We made it! :)

Cooking Breakfast on the road :-) Little propane stove, heating up refried beans I made at home before we left, frying a few eggs, warm tortillas, bananas...yum!! :-)

Children exploring while Mommy cooks

Can you find the Lockwoods? :-)

Noah found this tiny flower on his hike

Waiting patiently and contendtedly (most of the time :-) ) while the van got repaired

Little ones reading in the trailer while I made supper as we waited
Hi Samuel :)

Yesterday at the park near our hotel in the USA :) Susannah's getting so big!!

Aunt Julee and Uncle Elias with us!

The 2 Mexican brother in laws :)

A picture with all the Mexicans (Elias, Daniel who got his citizenship last year, and our four who were born in Mexico)

Just because Nehemiah is such a goof...

Popeye's 99 cent Tuesday! :)

It's 11 pm as I sit here in our hotel room. Daniel ran to the store for a minute and as I was uploading our pictures from the past few days, I thought I'd share a few here. We are so thankful for the Lord's protection as we've traveled, for bringing us this far, and for how while we had a few things happened that we didn't not expect or plan for, He gave us such a peace knowing that He knew and that we can ALWAYS trust Him!

We left Sunday afternoon around 5 pm from our town. I don't drive the roads in Mexico. They scare me :-). And driving while pulling the trailer scares me more! And I'm sooo thankful for my husband who does all the driving when we travel. We made it through our state (Baja California Sur) and pulled over about 1 am to rest. About 5 am, we were up and on our way...10 more hours till the USA border.

About 3 hours from the border, the van suddenly started making a BIG banging noise. We pulled right over and after a bit of investigating, we discovered the problem...it had blown out a spark plug. Daniel had been told about a year or so ago that the Tritan engines are known to do that. While he was working on getting the spark plug put back in, I made lunch for the children. But soon, he discovered that the threads in the head had been stripped.

We were very thankful that we were about 45 minutes from Ensenda (a large city) and not in the middle of nowhere. We stopped and prayed and then were able to drive the van slowly. Daniel called his brother who helped him find out what we needed to do. To make a long story short, as we were driving, we saw the Ford dealership there in Ensenada. Daniel went in to talk to them, and they called the man who dealt with these problems, but he couldn't come to fix it until the next day. They told Daniel where his shop was, so Daniel went over to talk to him. He came out to look at the problem, and then said he'd work on it right then.

We had to wait about 4 hours, but we had the trailer where the little ones could rest and the older ones got out their bags with their books, coloring books, games etc... and sat patiently on the sidewalk next to the man's shop while he worked. After a while we got hungry, so I pulled out the stove, heated up some beans and meat, pulled some chopped lettuce and tomatos out of the ice cest, Daniel walked down to buy us some tortillas, and we had tacos :-) By about 8 pm, we were back on our way!

We were so very thankful! We finally got to the border about 3 hours later; the line was VERY long (as it was the end of Memorial Day weekend), but as soon as we got close to the line, several police pulled up and said the Americans had shut down the border and nobody else could get across there. They suggested we try crossing at Otay Mesa, so we headed east. Turns out, there was a big accident on the freeway right across the border which is probably why they shut it down there. We finally got to Otay and again...a lloonnnggg line! But they let us in this time!

About 1:30 am we were across! Long day...but we were so blessed just in seeing the Lord's hand in taking care of each little detail.

Well, it's now a new day...it's 7 am and while the children are sleeping in, I'm sitting at the laundry mat because, well, if you could see just how many clothes we go through in one day, you'd understand why I always try my best to wash whenever I can! :-) Yesterday, we took the children to park for the afternoon. Julee and Elias met us at the hotel and what a wonderful time we are having with them! Today, we go to the zoo! I'm getting excited just thinking about seeing how much fun the children are going to have! We are looking forward to seeing my aunt and uncle later this afternoon and going to church in the evening.

Thank you so much for those of you who are praying for us! The Lord is so good! We've had so many opportunities to witness in English and Spanish :-) When we were broken down and not sure if/when we would be able to get the repairs needed to continue on, after we prayed, we told the children how even if our plans and desires were not fulfilled, we know the Lord is so good and loving and always knows what is best!