Sunday Family Party

Hey everyone, Carrie here. I never could figure out how to post so I hi-jacked Nikkie's account. Jessie and the Rick McKay family had a goodbye party and I was the annoying one with the camera last Sunday so I thought I would share some of the pictures. For Dave and Kim you guys can have some updated pictures.



Jessie's pretty (and yummy) Army cake

Jessie and the Browns, Jeff and Katie

Jessie and Aunt Margaret

Jessie and Cathy

Jessie and Lori

Reid Girls... look at all that red hair!

Awwww sweet picture! This is right after Daniel jumped off the balcony to the love sack so we are all thrilled he didn not break legs, arms or his head.

Boys being boys.

Famous McKay Bridge match going on. I think I heard Jeff and Katie winning that round!

Grandma Chris and Little Abigail. (She's going to kill me for posting this picture!)

We couldn't look less alike. Never would guess we're siblings!

Cute Minson family

Cute McKay Family with Grandma

Are these two really twins?!?

Brad and the newest Reid, Abigail. Despite numerous ear infections she was a very happy baby on Sunday!

Maggie and Jakey

Carrie found this picture and thought it was too cute not to post.

Bob

This little guy arrived at our house today.  Maggie named him Bob.  Bob didn't make it through the day.  A large jug of bleach was "accidentally" dropped on him.  He did not recover from his wounds.  We have all been able to move past our sorrow from his lost quite quickly.

A few photos...

When asked what she wanted to be this year Maggie surprised us with her response of "a bird".  So Traci whipped up a bird costume.

Abraham, who loves Pirates of the Caribbean, was Bootstrap Bill Turner.

Vivan made a beautiful Cleopatra

I'm sure many have seen this already because I put it on facebook but I figured it needed to be permanently fixed to this blog. 

One of Traci's friends here is a yoga instructor and she and Traci have begun co-teaching a kid's yoga class at our house.  They originally sent out an email just to see if anyone would come.  I returned home from work that first time to find 19 kids doing yoga in the house.  Strangely, future classes will most certainly coincide with me working late.

Every year the Marines, who act as embassy security, hold a Marine Ball to celebrate the creation of the Marine Corps. It is surprisingly serious business.  Traci looked spectacular.  The day before the party I found a place that would rent me a tux.  The last time I wore a tux was in 1989 at Rick and Lori's wedding.  Traci, who loves to dance and has been neglected by her husband for 13 years, finally got me to dance.  My half of our dancing was not pretty but it turned out to be a fun evening. 

Abe went on his first scout campout last week.  In the spirit of high adventure they camped on the soccer field at the embassy.  Certainly the most secure campout ever.

This one's for Lance.  A couple of weeks ago we had the day off because it was the El Salvador version of Memorial day.  We thought we'd head to the beach.  Soon we found ourselves in the heaviest traffic that we've seen here.  We soon learned how seriously Salvadorans take visiting the cemetery on that day.  Every car on this road, except us, eventually turned into the cemetery or parked on the road to enter by foot.  This traffic was about two miles long.  We were glad to finally get past the cemetery and be the only ones at the beach.

Simon and our new puppy, Blue, are like twin brothers.  They have a special relationship in which they take turns making disasters all over the house.  They fight constantly.  Simon will walk up behind him and pull his hair or approach from the front and kick him the face.  Blue will often walk up to Simon and just bite him as he passes or he'll just knock him over for no apparent reason.  We've taken to calling Simon "brother dog".

Big brothers are responsible for teaching little brothers the finer things in life.

When we first saw the size of this bath tub we were really excited.  It's size, however, makes giving Simon a bath rather difficult.  While trying to rinse Simon's hair Traci leaned a bit too far and ended up like this.  I immediately came running to help, with the camera.

Took this yesterday.  El Salvador has it's problems. Beauty isn't one of them.

De Mujer a Mujer

So if you were to have asked me five years ago where I thought I'd be and what I thought I'd be doing 5 years from then you may have gotten a few different answers.  One answer that you definitely would not have gotten is: "I think I'll be on a national talk show called 'From Woman to Woman'" (De Mujer a Mujer)  When I say "national" talk show remember that El Salvador is roughly the size of Massachusets but it's more fun to say "national".

There are 7 million Salvadorans in the world and 2 million of them are in the United States.  Many went illegally but now have a special status called "TPS" or "Temporary Protected Status".  Those that went during the civil war or were in the states at the time of the big earthquake in 2001 were granted this protection by the U.S. government because they basically didn't have a country to be deported back to.  With TPS they are able to work legally in the U.S.  TPS by it's definition is supposed to be a temporary protection but it keeps getting renewed.  It is currently up for renewal in Congress.  17% of El Salvador's GDP comes from money sent back to family from Salvadorans working in the U.S.  So as you can guess it is in the economic interest of El Salvador to keep that TPS status valid as long as possible.  Earlier this month the Foreign Minister officially asked the U.S. to grant a whole new round of TPS to illegal immigrants in the U.S. due to the devastating flooding that occurred here in October.

With such a large percentage of Salvadorans living in the U.S. everybody, and I mean everybody, has family in the states.  And with so much family in the U.S. everyone wants a tourist visa.  Just under half of all the illegal immigrants in the U.S. (not just from El Salvador) did not cross the border illegally, but instead entered legally on a tourist visa and then never went home.  That fact makes it more difficult to obtain a tourist visa than most visa applicants would like.  During a visa interview applicants must convince the consul that their economic, social, and family ties to their own country are sufficient to guarantee their return following a short trip to the U.S.  That can be difficult to do.  There are many that apply for a visa who see it as their ticket to live permanently in the states.  But there are many others who sincerely want to visit aunts, grandparents, kids, etc and then get home as soon as possible.  Determining the actual intentions can be tough.  With such a high demand, how to obtain a tourist visa is always a hot topic of conversation.

And so occasionally someone from the embassy will appear on a television show to answer visa related questions.  A colleague of mine and I went on this past week. You would think with a show title of "From Woman to Woman" they would have wanted someone else, but apparently my estrogen level was high enough to be invited. We were on for 30 minutes.  Apparently there were enough callers with questions that we could have stayed on for much longer. 30 minutes were plenty for me.  I have already received feedback that I needed to sit up straight (I blame the chair) and Vivian's main feedback was, "Dad, your head was really shiny." 

Unfortunately, I've tried many times to load it onto this blog but it just won't load.  Which is too bad because me on television is hilarious.  Apparently my right hand was shaking for the first couple of minutes.  My desire to avoid public relations was definitely solidified this week. 

    



Hey guys check out what my little bro did! Pretty cool.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=18033467&title=west-high-students-invent-biodiesel-fuel-process

Stake Conference, sort of.

So today was stake conference. It has never been one of my favorite Sundays of the year.  Our stake center, which is also our ward building, shares a parking lot with the newly dedicated temple here.  So what do you do when your stake center is next to the temple and the conference is entirely in Spanish and 5 out of the 6 members of the family don't speak Spanish and it's frankly too long to ask kids to sit there and not understand anything? You skip the meeting, go next door to the temple, and take a bunch of photos.  Here's a few.

I am NOT a bug!

They dress me up like an insect and then forget to give me the candy...something's wrong with this picture!

...Maddie's first Halloween experience.

Swimming 24/7

We have been underwater for the last week.  A tropical storm hit Mexico last week and as it did the rest of Central America caught the effects.  The tropical storm was immediately followed by a tropical depression.  I don't really know what that means.  Anyway it started raining about a week ago and hasn't stopped since.  When I say rain I mean constant, unending water plunging from the sky.  It has really only been an inconvenience for us since we live so close to where I work and our house is in a good spot away from any flood plain.  However for much of the country it has been horrible. Perhaps the biggest problem has been the landslides.  Bridges have been washed away and thousands have been displaced.  President Funes came on the t.v. on Saturday pleading with people who live in locations that have been evacuated to actually leave. Guatemala and Honduras are experiencing similar problems.  All schools have been closed since last Wednesday.  We've been really lucky to be in a good location and on Saturday we were able to get out to dinner and some fun for Vivian's birthday.  When we got to church yesterday they held sacrament meeting and then cancelled the other meetings and asked any one who could to go to another chapel where an effort to put together clothing and food for displaced families was taking place.  Traci and I took the kids home and then headed off to that chapel.  We arrived ready to work but soon realized that when you ask a bunch of mormons to serve you often have too good a turnout.  Below is a photo I snapped at the chapel.  The rain continued today and the kids' school is cancelled again tomorrow.  The schools are mostly closed due to the transportation dangers caused by flooding, landslides, bridges.  And just in case grandma reads this let me reiterate that we live in a safe location and have been unaffected by the dangers.   They say this could go on for a couple of more days.  Hopefully the rain will end and soon the sun will come out and offer a reprieve to all those that are suffering. 

New member of the family

So perhaps the biggest mistake that we made in this whole moving to DC and then out of the country thing was giving up Penasco.  At one point last Spring we tried to get him back but to no avail.  We learned the hard way that when you move your kids all over the place getting rid of their dog does not help with the emotional trauma that is already occurring.  So a few months ago we promised the kids that we would get another dog once we got settled in El Salvador.  It took us a while to find the right dog. But yesterday we finally made good on that promise. 

This is Blue.  Named for his one blue eye.  He is a german shepherd siberian husky mix.  He's like a baby, no worse.  I was up all night last night listening to him cry like an infant.  I almost put him out with the trash this morning.  But he is pretty cute.  Oh, we never really learn do we.

Just a few pics

Moving out of the country has definitely brought us closer together as a family.  Sometimes that means piling on top of each other on the couch.

Recipe for a relaxing day at the beach: 1) a lovely hammock 2) beautiful weather 3) some dude standing behind you with a large gun he may or may not be trained to use.

I just really liked this picture.

So, San Salvador is a pretty congested, urban city.  But you don't have to travel too far outside the city before this is the typical view out the car window.  I gotta say, that's a handsome cow.

Way to go, Jessie!

The Salt Lake Tribune article on Utah crime was pretty mundane, but the pictures were fabulous. Way to go, Jessie! They picked the perfect poster child to represent Sandy City! Pretty awesome!

Grandpa

Hey Family!
I have not posted on here yet but I was lying in bed and thinking about Grandpa. I recently visited Salt Lake and saw Grandma. As usual the presence of Grandpa was around. Lately I have wished that I got to know Grandpa as well as most of you did. Most of us younger grandkids did not get to know the real Grandpa because he was sick for a very long time. I want to know who my Grandfather really was. I remember when I was a little kid before Grandpa got too sick we made some tapes of him reading to us. I was wondering if we still had those or if they had gotten lost? If someone has a copy is there anyway to post them on one of the blogs or make a copy for the grandkids who do not get to remember Grandpa for who he truly was. Thanks you guys! I hope you are all doing well.
Love, Nikkie

See Turtles, Sea Turtles

Yesterday we spent the afternoon cleaning up a beach in preparation for a sea turtle release.  A local charity cares for a strip of beach which is a long used area for sea turtles to lay their eggs.  The turtles return every year and this group fences off the area to keep predators out.  I was really proud of the kids as they worked really hard cleaning the beach.  Then they got to release the turles and we watched as they made their instinctive and surprisingly quick bolt for the ocean.

They say that they're very worried because each year fewer and fewer turtles are returning.  It was a great experience.

And I just loved this picture.