New Year's in Tennessee with family

We were able to spend a couple of days in Tennessee with several members of the Bryan side of the family. We rented this lovely home in Townsend, TN from our good friends the Hobbs. It was beautiful and perfect for all of us. We had a gorgeous view of the mountains.
Mom brought all her coordinatingly (my word) wrapped gifts.
Brown paper packages tied up with strings.... just a few of my favorite things. :)
The twins and Bryan slept upstairs.

I thought this was a really good picture of my dear brother in law, Daryl H. Uh, you could use it for your profile picture on Facebook, Daryl. ;)

The boys got to go to Cade's Cove.

These guys were just happy to have made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas...safe for another year. :)
Then we were able to get together with all of Andrew's cousins at Ryan's in Pigeon Forge. I have many more pictures but I will probably only post a few. We had such a good time, but we missed Esther and Derek Miller and their three kids, Lincoln and Lyn Bryan and their two kids and Heather and Phillip Dickinson and their four kids. Otherwise we were ALL there. It was really an awesome visit!

Grandmother (Gigi) and all of the cousins that were there.

Back row: Susan Scarbrough Hunt, Laura Bryan Hausman, Cheryl Scarbrough Vernon, Andrew Bryan, Jane Roush Allard: Front row: Martha Scarbrough Sams, Grandmother Scarbrough, Christa Scarbrough Fulton. (Missing - Lincoln Bryan, Esther Roush Miller, Heather Bryan Dickinson)

All of us.

Thank the Lord for allowing us to all be together again.

Mexico - Part 5, People and Faces

Twin girls that my twins had fun playing with. They are the pastor's daughters and I think are about the same age as Taylor and Tyler. Neither set of twins are identical, they are called "cuates" in spanish. ( I think I remember that correctly)
Cute little girl... I could never get her to keep looking at me long enough to get the picture.

Sweet little, brown face


Thank you Lord, for Logan's beautiful eyes!
Happy 20th Maria!
Taylor and Jose Correa, buddies.
Silly girls.
Christmas day... we read the Christmas story and sang and enjoyed the presence of the Lord with us.

Taylor, taking a siesta. :)

Oh gross.... a bird flew over and got my thumb nasty!! It was warm and disgusting, I almost dropped the bowl I was holding. And my husband had to do the honors of cleaning it off because I was too grossed out to help. :)

Mexico - Part 4

The interesting food that can be bought in Mexico -

Here are a few pictures of some of the interesting "fare"we saw while in Mexico. This is cane sugar, which you can buy from a nice grocery store. We don't see that too often here in the US - though maybe some of you might.
Cactus in it's diced and un-diced forms.
OK, not too bad.... whole fish and fish parts.... I've probably seen that in the US.
But really now, do I have to have a pig head watching everything I do at the grocery store?? This was at a very nice Americanized grocery store. Now for the market... (yes, I took pictures like a gringo tourist)
UGH! Here it comes...
Ewwwww, pigs heads and, I think, goat's heads and who knows what the other stuff is...
I believe these would be intestines...
perhaps, livers and kidneys.

These were all open to air and had a few buzzing friends landing on them as we walked by, no doubt laying eggs and the like. Pretty interesting. :)

Mexico - Part 3

Looking over the city of Saltillo, MX. It was beautiful.

A different view, from a different place... but still Saltillo.

All the grand "boys" except for Kent, sitting on a cannon.

Me, in the middle of my "little" brother and my "big" sister. Yep, it does seem a little opposite, but he is younger than me and she is older than me. I am so proud to be their sister. I love them for their dedication to the mission field and for the abilities God has given them. And I love both of their spouses. We have talked before about how God has helped us all to really love one another, especially when there are so many who don't even try to love their in-laws. We are really fortunate to have Melodie and Steve in our family... and here is where I add my wonderful husband, who also fits well in to our family.

The mountains on our way to San Rafael/La Boca.

Some cute boys and their burro.

I think they take advantage of the cactus as fencing, or to reinforce their fencing.

AND that would be the little girls' room... :)

Grant kept picking the spines off of the cacti and he turned around too quickly and poked one right in to Jordan's forearm. We could not pull it out with our fingers, we had to use a "Leatherman" tool. You were a real He-man, Jordan. Chicks dig that. :)

Mexico - Part 2

THE FOOD

Melodie served us lunch as soon as we got there. I believe it was steak or beef fajitas. It was wonderful. We had chicken and beef fajitas at Beth's house one of the first days we were there. Both Beth and Melodie had limes and cheese and guacamole, etc. Beth also made the famous "elotes" that I had heard so much about. I personally wasn't crazy about the dish, though I didn't think it was bad. It is corn and mayonnaise and chili powder and lime juice, for those of you who haven't read Beth's or Melodie's posts.This is what we had for Sunday lunch. The pastor's wife and sister-in-law fixed it for us. It was delicious. The stuff that looks like beef stew, was not stew but something like it that had green salsa in it, then there was rice in the middle and "carne asada" (I think) on the other side. Yum!! My kids loved this food. It was so fun watching the boys eat!!This is called "discado", if I remember correctly. It is about four different types of meat cooked over an open fire.The discado was served with guacamole, tortillas, beans and cheese, chips, and salsa. Taylor could not get enough of it! It was fabulous. Jose and Anna Correa were our hosts for this wonderful meal.

This is what it looked like up close.

The Correa's

Then we had a good ol' American Christmas dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, deviled eggs, rolls, mac and cheese, gravy, etc. It was wonderful!!

And then there was the clean up..... :)

Here was another meal that the pastor's wife, Sylvia, made for us.. three different kinds of tacos. Let me tell you, that lady can cook!! We later received some tamales from her. I didn't get a picture of those, but if you check Melodie's blog she has a picture on one of her posts.

Now somehow I didn't get a picture of the meal we had at San Rafael. The pastor's wife there fixed us an awesome meal that was just out of this world. I wished so badly that I could just eat and eat, it was that good.

Another place at which I forgot to get a picture was the "Taco's al Pastor" place down by the market. I wish I could go there right now and eat some more of those. Melodie and Beth have both had pictures of that place on their blogs, I think.

Well, there was a little stroll down the "food aisle" in Mexico. Hope you enjoyed it and it didn't make you too hungry. :)

Mexico - Part 1

We left for Mexico Dec. 17th, flying through Chicago, spending the night there then on through Detroit to Monterrey on Dec. 18th. We arrived in Monterrey, MX around noon, rented our vehicle and careened/hurtled for an hour to Saltillo, where Marc and Melodie (my brother and sister-in-law) and Beth and Steve (my sister and brother-in-law) live. Andrew and I in the Detroit airport.This is in front of Marc and Melodie's house, with the beautiful mountains in the background. They live in a beautiful, gated community which is very safe for the kids to play in.

This is the nice playground that is just about a block away from their house.

This is my sister, Beth's house, in the same community. We were all descending on their house for lunch that day.
Now time for a game of "cowboys and indians", Mexican style...... "americans against mexicans". The boys had a blast playing with the neighborhood mexican boys. It was really fun to watch them make friends, even though they didn't know the language. Thankfully, Jordan and Cameron and Logan were able to help in that arena.

We un-desecrated his deer!!!

With this post I am officially announcing that I am back "on" and will be posting more often in the very near future. I now have a couple of months of pictures and interesting things to post so you should be able to check back fairly often and find something new.... at least for a little while. :) But, I thought that since you looked at the deer and the Christmas lights for so long, you probably wanted to see that the Christmas lights are now down and we are getting back to normal!