Thanksgiving in Guatemala

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

We really had a good day. We have so much the be thankful for! I won't bore you with the list, but I will say that I know that all we have comes from my Heavenly Father and that he blesses us daily. We see His hand in our lives and we are so grateful for His guidance. We are most grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ who suffered and died for our sins so we can return to live with him one day and gain eternal life. We are so glad to have His example to follow.

With that all said I would like to thank all of you for your support and love throughout the years. We have the best friends and family ever. We missed all of you this Thanksgiving. It was a great day but not near as great as years past. We missed Betty's cooking and the family football game and watching football and just being together with family. We had to create a family of our own here.

The first picture is a picture of Gabby and her tortilla's Sylvia helped her make. She is so cute making them. Xela makes them also and is getting pretty good at it.

Then I have a picture of Brigham and Gabby. They stay home with me on Mon, Wed, and friday and are getting to be the best of friends. They play so good together. Gabby is loving school. She's starting to learn her letters and sounds. It's so cute. I think Brigham is really enjoying it also. He asked me the other day to start teaching him piano again, which made me really happy because he has a lot of natural talent. It is so nice to spend quality time with the two little ones.

Victor told us he bought a wild turkey for Thanksgiving. He was going to bring it up to the restaurant live on Tuesday night. I was a little freaked out. I barely know what to do with a frozen butterball! Lucky Sylvia volunteered her sister to prepare it for me to cook. Victor took him to their house and she brought it to me Thursday morning all ready to cook. Head and all! Apparantly Victor wanted me to cook the head also. I don't like to see the face of what I'm about to eat. I would make a horrible farmer. He was sad when he got here and I hadn't cooked it. When I told him I didn't know how he said "You just wrap it in foil and pop it in the oven." Like it's a common everyday thing to cook and eat a turkey head. We love Victor! He is a real character.

Our problem was that the only oven we have is a pizza oven. We do not have a temperature dial on the oven. Just on and off. I knew it was way too hot to cook a turkey in and all the other things so it was kind of a crazy time of turning the oven on - letting it heat up and then turning it off and back on when it is cooling down. Yikes! Miraculously everything turned out perfect except one batch of rolls that burned on the bottom.

Thanks to Betty for rushing me last minute family recipes. I have never cooked a whole Thanksgiving Dinner before because we usually have a joint effort with Betty cooking most of the food. Luckily we did it at the restaurant and I had Sylvia here to clean up after me! It is so nice to cook and have some one coming behind you washing and cleaning and putting everything away. She even did most of the dishes when we were done eating!

The guest list was all Victor's family but people that we have become close to on past visits and our during our time here. It included his son Carlos, Thelma (Who we stayed with when we visited with Andy last year. Letty, who is Victor's sister in law and our current land lord. She is in the picture with her daughter TT and Gabby. Her daughter is our dentist and hygenist. Then there is Gloria and Arturu who fed us fiambre this year and their son with his 3 daughters, and of course Sylvia, my right hand. Our other two employees Sandra (sells at the cart) and Mario (Sells out of a warmer bag in the market), also had Thanksgiving Dinner but on their breaks.

We were able to find all our ingredients except stuff to make pies. We couldn't even find frozen pies. Thank goodness we found a place that makes and sells them so I could have pumpkin pie!

Now it's time to focus on Christmas!!! I wish you all a Happy Holiday Season! Hope you had fun shopping in all the craziness today!

Oh and Tina, Thanks for the comment on the past post. It is kind of crazy living in the shadow of volcanoes. I have to really try not to think of the fact that it could potentially be a hazardous problem. Especially with 2012 approaching so fast. LoL! At least we are 4 hours away from Pacaya that has actual lava eruptions regularly. Meanwhile I just soak in the hot springs and sit in the volcanic steam saunas and try to focus on the pleasures of living close to a volcano.

I hope you all noticed the picture posted of me!!! I want no more comments on the subject!!! :)))) I really wanted to wait until I was back to newly wed weight and had a nice tan, but let's face it - that may never be.....

Mel