feliz dia del papa!

This is a big weekend because two very important holidays are celebrated this weekend- Father's Day in El Salvador was Friday, and Father's Day in the US is on Sunday. And it just so happens that I am married to the most amazing Salvadoran father and I am the daughter of the most amazing US father. Pretty astounding how that worked out, huh? Seriously, I am SO thankful for both of these amazing guys who have taught me so much, loved me so much, and spoiled me so much =)
On friday, Suzy and I made Elvis a special breakfast and a card with flowers pasted on it that Suzy picked from outside (the ones that she didn't eat) and then went out to eat at a fancy Chinese buffet. Buffets are very uncommon here, as Salvadorans can eat extraordinary amounts of food. Plus, this buffet was extra special for us b/c they had real (American) Chinese food, you know the goopy glazed deep fried chicken bites that we all know and love. We loved it. They even had a cat roaming around the parking lot like every chinese restaurant should.

Here's to my two favorite guys! Love you!

some great opportunities for you...

I want to devote today's blog to a couple of great organizations that you should check out and think about supporting... whether financially, in prayer, etc.
First of all, there is Just Potters which is part of the larger organization, Just Work, which my brother worked for in Vancouver. The description from their website says, "JustWork is a unique social enterprise that employs individuals with barriers to the traditional workforce, ranging from: physical disabilities, mental illness, homelessness and addiction." Just Potters allows those that have these barriers to find work by making pottery (actually in the church building where Marty and Sara went to church). This weekend they are having a 24 hour fundraiser and need donations so they can keep these creative ministry alive.

Secondly, if you haven't already, you should definitely check out Like a Mighty River Project which is a new organization that my sweet friend from college, Erin Littleton, and her hubby Scott are starting. They have really neat plans to serve in Uganda and help support local women by offering employment, training, discipleship, and orphan care. Great stuff you should think about supporting.

Oh, and if you leftover money and you just can't figure out who to donate it to, there's always the Ashley's Seminary Fund ;-)

Speaking of seminary, I just bought my ticket this week to go to Pasadena for a week in July to take in Intensive Class and hang out with Brian and Kelly McPhail! I'm nervous about being away from Suzy for a week, but trust that it will be a fruitful week and that the McPhails will distract me enough so i don't miss elvis and suzy too much!

Friends from Cuba

Six years ago, right before moving to El Salvador, I went on a mission trip to Cuba with my brother, parents and a group from first baptist wallace. One of the most memorable parts of that trip was meeting a sweet young couple, Wanton and Damaris. They both would blow you away with their singing talents and their dream was to be able to go to seminary in Guatemala one day. However, they were very aware of their political situation and the fact that they would probably never be able to leave the country. But they had faith.

We've kept in touch over the years....first they would send snail-mail with other mission teams, then they were able to get email, now even Facebook! About a month or two ago, Wanton wrote saying that they were given an incredible opportunity to leave the country....and that they were coming to El Salvador!!! After many permissions and visas, they were finally able to come attend a Linguistic course that was being offered here at a church just 10 minutes from our house!!

Oh, by the way....it was crazy enough that they let them both leave the country for this trip, but the even crazier part is that she is 8 months pregnant! It is definitely a miracle that they were allowed to come for this trip.

We were able to meet up with them yesterday and go get coffee and ice cream. It was so fascinating to hear their impressions of another country and so good to share with them and re-connect after so many years. Here are some pictures:







And here are just some recent pics of the Suz who is cuter and funnier every day!
And for all you UNC gals out there:

And here are some recent videos...Ive thought for months that i couldn't put videos on here b/c it kept giving me an error message, but looks like i can! yippee!!

agua!!

Water is back! For the most part at least. Some families went over a week without a drop of water in their homes. I heard an announcement from the water company this morning apologizing for the inconvenience and they explained that this in fact was not a case of robbery with the intent to sell the parts but rather it was sabotage with political motives....meaning that it was probably a group of people from the another political party who wanted to make the national water company and the government look really bad like they can't provide for the people. You know, i actually felt better about the situation when i thought it was some poor people who had stolen the pipe to sell it to get money. But now it's even more ridiculous knowing that it was probably rich, politically driven people who did the damage just to make the government look bad. Grow up.

no water...

So, apparently somebody has stolen the main water pipes that give water to all of San Salvador in order to sell the metal. Seems like a joke, but it's not....somebody actually did that this weekend, which means that San Salvador is on a very strict water rationing program right now.

On a normal day, we usually only have water in our house until about noon, or sometimes longer but you just never know. But for the most part, you can count on having running water at least in the mornings. We have a tank that sits above our garage (probably a hazard in case of an earthquake...) that automatically fills up with water when it's running so that we can have enough water for the rest of the day. However, there's not enough pressure to wash clothes or really even wash your hair in it so we rely on those times of running water. Now, because someone stole the main water pipes, we only sporadically have water that is coming from some other source and it's only for a little bit at a time. When we went to bed last night, the tank was completely dry because we did not have running water at all since Sunday morning. We went to bed praying for water because we have a bucket full of dirty cloth diapers and well lets be honest...i hadn't washed my hair in quite a few days! Thankfully, apparently we had enough water sometime in the middle of the night to fill the tank, so we had showers this morning. However, my school is letting the kids out at noon all this week b/c there's not enough water to last the whole day and i've heard of people that have to wake up at 2am to shower b/c that's the only time they have water and they don't have a tank.

All this to say, we're stinky. The whole city is. Please pray with us that this situation will get fixed soon. Originally they said it will be 12 more days to get it fixed, but now they are promising it will be sooner. Pray for those that haven't had access to any water and that don't have tanks and against sicknesses that can come from lack of hygiene. Thanks.

recently...

For Mother's Day, instead of going on the fun picnic Elvis had prepared for me and eating the yummy southern breakfast he had cooked for me (country ham, eggs, english muffins, grits, grapefruit, cappucino), I was in bed (and in the bathroom) with food poisoning. Not my favorite way to spend Mother's day! Although, i did get to do some things that haven't been very possible since becoming a mom, such as sleep all day, read a book for fun, watch a movie during the afternoon, and not have to worry about anything except making it to the bathroom in time! Ha! I didn't go to work on Monday b/c i was very dehydrated, and then Tuesday we were off b/c it was the Salvadoran Mother's Day. Elvis stayed home to help me recover and we enjoyed the day with Suzy just hanging around the house. Not the most exotic, adventurous mother's day ever, but nice to just be with my 2 favorite people, the ones responsible for me being a mom in the first place =)

In Suzy news, she has been busy making friends in the neighborhood and playing with her BFF Pacita and her cousins as well. Here she is with Pacita...they hang out every wednesday afternoon together and at the nursery at church. And here she is with Dinora (Di-Di as she calls her), helping make lemonade.
We've noticed that Suzy is starting to pick up more Spanish, although her list of english vocabulary is still longer than her spanish one. Her favorite word right now is "luna" and loves to point at the moon at night, and find any crescent shapes in books and say luna. She also loves saying "gecko" whenever she hears a gecko in our house (which is very often), identifying parts of the face (in english), and saying "hola" to everybody. Oh and singing Elmo songs. She's a great singer! She also has started letting us know when she is going "pee pee" or "poo poo" and likes to wipe her teddy bears when they apparently go "poo poo" as well. I was nervous about her picking up both languages, but seems to be doing well. The other night when i told her we were going to wash our hands, she promptly said "mano mano!" And in other big news, she had her first ponytail last week! big girl!
In other news, I've started going to latin dance aerobics classes lately. They meet monday-thurs in a community center within walking distance from our house and i've LOVED going. I guess it's basically like Zumba and it's a great exercise and stress buster for me. But man oh man last night we had apparently the most flexible, energetic, hip shaking instructor you've ever seen (and believe me, i've seen some pretty amazing ones in central america! i'm thinking of one particularly funny experience in Guatemala with Nell Stiff and a very flamboyant male aerobics instructor) I think she purposefully speeded up all the CDs b/c i have never merengued so fast in my life. I was spell bound just watching her dance! The fun thing is that there are all ages in the classes- families with teenage boys, moms, even several 70+ years old men that attend and do their best! So cute! Maybe i can sneak a video one day....that's all the recent news for now!

happy mother's (and grandmother's) day, Mom!!!

Mom,
Last year was special in that we actually got to be with you on Mother's Day, but even though we aren't together this year, I still wanted to tell you how happy you are that you're my mom!! Thanks for teaching me by your words and your example throughout all these years. I pray that I will shape Suzy's life in a positive, Christ-centered way just as you have shaped mine.
We love you!

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!!!!!!!