Christmas Day in Mexico

This was the spectacular sunset on Christmas Eve at Los Palomas!

We awoke to a beautiful Christmas morning! Blue skies, a beautiful ocean and Santa had found the kids in Mexico and filled all their stockings! We could've never imagined we would be staying in such a luxurious place as the Los Palomas Resort! Thanks to Jared Parker for making our accomodations arrangements! It was spectacular! We felt a little guilty to be staying in such luxurious accomodations, considering the purpose of our trip there. But, later we found out that the owner of the Condo we were staying in had donated all the money we had paid to rent the condo for the week, back to Families Helping Families organization! We are so thankful for the owners who let us enjoy their 'little bit of heaven on earth' in Puerto Penasco. Here are some of the pictures of our condo, the beach, the view and swimming pool areas.





We were feeling pretty spoiled. It looks deserted! That's right, for the first few days we felt like we had the whole place to ourselves!
Seth treated us to his gourmet omelettes for Christmas Breakfast! Thanks Seth, delicious as always!















































After we had spent some time on the beach and in the hot tubs in the morning, we took a trip to the marketplace in downtown Puerto Penasco. The Finlayson's showed us the tricks and tips for getting a bargain, haggling for better prices and the best place to buy FRESH SHRIMP!



The shrimp are HUGE! Puerto Penasco is famous for their shrimp! The marketplace was so colorful and a fun outing for the kids!

The kids had gotten some Christmas money from their Grandma and Grandpa Wynn, so we decided they could use that money at the marketplace, and see how much they could get with $20.00. Liesel already had her list made out. She wanted a sombero and some maracas. Caleb found a cool Nacho Libre mask, just his size. Jesse haggled for a good price on a poncho, I think he paid $15 for it, later in the day Nathan got pretty much the same poncho for $9!! Seth found himself some brass knuckles! We hope we can get those across the border! Ammon found some bracelets that he liked. One handmade with his name woven into it. I found myself some designer? Gucci? sunglasses. We bought fresh shrimp and scallops from Mr. Fish and fish vendor, one of the members had recommended to us. It was a great Christmas Day shopping!


Later that afternoon, we had a special Christmas late lunch in a restaurant at Los Palomas called the La Citron. It was good food. We enjoyed the pools and beach some more in the evening and cooked our fresh seafood later that night. The kids watched movies until late and we had all had a wonderful day!

Our Feliz Navidad

This Christmas our family decided to do something a little different. The Rick and Alicia Finlayson Family invited our family to go to Puerto Penasco, Mexico to do humanitarian service over Christmas and New Year's. This is something Mike & I have wanted to do as a family for a long time, but we never had the 'connections'. So we were excited about the possibility of taking our family on this adventure. When we asked our kids what they thought about the idea, it was an almost unanimous 'Yes!' (Caleb was a little confused, he's 5 after all). So we decided to GO FOR IT!
Here are some of the pictures of our adventure! It was a wonderful Christmas for sure!

We drove, about a 16 hour drive, stayed in Phoenix the first night and arrived in Puerto Penasco, Mexico at about 3p.m. on Christmas Eve. Our first stop was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Primary aged children were anxiously awaiting a visit from Santa Claus. Before we left on our adventure, we met at the Finlayson's house and assembled Christmas stockings and bags for about 150 Primary-aged children in the 1st and 2nd Branches of the Puerto Penasco church. Here are some of the images of the beautiful Mexican children in Puerto Penasco. I loved seeing the delight in the eyes of these beautiful children of God!




Here are Liesel and Ammon in front of the church in Puerto Penasco.
This little boy wasn't too happy about sitting on Santa's lap.

Most of the children though, had a look of wonder in their eyes and were a delight to watch!

As you can see, Caleb wasn't afraid of Santa Claus. Bytheway, in Mexico, Santa Claus speaks Spanish! "Ho!Ho!Ho!Hola!Como estas?"

Here's a picture of 'Santa's Helpers' right after we arrived.




We invited a good family friend, she's also our kids' piano teacher to join us on our trip. Here is Toshiko Mori helping with the stockings.

There was a little baby girl named Brittani. Brittani Finlayson put her stocking together in Utah before the trip, anxious to meet her namesake, Brittani and Brittani posed for a picture with Santa.

We met another great family from Highland, Ut, the Nyman's.
It was so awesome to see the missionaries serving there!


Alicia and Rick Finlayson had put hundreds of hours in preparing for this special gift for the Primary children. We are so thankful to be in invited to take a very small, but very meaningful part of it!
I can't resist putting a few more pictures of the beautiful children! They are truly children of God and shine with a beautiful, pure light of Christ.I loved watching a little girl relish every juicy section of an orange that was in her stocking.It was a great way to spend Christmas Eve! We were already looking forward to being back on Sunday for Sacrament Meeting.

Fall Fling!!

What's better than this? Nothin!








A perfect Fall afternoon! We found an untouched area covered in fallen leaves! It was the perfect Fall afternoon pastime! What a wonderful play thing nature has provided in fallen leaves.








I haven't played in a pile of leaves for years! 'Leaf' it to my kids to bring out the kid in me again. It was irresistible, I jumped in too!
You've seen snow angels? How about leaf angels? It was perfect and not so cold.







Our playtime ended up in a big leaf fight!