for this new year. i have no idea what kind of plant it is, but surely its from one of the old fruits or veggies that we threw in there. imagine, new life springing up from what was just trash before. it just made me think about how God is, and how He always brings something good and new and beautiful, even out of a rotting, stinking situation. ive been thinking about Romans 8:28 a lot lately, about how God works everything together for the good of those who love him. and how always, after a while, we can see that new green plant bursting out of what used to just look like trash. when you look back on your life and all those good and bad situations, you can start to see a glimpse of the perfect quilt that God is weaving together through those situations. i like something that i read from The Shack...that God doesnt justify those bad things that we have to go through....He redeems them and makes them into something beautiful...beauty for ashes.

so, i would encourage you to start a compost pile (if you have a big yard) or a bin (if you dont have a big yard). a good, easy website for making a bin is:

http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Compost-Bin

you get to help the planet a bit, and to see a first hand example of how God makes all things new and beautiful.

a baldwin rendition of feliz navidad

More spontaneous Christmas fun with the whole Baldwin clan...including Memaw!!

feliz navidad from the baldwin clan!

well we made it to NC (after a disappointing airplane ride where we were only offered a bag of peanuts instead of the usual lunch!) and we have been busy having fun doing nothing with the fam ever since! well now i guess we have been busy... i mean we have been busy eating outrageous quantities of food, went to chapel hill for the bball game where tyler hansbrough broke the scoring record, and have been taking funny pictures as well...what else would you expect from this crowd?? merry christmas from the baldwin/bywaters/henriquez crew!

feliz cumpleanos elvis!!!

Guess who is a quarter of a century old today?? ELVIS!!! i love getting to celebrate the life of the absolute most amazing person ive ever met. i think all of you that know him...even if you have only exchanged"Nice to meet you".... can testify to the fact that he radiates peace, love, and joy to all those that are near him. And i can testify to the fact that he is like that 24/7! and what better way to celebrate than to be finished with college classes FOREVER and to be heading to NC in 2 days!! In other news, we have been super busy this week...here are some pictures from a couple of our activities. First of all, these pics are from a Christmas party we had here at the house for the girls from church. Thanks Mom for the christmas dishes!!!

These pictures are from a trip that elvis took with his niece Camila to "Tin Marin", a really cool children's museum here in town. She got to dress up as a doctor, firefighter, make tortillas, go shopping at the grocery store, go to Greece, Taiwan, a butterfly farm, and a gravity house. im not sure which one of them had more fun playing all day!!

tropical fun

This past friday, my school took all of the staff to the beach for our christmas celebration. Oh the advantages of living in a warm climate all year long!! Here are some pics:

Here's a shot from the way to the beach...at the far left is Izalco volcano which naturally has no vegetation, and to the far right is Santa Ana volcano, which is bald halfway down because of the eruption a couple of years ago...we hiked it a few months after it erupted. but thats a whole different story...

Daytime job: preschool teachers. Nighttime: models.

This week, I was sneaky and got Elvis tickets to the Juan Luis Guerra concert for his birthday...i was proud of myself because its not so easy surprising him when i cant exactly move around the city by myself. so thankfully, his family was in on it with me and he was totally surprised! Juan Luis Guerra is from Dominican Republic and is one of the legendary singers of merengue and other tropical music, and so we danced all night long! He became a christian several years ago, and so he sang his old songs but also his newer songs with a christian message but with the same tropical dance beat. i had concerts this past wednesday, thursday, and friday, so it was a nice treat to just get to listen to the music and dance! Here's a video of the song "Ojala que llueve cafe" (Tyler, didn't you have to study this song in spanish class in college?) this video is actually from another of his concerts this year, but it was the same idea. i liked the video they showed behind him singing...

In other news, we are both down to the last week of school!!! and one week until we head to the states!! whoohoo!