Thank You Dinner

A couple weekends ago, the Elder Wakefields had a special dinner at their house. It was their way of saying thank-you to all of the people that helped take care of their church while they were traveling in the States for the last 3 months. 

We were all pretty excited for this because 1) Gramma is a great cook and 2) we love getting together with our family and almost-family :) 

Going down the buffett

Paper plates make great fans :) Whew! 

Ribs, buffalo wings, potato salad, spinach and strawberry salad....Oh yummy...

La familia Alonso!

The Garcia families! 

A lot of good times have been had around this table. 

Elissa was, as always, being very serious. It seemsNicole and Abner are the only ones that can get this girl to smile!! 

Ellissa looks like a happy little baby in these pictures, but only because Nicole was behind the camera making faces and going crazy - lol! She's quite a cutie!! 

Princess overload, I know....but I just couldn't not include this one :)) 

Mr. Austin chowing down! 

After eating, the subject of Grampa's hair got brought up (it seems like we are always talking about his hair - haha! It's so white and beautiful and thick though!) He loves to have his hair pulled at and played with...even if it results in getting a 'do. In this case, a French braid down each side of his head. 

Being silly

After eating dinner, having dessert (strawberry shortcake!) and talking around the table for a good while....it was time for the music! Everyone at the house could either play an instrument or sing so we sat around the living room passing the guitars and having a good ole time! 

When the Diaz family from Washington came down and visited us a few months ago, they told us about some songbooks that they used back home. They promised to send us some when they returned and sure enough - they did! These are such nice-looking, quality songbooks with English hymns that have been translated into Spanish. We pulled them out and sat around singing these beautiful, meaningful songs. (Thank you, Bro. and Sis. Diaz, Amanda, Bethany, Jonathan for this treasure!!)

Some of the songs had such beautiful words, but we didn't know the tune so we just made it up as we went along :) 

The little rug rats having a good time of their own! 

The night was winding down with me getting help with an upcoming math lesson.....

.....and everybody else playing dominos.....

...when all of sudden, our long-lost family friend, the giant bat-moth, came fluttering into the house. 

It flew up and hid in the chandelier (kudos to Tio Mario for the picture!)

Austin ended up getting a broom to try to knock it down, but I don't know if he actually succeeded. I don't remember what happened, except Tio Mario was trying to convince Nicole that if she kissed the moth, Mexican folk loor says she'd get married the next day. Somehow she ended up with a bruise on her leg in the tussle. Who knows where the moth ended up. 

~Bethany~