Hard to believe she is gone.

A couple of weeks have gone by, one of them really hard for my family like you all probably already know. The day came, the day when we had to say goodbye to my beautiful grandma. I had been preparing my mom for it and I was preparing for it as well but like we all probably know it doesn’t matter how prepared you are for it…. It still hurts. Knowing about the plan of salvation helps a lot but it still hurts to let someone go. I’m so grateful for my heavenly father and his love for us that gives us the opportunity to see our loved ones again in the other life. Now that we went through this I got to think about those that don’t believe there is a God, those who don’t believe there is a life after this one. How sad would it be to think that death is the end and you will never see your loved ones again. My grandma was such a great grandma, mother, daughter, sister… everybody who knew her knows that she wouldn’t let anyone be hungry, be out on the street, be away from the family… she was just a great example to follow. This week she would have turned 90 years old. what a blessing was to have her for so long.  I have so many memories of my grandma. It was so hard to say goodbye to her. It is still hard to believe she is gone. I love her and miss her a lot. My grandma was just one of my heroes. We haven’t done much this week. We have been so busy with my grandma’s funeral and just being with the family. Funerals here are so different, my grandma passed away on Friday and Saturday was her funeral. Then, the day after they start with some meetings every night for 9 days and then we all go to the cemetery again and bring her all the flowers people bring during the 9 days. So many people come every night, my grandma will be greatly missed by everybody not just her family. We also got to go to Quetzaltenango this week, Mike and Xavion went to the theater while I stayed out with Colton and Layla and went to a few stores. We got to go to Walmart!!! It was nice to see something American haha. We also got to buy a few things we haven’t been able to get here in Huehue.

Mike got a calling at church, he was called to be the young men’s president! He was a little nervous but Sunday was his first lesson and he felt better after that. It was funny to hear how his name was pronounced during sacrament meeting. Our bishop wrote it down just like it sounds in Spanish and even then he had a hard time saying it haha. Mike also got a little bit sick this week.

I drove a couple of times already wohoooooo.. It makes me excited because I thought I would never drive here in Huehue. I haven’t driven to town or anything like that but I drove to my grandma’s house and then my sisters. When we were planning to come here I knew my life was going to get busy and change a lot but I never thought it would be so busy. I feel like I work all day trying to get things done and still at the end of the day I’m not done with everything. One of my sisters works until 8pm sometimes so her 2 kids are basically with us all day. Right after they get come home from school I have to help them with their homework and make sure they are ok. My mom used to take care of all of that but now that all of this happened with my grandma she is almost never home. Having 5 kids under my care is really making me think I don’t want 5 of my own lol.

Colton is getting a lot more active every day. I can barely keep up with him. In the last couple of days we see him so much bigger. He is growing way fast, especially now that we can’t hide any food from him haha. He can now say “ball” “agua”. He amazes me every day. He really wants to walk now, he has stood up and stay up for about 10 seconds without holding on from anything! He loves playing with water and balls. He used to love to get up and look at the chickens in the morning but now all the chickens died so he doesn’t have any more chickens to look at so now he wakes up, eats, crawls all over the patio playing the ball then I have no option but to shower him right away haha. Colton loves food sooooo much that the following experience had me laughing so hard…. On our way to Xela yesterday he was sleeping so hard nothing could wake him up, then Layla asked if she could please have a cookie. I grabbed the cookie and I opened it to give to both the kids, Colton heard the noise of the wrapper and his hand went straight to Xavion’s hand and took one cookie away from him, his eyes were not even open yet and the cookie was already in his mouth haha. He truly is like his momma when it comes to food lol. Colton has also discover he is a boy haha, the other day he was so frustrated because he knew there was something new down there and he couldn't get it off lol.

Layla really wanted to participate in a school dance that one of my nieces danced to. My niece’s teacher wanted to find her a spot so that she could dance in front of everybody and Layla was very excited but then while we looked for the song she got shy and didn’t want to dance anymore. Everybody loves her, they are always taking pictures with them. We told them that when people want to take pics with them they should say yes but 5 quetzales porfavor haha. She has only say it once then we told her we didn’t actually want her to say it haha.

Xavion’s Spanish is coming along. He is more optimistic about learning and is remembering a little bit more. He is still very shy at church because he has a hard time communicating with people but he will get there. He still hugs everybody he sees. The other day there was a mass here in the house and in the part where they give the “peace hug” he disappeared from where we were and when we saw he was hugging everybody who was here haha. Xavion also learned how to tie his shoes all by himself! He was very proud of himself and so were we. He has said a few funny things this week, He has had us laughing pretty hard a few times. Ill list some of our conversations of the last few days.

 

Layla: (telling us a story)

Xavion: Layla I think you are just faking it up

Layla: Xavion stop saying that, you are always saying that

Xavion: Ok, Layla but I think you are just throwing words out yo mouth. haha

 

Xavion: (trying to hide behind the weeds)

Me: Xavion what are you doing

Xavion: I’m playing

Me: What are you playing, I want to know

Xavion: hide and seek

Me: with who?

Xavion: with the cat

Me: hahahahahaha ok I hope you are having fun lol

 

While we were at the grocery store

Xavion: dad I think you need to buy me some juice

Mike: you think so? Why?

Xavion: so that I don’t have to ask you for juice anymore

 

While at the store as well:

Xavion: mom can we get some dog food

Me: why? We don’t even have a dog

Xavion: well if we have the food we have to buy a dog haha

 

Mike: Xavion can you please sing to Colton so he can fall asleep. Sing I’m a Child of God

Xavion: I cant remember that song

Me: You already forgot??

Xavion: No, I know it but it just doesn’t want to come out of my brain

Layla comes in crying to Xavion

Xavion replies: Layla can you please don’t cry on my bed because you will put agua on my bed and mom will get mad because she will think I wet the bed.

One of Xavion’s sentences during his prayer…..“Please Heavenly father help us keep our brain in our heads”

 

This is what Colton used to do every morning around 6am but now all the chickens died so he doesn't get to do so anymore.

 

My happy little boy, as long as he is with mom or dad he is the happiest little boy haha. He loves to climb all over us when we are down on the floor.

He loves bread, he would eat bread all day long if I let him haha.

Colton loves playing inside the car. Every time he is inside the car playing he has this big smile on his face :D

Colton also loves digging stuff out of the little holes. He can spend hours and hours playing like this.

And.... he loves playing with balls!!!

 

and loves loves loves playing with water.... every time it rains he goes to the corner of the house and puts his hand right where the water is coming down. This is how I found him the other day.

 

 

 I think he plays with Layla's kitchen more than her. He loves throwing all the little dishes all over the floor over and over again... I get to clean up.

 

My niece gave him a lolliepop the other day and he didn't let it go anymore.

This is at Walmart! I had to leave my ID for them to give me this cart but it was worth it because Colton slept in there for a couple of hours, he was very comfy.

 

Layla being Layla, she is so stinky cute (when she wants to) haha

 

Mike found a lizard in the house and Layla loved holding it, she even tried to put it on her tongue but the lizard didn't stick to it haha.

 

                                                 

This is my grandma's coffin and all the flowers that people brought, at the end of the day there were a lot more flowers all around the coffin.

 

 ....... and this was her tomb

 

 This is how they decorated for the 9th day. Today we took all the flowers and everything back to her tomb. They believe everything has to be taken even sand or anything they used to decorate with. They take it to the cemetery and leave it all around her tomb.

We went to Quetzaltenango and because we were with my brother and his family we didn't get to go to the temple but we were able to see it from far away and it was beautiful. The kids were very excited to see it.

 

This guy became a nice friend during sacrament meeting today. He hang out under our bench until everybody left.... probably waiting for some left overs lol.

 

This was at my grandma's house while they did a mass all the kids were falling asleep so we put them on in the same beds, there were 2 other beds that were completely full of kids.