Don's birthday

We have been busy. We celebrated Don's birthday on Saturday by going to the Keys. It was a wonderful trip. We all love being so close to the ocean. The colors were amazing! Carlos and Titi wanted to go all the way to Key West so we tried to go but when they told us there were no hotel available at all, we decided to go back to Islamorada. We stayed at a nice Hampton Inn and we had his birthday dinner at Outback.





Carlos and Titi loved feeding the tarpon

A small miracle

In July 2007, when we visited Panajachel and the people that Mayan Families was helping, I met a little girl at the school named Natalia. I don't know why but I liked her a lot. Some days later I went to her house and was very sad to see the place where she was living. It was just a small room, made with scraps of wood and cardboard. There were open spaces in between the boards and wind and rain entered the room. The floor was dirt. They had a makeshift bed with no mattress and a few other belongings, most of them donated. Natalia's mother was a single mother and her family had allowed her to make the room on the corridor of their house. She made beaded necklaces and bracelets and earned only 1 dollar per day. I took pictures of the room and when I got home I posted them on Natalia's page on the student's blog, hoping somebody would help them with a donation to buy more boards and maybe a bed.

Well, last night I received pictures to upload on the website and I was so happy to see pictures of the new house that was built for them by Natalia's school sponsors, the students of a Canadian school, and Mayan Families. The students and parents held many fundraisers to raise the money. The house has two rooms and a cement floor and I am sure it will keep them safe and dry. Seeing improvements like this in people's lives makes the work I do for Mayan Families so worthwhile.



This is the place where they used to live:

Easter

Luke and Mimi had Easter at their home and it was a feast. Daniel, one of their friends cooked prime rib and everybody loved it. Mimi and Luke made delicious appetizers, vegetables and a ham. Everybody brought something yummy for dessert. Eli made two amazing cheese pies. I was only in charge of the decorations and the egg hunt. I had gone earlier in the week to plant some flowers in the garden since Mimi was very sad about the state of their front lawn. Their sprinklers have not worked for long time and the grass and most of the plants were dead. I think everything was wonderful and we had a great time.
Titi decorated a cake







Somebody could not wait to eat



Even Beary got a lot of eggs

Passover

We celebrated Passover at home. It was only us and we cooked the dinner in a very short time but it was good. I had made matzo ball soup and we had almost all the ingredients for the ceremony and dinner so when Don got home we all worked hard and we were able to start the ceremony at sundown.

Happy Birthday Mema!!!

Happy Birthday Mema. We love you a lot! We hope you have a wonderful day.


We had fun at the dinner to celebrate your birthday.

Disney in December

I was going to post some pictures about Disney and I remembered that I never posted the pictures of the December trip. It was so much fun to go and meet Alec, Kristen, and kids, Luke and Mimi, Keri, Larry and Jennie and we even got to see Laura... Carlos and Titi loved being with everybody. Titi stayed very close to Luke and Isi and did not want to go on many rides. Carlos loved going on rides with Brandon, they got along very well. Uncle Luke was very nice and he rode with them many times. I don't know how many times they went on the Tower or Terror.... It was fun spending the New Year's Eve at Epcot although it was crowded and cold. We still had fun and it still think that Disney is a great place to spend the New Year.
We had fun at Hollywood Studios!



I got to bond with Isi






We had an impromptu tailgating party!