Update!

Ghana says yes! Tim and Raelynn are the official legal guardians to the boys! Now they are just waiting for approval from the US government!

Ebenezer and Joshua

Patrick's dad and stepmom have decided to adopt. They are waiting for the final appoval letter to come and then they are off to Ghana to finish the process. Eben is 13 and Joshua is 11. Raelynn sent them journals in which she wrote about the little things that they do in their lives. (What time they get up, what they like to eat, etc) She asked them to write back so that they could practice writing so that they could be prepared for school here in the US. They are adorable and on all of their school work they already sign their names Eben Martin and Joshua Martin. The following videos are the boys opening their journals and the photo album that Raelynn put together. They were so excited! We should hopefully find out this week if they will actually be adopted!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AcH6kQIJCM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T92_OYXZzC0

Turtles Attack!

CAUTION: Graphic Material!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Nursery Kids!

These are some of my nursery kids at our Halloween Ward Party. They are so cute!

Princess Elli

Cupcake Ella

Spiderman Lily

Our Primary President's little boy, Cody.

The cute little red headed boy in our ward. He isn't quite in nursery yet.

Turtle Time!

We love our turtles! They are so funny!

Pictures

I'm taking a Humanities class this semester and one of the projects we had was to take some pictures using the principles that we have learned about in class in regards to photography. Here are a few that I played with.

More Mexico!

One of Patrick's favorite families in Teoloyucan.

Patrick wearing an authentic Mexican sombrero.

Giant cactus!

These are cool. In Mexico they are called Tunas. They are the fruit off the cactus. You peel it and squish it in your mouth. Yes, I said squish. There are too many seed that you don't want to chew so you take a bite, squish the bite to the roof of your mouth with your tongue, enjoy the wonderful juice running down your throat, and finally, swallow! Seeds and all! So good!

We visited a place called Tula. We went to the pyramids. This is our destination!

Distracted by a cool looking cactus.

These are the playing fields. It's in the shape of a big "I". People would play games here while onlookers watched the players die.

A cool puma/jaguar/beast on the side of the big pyramid.

Pretty sure this means "Keep Out" but I don't speak Spanish.

Sideways piture! If you turn your head sideways you will see the wall of snakes. It tells a story about giant snakes eating corpses. Gross. But still in pretty good condition. Some of it was redone.

We called this the cigarette building.

It would be a great place to play paintball. These are columns with plaster on the bottom to keep them from falling.

This pyramid used to be huge! The top collapsed and now the only way up is a steep trail up the left side. It was too hot so we didn't go.

Here is my favorite part: the stairs! These things are about as wide as my foot. It is almost impossible to go down forward because of the size of the stairs and the steepness. The stairs were designed this way so that people had to go down sideways, that way they couldn't turn their back on the King. This pyramid was actually a temple and on top live...

these guys! They held up a ceiling that collapsed. There is a lot of symbolism in these guys! There are four of them on top of the pyramid and only one of them is the real deal.

Patrick, me, and my cool chinese hat that I was forced to wear by the sister we went with.

They have very defined rears.

Here is an origional statue found on the pyramids. They put it in the museum thought to protect it.

I never imagined that while I was in Mexico I would teach the relief society sister to dance...


Yup...I can't believe it either. They asked me through Patrick's mom if I knew any dances. This is the first one that came to my head that was easy and didn't require partners. They performed it a couple weeks later at a Relief Society Pageant thingy...

Zoe!

Chicks for sale...they must put food coloring in their food...

Turtles for sale! These are about the size of a quarter.

This is where Patrick lived in the city of Coacalco.

Our last day was spent in the heart of Mexico City. We walked around all the street sellers and saw awesome street performers and dancers.

The cathedral.

A govenrment building. This building is so big it has it's own block!

The statues on top of the cathedral.

Leaning tower of Pisa eat your heart out! This whole street is leaning!

Inside the cathedral.

The really cool organ in the cathedral on the upper level!

After a night in Mexico City we flew home to the United States! It was an awesome trip and we can't wait till we can go back!

California and Pachuca

Patrick and I had the awesome opportunity to go down to Mexico and visit the areas where he served. First stop,

California!

Mexico City

We have arrived! We went to the Mexico City Temple and did some initiatories.

My first meal in Mexico!

Pachuca

Governor's Mansion

The tower in the center of the town.

KFC...

A Cathedral in Pachuca

The organ in the Cathedral.

Some dead lady...Just kidding. Her name is Saint Columba. Her body is being preserved in side the Cathedral in this little glass box. She was probably only 4 feet tall. And her face is caving in...

More of the Cathedral.

What you see when you walk in. Wow!

Patrick at his favorite place, the panaderia! They had tons of different types of breads to try!

The city of Pachuca is huge. It is a mining town. The mine was built on the hill so the city started at the hill and built down. It makes walking places a great workout!

This is Pachuca. Well, a small part of it. It extends in every direction from here.

This is the mine.

Christo Ray

This is where Patrick lived.

The giant flower clock in a park. It really does work and usually has more flowers around the boarder.

There is a legend behind this tree. There are supposed to be a little boy a girl hugging the tree. I still can't really see them. I'm told that one is on the very left of this picture and the other is on the right.


More colorful buildings.

Rosa and two of her three children. This room was so small. The back wall that you see is the whole back wall. The length of the room was two times the length of the back wall. They do have one more room and a tiny kitchen outside this one.

More to come!