There was something extra wonderful and special about our visit back home this time. And I think it primarily had to do with our newest addition. Can I just tell you how fun it was to show her off? Watching her meet her aunts, uncles, cousins, great grandparents, friends, kids of our friends, everyone! It was delightful. And of course she loved every minute of it-wouldn’t you if you were the center of attention for three weeks straight? She was spoiled rotten, and we soaked it all up. Saying goodbye this time was extra hard, knowing she will change so much in the few months between our next visit.
Highlights from our three weeks are shown below in picture from. There is no way I can write out all the fun and wonderful things we did, so here are some pictures that tell the story of our most recent visit home. I didn’t hold back, there are a lot of photos!!
This was waiting for us when we pulled up to Brandon’s parents house!!She was fascinated with Great Grandpa & Grandma (This Grandma is where she got her middle name-it’s Grandmas middle name and her mom’s first name too)Meeting Aunt Kelsey and Uncle Reid. Kelsey was in heaven, since she has a little boy Taj, she loved spoiling her little niece!Taj checking out his cousin. He wasn’t sure what he thought. Every time Kelsey held her, he would calmly walk up to her and say, “mama, don’t hold her”. ! It was a crack up!!Meeting Uncle Ben and Aunt Ashley. Actually wearing a cute outfit they got her for one of my showers!!Grammy just soaking her up! And Eliana loving listening to her sing, talk and play with her!!We got to meet up with dear friends, Darcy, Tina, Kelly and the husbands too. Oh how we cherish them!!Erik (who actually used to be a baker!!) made this beautiful cake for Eliana!! How sweet is that??Grandma and Eliana. These two are a crack up to watch, and she taught her this little trick too-it was too fun to watch.Aunt Barbie & Uncle Ken holding her. Oh how sweet it was to watch her rock Eliana to sleep-she has the touch!It was a treat to see Jerry and MaryAnn, who were visiting all the way from Arizona!My mom surprised us ladies and took us all out to this fancy lunch in Fallbrook-it was simply beautiful.They do weddings here, but we had no idea you could come for lunch. Thanks for such a fun surprise mom!!We went to Big Bear with my family, it was SO fun!! This is the craziness that was 11 of us staying in a cabin together! We had such a great time! Grammy even organized tons of fun “Minute to Win it” Games. The kids had a lot of fun…okay let”s be honest, us adults did too! Our competitiveness came out, as some of these games looked so easy, but they were in fact not!This one was super hard-trying to get coke cans on a spaghetti noodle! Ben & Ashley dominated!Carter won this one-stacking the most dice in the shortest time frame…impressive.This one was by FAR the funniest. You had to put this belt on with ping pong balls, and shake them all out. Whoever got all the balls out the fastest won…oh my goodness…we have video of everyone doing it-there is some serious blackmail material in there!!Brandon and Tyler taking their puzzle time very seriously…We went for a hike-and tried out the new backpack carrier!! She loved it. Loved it. I don’t know who was more happy…me because I finally got a break from carrying her, her cause she loved being to high and looking around!Brandon with all the ladies.. !Aunty and Uncle Ryan loved holding Eliana-there kids are a bit older now, so they really enjoyed this stage of her sitting still and snuggling!!Oh she is s.p.o.i.l.e.d.. Bathed by the three of them (Grammy, Ashley and Aunty) cooing and smiling at her!!!Aunt Cortney and Uncle Clinton came down from Seal Beach to love on her too. They are having a baby girl too! Due in January!! Yay for more cousins!!Hanging out with Grandpa at Babies R Us.. she sure thinks he is a hoot!Grandpa put her in one of these mobile toy things-she loooooved it. Batted her eyes and asked for her own! Good thing she lives so far and that thing wouldn’t make it on the plane, or else Grandpa might have been in trouble!!Enjoying a pedicure with Aunt Kelsey!!We got some quality time in with Taj-he sure is a hammy ham!!Eliana loving cuddling with Great Grandma!!
Something I just can’t get enough of: thunderstorms. Maybe it’s because I grew up in California, where we get a good show maybe once every few years. Seriously. People from back east just can’t even comprehend this, since they are spoiled and get them all the time. When we’d sit up on the roof during wild storms in Haiti, our teams would keep on chatting like it was no big deal. When we told them we would maybe, maybe, see a storm half that good every few years in California, they were shocked.
Needless to say, we are those people that stand on the roof, watching lightening strike blocks away from us. It was magical, breath taking, and always left us in awe of our Creator.
And thankfully, we now live in another country that gets the same wild, wicked, amazing storms!! We are in the rainy season now, and with the rain often comes good storms. Last night was one of them. It started fairly early, about 5 pm, and I took Eliana out onto our covered porch, and we watched the display together. I was in awe of the Lord, and burst out singing to him. Eliana actually joined in too. It was so precious. She was jabbering along, as we listened and watched the wonder of the Lord and His mighty hands.
This Psalm came to mind, as it always does when my whole body shakes with the loud claps of thunder.
“Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name, worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars…v.7 The Voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightening…the voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in His temple all cry, “Glory!”
We went on vacation. Like a real vacation vacation. It had been way too long! Technically, we go on vacation when we go back home to visit, and we did that last summer when we both came back from Haiti to the states for a bit. But it’s just not the same. We love, love love to travel, and have missed getting out and exploring a completely new place. And this time it was extra fun, since we met up with some great friends while we there! They were in another Colombia for some work business, and since we live here in Nicaragua, we decided to meet in the middle. It was perfect!
We spent a few days in Panama City by ourselves. We were celebrating our big TEN year anniversary. It was in May, and since Brandon was super busy with a work conference that week, we decided to postpone our Anniversary get away and take some time while we were in Panama. We stayed at this great fancy hotel downtown, and had so much fun going out to yummy restaurants, visiting the Panama Canal, and Brandon even took me shopping. Panama City is known for their shopping-the best in Central America-and they did not disappoint!
Eliana did great on the flight, and thankfully it was only an hour long!!At the Panama Canal. It was pretty cool, and I’m not just saying that. I’m embarrassed to admit, but I didn’t really understand how it worked )how does a giant boat raise and lower like it ain’t no thang? Well, a huge container ship came by and showed me! Pretty incredible.This is the container ship-I got a sweet before and after shot-… But also check out that yacht!!
After it was lowered in the locks.Eliana loved the fancy hotel too! Spoiling her way to young!!She loved her socks! She had never worn socks before (it’s too hot in Leon!) and she found them fascinating!!
Then we met Eric, Dejah, and their two girls in Panama, and we all flew to Bocas del Torro. Oh how we love that family! And it was so fun to meet them somewhere and take a vacation together! We were of course a traveling freak show, with all our crap and three kids…it was great! Whenever Dejah and I are together, someone always ask if we are sisters. Now that we have two girls, only about four months apart, we were stopped all the time by people wondering if our girls were twins! It was hilarious. I think they were extra confused by how tall we are, our dark hair, and both of us wearing our girls in slings/wraps!
We rented this great place, just a few steps from the beach. It was like being in a tree house too, everything was open air-but thankfully screened in-so the whole house is situated in the middle of the trees. It was incredible. Even though it rained pretty much all week-we looked it up and it rains on average 30 inches a month there!!- we didn’t let that deter us! We went out exploring in an awesome off road golf cart, took a boat to another island, spent time at the beautiful beaches, went out to eat, and me and Dejah even went zip lining while our sweet husbands watched the girls!!
At the airport-Brandon & Eliana, Eric and Malena-meeting Eliana for the first time, Malena loved her!!Me, Dejah and Nayeli.The sweet golf cart we rented-itfit all of us, and was perfect for scooting around the island!The girls getting acquainted…So sweet watching them together!!All went well, until Nayeli went in for a side hug and then found her Eliana’s ear and hair ! Pretty funny!Enjoying our first vacation as a family!A view from the couch in the living room. Yes, there is a hammock in the kitchen. Can you imagine who might get the most use out of that as the wife makes dinner…?? The cave. A “looks cool from the outside but are probably creepy things inside” kinda cave. Are there any other kinds of caves?? So us girls decided to stay out while the boys ventured in (Malena changed her mind once they took one step inside!) and it was a good thing too-there were hundreds of bats in there, along with giant spiders. Uh. Nooooo thank you.Yes YES all those tiny black things are BATS. Swarming their heads as they hiked through to the other side.We took a boat ride to another island to explore. It was wet and rainy, but at least not cold! That didn’t matter, we still had a great time at the beach.Enjoying the day togetherDate afternoon! Woot woot. Eric and Dejah watched Eliana for us and we went out for exploring down the road and had some nice alone time. We did the same for them and they spent their alone time on a run…!! I know, that’s what I said!! Impressive!At this great little restaurant in town. The food was amazing.Oh ya, and there are sloths all around there too. I think they are kinda creepy, but they really just look like monkeys. (well, I find monkeys creepy too!!)Me and Dejah zip lining. It was SO fun. I have wanted to go for almost 5 years now, no exaggeration. But every time I want to go, I am with Brandon, and he thinks it’s silly and a great way to die, and I never wanted to go alone. And turns out Dejah too has wanted to go for years also! We were actually walking down the street, saw an advertisement for it, and both shared how we’ve always wanted to go. Well, they offered to watch the girls and finally let us get zip lining out of our system! I will say, now that I’ve done it, I only want to go again!! I looooooooved it.
Jessica Stone 