Guanajuato Trip!

We're back from our trip! Thank you all for your prayers for us while we were away. The trip itself was great! The weather, well to me, was pleasant! The kids stayed healthy and also had a great time! And what's more the Lord did sooo many little and big things/miracles to show us how much He loves us! One of them and probably the most outstanding one was... Well, let me back-track a bit. Just hang on a second first I want to say; Angie, I was so glad to see you although I was a little sad :( that I wasn't able to spend much time with you (or more like you weren't able to spend time with us, heh) but I know that it was for an important reason. By the way, your part in the play was very well done! ;) Silly you, thinking otherwise. :P

And of course it was great seeing old friends like; Yamie boy, Chispita, Jesse, Nadia, Sharon, Sam, Timmy, Steph, Jamie, Shelly, John & Mya, (actually scratch out John's name :P --ILY John) and Esteban to name a few. And we, Kenji and I, even made some new friends! :) At first it took some time for him to warm up to people, but once someone took an interest in him (gave him the time of day, etc.) then he 'automatically' let go of his shyness and his tender, sweet, cute and lovable little personality came out. My precious love was so sad when it came time to leave. He just couldn't understand why we couldn't stay there, in Guanjuato/campsite, to live! Awww, sweet muffin!

Okay now, well to begin with, going to Guanajuato/Cervantino was not at all part of our plan. As clearly it would mean a lot of money to fork out!! But His ways are not our ways! -- as we all so well know, but sometimes fail to remember, heh. When we briefly mentioned the Cervantino event to a GM (soon to be AM) friend whom we thought may be interested in going we thought of perhaps just one person going to accompany our friend, yet our friend didn't give us a solid answer till literally a week before the event was to begin! But that's not all, she surprised us by saying "why don't we all (our home and her) go to the Cervantino? We can take my car and maybe I can interest my husband in coming along too!" (The husband is slowly but surely drawing closer to us -- the Lord -- but isn't quite as "ahead" or "close" as is the wife, so to agree to come along on this trip would be nothing more than a major miracle)!

Upon hearing this news we immediately brought it before the Lord as there were a lot of different opinions amongst us and things to consider like; kids absence from school, how would we raise the needed money is such short notice (6 -5 days), sleeping arrangements (since we don't have tents to accommodate us all) to name a few. The most logical thing to think would be that there was just no way that it could actually work out, although the idea sure did sound inviting to all, but were we in for a BIG surprise when the Lord told us that indeed it WAS His plan that we ALL go on this trip and that He would supply the funds for our trip.

Although our friend offered to travel in her car, it wasn't clear just what she had in mind as far as gas expenses, tolls, admin fees, et cetera. We figured it would be something like 50/50 for gas & tolls so we went along and began preparations for the trip, and passed the word amongst our closest friends/contacts to approach them about helping financially towards our trip, but because it was such short notice not many were able to help. And with departure day almost upon us we wondered if perhaps we got it wrong in regards to the Lord supplying the needed funds for our trip. Yet we still felt it was His plan that we continue on and all go.

As we began our journey, on that much awaited date, and with thoughts like "what are we going to do about the lack of funds" running through our minds we were abruptly and yet so pleasantly interrupted with our friends (oh, by the way the husband did agree to come along!) announcing that although we had invited them to partake of this Cervantino/witnessing event (something she felt very thankful for) they in return wanted to do the inviting (and in case folks don't know, in Mexican culture, and most other ones too, when one invites someone somewhere it usually means that the one inviting is also the one who is paying) of this trip and stated that all expenses -- gas, tolls, food -- were on them!! We couldn't believe our ears!! His promise -- of supplying the needed funds -- was indeed, albeit in a different way, fulfilled! PTL!

That was the most outstanding thing/miracle the Lord did to show us His great love. The next biggest thing/miracle was that he supplied a place for us to stay, and again free of charge! A sweet couple whom mom has been ministering to for some time now, not too long ago moved to Leon and upon simply hearing that we would be in close proximity insisted that we stay with them! We hadn't seen this as an option because we assumed that it was quite a ways away from the Balneario -- the camp Cervantino's location -- but it so happend to be that their place was only about 20 minutes from the Balneario! Not bad at all! TYJ!

We were having a wonderful time, not just participating here and there in the Cervantino, but also in taking the trip as a bit of "down-time" as a home as well as getting to know Guanajuato a bit, but unfortunately our friends got a call Thursday afternoon with news that their presence at an important impromptu business meal Saturday afternoon was urgently needed. So, what that meant was that we would have to, sadly, cut our week trip short. :( sniff. But at least we got to partake a bit of the weekend concert/witnessing on Friday. So that was a good thing. We left early Saturday morning and made it back home in 7 hours -- stops for food and bathroom included!

Here are some pics of a little bit of our trip... I had wanted to get pics of everyone -- us and our GM friends -- in the car, traveling, eating at restaurants, fellow-shipping, hanging out with old friends, distributing flyers, witnessing etc., but it seems that for the most part it slipped my mind to pull out the camera in such instances. :( Oh, well, at least I got some pics to remember our very first trip as a home!

More adventure!

Visiting relatives!

Well our trip down was a bit long, I think we got a little lost :D, but we survived it and what's more safe and sound! Kenji was such a trooper; sitting relatively still for so long, sleeping as he best could in the back seat with 2 other people there, AND he didn't throw up! -- Iv'e noticed that recently he's become more sensitive to motion sickness. :( Poor baby.

Upon arriving we searched for our relatives, of whom I hadn't seen in 13 years. I think Esther hadn't seen them for more years than that. We stayed with them for the duration of our stay in Guanajuato and it was so nice to be able to spend time with them, seeing as most of them were off work. Unfortunately our uncle was only able to spend 2 days with us and as silly as it may sound, I totally forgot to take pics with him. Duh!

The first of our site-seeing outings was the annual event, La Presa de la Olla. I can't say I have all the facts about its history squared away, but in the slide show of pics you'll see some pics of a "waterfall" and what I did learn about that is that a long time ago at a certain time of the year they would set the prisoners free. Well, sort of, it was more like if they survived the fall down the waterfall then they would be free! -- I assume there used to be a lot more water, if anyone were ever to be able to survive that fall!

In the days following the kids - Chris, Kenji, Kalel, and Yoshana - were invited to go to a little birthday party way up on a hillside/mountain. The weather up there, well in Guanajuato itself, was so pleasant -fresh/breezy- totally my kind of weather! And on the way back home we stopped at a lovely little spot that overlook part of the city. It was quite dark already, but the kids enjoyed exploring and taking pics with some rather old artifacts and machinery of sorts.

Well, here goes a large sum of pics. :D Enjoy! I'm sure there will be lots more pics - there's more places to see! - so check it out in a couple of days from now. :)

P.S. The photos of buildings or statues are for mom's sake, she'll recognize and know what it is, etc. -- It brings back memories.