First Year in Illinois

First of all, my apologies for never updating all of you on our move to Illinois last January. Better late than never, right? Here is our year in review...

We snapped this photo as we arrived at our new house last January.

We did a lot of growing from January to December as portrayed in these two photos. Same outfit.

Baby #2 announcement....

 

Planting and harvest on the farm

In the combine, 2022, 2023 and 2024!

Watching Anthony learn new skills...lots of jumping and climbing

And acquire more favorites...we are enjoying the library

Preparing to become a family of four...

We welcomed Eliana Marie on November 17th

And celebrated our first Christmas here.

It has been a year of blessings! And of course, new challenges as always.

My plan at this time is for this to be my final update.

Thank you for your prayers and love throughout the last decade!

Family Time in Ixtlan

We spent two weeks in Ixtlan, the first half of January, working on projects at Miguel's mom's house and enjoying time with the family and the Ixtlan church.

My favorite project was painting the whole interior of the house. Everyone pitched in, painting or watching Anthony. And we enjoyed the result of a fresh paint job!

Anthony enjoyed playing with his cousins and they loved it too!

Left: Kevin in front of his school, Right: Natalie and Anthony enjoyed his Christmas gift from CVE

He loved the "frijoles" his Mamá Lola made!

Animals and animal sounds are a favorite right now, so we enjoyed watching the herds of goats when they passed.

One evening we took a walk through the fields and along the river. I got to see the fields that belonged to Marshall and Jan Heinold and the fruit trees they planted, and also the fields were Lola and Fani have worked harvesting strawberries!

The beautiful sunset was a highlight of our walk as well.

Park in Hermosillo

We were thankful for uneventful travels to and from Guadalajara, especially after having a 5 hour delay on our trip last year. 

Anthony has been struggling with ear infections over the last month, and got a cold while in Ixtlan. An antibiotic that was especially hard on his stomach didn't help matters either. Thankfully, a week after arriving back from Ixtlan, he seems to be doing better. 

I know I asked several groups for prayers for his health, so if you prayed, thank you so much!

Anyone who has had a child struggling with ear infections and colds knows how much I appreciate it!

In Transition

    

The end of November we packed up most of our belongings and moved to a house at CVE, so that we could begin to sell all our appliances and most of our furniture. Thankfully, everything sold fairly quickly and we were thankful to be staying at CVE over Christmas.

Other activities from December.

 

Trip to AZ for 18 month vaccines and to visit Denver and Katie!

Last couple piano lessons with the middle two!

Visiting a couple boys that I took care of six years ago.

Spending time with our loved ones from CVE.

Pretend driving any accessible vehicle!

Bedtime bible story.

Matt and Anni flew down just before Christmas. It was so fun to show them around for a few days, climb cross mountain, take them out to eat, and enjoy the Christmas festivities.

Also these two are just too cute together.

 

On December 28th, we took a final load of belongings across the border and Matt and Anni drove our truck and a U-haul trailer full of our things back to Illinois. Thank you so much Matt and Anni!

And we prepared to take a trip to Ixtlan to visit Miguel's family before our move...

It has definitely been challenging to be in a state of transition now for a couple months, but we're also super thankful for the privilege of having this time to say goodbye well.

Thank you for your prayers!

Harvest in Illinois

Since my last update, I spent a couple weeks interviewing students at CVV for their child sponsorship profiles. I really appreciated the opportunity to talk with each of my students from last year. 

Then we spent the month of October in Illinois,

closing our purchase on a home in Hanna City just six minutes from the farm,

helping with harvest,

staying with my parents and enjoying the animals and outdoors,

spending time with family,

and doing some remodeling on our new home.

We had a few unpleasant adventures as well...

a trip to the hospital for a sprained elbow (thankfully healed quickly)

and a minor accident pulling out of a parking spot (our fault and my first time calling 911!)

On October 30th we flew from Chicago to San Francisco and spent a few days with Miguel's dad and brother. Anthony enjoyed playing with his cousin Delilah.

We sold Miguel's mexican car at the end of September and the purpose of our trip to California was to get a truck from Miguel's dad. So thankfully, we now have two US vehicles in preparation for our move to Illinois in January. 

With the truck, we drove 10 1/2 hours to Phoenix where we were able to stop in and visit my great aunt and uncle, Harvey and Nancy Steffen.  The next day we drove 4ish hours down to Magdalena. We are thankful to be home. 

We celebrated Miguel's high school graduation

And Anthony turning 18 months, both in during our first week back. 

Miguel is doing car detailing. I am helping at Hilos and updating the CVE website. We are working on selling items, packing for our move, and enjoying time with Anthony. We are looking forward to spending the holiday season here with all our friends and visiting Miguel's family in Ixtlan during the first half of January. Our plan is to move the last week of January. 

Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers!

P.S.

We discovered during our travels that it is much different traveling with a toddler compared to a baby. Although it is harder for a toddler to sit still, traveling felt much less stressful at this stage. We made many friends, cruised down moving walkways during a one flight delay, and watched vehicles and airplanes through windows; and he napped on the plane. 

**Travel entertainment tips: big stickers, little nicknacks inside of little containers (he loves lids and containers), snacks, extra billfold with business cards, fidgets (fidget spinner, buttons). 

Cars and colors are also a good idea depending on your kid. Anthony is just getting into cars and started driving them around on the trip back to Mexico. (Before he started driving them around, he would just drop them and they got lost easily). Colors still don't entertain him much. He likes markers, but only for taking the lid on and off. We did get a little magnadoodle board from my grandparents and that was helpful on the way back.