the most wonderful time of the year

Now I know what they mean in that Christmas song when they say "It's the most wonderful time of the year". When you move away from everything you know...your family, friends, and work, things become a little more, ummmmmm, PRECIOUS! We haven't updated the blog in several weeks simply because we have been enjoying every sheer moment of our time here in Oregon. Here are a few of the highlights....


1. My traditional Christmas Eve-Eve lunch with my friend, Ronelle (a 14 year tradition that I forgot to take a picture of...FAIL!)


2. The Bryant kid traditional Festivus dinner (another picture fail on my part. Sarah, would you mind sending me a picture to post on the blog)


3. The traditional Christmas Eve pizza at Papa's (geesh, we have a lot of traditions. I LOVE them all!!!)

4. Christmas morning at my parents

traditional "in front of the tree" picture

sweet Peruvian-made puppets for my classroom

Check em out  http://perupuppets.com/

the traditional Christmas morning brunch

5. Christmas evening at The Bryants

we smuggled tequila & margarita glasses across the border

sweet home-made gifts from Wendy

5. Christmas Around the World
(My wonderful mother in law had the great idea to celebrate Christmas with the extended family by bringing a variety of dishes from around the world and discussing where we've all traveled. Wish I could've been able to name off a few more countries....maybe next time)

i set a 10 second timer and told everyone to hurry up. this is what resulted

the Schulenberg clan

7. Lunch Date with the ladies

my little BFF

Holy crap, I am so thankful to be "home for the holidays". Am I too mushy-gushy to say that my family and friends mean the world to me. We are so blessed!

los bryant outlaws

Well, yet another “first” for Los Bryants. This weekend, we officially got kicked out of Mexico. 

That’s right, on Saturday afternoon, Wes & I tried to cross into Mexico, but were officially denied. Here’s the story: I encouraged Wes to bring his dirt bike with us in the back of the truck, as I knew the kids would love riding it around the desert. Well....Mexico is notorious for its inconsistent border crossing rules and the lady at secondary decided that she simply would not let us into her country without seeing the bike’s registration. Awesome, did this lady think we were criminals!?!?! We turned around, drove the 20 miles back to Yuma, and grabbed the registration, and headed back for a second try. Ironically, after wasting our precious afternoon getting paperwork, on our second time through we weren’t even stopped and were simply waved through. So much for the “you need your registration” policy.

I was absolutely right. The Vieyra family LOVED Wes’ dirt bike. Wes was such a trooper and drove everyone around through the desert, including Papa Arny & Mama Lety. I’m not kidding, Wes probably made 25 rides in a matter of a few hours. Here’s some pictures of everyone’s rides.....

gamas

samy

papa arny

magui (can't believe our baby girl is almost a teenager)

 

selene

mama lety

dirt biking in a falda

Oh, and did I mention the real purpose of our trip!?!?!? The original purpose of our trip was for Wes to fix Papa Arny’s car. When he wasn’t taking people on joy rides, Wes was under the Vieyra family car, fixing the starter. 

Due to auto stores being closed on the weekends, we had to make an additional trip on Monday for Wes to finish fixing the car. It felt so crazy that we were making just a quick evening trip to Mexico, considering it used to take 20+ hours to make a trip down here in the past. While making dinner with my sweet little Magui, who has literally grown up before my very eyes, I realized that Wes & I lead quite the unique life. I mean, c’mon, how many of you can say you were spending your Monday night hanging out in a small low-income community in Mexico cooking with the cutest 12 year old you ever did see?

We are so blessed.  

safety first!

wes told the boys they could ride it if they could start it. they failed.

dq with da boys

wes' "thanks for fixing the car" gift