Pidiendo una Playpen

Ok. So I ran across a really neat give-away at a really neat site of a mom who, quite possibly, is busier than I am. Actually, I think she is busier than I am and also, perhaps, busier than I was 10 years ago. Hats off to Christine who has six kids under 7 and whose oldest two are twins. I often said that if I'd had twins first, I might not have continued to the next and most probably wouldn't have had 4 more! This woman's a trooper!!!

You've gotta love Graco. I was given a fantastic musical swing when Caleb was a newborn. Oh, I loved that swing! With an 18 month old and a newborn, you can bet it got used a bunch! It got used so much, in fact, that by the time Andrew came along, 3 years and a set of twins later, the musical part was just a staticky buzz and the high speed didn't work. I called Graco just to see about repairing the thing, and what did they do? They sent me a brand new swing!!! I just attached the seat part that I had (which was tired, but still serviceable) to the new motor and legs which they sent and, voila!! New swing!!! Andrew and Evie swung their babyhood away in that swing and when we were finished with infants, I regifted to a friend with a new set of twins. Talk about customer satisfaction!!!

Anyway, Christina at From Dates to Diapers has a Graco Pack-n-Play which she is giving away to a worthy comment-er at her site.



I really hope to be that comment-er!

The school of ministry is bursting at the seams with new babies! About two weeks ago, the director's wife, Pily, gave birth to her 2nd baby. On Sunday, Oneida had a baby boy (baby #2 for them, also) and next month Briseda is due to give birth to her first. How blessed we are!!! The baby count at the school of ministry is climbing, but the number of arms available to tote said little ones remains the same. Of course, everyone loves to hold a newborn, and even nine-month-old Hassiel, Cristina's youngest, is a sweetie to cart from here to there. Let's face it though, it's nice to be able to set your baby down and know that he's safe and sound, can't fall, can't eat dirt and can't be reached by his two-year-old sibling! I've been looking for a play-pen for these great moms for over a year. Sure, they're available here, but just plan on doubling or even tripling the price you would pay in the States. Even a used play-pen costs over a hundred dollars here! Ouch!!! In addition, none of the moms have cribs. Right now, Hassiel is sleeping in a drawer on the floor of Ricardo and Cristina's apartment and Madai (age 2) sleeps on a pallet on the floor. It works, but if they wake up, they're free. That's a scarey thought, considering that Madai's parent's apartment is on the second floor and there are no railings. No, I don't think that one play-pen will solve all the world's problems, but it might help one mom sleep a little better at night or help her to get her clothes washed!!!

So, with that said, I wish to submit my comment for consideration to the long (and growing!) list of post-ers at Dates to Diapers. Who knows?! Maybe my search will be at an end, and I can bring a sparkling new Graco Pack-N-Play home from our furlough in July!!!

Wordless Wednesday

This is a cathedral in Culiacan, Sinaloa. I don't know why, but I just love this photo. Could be the intricate cement work, could be the tall spires, but when I really stop and consider it, I think it's the incredible blue of the sky.

Happy Holidays!

Well, it's May 16th. Today is "Teacher's Day" in Mexico. We've decided that May is the most festive month of the year here. Yesterday, Esteban and I were counting the holidays. I'm sure I'm missing some, but here are what I remember: May 3 -- Labor Day, May 5 -- "cinco de Mayo", May 10 -- Mother's Day, May 16 -- Teacher's Day, May 26 -- something else, I think it's students' day. Each of these holidays warrants a day off of school AND since Labor Day and the 5th of May are so close together, they just cancel school for the whole week. And they wonder why the kids here don't read!

Anyway, today I wanted to share a special day with you...yesterday was the first day of hurricane season! Hurrah! Here's a photo of what we like to see when we check hurricane activity online:

Happy Hurricane season, everyone!!!

Rebecca the Web-Master...NOT!

Well, here's a Tackle it Tuesday which doesn't involve housework. I'm beginning to think that I prefer the housework!!! Generally speaking I like projects, but this was a project which just kept growing everytime I turned around!!!

First, a bit of history...

Last November Doug and I began to talk seriously about building a website for our ministry. I searched all over the web looking for domains we could afford (read that: free), but couldn't find anything I thought we would be happy with. Then I ran across a really great Christian web host called Christian Web Host (original, eh?). Their service looked like it would be just what we were searching for. But it was out of our price range. Anyway, I sent a note to the webmaster and he replied that they would be willing to gift us 6 months of webhosting and waive the start-up fee because we were a non-profit ministry. Woo-hoo! Then began the fun of webpage construction. That is also about the time that I discovered how much I DIDN'T know about HTML, HTM, WWW and WYSIWYG. Reading through various web tutorials left my head swimming!

Then I stumbled upon Blogger and immediately fell in love. Point and click! No initials! I love it! So I began to build this blog. It was going pretty well and Doug suggested that I build one for the ministry, too. Still...in the back of my mind...I was missing something...there's just something about having your very own domain name! ;^)

Just after Christmas, I started teaching myself HTML. Well, I couldn't teach myself, so I went surfing and found a couple of great sites. Dave's site was/is a great way to learn basic HTML (hyper text mark-up language...I DID learn something!). The kids are even going through the tutorial and Caleb is having a blast playing with his blog! You just have to ignore all the advertising...at least there weren't any naked ladies! Robert over at self-promotion was another fount of information. [and I might also add that his site is the first web site I have EVER visited where I didn't find a single typo, misspelled word or incorrect verb usage. I'm sure his 8th grade English teacher would be proud!]

Well, the long and the short of it is this: I finally uploaded a working webpage on Tuesday, April 29...2 days before my May 1 deadline! Believe me, it was quite a tackle. I fought and fought with this *site* (bless its heart!) for the better part of Tuesday and to be totally honest it's been a 3 month battle. My biggest problem has just been ignorance (mine!), but at least I can learn! There's hope for me yet!

This blog and our ministry blog have been SUCH blessings because they actually WORK. I've even been able to get creative, thanks to Dave and Robert! I will for sure be keeping the blogs -- I know when I have a good thing! But now I can say that I have built a webpage...and I REALLY appreciate a good webpage when I see one now. Never again will I take those cool graphics and smooth layouts for granted!!!

SOOOO...
I have a favor to ask --
If you're bored and feel like spending a few minutes looking at more photos of red-headed missionary kids, would you go check out our site and search through it for broken links, typos, errors or things that could be better. For example, looking at it last night I noticed that a photo on the Las Glorias page was doubled. How did I do that? I don't know. I also noticed that our Oregon mailing address on the contact page is the same as our Mexican mailing address. I do know how I did that. I'll fix those on Saturday. Just post a comment here if you find any other oopseys. I've looked at it so much that I no longer see anything. It's all a blur.

My other problem has been our connection speed. We have dial-up. We have dial-up like what we had in Po-dunk, Oregon, 15 years ago. So, getting websites with lots of photos or graphics to load in anything like a reasonable time is a challenge. I finally got our site small enough that it at least loads here...slowly. For most of the world, that isn't an issue, but if it is sluggish to load for anyone else but me, I'd like to know that, too.

Thanks ahead of time to those valientes who will dare to check us out on the world wide web! FLOW international

All comments and constructive criticisms welcome!!!