I heart LA

Oh, where do I start to begin describing this amazing past week in Pasadena, CA? I'll preface it by saying that it was, obviously, very hard being away from Elvis and Suzy. It was hard on everybody...Suzy didn't want to sleep all week (I think she was waiting up for mama to come home), Elvis had his hands completely full with a sweet little girl who didn't want to sleep, and I of course missed my sweet family like crazy. But we survived! And elvis and suzy got some great quality papa-suzy time (they went to the kids museum and even went swimming in a river on a farm in the northern part of the country!) and I had a very impactful (is that a word?) trip, although it was VERY busy!

Let's start at the beginning..... i got into LA about 1:45am and was greeted by two of my favorite people in the world: Kelly and Brian! We went back to their place, and spent most of the next day trying to wake up. However, I did get to tour Fuller's campus, check out cute cute Pasadena, and go to a free folk concert that night in a nearby park. For 10 weeks during summer, they have 5 free concerts a week in that park! 50 free concerts every summer just in one park! Wow!

Fuller's campus

Brian and Kel's cute cute house:

It was kind of an ongoing joke this week that I kept "seeing" Elvis everywhere...but don't you think this guy that played at the concert we went to is Elvis's jazzy twin???

The next day, I got to go to Brian and kelly's church, which i loved. I really love that they cater in good, affordable lunch every week so you can hang out a bit longer after church. We hit the jackpot that day: Vietnamese subs! Later that day, we hit up the metro and went down to Union Station and found several fun latin festivals going on, then went to see the stars in Hollywood, and finally ended up in Little Tokyo for some yummy sushi. I was really impressed with every bit of LA that i saw...very clean and it felt very safe.

Union station:






There are many people with interesting "talents" in LA....





Hollywood!

Jennifer Aniston's brand new handprints

art museum:

Monday - Friday was pretty intense. My class that I was taking, Lifelong Leadership Development, is normally given as a 10-week course. Well, we did it in 4.5 days! We were in class from 9-5 and then had 3-4 hours of homework every night. But it was great! Because of the intensity of the class and the depth of the material (they weren't joking about it being "Lifelong"...we analyzed every part of our lives from birth to see how God has been shaping us), the 20 of us in the class became real tight, real fast. There was a wiiide range of people in the class, ranging from 25-65 years old, coming from Uganda, Zimbabwe, Russia, Canada, Dominican Republic, England, Korea, China, etc. Obviously, this intense school/study schedule left little time for having fun at night, although we did manage to sneak in some frozen yogurt runs (this concept of serve-yourself frozen yogurt and toppings was new and amazing to me), dinners with friends, and even a movie screening for a movie with lots of big stars that will be released in October! I would tell you the plot, but then i'd have to shoot ya. We were sworn to secrecy...let's see if they take my advice and make any changes before it is released!

my sweet small group (minus one):


Only the best fries I've ever tasted:

Friday night, we headed down to San Gabriel...the part of LA that makes you totally forget you are in the US and makes you think you are in China. ALL the store signs, banks, restaurants, etc are in Chinese and i definitely would not have been able to even order dinner without Kelly and Brian's mad language skills. So, I had my first "real" Chinese food experience and i was highly impressed, even without goopy, sweet, deep-fried chicken balls typically found in American chinese food. Then, we went for a true cultural experience....to get hour long Chinese foot massages!! Wow, i wish i had a picture of this....I'm still trying to figure out how my back feels bruised after a foot massage. Oh, maybe because it's middle-aged men who don't really understand when you gasp "softer please!" and therefore continue to try to break you by pounding your pressure points with their elbows. Hehe sounds painful, and it was at times, but i do think they worked out all the knots that had formed while sitting in class all week. It was fun because we were all in one room in very chinese-y recliners, wrapped in blankets and getting these intense massages. When they got to my feet, i couldn't control myself and kept laughing so much because it tickled so much! It was a very unique experience...one of the first times in many years that i felt like i couldn't communicate and didn't really get all that was going on.

Saturday, Kel and i went spelunking at the beach in Santa Monica. Real cute beach, real cute town. My favorite part of the outdoor shopping mall we visited was that people would just bring their guitars and amps and set up in the street to make a few bucks. Including this rock band of brothers:







This guy was on American Idol:








Then, we explored LA in search of the "Renegade Craft Fair" that was going on in a park near Chinatown. We were extremely impressed with the number of people selling fun, homemade indie crafts. "crafts" makes me think of something made with popsicle sticks, so i wish i had a better word to use because these homemade works of art were AMAZING! Another fun part of the fair was that there were several food trucks parked nearby, so i was able to have my first food truck experience. Yum!







Thanks so much, Kel and Brian, for your hospitality and for showing me around your fun town and for introducing me to Fuller!

some "see ya laters", not goodbyes.

First off, some of you may wonder how we celebrated the 4th of July here in El Salvador. Well, you see since Elvis and i got a 3 day weekend, we went to the lake, jet skiied, went swimming, ate brownies all weekend, and headed to the beach to play in the sun and sand with our family and close friends. Then we had a cookout with hamburgers and hot dogs and potato salad and deviled eggs and anything else you can put mayonnaise and mustard into and baked beans and my mom's famous bean dip and red white and blue jello whip cream dessert, all while watching fireworks from the deck of a boat.

Oh wait.




I forgot that none of that happened and in fact, I had to work. And so did Elvis. And it felt like every other day of the year. Except when i checked facebook (which happened approximately every 15 minutes) and saw that everyone else was in fact living out that little alter-ego weekend i just described.



Oh well.


One redeeming part of Monday was that Elvis's younger sister, Kenya, arrived from Mexico where she is going to college. She will be here for a few weeks while she's on break and so it's great to have her around again!

It was good for us to say "hello again" to her because this week we had to say "see you later" to some of our closest friends, Rafa and Sarah. I've written about them a lot in the blog because we spend most of our free time with them. And we work together and go to church together so we have shared a lot of life together over the past few years. They left this morning to move to Australia (where Sarah is from) to go back to school and start a new chapter of life. We are SO SO excited for them, and SO SO sad that we won't get to hang out anymore.

You know, it's hard finding a friend that you feel like you can talk about anything with and they won't judge you. Well it's double hard finding a couple that's like that. They have been that couple for us and have been a safe-haven for us as a family to share exciting news, sorrows, frustrations, dreams, yummy recipes, coffee, etc etc.

It's really hard to lose everyday contact with such amazing friends like them, but it's a sign that God is preparing us and them for a new stage of life. It's one of those challenges that comes with the rain, if you read my last post.


So, "see ya later" Rafa and Sarah! we love you guys, you know that.


On Friday I will be saying "see ya later" to my 2 sweeties as i jump on a plane to Pasadena, California!! I can't wait for my own little "vacation" (even though i'll be in class from 8-5) and I can't wait to see another one of those special couples that I already described: Brian and Kelly McPhail! However, I'm dreading leaving behind Elvis and Suz, but I'm excited about them getting some extra special bonding time too.

So, this will probably be my last post until after my trip, so i'll leave you with some cute pics of my lil' ballerina and........."see ya later!"

refreshment

In El Salvador, it rains for half of the year, and it doesn't rain for the other half. It's that simple. And yet so powerful.

This year, rainy season started late, and we all felt it. We all felt the heaviness in the air. We all struggled beneath the stubbornness of rain that would gather in the dark clouds that roll down the volcano every afternoon and then never fall. The brown plants begged for it. The crops longed for it. We all gasped under the weight of the humidity. And the Salvadoran people (and those of us that are adopted into the Salvadoran family) felt an anxiousness, a readiness to stop tottering on the brink of seasons. Ready for stability. Ready to be refreshed. Ready to move on past this season of dryness.

have you ever felt like that?

We came to the realization that this extended period of dryness only magnified our spiritual state. Our thirst. Our dryness. Our desire to be refreshed, rejuvenated, revitalized. We realized that during this time of anticipation, a majority of the worship songs we were singing at church revolved around rain...crying out for the Lord to send His rain. We realized the double meaning of our cries: we were literally praying for the rain to fall on the earth to set in motion a season of growth and life, and we were symbolically asking for a new season of growth and life in our own hearts.

And then the rain fell.

And we all exhaled the breath we had been holding. And we felt the relief of a cool breeze instead of smothering humidity.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we had our first-ever overnight church retreat the same weekend the rains started. Refreshment, new life, healing for a dry and cracked land. An opportunity to move on to the next stage.

Of course, with a new season comes new challenges. On a logistical level, rainy season for us means difficulty drying clothes and Suzy's diapers, especially when we have a 4-day storm which we just experienced. It also means that our everyday outside activities, like Suzy taking her morning bath outside in the patio and taking our daily trip to the neighborhood park is iffy at best. Suzy doesn't really understand why she can't "go go go" as she begs every afternoon like we did before. She doesn't remember the last rainy season so it doesn't quite make sense yet.

But that's how it is, isn't it? We long for the new season in life with a deep thirst, and then we must learn how to deal with the new challenges that are presented that weren't an issue before.

As a family, as we are still in a longing stage on many levels, I want to remember that with the refreshment, there will be new struggles as well that come with the rain. I can't romanticize the future too much. I want to remember that there are details in this season that we will miss when they are gone and I want to be able to appreciate those.

Here are a couple of the songs we've been singing at church (in Spanish)...

What's your name?

Fingerpaint and fake laughs

As I've mentioned before, Suzy's best friend is Pacita and she comes over to play every week. Some days they play hide-and-seek, some days they swim in the kiddie pool, some days they fingerpaint, some days they fight over Elmo, some days they dance, some days they completely ignore each other! Yesterday was a fingerpainting/sidewalk chalk day. The first time we tried fingerpaints, suzy was completely terrified of getting dirty with the paints. By the end of the play time, she would only put one toe in the paint and spread it around like that. Yesterday, she still showed some nervousness, and was content just dumping out the contents of the paint jars at the beginning. Then she would step in the paint, and finally, she started spreading it around with her hands. She enjoyed making a mess, but was very eager to say "manos agua" when she was finished so i would wash her hands. Here are some pics of suz and Pacita yesterday playing; you see the progression of touching the paint with just one finger to getting all in it:



And here is a video of Suzy and Elvis having a fake conversation complete with fake laughs last night:

my little vegetarian

So, apparently Suzy is a vegetarian. She has rejected chicken and beef for months now. She would eat bacon while we were in NC like any good southern lil' lady, but now she won't touch that either. This is fine with me really, because we could almost be vegetarians as well, except for when we go home and dad cooks his famous steaks or mom makes those yummy Velveeta cheese/sausage english muffins mmmmmm! We have two sets of really close couple friends who are all vegetarians and we eat dinner with each couple at least once a week so that automatically means that 2 nights a week we make vegetarian meals, and it usually works out that we make chicken or fish once every week or two. So, the good thing is that Suzy loves her veggies and fruits, "panqueques", mac n cheese, pupusas, beans, plantains, avocados, mangos, grits....everything that a southerner/salvadoran baby should love. She's so funny in that she'll down several chunks of cauliflower but won't touch chicken. I feel like she's doing fine getting all the protein and nutrients she needs from beans and eggs and peanut butter, but a nutritionist friend recommended that she still eat meat as well. So yesterday during lunchtime, Dinora gave her those chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, hoping she would be interested because of the shape. Suzy in turn tried to feed them to Dinora "Di-di", to Elmo and the rest of her stuffed animals, but then decided to try it. And she ate 2!

Sorry this isn't a really earth-shatteringly interesting post, but can you tell i have more free time at work to blog now?? Now that all the students AND teachers are on vacation, I'm here working on administrative stuff with like 5 other people in the whole school. I've realized how much i like it when my friends update their blogs to give me something to do, so i'm going to try to do it more as well, even if it's little stuff like how Suzy is a vegetarian. This is the first time i have not gone to NC in June which is sad, but at least we got to spend 4 months there this winter! And i'll be heading to sunny Cal in just a couple of weeks!

In other news, Suzy's vocabulary is really picking up! She still has way more English words than Spanish, but the spanish is catching up! Yesterday she started saying "vaya" whenever she would do anything, which is what Dinora says a lot too. It basically means "OK". It's really cute! And I love it when she says "mo', mas!" in the same phrase when she really wants more of something!

Anyways, if any of you out there that are reading this have self-proclaimed vegetarian babies as well, what are your tricks to get in all the protein they need?

friends

This weekend was a big weekend for our church...we had our first-ever overnight retreat! We took about 45 from our church plus a mission team from the states of 30-some youth and we all had a great time! Suzy loved bonding with her friends from church and she's been talking about "Neni" and "Patita" ever since! (Those are her friends Neville and Pacita) Here's a pic of the threesome (we have another baby at church too, but didnt get pictures of her!):

I also wanted to share a video with you guys of our Cuban friends Wanton and Damaris that I mentioned last week...this video is of them singing at our house. They were supposed to go back to Cuba this past weekend, but the Cuban government gave them an extension for 10 months so that the baby can be born here!!! A miracle! We are looking forward to spending more time with them.

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!!