12/12/10-12/18/10

Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Bottema's older son got to Guatemala yesterday and came to church today.  I was laughing my head off watching all the girls checking him out.
It is so strange to be translating for people!  I never thought that I would be the one to help with the language barrier!!  How odd!!
Choir is done.....piano is done.....there was nothing to do after church!!  NAP TIME!!

Monday, December 13, 2010
We had more frost on the ground this morning.  It was not as exciting for the kids the second time around.  They all went out to play but it only lasted about 10 minutes this time!  Oh, well.
The kids and I all went over to the club for the afternoon.  The kids all seem to really enjoy playing mini golf together!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Today consisted of tests, Christmas movies, dinner upstairs, and making clay ornaments.
The weekend before the new Harry Potter movie came out, a channel on tv had a Harry Potter marathon.  I was able to record the first 6 movies!!  We've watched the first three and the kids had started the fourth.  Well, being a weirdo about Christmas movies, I recorded a bunch of movies without realizing that the recorder was out of space.  Today, I found out that ALL of the Harry Potter movies (plus a bunch of other stuff) all got erased to make room for a bunch of Christmas movies.  I am in so much trouble!!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Relief Society took all of the quilts that we've made to a rest home.  I was shocked to pull up to the church and have people waiting and ready to go!  We loaded about 15 people into two cars and more met us there.  I was really surprised that so many people went.  I was a little sad that the one lady who actually helped make the quilts (and all of her friends) wasn't there.  There are so many wonderful people in our ward!  We sang lots of songs and were joined by an old man that kept singing with us.  During our visit, we found out that two of the people in the rest home are members of our church.  It was pretty heartwarming to see tears in several peoples eyes as we visited with the 14 residents of the home and gave them their blankets.  They were very welcoming and two even sang songs for us!!

The ladies waiting to go into the rest home.

This was my favorite guy.  He kept singing!

Some of the ladies.

Visiting

The only lady that was there!

This guy is a member.  He is blind and couldn't see that I was  different than everybody else!!

Instead of tree skirts, they use moss to decorate. 

When I got home, I was so looking forward to sitting down and watching a movie with the kids.  Unfortunately, the internet didn't like that idea and we couldn't watch anything!  UGH!!  Dave is here so Chris was going to be working late and we had planned to spend the evening watching movies.  What now?  Oh, yeah, make cookies!  The second I mentioned that idea, the kids went crazy.  They were so excited and eager to help.  We made a ton of sugar cookie dough and cream cheese frosting before making french toast for dinner.  The internet came back on and we were able to eat dinner upstairs again while watching another movie!
It was a fun little pre-Christmas when Chris came home.  Dave had brought a bunch of Christmas presents that we had ordered.

Thursday, December 16, 2010
Dave is leaving tomorrow and I really wanted to make a goody plate for him to take home to his family.  So, today was a baking day!  The kids had a blast making and decorating the sugar cookies.  We also made fudge with Grandma's recipe.  We had also made caramels and toffee, but the bonbons were a disaster.  Guess I can throw away that recipe now!
In the afternoon, three ladies from the ward came over to teach me how to make a traditional treat.  It is shredded coconut, a ton of sugar, a little milk, and cinnamon.  It is all cooked in different stages.  I'm not sure that I would ever be able to replicate them but it was fun to do at least once!!
After we finished the coconut treat, I got to put together our first goody plates of the year.  5 down (including a big huge tray for Chris's work) about 15 more to go!!
We went to deliver the goodies to Dave and the office at the temple site and ended up getting to go out to dinner.  Wow, I'll make cookies any day if it means I get to go out to eat!

Friday, December 17, 2010
The kids finished up a little bit of school work this morning and then helped pack to go to Guatemala City.  Chris wanted to go up and see a movie and do some Christmas shopping.  When we got into town, we got our hotel room and then headed to the movie theatre.  I was looking forward to watching a movie in the VIP theatre in English.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any movies in English!  UGH!!  Why is it that every time I go, there are no English movies?  So, I sat through MegaMind while trying to get rid of the piercing headache from the drive.

Saturday, December 18, 2010
Cole and I went to McDonalds for breakfast.  It was fun to hang out with him.  He doesn't mock my attempts at Spanish as much as Morgan.
I really am not used to this whole December Christmas shopping thing.  I'm one of those weirdos that is usually done shopping in July!  Now, I remember why I am that way.  I detest shopping malls......at any time of the year!  I think I'd rather have my eyeballs pulled out of my head than to have to spend time in a mall.  I tried to take one for the team but it didn't come across that way.  The kids each received money from Grandma and Grandpa Whitney to pick out their presents.  I don't know how many hours we walked around the mall trying to find what they wanted.  Alysa ended up being the only one that would spend any of her money on gifts for herself.  The others bought some candy.  Cole was so excited to have finally completed his collection of money (100, 50, 20, etc!) that he didn't even need a present to make him happy!