Wish Dad Was Here...

Lance and I went walking in Boston last week. As we walked through the Boston Gardens, I felt like I had been there before. Then we realized that this was the park where the story "Make Way For Ducklings" happened. There are even larger-than-life statues of Mrs. Mallard and all her ducklings. Some of my fondest memories are of Dad reading this story to us as children, and also as "Grandpa" reading this story at the cabin to his grandchildren.

Great Memories!

New pictures of Maddie

We just wanted to post some pictures of Maddie for those of you who do not live close and do not see her often. We cannot believe how fast she is growing up. She just passed the 7 month mark.

Update from down south

Thought I'd post a few pictures and catch everyone up on the last couple of months down here. Nothing too interesting to report, just chugging along.  The weather is still nice but it's getting a bit hotter, I think we were 93 today which is about the hottest we've been. Apparently March and April are the hottest months of the year.  May begins the rainy season and it will be welcome when it arrives.  It hasn't rained a single drop since Halloween.  My guess is the rainy season will do it's best to make up for the last few months of cloudless skies. Work is good and the kids are doing well in school.  Maggie is all healed up from her 8 stitches on the back of her head.  Anyway here are a few pictures.  I apologize for always posting so many.

In January Abraham did a great job making his regatta boat for scouts. As you can see the kid is getting pretty passionate about Utah football. I saw today that the next movie to come from Netflix is the 2008 Sugar Bowl.  You know he's a fan when he's watching replays of games from 4 years ago.  The regatta turned out great. 

Maggie's working hard in school. Frankly, Traci and I think that her school is a bit overly demanding of a Kindergartner.  She's on the bus by 6:30 every morning and this is what happens in the evening.

Last Sunday was election day. All legislative and mayoral seats were up for re-election.  Politics is pretty hot down here.  Elections take on a party atmosphere. They do it on a Sunday so that everyone can be available to vote. I think it's a great idea rather than making people fit it into their normal busy schedule like we do in the states.  I was assigned to be an election observor so I spent the day "observing" the elections in two different cities.  I was impressed by the enthusiasm everyone brought to the experience. This is a photo of the street outside the voting location.  Vendors and the entire population of the city hit the street for the vote.  Those voting bring their kids right up to the booth, some kids even entering the booth.  Great to see kids taking a part in the democratic process at such a young age.

The scouts were there.  In a country where so many kids enter violent street gangs as early as age 9 it was so fun to talk to these scouts who were so excited and eager to serve. 

So there are three main political parties.  The far left party is the FMLN. During the civil war they were the guerillas fighting the government. At the peace accords in 1992 they ceased fighting and formed an official political party. The current president is a member of this party.  In the U.S. we tend to keep our political preference quiet on election day, we quietly enter the booth, cast our vote, and go to work.  Here people were wearing the party colors and the party propaganda was plastered everywhere.  As you can see from the photo above no one is safe from becoming party propaganda.

Maggie loves dog so much!

Simon and his Mom on a swing by the ocean

So sometime in the last few years I became kind of a sissy when it comes to camping. I used to love to hike for a few miles then pitch a tent by a lake with only my scout troop for miles around.  I still enjoy camping but now I prefer a campground with some bathrooms nearby.  So when we got to this site for Abe's scout campout last month I knew that I found the right country to camp in. 

This is how scout camping should be.

We drag our kids to the beach twice a month.  Growing up in Utah I never understood people's connection to the beach and ocean.  I'm beginning to now. But a couple of months ago Viv and Abe got caught in a riptide and the lifeguard and I had to go out and get them.  It was hard to get them back in. The ocean is a powerful thing.  Where were you Derek when we needed you?  Anyway it all ended up fine but it spooked Viv pretty good.  That experience was followed by her class doing a section on Tsunamis.  Viv is working to make her way back to the ocean, for now she's just enjoying the beach, not so much the water.

Simon, who is otherwise fearless to a fault, also is not a big fan of the water.  He likes the beach but runs screaming any time the water approaches him.  This is the look of concern that he has whenever confronted by the ocean.

A very SPECIAL picture

I couldn't help but to post this picture. It sums up the personality of our family :)

A Big Thanks

It's been four years now. This guy has been on my mind a lot this week. I wanted to just give a big shout out to Mom for writing more on their life together, Chris & Carrie for re-typing Dad's autobiography, and to Becky for spending countless hours pulling it altogether. Seriously I think if we added up the time Becky spent it might just be entire weeks of her life. What an amazing gift each of you has done for the rest of the family. I can't wait to see the final product.

THANK YOU!!!!!

So wait, what are you doing again?

So over the past year or two since Traci and I started working on getting this new job I've been asked many times to explain what it is that we're doing.  It can be hard to explain.  Recently there was an article written in BYU magazine describing the foreign service and specifically examples of BYU grads in the foreign service.  I think it's an interesting article that describes what life is like for some as well as being a member of the church in the service. Thought I'd post it here.  If it is the most boring thing in the world please forgive me and please don't feel at all pressured to read it.
http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=2986

Update and photos

It's been a while since we've posted anything.  We're still chugging along down here.  We had a nice holiday season other than we missed everyone horribly.  It was tough talking to you all on Christmas day.  I think we've done better than expected when it comes to homesickness but those special days when we know everyone is together are tough.  We had hoped to go out of town for the Christmas weekend but I ended up as duty officer for the embassy. Much like the mortuary someone has to have the embassy phones at all times so officers take turns "on duty" after hours.  I was the lucky one who drew the short straw and we had to stay within an hour of the embassy.  Being duty officer was the first responsible that I have actually felt prepared to do well.  After years of mortuary calls I felt ready for just about anything.  It turned out to be very quiet and we were able to enjoy a really nice Christmas.
Christmas and New Years here are definitely a different experience.  On Christmas Eve the kids wanted to sleep in sleeping bags in the living room so they could be as close as possible to the presents when they woke up the next morning.  They understood well the doctrine that Santa can't come until kids are asleep so by about 10pm they were in their sleeping bags trying to fall asleep.  Then the bombing started.  For the next 3-4 hours the entire city shook.  Imagine the most enthusiastic firework lovers and absolutely no restrictions on fireworks.  They lived by the mantra of the louder the explosion the more fun you must be having.  The kids got pretty scared laying in their sleeping bags.  Finally we decided to embrace the experience and we went outside to be part of the action.  Silent Night was not being sung anywhere in town.  After a time it began to seem like an oddly appropriate demonstration of celebration for the night.  Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess and the loudest noise display shall sound.....
At work December was a busy time.  One thing that I've been surprised to have found myself doing is public affairs outreach.  In a two weeks time I had to appear on 7 different radio shows and then make a second appearance on the Mujer a Mujer (woman to woman) television show, this time by myself.  Way out of my comfort zone.  Next month I will be going out to different cities as an election monitor to look for potential election fraud.  It's all fun stuff that I never anticipated doing.
The kids are doing well in school.  Vivian, last month received an award for Outstanding Citizenship.  Abraham has singlehandedly introduced and converted the British school he attends to American Football.  The entire fourth grade now plays it every recess and before Abe's arrival they hardly knew what it was. That kid will be a great missionary some day.  Maggie just had her birthday, now a six year old.  And Simon has been a walking accident (see photo below).  Traci has been taking tennis lessons and is loving it.  And based on the enthusiastic declarations of her spanish speaking teacher she apparently is the next Chris Everett.
This past weekend we were able to leave the country for the first time.  We drove to Guatemala and had a wonderful time in Antigua.  It is a remarkable and beautiful old city and best of all it is safe to walk around in so we thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of moving and milling around. 
I'll post some pictures from the last few weeks.  Most are from our trip to Guatemala.  I apologize if it's too many.

I don't know if these are in the States, I'd never seen them before, but they're all over down here.  The kids love 'em.  This and the following photo were taken at the embassy Christmas party.

All the kids have gotten pretty good.

I once went to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert and the lead singer couldn't stop drinking long enough to sing. Maybe Simon has a singing career ahead of him. 

Blue and Maggie exhausted.

The one sure way to always make Simon happy is to read him a book.  Being with one of his siblings does it too.

Last week Simon slipped in the bathtub and bit through his tongue. It was really gross and kind of scary. Then on Tuesday of this week he was trying to climb into the car and fell out onto the garage floor. We didn't know what was wrong with him but finally took him to the e.r.  Turns out he broke his collar bone.  This picture shows how he generally feels about having his arm constricted.  Face is not injured but just covered in chocolate.

So for years our kids have been timed out by putting their noses on the wall.  Maggie was having a time out the other night when Simon decided that he too needed to be punished, really punished.

Just liked this picture

For Maggie's birthday she wanted to have a chocolate puppy party. Traci made more chocolate than was humanly possible to consume and yet somehow we managed.

Part of the fun on the trip to Guatemala was our hilarious fellow travellers.  We were behind this bus for a few miles on a steep narrow winding road.  Perhaps my favorite few miles of driving ever.

Who needs a horse trailer.  We watched this horse lean into turns.  You could almost see his thoughts saying "good grief".

We found a beautiful hotel in Antigua. Not a bad view.

This is the fountain in the main plaza in Antigua (I'm sure those of you who've been there remember it well).  As we approached it for the first time Traci said, "somewhere nearby there must be a little stone baby crying."  Comic gold.

Loved walking the cobblestone streets

The four best kids

I'm thinking this would be a great addition to the Larkin showroom.  Traci really wanted to buy it and put it in the living room in front of our couch as our "coffin" table.

We also really enjoyed the cool evenings.  It had been a while since any of us had worn a sweatshirt.

Most beautiful pool ever.

After a lot of walking.

A city full of little trinkets for sale is a big hit with kids.  I told the kids not to give into the somewhat aggressive street vendors.  I figured I'd have to be the strong one who just said no.  About 10 minutes into our first walk down the street a ten year old boy named Melvin said to me in Spanish "Mister please buy this wooden flute and put food on my table."  We are now the owners of two wooden flutes.

The toughest part of the trip was that Simon wanted to be walking at all times. The problem was he never wanted to go in the same direction as the rest of us.  So we basically followed him around for 2 days.

We finally said we wanted a picture of just Traci and me.  Didn't know until later that Maggie had snuck in.  I think I like it this way.