Thankfulness...

Yes, this is the time of the year when one {usually} has a moment to reflect on the things that one is thankful for. 
It is because of this moment that I've decided to join the world of blogging again.
I'm not making any promises...this may be the next "WHES" post {ahem...Gramie} that stays here for more than 1/2 a year!  But, in case I get some more reflective moments, I wanted to START in an attempt to catch all of you up with some of my blessings from this year.

The first {possibly the last} of this string of God's many blessings is about the same thing that I shared at the Thanksgiving table this year.
*Yes, someone other than me asked for everyone to go around and share one thing this year that we were thankful for, and I said..... FAMILY!


Throughout this year we've both been able to see our parents twice...and we have one more trip planned before the beginning of the new year!

We saw the Bolivian side when we visited them this summer...

 

..and again this month when the padres came to the states for a conference and stayed a little longer:)!

This little member of the family was the "star of the show" with her expanding vocabulary and precious antics!

We were able to see my parents in June when they came to visit us here in the DC area...

 What a little treat when we talked with my mom's former sorority sister {and Alaskan Senator},  Lisa Murkowski!

 ..and then in August when we all went to a favorite place {Sunriver, Oregon} to celebrate Gramie's 80th birthday!!

One highlight of our time together was a yo-yo competition between all of the men...and guess who's man won?!:)

God has truly blessed Esteban and I with SO MANY BLESSINGS this year, especially times with the people we love the most.

WHES

I beleive I mentioned earlier that I teach at the "School of Smiles"....for realsies!
Even though my year has had it's fair share of
"upside down smiles", it has also had plenty of the real deal!!

For example...

Here are my sweeties that really do bring a smile to my face!!!

My teammates that help me keep my sanity.

And the BEST song for our Revolutionary War CD project!

Last week marked the 1st of THREE WEEKS of the beloved END-OF-THE-YEAR TESTS!

As a teacher in a Title-1 school that hasn't made AYP for a few years, this time of the year is always a bit stressful.  You just want your little ones to do well and remember all you taught them. AND, to have all of the time they need to finish their tests.  

That brings to me to a precious student of mine. She honestly takes FOREVER to complete ANY test, especially "important" ones!  So, on the day of our first test, Reading, 5 minutes into the test, she already was asking, "What if we don't finish before the end of school?" 

Good question!  And I now know the answer because our Assistant Principal stayed with her until 7 PM so she could finish her 55 question test!

Now that's called taking your time (a teacher's mantra this time of the year)!

How Time Flies....

Yes.
I think I will be saying that for the rest of my life...and it will only just become more, and more true!

Anways.
Updates.
There are many.

Esteban....got his green card...the day of the wedding!
Don't you love how the Lord uses our national government to teach us life lessons?
Here's us celebrating...notice our GREEN to celebrate the GREEN card?!

Then, since we weren't able to spend SB12 in BOLIvIA, we thought we'd go to BALtImOre instead (yes, we were trying to make ourselves feel better with ANY kind of connection between the 2!)

Thankfully, my husband is a gracious man who takes life as it comes and we ended up truly enjoying our little get away!

LOVED the Baltimore Aquarium!

This is my husband....

...and this is his wife!

I actually LOVE crabcakes (at least these ones...we had some others that seemed to be a-little-less-crab-and-more-old-fish cakes that were NOT my favorite)

Yes...I couldn't resist!  As a teacher of the American Revolution, being at the exact place where Francis Scott Key pinned our anthem just couldn't go unsaid!

His Answer...

...was no.

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts! It really meant a lot to us knowing that so many people were lifting us up.

We are hopeful that Esteban's green card will come eventually and we will still be able to visit La Paz when it is God's perfect timing. But, until that happens, we send our love to all of you in La Paz!

A Call to Prayer...

...not to be confused with what happens in the Middle East at certain times of the day...THIS is for my husband and his dear family.
And, for me too!

BACKGROUND:
As you all know, we've been going through the whole Bolivia-and-the-United-States-are-not-the-same-country-and-it's-hard-to-make-a-citizen-of-one-a-citizen-of-the-other issue for a while now. So far, God has been so gracious to us and things have gone "exactly" as we have planned!!
However, we are still fighting this battle and facing an outcome that may NOT go as we have planned.

SITUATION:
David (Esteban's younger brother) is getting married to Jadwy (a sweet girl who became a friend of mine while I was there)in exactly 3 weeks.
This, obviously, is happening in Bolvia.
And we, obviously, have been planning on going....
...time off work (AKA wedding being planned around MY spring break)...check.
...plane tickets...check.
...a calendar of things to do/people to see while in Bolivia...check.

However, unbeknownst to us, USCIS does NOT think that our need to go on this trip is so obvious and Esteban's green card..AKA his ability to leave the United States under (basically) any circumstances...has not been granted.
We've spent lots of time on the phone with this agency and have been told to expect the green card at the end of April/beginning of May.
Yep....you figured it out.
Not early enough.

So...we are asking our Christian family to come along-side us and pray.
We KNOW that we serve a gracious, and GOOD Father who is truly able to do ALL things.
We also know that He does what is best for us, even when we think our "best" is something else.
So pray for a miracle...and pray for His will.
And pray for grace to accept any answer He gives.
Thank you.

Here are Esteban's parents, us and JADWY AND DAVID...at our Bolivian wedding! We hope for a similar picture in the near future with someone else in the "white" dress (yes, I know, mine is actually a light blue...but you get the point!).

the HOUSE!

Ha!
So, you know you're a bad blogger" when your posts jump from honeymoon to our 2nd place we've lived since being married!
Sorry...as usual.

But yes.....WE'VE MOVED!!!
We are officially Virginians....I have the license plate and no-teeth-smiling driver's license to prove it (it's a Virginia rule that you CANNOT show teeth when you smile for your picture....weird!).
We are both enjoying our 30ish minute commutes each day and appreciating the fact that bus schedules, 1,000 accidents and top-5-traffic-jams-of-the-US don't dictate our day-to-day lives anymore!
So without further ado....
our humble little basement apartment.

As you enter through our door (with it's own gated, side entrance...) you see our kitchen!


Then, right next to the kitchen is our guest room (YES...come visit us!) / dining room (don't worry, we can put the table somewhere else when you are here!)


Our very own......Yes...I took pictures of this for you to see.....
Then our foyer (it's the entrance to our place from the main house upstairs)....

...which leads to our great room/bedroom!


We hope you enjoyed your "grand tour"!
God is so good to have given us a place that is EXACTLY in the middle of our works and just what we need.

Drumroll Please...

I have been waiting on our wedding photos to arrive from Bolivia so I could post those babies and THEN share some honeymoon pictures...chronological order. Sounds good, right?

However, since our "fb wedding album" has seemingly be viewed by ALL of my blog audience and then some, I figured I'd jump right to the honeymoon!
**Probably at some point I'll pick my favorite wedding pics and post my own collage of that great day. But until then...enjoy our photographer's choices......I know we have:).

So.
Hawaii.
It was awesome.
It was beautiful.
It was romantic.
And, yes, it was filled with typical "megan" luck!

Some flight complications....some rental car problems....some getting-lost-on-the-way-to-the- airport-and-having-to-ask-for-directions-from-people-who-only-use-the-NUMBER OF-STOPLIGHTS-when-giving-directions problems....

Dang....I guess we're a package deal. Me and my traveling luck, we come together.
Poor Esteban.

However, Esteban brought some of his own bad luck into the marriage as well...

Snorkeling turns into protect-your-body-from-the-jagged-reefs.....boogie boarding turns into sea urchin attack..

Esteban reaped the benefits of that one.
Poor guy..thankfully he's the stronger of the 2 of us so we didn't have to spend 1/2 of our time in the hospital as we probably would have had to do it I were the one that had both heels filled with sea urchin spines!

Honestly, it was this on-going process of first being poisoned...then being slightly crippled...then pulling out the spines one by one until September 15th, when the LAST spine was removed! Thank you Lord both heels are looking normal again:)!

So all of that to say, we're basically even.

And now it's picture time....
Kaui....soo beautiful.
We loved just enjoying the great outdoors on this island.

"Looking Hawaiin" in our Hawaiian shirts!

No underwater camera at this point...but we wanted proof that we were actually SWIMMING with a sea turtle close enough to touch!!! I felt like I was Nemo lost in Australia!

Kayaking! River...hear us ROAR!
Yeah....these pictures are pretty priceless when you hear the story of that day!

Long story short....we started off the trip like this...feeling like Kayak CHAMPS ready to cream all of the "older" couples on the river! About 5 mins. after these pictures were taken we started questioning our kayaking ability due to the HORDES of petty tourists that seemed to have NEVER kayaked before PASSING us with such ease while we were zig-zagging our way into the bushes and boat path! Needless to say, after the first trip of complete humiliation, we were informed by a kind gentleman that our kayak was backwards! After our waterfall hike, we were finally able to regain some of our pride and therefore post these pictures with a bit more confidence than we thought we would!

Some "treats" in Hawaii were.......our FREE upgrade because were honeymooners!

....a YUMMY meal right on the water.
As always, I think Esteban ordered better than I did. That's one reason why I married him...he's got good taste!
And then.... MAUI.
Also pretty but definitely more of the "tourist trap" idea.
So we enjoyed that part too:)!

Of course...a luau! (We intentionally dressed for the occasion:)!!)Our 2nd car upgrade of the trip...better than the first!

That's right...Volvo C70.

One day we were CRAZY ambitious and woke up WAY TOO EARLY and drove to the Haleakala Crater to see the sun rise...
...with EVERYBODY and their cousin!
Then took the road to Hana.....

If you're unfamiliar with this road...this IS IT! Crazy windy but right on the water and simply GORGEOUS!


We were EXHAUSTED by the end. But it was definitely our favorite day!

To end this random collection of our honeymoon, we want to leave you with some favorites of our trip!

No caption necessary...

We just LOVED the sunsets....

and fresh seafood..

Choco fell in love with "Sharkie"....

....and I fell in love with Maui potato chips and onion dip!

Thank you Gramie for this wonderful gift!

It was all so surreal, we felt like we were in newly weds...

Oh wait....we were!

Good-bye Hawaii...until next time!