House Warming -in Spanish- Haus Warmeenk

Tonight was the house warming of Elder Wakefield's assistant pastor and wife. They just recently moved in, and its looking good. We drank coffee and Sis. Hayde fixed some awesome nachos for everyone... All in all, we had a great time! The Garcias are A-1, A-OK, aces, astonishing, astounding, awesome, best, breathtaking, cool, doozie, extravagant, fab, fantastic, fictitious, first-class, greatest, groovy, immense, inconceivable, incredible, legendary, marvelous, mind-blowing, out-of-sight, out-of-this-world, outrageous, peachy*, phenomenal, primo, prodigious, rad, remarkable, spectacular, striking, stupendous, super, superb, terrific, top drawer, tops! ... oh and thanks to Bethany's amazing camara skills we have 4 pictures!!! HAH. :)



This is Bro. Mario holding our house warming gift. Yeah... this gift was me and Bethany's idea :P
He is known for lamenting certain people's overuse of toilet paper.
Bethany has this story:
One time at one of our main conferences, Elder Sis. Wakefield asked him to run down to the store to pick up some T.P. He came back with a 4 pack. He said 2 rolls for each bathroom should be enough (for a 2 day conference). I just want to know if he would be willing to stand at the door of the bathrooms rationing out squares. Ha! I want to tell the rest of the stories, but Sis. Hayde reads this blog and Bro. One-Square-Per-Person might find out. :)) He is 'green'. What can I say? Al Gore and Sheryl Crow would approve of this behavior...


Hayde opening gifts from the guests.



People hanging out...



The 2 pastors talking.


P.S. ... Does anybody know what this is used for? We all have different opinions... Ketchup, honey, sugar, salad dressing, band aids? Or is it a windpipe?

Tomorrow's post should be good b/c Bro. Mario is going to be preaching for us! We are like so totally excited about this. :)

***Let me congratulate myself, as this is my 2nd post ever on this blog. Whoo.hoo.***

~Until next time- This has been blogging with Nicole!~

Incompetent Police and a Ferocious Dog

Yesterday at 5pm a police truck drove up in front of our house. The neighbor's German Shepherd was tied up on a chain across the street. Obviously the police were there doing something with the dog, but we didn't really know what was up.
(Side note: We all loved this dog b/c he (was) so cute and huge, and whenever he would escape from his house, he would run around our neighborhood taking down all the mean dogs that had thrashed Ranger in the past. It was like our own personal entertainment. All the dogs would tuck their tails between their legs and take off.)
Anyways, we went to prayer meeting downstairs then when that was over Bro. Dad went out to talk to the po-lice. Turns out, the dog had bitten an old lady when she tried to cross the street.

Well, what ensued was quite a circus. Another police truck got there and a bunch of guys jumped down and ran over to the dog. They started yelling at him (like they were so big and bad that the dog would just melt) and WHEW-Y! Did they use some naughty words! I re-learned some that I had learned last year from our new Sunday school kids and had forgotten. Of course, the dog went WILD, barking and snarling.
A guy with what I call a 'fat suit' on also went over to the dog. (You know those special, super thick suits that police dog trainers use with their dogs).

They got this lasso type leash out and it took (NO LIE) 20 minutes for them to get it around the dog's neck. Then they had to somehow get the chain from around his neck, but apparently it was tangled and they couldn't get a good hold on it b/c the dog was going crazy. So we offered up our metal cutter to them. I don't know how I feel about this.
So off came the chain. Then our dummy neighbor got mad b/c the police cut their (rusty) chain. What an ding bat. So thru all of this there was a bunch of unnecessary shouting going on. Most of it was from the retarded police. They did NOT know what they were doing. The guy in the fat suit was the one doing all the wrestling with the dog, but the rest of the guys were standing around throwing out comments and suggestions on how to get the dog under control. How many incompetent policemen does it take?

This whole time there were two guys on each side of the dog, each one with a leash around his neck. It was really sad, after they finally got the chain free, they started taunting the dog and pulling on the leashes to where the dog couldn't breathe. They are so cruel! I've never seen the police in the US dealing with a dangerous dog, but it seems like they would just shoot it with a tranquilizer then transport it then do whatever they do in these situations. In this case, the dog is going to get tested for Rabies and other diseases then they'll put him down. Personally, I think they'll put a muzzle on him and pretend he's a police dog. It seems like something they would do. LAME!! :))

In the end the dog was thrown/heaved into the back of the truck What a WILD experience. We had a front seat to it all b/c it all happened directly in front of our house. The old lady that got bit was there. She wanted to know if I was a doctor. Lol.
The little boy that was the son of the owner was outside until they got the leash on the dog. So that was about 4 hours. Sis. Mom made him a sandwich and sent it down with a can of 7up. It was cold out and he didn't have a coat so Bro. Dad gave him his sweatshirt. He was shaking, he said part from the cold and part from nervousness. And the strangest part was when Bro. Dad gave him the soda, he looked at it curiously and started twisting the top of it then gave it back and asked my dad to open it for him. That's pretty sad too, that he didn't know how to open a can of soda.
In the end the boy said he wanted to come to our Sunday school so maybe this incident was planned by God so him and his family could be saved.
Also, one of the policemen really 'took a liking to' Bro. Dad. He said today is his day off so he is going to visit our church. We'll see what happens.

Here's the pics of the whole ordeal:

Another Scary Food Post

We had one of THESE kind of food experiences today:

... :)

I took this while getting honked at while coming around to the other door. Notice who's in the honking seat. 'Notoria', we shall call her - because she always is doing this to SOMEONE.


Me getting in the car after I got honked at.


The fish cooking.


All up close and personal...


Fish have this little flap. The flap is the eye covering, then underneath there were all kinds of treasures...it looked like a pool ball, like an 8 ball, but white. Very interesting, I know.


The special little ball beneath the eye.


This is the order of which things came out of the head first.


My fish was either laughing or trying to eat my salad.


This is Sis. Mom's fish. Hers had this glinty eye thing goin' on. I thought only living things could do this? Apparently not...


Me and Nicole

Happy Birthday, Javier!

Today our assistant pastor's son turned 16. So, Feliz Cumpleanos, Javier!

(Tonight after church they brought over 2 ginormous pizzas. One was Hawaian and the other was seafood. The seafood one had octopus shrimp and tuna in it. Octopus isn't really my thing, if you know what I mean, so I had a peice of the Hawaian.)

New Family Member

We had long ago decided what we wanted to name our big Rottweiler watchdog. So meet Sniper!!
*Applause, Applause*
Thank you, Thank you!

He's outside right now howling his huge head off. Either he's going to get to sleep inside or we're going to be up all night. I mean, it's cute for a few minutes, but then we're wishing we had some duct tape. :))

Irrelevance

Nicole says this is all so irrelevant, but since nothing interesting has happened today and being irrelevant can be at least INTERESTING (I hope) ...

A few days before Christmas, Dolores (the young lady who does Sunday school) and I went downtown to buy some supplies for Sunday school. We both love going to "El Centro"-mostly during Christmas time to look at the decorations and lights. We came upon one of the Catholic churches and, much to my delight, there was a horse and carriage inside the gates. I love horses and couldn't resist going in to pet him. There was a man outside with the horse answering other curious passersby's (passerbys-ha) questions. He told us the horse was there to escort the bride and groom--there was a wedding going on inside. I'd never been to a Catholic wedding so---in we went!

It was a little strange. Very different from a 'normal' wedding...at least all the weddings that I'd ever been to. There was this priest in front talking in a boring, monotone voice, which went perfectly with the boring service. I mean, no special speakers, no cute little kids on the platform to make the wedding memorable, no words from the parents, and NO special songs! I mean, songs are a must have!

Anyways, with all the stories we've read on the news lately, I'm a little hmmm...WARY...of priests, to say the least. Well, this guy classified as my imagination's stereotypical "pervert priest". Sweaty face, greasy hair, and that annoying chunk of "stylish" hair dangling in his eyes.
...Who's he trying to look like anyways? Superman?! Well, if he was, he wasn't pulling it off very succesfully. (I was wishing Superman would fly in to take this wack job away.) Hence the word "pedophile" immediately popping into my brain.


This is what first piqued my interest. Things got much more interesting though...


During the ceremony all these kids came filing into a different section of the church and up onto the stage. They started chanting catechisms, crossing themselves, and kissing their thumbs. It was sad.
I mean, if they could just come to one of OUR Sunday school classes, they would never go back to this...



The ceiling of the cathedral.



Bride and groom being cursed by Mr. I-Just-Got-In-From-Jogging-5-Miles-And-Didn't-Have-Time-to-Wash-My-Face.
The rope around the bride and groom is the Catholic version of a unity candle.


And one last 'irrelevant' picture:
The Catholic people here do not put Jesus in the manger until the 24th.
And manger scenes are extremely offensive to the once Catholic people in our church because they actually used to worship Mary and the baby in the manger scene. To us it is just a decoration, but to them, it is a form of idolatry.


Ok. I'm done being irrelevant. Maybe the next post will be more substantial?

~Bethany~

Mattie and Dumplin' Get a 'Shower'

It's nice and warm outside so the birds got a bath. Ranger's out getting one right now.






Ok...here he is. All clean!


Mr. Bigfoot lookin' all relaxed in the shade.


This is a little Random, but yesterday, Nicole was working with Austin while he was schooling. He was supposed to write a sentence about smell. He says this says, "Nicole is sewer."

Yumminess

Now all of you Burbankians and fellow Pinkberry lovers do not have an excuse for not coming to visit us down here in Mexico. We have our own Pinkberry-esque place! And its delicious!

Christmas and New Years

It's a little late for these pictures, I mean all of this was 'so last year' ;)

The wonderful grandparents on Christmas Eve!


...Reading to Grampa and Gramma...



Nicole and I bought Austin a rabbit for Christmas. We were so excited about surprising him with this; he had been begging for one for a while. So we had to beg the mom, and finally she gave in...
Well, everyone came over for Christmas dinner. I had put the rabbit on my bed in a plastic bin and Ranger was outside. He was frantic and CRAZY for the rabbit. Well, Ranger got inside somehow and I went back to my room to check on Mr. Rabby...the tub was tipped over and the rabbit was nowhere in sight. After a minute, we found Ranger AND the rabbit in Austin's room, under the bed. He was missing a CHUNK of hair off his neck/back and had a little red hole/bite on his side. BUT HE WAS ALIVE!! So Ranger went BACK outside and the rabbit went into a box to get wrapped. Then, out into the living room he went to await his opening by the little boy.

We gave him the bag of rabbit pellets to open first.
He looked a little confused.


Finally getting to open the wiggling box






Austin and "Tom"
This rabbit is the most cuddly thing ever!


Mario and Hayde and their Christmas present :))


Grampa



Dad and Tom aka Rabby


Gramma and the dessert table.


Playing Dominos


Austin using his imagination with 2 of his Christmas presents...
A rabbit catcher!


Nicole opening a present...


Nicole and Dad doing fireworks and spark sticks (what are they called?)


Grampa, Austin, Me/Bethany, Nicole, Abner, and Hermano Mario playing Clue on Christmas Eve.


Austin-O and me on New Years night. We stayed home and drank hot chocolate, ate traditional Christmas bread, and played Boggle.


Elder Wakefield


Bro. Mario encouraging everyone to read their Bibles through this year.


El Pastor Curtis Wakefield also pumping everyone up...