The Whitney Family Blog: 11/28/10-12/4/10

Sunday, November 28, 2010

The Childrens Primary Program was today. I was so impressed that all our kids went up to participate. I was anticipating them freaking out and saying they wouldn't do it. Carson Bottema went up with them also. It was so cool to watch the kids singing the songs in Spanish!

I used to get so frustrated when I would ask somebody to help me to communicate with somebody. They would say something to the other person and they other person would reply but the helper never would tell me what was being said. UGH! Now, I am doing it! I was trying to translate for my friend, Vilma, and Polly. I kept telling Polly stuff in Spanish and Vilma stuff in English. I couldn't keep the languages straight.

Chris took the T.V. and all the couches downstairs for the post-Thanskgiving dinner last night. He wants to keep it how it is so that he can stretch out on the bigger couch. We so miss our oversized leather sectional! Ahhhh, the days of fitting the entire family comfortably on the couch to watch t.v.!!

I overheard this conversation tonight and got a good chuckle.

Dad to Alysa and Laina: Go clean your room and get ready for bed.

A few minutes later, Laina: Dad, we're done cleaning our room.

Dad: Are you guys ready for bed?

Laina: No, not yet. (Yes, they really were ready for bed)

Laina to Alysa in a whisper: I told Dad that we weren't ready for bed yet so we can play some more!

Monday, November 29, 2010

There are crickets everywhere! Morgan tiptoes everywhere and jumps like the floor is hot lava. Just recently she has acquired a fear of bugs!

Tomorrow is Laina's birthday and I didn't get the pinata so we all went into town to meet Chris for dinner and to get a pinata. I can't believe that we've been back in Xela for 3 1/2 months and we are just now going to one of my favorite restaurants!! I think Giuseppies is going to be a mother/son activity. Nobody else fully appreciates the fine food like we do!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Just in time for Laina's birthday, Alysa's decided that it was her turn to be sick. She covered herself in throw up in the middle of the night. The poor kid spent most of the night laying on the freezing cold, tile bathroom floor. By the time that I finally got to go back to sleep, it was time to get up and take the kids to school for Laina's pinata. I had absolutely no energy, and Alysa was still throwing up so I called Lily to tell her we wouldn't be coming. That didn't go over too well. She called me back a little while later to tell me that all of the other kids had shown up with presents for Laina. UGH!! Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! I just can't make anybody happy!
After a few hours of feeling guilty about any decision I made, we loaded Alysa in the back of the van and headed to Lily's house. She was so miserable and refused to leave the car. We stayed long enough for the pinata, presents, and some snacks. Luckily, Alysa has good sisters and brother that shared their candy from the pinata.

5 years old!!

If the hat of the pinata starts to come off, they remove it from the pinata and put it on the birthday child.

The pinata was so heavy duty that it wouldn't fully break. It did however break the stick when Georgy was hitting it and the broken piece flew over all of the kids (luckily for them!) and hit me in the leg. I didn't think I was going to be able to walk it hurt so bad!!

Laina opening her presents.

One of my favorite cows on the drive home. The kids have named it Bunny.

The rest of the day was spent listening to Laina ask me every 5 minutes, "Can I open my presents?"

Not a second too soon, we had dinner and opened presents followed by cake made by Morgan. I have to say that the kids favorite thing about birthdays is always the goody bags from Grandma Hunsaker. They love them. Thanks!

Laina is currently overly obsessed with makeup!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Alysa was in bed all day! The little girl is shriveling away to nothing. She is so stubborn and refuses to even try to eat anything! We'll give her another day and see how she's doing.

The quilting class was good. We still don't know what happened to the red quilt. We have one more week to finish 11 more lap quilts! UGH!! Hopefully the people that took some home will finish them this week. I've got two to finish and then I need to get material for 4-5 more!

I can't wait for next week to be over! I'm ready for a break!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Alysa was still not up and about so only Laina went to school while I did piano lessons at their house. When I returned home, Alysa has improved greatly. By the end of the day she was making up for all the lost time in bed. Cole said that he almost missed her being sick. It was much quieter!

The new family that moved into the development were getting their internet hooked up today. The person messed up our line and we haven't had internet all day! It is such a lonely feeling knowing that I have no contact with the "outside world"!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Last week, my sister in law posted that their little boy, Nate, had learned to ride his bike without training wheels. I told this to Laina (Nate is about 1 1/2 months older than Laina). She decided that she can't be showed up by a boy so she proceeded to learn to ride her bike today. I think it took her about 3 tries before she took off on her own. Good thing for me because I was getting quite the funny looks from all of the construction workers in the development!

Saturday, December 4, 2010
We are going from youngest to oldest with it now being Cole's turn to be sick. Just like Alysa, he didn't even get a chance to wake himself up before he was throwing up all over his bed in the middle of the night. Yet, another night of no sleep for me. He was so miserable and we were planning to go on a road trip to Huehuetenango with the Orellanas and the Bottemas. Cole was so looking forward to going. At 6:30, he got up and said that he was fine and still wanted to go. His outlook on life changed very rapidly once we got in the car! He did not do very well on the drive! Although Cole was miserable, I had a lot of fun taking a bunch of pictures!

There were so many roofs that were covered in corn that was drying.

I thought these were watermelons but they are apparently some type of squash.

We were up above the clouds for part of the day!

They do have a Christmas tree in Guatemala that doesn't have the national beer logo on the top!!

We saw several really old Toyota Land Cruisers.

Once we did get to Huehuetenango, Cole sat on the bench or in the car completely miserable! He didn't even get to play with his friends. We should have just stayed home but I doubt we would have ever made the trip by ourselves.

Huehuetenango is another town here. It has the tallest mountain and if it is a clear day, you can see both the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean at the same time. Unfortunately, it wasn't a clear day and we couldn't see either ocean!