Off we go on another family tour!

We stopped in Dallas to visit with Chuck & Tina, then on up to Arkansas for a couple of days of food, family, and fun. Ivy seemed to really enjoy playing with her cousins and even shoved one down the stairs (no, not really! But this picture looks like that’s what happened)

We saw the new Star Wars movie on Christmas Day with Jim Gooing and his bunch, then later that night headed back toward Dallas. Nice visit! Good to see everyone. 🙂

The next day we visit with Holly’s aunt and Uncle Toni and Nabil and their sons and their kids. Once again, Ivy had a great time playing with her cousins.

As we leave, some nasty storms are rolling in and we even drove through some hard rain. Just a couple hours later a big tornado ripped through that area and destroyed many homes. But no damage was done to our relatives or friends in the Dallas area.

Okay, so my mother-in-law decides to buy a new house and I volunteer to wait around one afternoon for furniture to show up. Who knew it would be this exciting!?

As it turns out, there are quite a few guys named ‘Joseph Dutton‘ in the world, and even a few in the history books as well. Here’s a couple of them…

• Joseph Everett Dutton discovered a sleep sickness, but died at age 29 from a tick bite. Over 1,000 people attended his funereal.
• Brother Joseph Dutton became a catholic priest and served in Hawaii at a leper colony. He was characterized in a movie about the colony called “Molokai” with his role being played by actor Tom Wilkinson 

. Here’s another blog post with a bit more detail about the life of Brother Joseph Dutton: A Servant of the Lepers: Brother Joseph of Molokai

You can watch the entire movie on-line. 🙂

What is there to do on Thanksgiving Day after stuffing yourself with lots of food? Head to Galveston, of course, and ride the rides on the Pleasure Pier!

What better time to go to the National Funeral Museum than during Halloween? That’s what we did today as school let out at 12:30 pm. We did the tour of the museum, as well as paid $5 extra to walk through their creepy haunted house.

One day in September when the weather was nice, Jose said he wanted to go fishing. I researched a little on-line as to where people go fishing close to Houston and discovered a park near the Baytown Bridge called Bayou Nature Center. It turned out to be a really nice place! Jose caught a couple of fish and Romeo caught 1. Ivy didn’t catch any fish at all and was a bit upset about that.

Jose wanted to go fishing again, and Ivy wanted to go the beach. I didn’t feel like driving all the way to Galveston, so I decided to try out this place called Sylvan Beach in La Porte. It’s a nifty place on the bay with a man-made beach and a big play area for kids. It also has a pier that you can pay $4.00 and walk out on to go fishing. Jose wanted someplace with less people so we drove about 2 miles north to Morgan’s Point. He didn’t have much luck catching a fish, but Ivy did! She caught her very first fish!!

Back I go to El Salvador!

This will be my 2nd trip with Lakewood Church to establish a water well in one of their small towns. What a great experience! This time I was much more relaxed and prepared for anything. But, as we convene at the airport, I learn we’ll be staying at the same hotel and working at a little town not far from where we were stationed last time. So that’s a relief. It will be pretty much the same.

We land in El Salvador and meet up with our hosts from Living Water, as well as another team from America that will be working nearby.

Hotel Ranchero Estero y Mar

We head off to our hotel Ranchero Estero y Mar, which is right on the beach, so again this will be an awesome! The rooms are air-conditioned and there are several swimming pools and places to sit or swing on a hammock. That same old peacock was roaming around and waking us up each morning (those things are loud!). We’d gather for breakfast in an outdoor restaurant, and then move to another patio for a short morning devotional.

Work Work Work

The work begins! For the next 4 days we’d be digging dirt, carrying rocks, laying down pipes, and getting very dirty and sweaty as we dug this water well. A well already existed at the school, but it had dried up! Plus it was only about 30 feet deep. So we were digging much deeper and hoping to tap into clean water. We did exactly that! But not without some headaches. We actually had to stop drilling at one point and start all over. But the second try was a success! Water came gushing out to all the children’s delight (and mine, too, because it was hot and dirty), and finally fresh clean water would be available every day for this community. No more walking or driving miles to get bottles of water.

Finished! We did it! When the water started spewing like a fountain, kids began gathering around and before long every kid (it seemed) in school was dancing around under the fountain. The ladies on our mission team came over as well and got soaking wet. It was a lot of fun!

The School

During the week, the ladies spent most of their time teaching the kids about hygiene. All of us got to interact with the kids, though, on a daily basis. It was definitely the highlight of the trip getting to see, talk, and interact with the kids in the school each day. They were as equally interested in us and we were in them. Naturally, there were a few stand-outs whom spent a lot of time with one or more of us on the mission team.

The Neighborhood

One day, we took a break from work to walk through the community and meet people and pray with folks if they’d allow. The people of El Salvador were so friendly and welcoming!

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Gone Exploring

One day, I got to break away from the group and go visit some other places. Mike asked for my head to gather some materials at the Living Water House. So off we go, first to visit a well that had just been established a couple of weeks earlier. It was in a neighborhood with lots of gang members, and MS13 gang symbols were on several houses. The gangs, however, didn’t interfere with building a water pump. So we stopped to see if it was still working okay (and it was), then moved on to the big Yellow house where some Living water employees stay sometimes, and where they keep some of their supplies.

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Church by the Sea

We got another nice surprise by going to a little church by the sea. I noticed this church as we were driving to and from the hotel each day, but I didn’t give it much thought. However, on Wednesday, one of the LW team asked if we could drop in for a visit. They said yes, so we did! It was so nice having church on a beach with the waves and sunset in the background. Loved it!

Update: On July 13th, 2016, just 9 months after these photos and video were taken, Gerardo’s life was cut short by a drowning accident. After a day of working, he came back the hotel and decided to go for a swim in the ocean. In that brief moment, the waves took his life. He was just 26 years old and left behind one child (son). 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁

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San Salvador

Everything went according to schedule – even ahead of schedule – on this trip, so we took Saturday off to go into San Salvador and eat and buy stuff. Pollo Campero!!

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Adios, El Salvador!

Finally, on Sunday morning, we got up early (early early) and made our way to the airport. It was interesting that I saw a Salvadoreno guy at the airport wearing a Stryper T-Shirt. I said, “I like your shirt, man.” I’m not sure if he understood, but he nodded and said hola.

We said our goodbyes and made our way back to Houston, Texas! It was a pleasant flight over Guatemala and the Yucatan and ocean. I watched a disaster movie on the plane called “San Andreas”. LOL. Thank you, Penny. 😀

Another summer break is almost over with school starting August 24th. But it hasn’t been a boring summer for Ivy! We kicked off the summer immediately with 2 weeks of Swim Classes at Houston Swim Club – Sharpstown location. Then tt was another round of Vacation Bible Schools, and as usual Houston had plenty to choose from. This year, however, Ivy went to 1 VBS that lasted for 6 whole weeks. It turned out to be GREAT! It was at a small church within walking distance to our house, and they had plenty of things to do all day long. They challenged the kids to memorize all of the books of the bible and if they did they’d get a special treat – a field trip to an Oil Ranch. Much to my amazement Ivy did it! She got to spend the day – which was actually on her birthday (July 23rd) – at this Texas Oil Ranch.

Ivy also really enjoyed going to Second Baptist Church and they mega-VBS with lights and smoke and super heroes.

Not all of the summer camps were Christian-oriented. She also did a week of science camp at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and studied Kitchen Chemistry. I enjoyed going there each day to drop off and pick her up. I’d often hang around and check out some of the exhibits.

There were lots of activities and fun, but the best part wasmaking some new friends. Across the street we met Romeo (age 6) and his niece Breseis (age 7) and her brother Adrian (age 4). We also invited Julie (age 10) from next door to come over and play too. We had lots of fun on several different days including a 2 trips to the Natural Science Museum, and 1 trip to the Children’s Museum, a quick visit to the observation floor at Chase Tower, and an ‘End of Summer’ party at our house. In the meantime, we also just spend some time at home playing video games and building stuff with the magnetic tiles.

Not everything in summer was great – there was a broken arm in the middle of all that fun. But she seemed to deal with it just fine and got lots of people to sign her cast. It was finally removed and life was back to normal. You can read the details on this blog post.

As for her birthday… well, Ivy had a full-blown birthday ‘bender’. The celebration lasted for 3 days! First, on her actual birth day (July 23rd), she went with Impact Church to the Texas Oil Ranch for goat-petting and barn-swinging and other fun stuff. The next day she went to Melly Tovar’s house for the day and had a party there with cake and a pinata! Then on Saturday we had her official birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese which turned out to be fun for everyone including the grown-ups. All of the grown-ups noticed that Chuck-E-Cheese has improved their food. It used to be kind of ‘meh’, but now it is actually pretty good pizza and sandwiches!

Ivy got this cool bicycyle for birthday. 🙂

Ivy broke her arm June 18th! I got the news while I was still in Belize. It appears she was climbing like a monkey up a doorframe in the house and slipped and did a dive into the floor. With arms stretched out in front of her, she managed to break one bone and she dove into the floor. 🙁

It was a stressful evening, as you can imagine, as Holly took Ivy to the ER.

But it seems by the next day Ivy was just fine and enjoying the attention she was getting from her new pink camouflage cast. By the time I returned it was covered it autographs and she seemed to be in no pain at all.

I took her to the next doctor’s appointment. These photos were taken June 29th during the return trip to the orthopedist and the downgrading of the cast.

I didn’t get enough hard work and sweat in Belize, so I decided to sign up for Servolution and help clean up a local elementary school. We also fixed up the weight room at the high school next door. My team mostly stayed in the principles office and nurses station to clean and paint the room.

Lots of work was done in just 4 hours! Good times. 🙂