Nana and Granddaddy's visit

First of all, a little bunny wants to tell you Happy Easter!


This year we celebrated the Resurrection of our Savior in a very special way with very special people: Nana and Granddaddy! I had the entire week off and elvis had a few days off, so mom and dad came to spend the week with us. I'll go ahead and apologize for the huge post, but i wanted to go ahead and share this week with you. We'll start with the most recent and work backwards.
One of my favorite Easter traditions here in El Salvador is the multi-colored rugs they make each year of colored salt, saw-dust, flowers, nuts, seeds, etc etc. After spending all day on these massive works of art that fill the streets, they pass through their hard work carrying Jesus on a float in a very somber processional. That is not my favorite part, but I do love the way that these rugs bring the community together. Some of the rugs were very impressive and had great symbolism.







even a Tarheel rug....????



On Thursday we headed up to the mountains to the Flower Route which goes through several cute little mountain towns. We did lots of good shopping and eating!







We stayed in a cute cabin tucked up in the middle of a coffee plantation that one of our neighbors owns. It was way off the beaten path and a bumpy ride to get there, but totally worth it! Suzy loved exploring the coffee plants and all the other flowers. She's not used to seeing so many trees and green areas!
Here is our cabin, the outside, the inside, and the yard:

We played in the pretty park here in the city a bit:


We started off the week by going to the beach for 3 days and had such a relaxing time in the sun and sand!




Thanks for coming Nana and Grrrraaaaaanddada (as Suzy says it)! We miss you already!

Sunday afternoon in the pretty park

our national bird, the Torogoz:




We're down to 5 days until Easter break and until Nana and Granddaddy get here!!!

a trip to the zoo

This weekend has been miraculous because Suzy woke up at 9am yesterday, and 8am today. This is big news yall! And great news for us as parents. Today we took her to the zoo (which costs 75 cents) and had a big ol' time! It's not the best zoo ever, but it's always a nice treat to see trees and animals right in downtown San Salvador. You may remember that I mentioned last year that Manyula, the 60 year old beloved elephant of the zoo passed away. They still haven't filled her spot, so no elephants, but we did get to see monkeys, zebras, a hippo, a llama, snakes (yuck), a cute little otter, crocodiles, lions, etc etc. It has been extremely hot this week which make walking around outside a little uncomfortable, but it was worth it for Suzy to get to see the animals!








The countdown is on for mom and dad's upcoming visit....less than 2 weeks!!!!!!!

a few more pictures!

Here are a few more pictures from last week, however i can't take credit for these...they are from kel and brian's camera!

Fun times with Brian and Kel!

We are so, so thrilled that Brian and Kelly are here with us this week! It's been a while since we have had visitors come other than family (but let me be clear that we LOVE having family visit too!) and it has been a refreshing time for all of us I think. Since all 3 of us are studying at Fuller, we are enjoying these last few days in between quarters and it feels a bit more real to me that I am actually a student there now that I get to share and talk with them about it. Plus, they brought me a Fuller coffee cup and bag so now it's official =)

We have had a full week already of going to the volcano lake, church, a visit to my school, the pretty park, eating Salvadoran sushi and LOTS of pupusas, and right now they are enjoying their last day at the all-inclusive resort at the beach. Thankfully, I did not have school Tuesday or Wednesday because of Obama's visit to El Salvador, so Suzy and I were able to go to the beach with them and spend one night! That was a nice surprise to have those days off. However, Michelle Obama was visiting a small community in the way to the beach, and while I appreciate that she did that, it did cause a huge traffic jam for us on our way to the beach because they had to close the whole highway down for a while.

Here are just a few pictures from our time together so far....we are looking forward to a couple more days here in the city with them before they leave on Sunday.

and we're back....

I was going to name this post "back at home" but I realized during our 4 months in the States that home is a very relative term. I felt "at home" at my parent's house of course, I even felt at home at the Red Roof Inn because that's where Elvis was. And arriving back in San Salvador, I feel at home, but at the same time feel like I just left home. It's confusing.

But anyway, we're back at our home and it's been a crazy week. Crazy because everything in our house decided to break, fall apart, stop working while we were gone or the day after we came back- refrigerator, 2 cars, phone, sofa, etc etc. So on top of an extreme lack of sleep, we were running around the day we got back to buy a new fridge, get the cars fixed, etc. But it's all fixed now (for the most part) and I'm realizing more and more how complicated life is when you have lots of "stuff".

This week has also been crazy because I've been finishing up my 2nd class at Fuller Seminary, and last night i turned in my final paper about how globalization has affected gang activity in El Salvador. Although I would sometimes rather just be able to chill and relax in the evenings instead of read and do classwork, I feel like I'm learning a lot of applicable information.

This is also a busy and exciting week as we are preparing for Kelly and Brian McPhail's visit!!!!!!!!!!!! They get in Saturday night and we can't wait to show them around the country, eat LOTS of pupusas, and just enjoy being with such fun friends who we haven't been able to spend much time with in a loooong time. Turns out, Obama is also coming this week! Maybe we'll invite him to eat pupusas with us one night.

I'll leave you with some pictures from our last week in the US, including Anna enjoying her 1st birthday cupcake, our anniversary trip to Charleston, a family picture, hanging out with our beloved friends David and Lucy, and Suzy singing in the car ride home from Virginia.

5 years ago today....

Five years ago today I married the most incredible man I have ever met. You may hear others say the same thing about their husbands and I hope everyone feels this way about their spouse, but seriously. Elvis is amazing. The most patient, gentle man you will ever meet. That's what struck me most about him when we met 6 years ago when I went down to El Salvador to spend spring break with my brother during my senior year at UNC. We went to the beach with his friends from church, and guess who was there? Guess who caught my eye the moment he walked into the beach house and who piqued my curiousity the moment I found out his name was Elvis (I mean, seriously?) and when my brother described him as a "music loving, Goodwill kinda guy". You had me at Goodwill!

To make a long story short, just 5 days later when we saw each other again, he told me "bienvenida a mi vida" and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Little did I know, he had never had a girlfriend and had never put the moves on anyboday like this, but rather had been asking God to make it clear when he had met the one girl God was preparing for him and that he was waiting for. Thank God that he did make it clear!! Before meeting him, I remember crying to my roommates in college, wondering why I seemed to be invisible to the thousands of guys at UNC. Everything started clicking when Elvis explained that he had been praying for 4 years (the whole time I was at UNC) that the eyes of other guys would be closed to his future wife. And they were. And now I'm sooo thankful for that! Then he sent me the letters he had written to his future wife before he met me and knew who I was. And I was sure. So sure.

And I still am.

Even more so.

We got to know each other over emails and MSN messenger (with a dictionary by my side) and phone calls for the first 4 months of our relationship while I was in the US and he was in El Salvador. 11 1/2 months after that whirlwind meeting, we were getting married, swimming with dolphins in a piece of paradise island off of Honduras, and starting a home and a life together. Five years later, we have an amazing little girl and lots of hopes and dreams and yes, some questions about what the future holds for us. But I sure am glad I know that we'll be together, wherever we may be.