Overflowing with Thanksgiving

I stopped by our blog the other day and realized it has been over three months since I've posted an update.  Life has been a little busy, needless to say.  I thought Thanksgiving was the perfect time to give a quick overview of this fall with the Toler Family. 

We stayed on the go this fall, but all our trips were very productive and fun!  At the end of August, we went to our linguistic center in Oaxaca to attend a workshop with one of our friends from the village.  Elyse celebrated her birthday with a Frozen themed party.

Elyse and her best friend have birthdays a little over a week apart.

Making decisions about the writing system of a language is hard work but still fun!

The beginning of our Pame library

We left Oaxaca and picked up my parents from the airport for their three-week visit.  We divided our time with my parents between the village and the city.  We needed to be in the city to submit our paperwork for visa renewals.  As usual, it took several trips to the immigration office, but we finally received everything we needed.

Vacation Bible School came to us this year.  Agency D3 - Discover, Decide, Defend

Enjoying the historical downtown of San Luis Potosi

Da finally got to enjoy a real Mexican burrito. 

We are so thankful that they were able to visit us, meet our friends, and experience village life.

Visiting a nearby village with a historical church in the background. 

My dad really enjoyed learning about the agriculture techniques in the village.

Kieran and his granddad had a lot of good man-to-man conversations.

We ended our village trip with a visit to some nearby waterfalls

After a wonderful three weeks with my parents, we dropped them off at the airport on our way back down to Oaxaca.  We had another workshop to attend and our kids attended their biannual homeschool program.  This is always a highlight for our kids (this was Elyse's first year to participate).  As much as our kids enjoy their friends in the village, there is something about hanging out with other third culture kids who understand this crazy life their parents have given them. 

The kids studied about oceans this fall.

We are so thankful for the wonderful volunteers who come to invest in our kids.

They love our kids like their own.

This trip it was Kieran's turn to celebrate his birthday.  We arrived in Oaxaca a few days after his birthday, so we just had a small celebration with a couple of friends.  Kieran has really enjoyed reading Charlie Brown (Peanuts) comic strip books this year and wanted to carry that theme into his birthday.  I baked the cake, but he took over the decorating.  I thought he did a great job on the Charlie Brown face!

Opening presents

At the end of our stay in Oaxaca, Kris started having chest pains and shortness of breath.  Once we returned to the city, he visited a cardiologist, had various test done, and then met with a cardiac surgeon.  In the midst of doctor appointments, we still squeezed in some time to go trick-or-treating with our friends.

Baseball daddy stayed home and rested...

but Spiderman and Anna were ready to collect some candy!

Now, we are in the process of packing up for a stay in Dallas while Kris meets with a team of doctors to see what needs to be done to help his heart (I'll write more about medical stuff in another post).  We are so thankful for the generosity of others and the overwhelming amount of prayers being lifted up for our family.  We are thankful for life, love and laughter. 

Tonight as I was putting Kieran to bed he said, "I love my life.  I'm so glad God gave me this life."  I agree.  We are truly blessed.  Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours. 

Weekend Getaway

Summertime usually means fun in the sun, no school, and time to relax.  However, when you do year round school and are in the thick of language learning, the months seems to blend together.  Before we knew it, it was July as we were preparing for our month long stay in the village.  After a gentle nudge from our supervisor, we decided we should take a few days to get away and relax as a family.  Kris found an amazing deal on hotels.com (I'm convinced it was there just for us) and so we headed off for a long weekend in the beautiful city of Querétaro.  It was a five hour drive from our village but it was a beautiful drive through pine forest mountains with waterfalls on the sides of the road and then through semi-dessert with tall cactus.

We arrived Friday evening and let the kids enjoy the pool at the hotel.  As I mentioned before, we found a great deal on the hotel, and it was wonderful. It was one of the biggest rooms I've seen at a hotel.  Elyse was quite impressed with the toilet (it was a far cry from our outhouse), and both kids wanted to take multiple showers a day.  Okay, maybe the grown-ups did, too! 

First night's dinner was from Church's Fried Chicken

Checking out the hotel pool

First swim of the summer!

 The next day we headed off to a neat little theme park just north of the city.  Some friends told us about this park.  It was clean and had lots of shade.  The rides were mostly for kids (perfect for our family), but they also had one decent roller coaster.  The best part was that it cost about $3.25 a person to get in (and all the rides were free).  You can't even go to the fair in the U.S. for that price!  We all had a great day.

Elyse wanted to style our hair with the "fancy" hairdryer at the hotel

Waffles with bacon cooked inside!  Great way to start the day.

Loving on daddy

Ready to head to the park

Elyse's first ride

Waiting for the bumper cars

Kris and I decided we were too old for the bumper cars!

Up, up and away!

Kieran loved the roller coaster (in back ground)

Well worth the price!

For dinner we enjoyed another special treat.  We found out that there is a P.F. Chang's at a new mall in the city.  This was one of our family favorites when we lived in the States.  It has been at least two years since we've eaten at one, and it was delicious.  I'm pretty sure the kids licked their plates (literally).

The next day we went back to the park so the kids could enjoy the water park side which was also less than $4 a person!  Kieran is our little fish so this was quite a treat for him. To end the day, we rode a few more rides.  

Perfect day for the water park

Summer fun!

One last loopty-loop (Kris and Kieran are in the 3rd car up)

The next morning, we let the kids take one more dip in the hotel pool before heading back to the village.  The trip back was hard (and not just because it was the end of vacation) because both kids got very car sick. 

We really enjoyed all the space in our hotel room!

We're still not quite sure what about the purpose of this little door. 

We are thankful for this time to get away and look forward to exploring more of this beautiful country where we live. 

This Little Light of Mine

When we first visited Mexico almost three years ago, my sweet, little three-year old saw a group of preschool kids performing a traditional dance.  She told me then that she wanted to live in Mexico so that she could go to school and dance like those kids. 

Two weeks ago, her dream came true.  Elyse participated in her Kindergarten graduation from the school in the village.  It was everything she had dreamed of...and more.  All the little girls had matching, blue party dresses and the boys wore a black suit with matching blue shirt.  They were precious.  Our friend in the village offered to come by and fix Elyse's hair so that she would "look like" the other girls in her class.  Elyse told me that I wasn't Mexican enough to fix her hair. 

Elyse and our friend getting ready for the show

Elyse's fine hair required a lot of hair spray!

The finished product.  Beautiful!

The day was perfect.  The rain held off until after the ceremony and Elyse was finally able to perform her dance (watch video at the end of the post). 

And the dance...

Elyse's Padrino (kind of like a sponsor for her graduation) and family

Elyse is very aware that she is different from the other kids (she often asks if she can dye her hair black), but for this one day, thanks to a matching dress and similar hairstyle, she was one of the gang.  She was very excited when she saw that another little girl had the exact same shoes! 

Can you find her in the crowd? 

During the ceremony, our friend was talking to one of the other dads.  The man said, "Look at that...all those dark kids and then that one white one.  She is kind of like a light in darkness.  When she goes to the elementary school this fall, she can be the light there, too."  I know this man was talking about her skin color, but oh how well he expressed the desires of our hearts.  God has called us to be exactly that...a light in the darkness.  Kieran's memory verse a few weeks ago was from Matthew 5:14-16. 

"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

 As we live in this community, we pray that they will see something different in us that is more than skin deep.  We pray that our actions reflect the light of our Savior.   It wasn't easy for Elyse to go to a new school where all the kids spoke a different language, but by God's grace, she did it and has made some wonderful friends in the process. 

Elyse and her best friend Elba.  Spanish is a second language for them both, but communication has never been a problem!

Elyse and a few of her classmates

"This little light of mine.  I'm gonna let it shine.  Let it shine.  Let it shine.  Let it shine!"

Elyse's dance debut in Mexico