We had a pretty good Christmas . Ok, it was pretty amazing. There is something about being away from family and friends that makes it that much sweeter when you are back together. It turned into a whirlwind trip, but we enjoyed every minute of it.
My little sister (on the left) waited for us to get back to bless her sweet twin boys. We were so excited to be there and I must say my favorite part of my trip was hanging out with my sisters and my mom (holding those little babies wasn't so bad either).
Santa was good to Caden. It was fun to wake up on Christmas morning with Grandma, Grandpa and Hayley. We had a lot of fun spending a lot of time with them and Tom and I really enjoyed getting some time away from our kids (does it make me a bad mom if I say that aloud?)
Connor was pretty happy with his loot as well (although it was all small enough to fit in a suitcase). Tom and I are enjoying having twice as many toys to clean up every day. Connor is in the 'dumping toys out of every container' stage and we all love it!
We made a lot of these towers with Grandpa Bill's wooden blocks. I wish that I could've brought a suitcase full of them because my boys loved them. Ok, lets be honest they loved knocking them down. Caden and Connor loved playing with all of their cousins and already miss them immensely.
We had to search out the snow. It figures that Utah would have an extremely warm and dry winter the one winter that I am not there. We had a nice little walk in the snow but were not too sad to come back to 80 degree weather.
When I first got back to Utah I thought Tom was going to have to carry me kicking and screaming back to Honduras. However, by the end of the trip I was ready to leave and when we arrived here I actually felt like we were home again. This past Sunday as we got to Sacrament meeting our Bishop was bearing his testimony. This is very surprising but I actually understood what he was saying and he was talking about how special this year is going to be because of the temple. I felt very grateful to be here and to be a part of something that is going to bless the lives of so many good and worthy people. So even though I miss my family and I miss the snow (ok, not really) I feel very blessed to be here in Honduras right now.
I also received my calling on Sunday (people have been telling me about it for weeks) but it is finally official. I am the assistant secretary in Young Womens. I didn't know they have those but I am guessing they wanted to give me something that didn't require me to speak. I am really excited...now I just have to figure out what everyone is saying.
I could definitely imagine a scenario where one might be at a public swimming pool wearing a very revealing swimsuit and be asked by someone of authority to wear something more appropriate in the future. My experience, however, was quite the opposite. I went to the pool in our compound with my friend Nadia and her kids. We were enjoying ourselves when the guard approached me and started speaking in Spanish. At first he told me that the name in his book for our house is different than what I told him. Then he continued to speak very rapidly and I had no clue what he was saying. Nadia started to laugh and said 'He is telling you that next time you need to wear a real swimsuit.' I told him that this was the style in America (although Utah Mormon culture might be more accurate) and he left. Now Tom gets to call management and have an interesting conversation about the definition of a swimsuit.
Tom turned the big 29 last Sunday. I decided it would be fun to take this picture every year and watch our kids outgrow him over time. He has clear objections to this premise.
Two weeks ago we decided to explore the city a little bit. We decided to go to one of the most prominent landmarks in Tegucigalpa, The Basilica. This is the main Catholic church for the city and it turns out....they have Mass on Saturday mornings. We thought it would be rude to take pictures during their worship service but we did go inside and listen for a bit. It had beautiful stain glass windows and amazing architecture but I will probably never get to enjoy it if my children are present. 
The temple was supposed to be built very close to the Basilica but the Catholic Church fought it so it was moved to a different location. 
Two days before Tom's birthday I started to get a cold. I had several church obligations on those days and was unable to rest. The day of his birthday I was at church from 9 am until 3 pm. Needless to say, we did a horrible job celebrating his birthday. I did, however, manage to make an eclair cake so we took a picture of my one success. I would have cried if my birthday was as lame as his but he was kind and appreciative. Classic Tom. I am very grateful for all that he does for our family. Maybe we will have a birthday redo sometime soon...
