Jessie, Jojo, Teri, and Jeanette making Christmas cookies

The girls were giving me lots of moral support

and sampling everything...

They would help mix things, but I had to make sure that everyone "stirred" things for the same amount of time, or else there were problems.

Jojo - quality control

rolling out sugar cookies with Teri

a full day's work

we made 7 different types of cookies/candies, and passed out 40 plates of Christmas treats to friends and neighbors

Christmas Eve - The big celebration here is at midnight on the 24th. I didn't think they'd make it, but the girls stayed awake until midnight. Here, Jessie's burning sparklers. At midnight, the fireworks were incredible, the night erupting with the sound of firecrackers from every house, and the air full of smoke. Quite an experience. At midnight, hugs all around, and then everyone shares a tamale.

Jojo, enjoying the sparklers. She was singing "twinkle twinkle little star" in Spanish.

Christmas morning - opening presents.

playing with their Christmas presents - they were having a hard time sharing...

on the boat, on the way over to the restaurant for Christmas dinner

Jessie, playing with her toys in the restaurant while we served Christmas dinner - Jojo was taking a much-needed nap.

The 4 cousins sporting their ice cream outfits from Donna and Aaron

Jojo's 2nd birthday party

Jessie taking a swing at the pinata

the girls sporting their alaska outfits from grandma

Jojo helping daddy make bread

the girls and our neighbors playing out on the patio

playing with kitty lenca

jojo playing house with grandpa guillermo

jessie and jojo with their cousins, alejandra and margorie, eating lunch at our house

I haven't updated this since I started it, so I'll start out with putting some random pictures over the past year...The girls eating pizza on the patio.

Drawing with some of our neighbors

Alyssa fell on the steps - here she's showing off her 3 stitches that we put in on our kitchen table.

Jessie washing dishes at the restaurant

Alyssa on her first day at the university (with her dad)

the girls eating their breakfast.

downstairs...now

The stairs , door to the utility room, and our new refrigerator...

This is the new "bar" we had made, with storage underneath...

The view of the bar and stove, looking from the kitchen to the living room..

This is the top of our new mahoganny bar, which was made from wood that was going to be thrown away, and we are so happy with.

downstairs - after

We took out the wall that separated the the kitchen and the bedroom, and they put this majoganny table up to separte the two...

Another view of the wall we took out...

And another...




The wall this guy took out right here separated the front room from the bedroom

This now looks from the kitchen to the living room

downstairs - before

The far door that you see in this picture is the front door, and the room that this was taken from was previously a bedroom...

This is the front window of the bedroom, which looks out to the front of the house and the soccer field..

The front door to the house, the wall that shares with the bedroom, and you can see the division for the kitchen.

When you walked into the house, this was the kitchen, looking straight ahead as you walked into the house, and the wall where the pots are hanging is the wall for the bedroom...it no longer exists

the kitchenette, which is to the left of the previous photo. The two door in the corner go the the bathroom and the laundry area. You can see the base of the stairs to the far left.
This picture is taken to the far right as you walk into the house. These are the stairs of which you see the base of in the previous picture...

our house - outside

the view from across the soccer field

the front of the house
this is the back porch - pictures later of where we fixed it up a bit...

this is the back door - more pix to come when we finally get around to working here...

the artists