Keeping up with the Kiddos: All Our Mexes Lived in Texas

It's a curious thing, March. A month of transitions from winter to spring, within which I recount 4 months worth of transitions, from Texas to ultimately Mexico. That word "transition" has been carrying its weight these past few years, and no less so than since I last wrote...let's talk about that!

We finally got to meet one of the Evvyies! The Courtney/Kevin one was chock full of adorbs when we drove from the valley up to Plano, TX for Thanksgiving. I ran a real race (5K) for the first time in years, Erin and Kevin and Courtney too, and then we had numerous amazing meals to follow that made the running all worthwhile. One day we perused the famously beautiful Arboretum, another we played board games, ate authentic brisket, and had a chilly evening campfire (chilly woohoot!). And all the way down and back we listened to Harry Potter defeating the wily evils of Mr. Lord Voldemort for the 5th time.

Then about a week or two later, we were all done! It was the formal end to many friendships, Spanish learning, and Dad school to boot. We had to say some very hard goodbyes, and it's amazing how close we got with others in a year. Much like Grove City College, those farewells felt like a perfect bow tied on a wonderful and powerful year of learning and growing and some amazing living situation that was always temporary but forever memorable.

Dec 6 Budget Christmas

Dim's gonna miss that pole

DQ for running presidential mile times! Plus Dim.

"Pretend you ate a gillyweed"

The library crew celebrates Ezzy in the ping pong shack

EcuaMex dinner!

Los extrañamos, vecinos!

So we packed twice (one little pack for the North, one big pack for the South), left our quaint Texas cottage and flew to Cleveland, where we were met by a 11pm blizzard and some brave Schumachers who bested the storm to rescue us. We spent a week with the Moroney's, acclimatizing and lathering on chapstick before embarking on our PA Christmas road trip! We shared lots of memories and illnesses in Carlisle, between board games, Bill's bar, and a Sopher's bday stromboli in the new Dombach kitchen to name a few. On to Greensburg where we celebrated Christmas, the new year, my birthday with sushi, Pappy's birthday with a brunch buffet, and discovered Urban Air...

Gladiating at Urban Air

At Morelands at Waterworks

An assortment of gingerbread legs

OLLLLLLLLLLD school Catan with Dombachs

Lounging Capital One style @ DFW

So then there was the rest of the stay in Ohio, a wonderful 4-5 weeks with visits to many lovely Parksiders, nearly a different dinner invite every night toward the end of that time! We were so blessed by the Schutters who lent us their house while in Florida; what a wonderful calm home base. We soaked up North Canton library for all it's worth, bringing home 50-100 books each week plus board games. The mid-Jan snowstorm brought huge plow mountains right to our front yard, and the kids enjoyed that and hot cocoa nearly everyday for a week, tunneling out mole homes and making snowmen. Big news: Elia started becoming a youth grouper! And the Dombachs visited us again for an action-packed few days. Oh, and pickleball at the YAC became my personal anthem (not pictured).

Visiting the Schumachers, borrowing all their gear

Getting in our veggies

Ok that's enough snow

North Canton Public Library Heaven

One of few away-cooked meals

Extended family

Lion King at the Akron Civic Theater

By early February we were getting restless and ready to get down to brass tacks. Thus began the journey we had been preparing for 3 years, Mission Impossible style (cue music):

Step 1: Daddy flies to Texas and sheds the winter coat

Step 2: Friends help load all our stuff into Ulysses the U-haul

Step 3: Daddy drives said U-haul 12 hours all the way to El Paso

Step 4: Other nice men help unload, reload, drive and then unload everything in Mazatlan

Step 5: Mommy and kids fly from OH to Mazatlan

Step 6: Goobers unite!

Step 7: Weeks of unpacking

Now we've been in Mazatlan for almost 2 months, and we've definitely built some memories here already. We've helped four missions trips team who have come through the base to serve at churches all over the city. Mimi and Grandpap visited for a week and we lived a bit like tourists. We have started going to a church called Sión (Zion) and feeling a bit like regulars there, now that we've stayed for Sunday long afternoon lunch, Elia sang a solo during service, Sophia is taking violin lessons, and we compose about 10% of the congregation. The kids have enjoyed spending time with other missionary kids, getting to know the teams that come, eating Tia's dinners and special drinks, exploring the city with us, and getting back to homeschooling, for which the curriculum is rapidly coming to a close!

VBS with Iglesia de Dios and LifePoint

Happy birthday piñata party!

Dimmy becoming a Mexican resident

We're finally (temporary) Mexican (residency visa holders)!

Post-church fish fry with Hugo and Zion compas

Rare aquatic creatures at the Acuario

Rock hopping at Cerritos

Gelatos at La Machado

One of those many awesome days at Stone Island!

Now to our roster: Elia has been quietly finding herself as we bushwhack our way through new jungles. We're so proud of her, as she faces some of the bigger challenges of adjusting to a new culture while encroaching on her teen years. She has taken on a new interest of baking in the form of something less hot: cake mugs, with taste tester Dad who is happy with his lot. She has loved reading and listening to audio books, and we're hoping to find ways to get her out into the community before long. For now, she is content to build awesome things out of Legos, cardboard, what-have-you, and create wild imaginative worlds for her story characters, film more Videos with Dim, and when possible, hang out with Mom and Dad.

Birthday celebration with Mimi and Grandpap!

A Holiday Inn Express for Pants the once-upon-a-time Cat

Elia's hair is Mommy's Legos

Elia's room during our visit to Ohio

Gonna fly now

With Evie!

Dad and Elia's spectacular sushi buffet experience

Mud: decidedly less delicious than sushi

Sophia has the same roots, new fruits. We still long to get her into dance, but she's picked up at least three new hobbies and interests just since arriving. First, her famously water-bottle-cluttering bracelet-making has transitioned from loading up Dimmy's wrists to loading up her own piggy bank, as she began selling them to visiting teams, trying her hand as an entrepreneur! Second, she started taking violin lessons from Mafer, the daughter of the pastor at Zion, and is stoked beyond belief, us for her as well. Third, while Elia and Dad use Room of Requirement 31 for working out, Sophia now joins mom in sewing and quilting in that new craft space, and we couldn't be more pleased to have that extension of our home...the 3rd floor basement we always wanted. Probably many more interests to name, but she is limited by the whole 24 hour day thing (for now).

Feeding acorns to ducks

Contemplative

Unsure about animals

Sophia was Elia's neighbor

Captivated

Urban Air

Bouldering Bay! At the Rock Mill

A super handy wreath craft with Spanish tutor Miss Andy

Magical Room 31

Ezra has not lost a bounce in the move. He is eager to traverse the far reaches of the mathematical kingdom and will not settle for estimates, and is probably finishing his Good and the Beautiful grade 3 material today, on top of his daily Beast Academy and the fact that it's still March. He loves to greet the morning and Tia and Araceli, our built-in Spanish tutors. He's been looking for strangers all over Mexico and still hasn't found one. We hope to get him into running track over at Colegio Sam later this year. For now I try to bring him into whatever Dad stuff I'm doing at the base, grilling meats or building his awesome new rock wall. He still loves board games, perhaps more than ever, and I'm excited to find longer days in which to teach him and the girls some of our more advanced games (if he can find a tush on which to sit for more than 10 minutes).

TX bday trampoline park with Timothy

Meeting his long-lost brother

"I wanna be where the people are..."

Tourists in our hometown, learning what is football

Dombach cookie crafts

huh

Just about the fastest 8 year old in all of Texas

Then there's Dim, a Sourpatch Kids firecracker who doesn't believe she's in Mexico. Dimmy is chugging hard through speech therapy with Oma each week, and as she'll soon learn, is about to start piano lessons with Dad here soon. The rest of her time she flip-flops between calmly doing art at her art desk (one of just about 3 pieces of furniture we brought with us) and tyranically sitting on her siblings and goading them into trouble until they all get kicked outside. But that's where she wants to be--swimming in the pool all hours of the day, or until ice cream arrives. We're all still figuring her out, but if we met her on the street we'd know for certain that she's a youngest child.