The Big SEX Question

In the states, people have all sorts of theories for guessing the gender of the baby while those stubborn, old fashioned couples choose not to have the answer revealed on an ultrasound screen. Here are a few I´ve heard over the years.

carrying high = girl (x)
carrying low = boy ( )

Lots of morning sickness = girl ( )
Less = boy (x)

fast heart beat = girl ( )
slower = boy (x)

craving sweets = girl ( )
craving salty and sour = boy (x)

EVERYONE here thinks I´m having a boy for a few of their own
reasons......................

Mom´s that gain weight everywhere = girl ( )
Just a basketball / all belly = boy (x)

Mom´s face generally looks worried and stressed = girl ( )
Mom looks relaxed and happy = boy ( x)

Lots of kicking and movement = boy (x)
Less movement = girl ( )

This next one is my favorite!

A rounded, beautiful belly = girl (x)- Shane's pick
Pointed and not very pretty = boy (x)- Guatemalan's pick


I figure the Guatemalans have more kids than Americans, so as far fetched as some of these sound I´ll assume it´s a boy until proven differently. Besides, I´ve been told many times that my belly is pointed and not pretty like it would be if it were a girl so they better be right or I´ll just be offended that my pregnant belly is unattractive regardless of the gender.

So what do you think?

Montana Teams

Since we arrived back home from Montana, much of our time has been spent with short-term teams from Montana, so I thought I would give an overview of what they did. Who knows, it may spark someone’s interest for next summer?

The first team was from the church, SHEC, in Missoula and many of the team members had never been on a missions trip before. They came to show Christ’s love through work on a classroom in the community of Satexa and through building relationships with the people. With the kids, they sang, pushed them in wheel barrels, had water balloon fights, and led a vacation Bible school on the book of Jonah. The team visited homes and community gardens, encouraging and affirming parents in their hard work of raising kids. They worked alongside the community men to move a mountain of dirt for where the next classroom will be built.
Overall, in their activities the team formed a strong bond with Satexa through the sharing and showing of Christ’s love. At times some of the team expressed a little frustration with not being able to share their testimonies and the gospel due to the language barrier. But they came to understand that their role was to be the hands and feet of Christ and support our staff, who are teaching about the Bible and pointing people to Jesus on a daily basis. I think I can also speak on behalf of the team in saying that their two weeks here was mutually beneficial. The team came not only to give, but also ready to let God work in their own lives through the experience. People here are so generous and hospitable, even though they have far less material things, and there are many lessons we as Americans can learn from them (I speak out of experience). So thanks to the SHEC team, for following God’s leading to Guatemala and being His ambassadors.

One night the team came over to our house for a candlelight dinner. Kallie cooked her signature orange chicken tacos. My sister, Katie, was also part of the team. It was sure nice being able to introduce her to Guatemala and get to spend time together.


That overview was longer than intended, so you’ll have to stay tuned for Montana Team 2 later.

Countdown: 3 1/2 months

We had a crazy month and a half with 4 weeks of it spent with 2 Montana teams. We are a bit frazzled but thoroughly enjoyed our time with fellow Montanans and are glad the trips were so fruitful. Pictures and updates will be following shortly. Thanks to the teams I now have some gringo products that I just can´t live without including LOTS of brown sugar and cans of pumpkin (Thanksgiving without it is depressing).


Pray that we can find a good hospital in the capital and a doctor we can trust. Private hospitals in Guatemala have a C-section rate of 70% which is quite discouraging for me since I´m wanting to go as natural as possible. As a first time mom I already have concerns about pregnancy but then adding cultural differences and expectations to the mix has me feeling somewhat stressed. We are 5 hours from the good hospitals so pray that the baby doesn´t decide to come early or we´ll have a chaotic drive full of speed bumps and curvy roads.





We are getting more and more anxious to enter the wild world of parenting and with only 16 weeks left we won´t have to wait much longer. Just two weeks ago we got to feel the little blueberry's movement for the first time! Many have congratulated us through emails and facebook. Thanks for sharing in our excitement.

Little Gringo

For all of you who don´t know.............I´M PREGNANT!!! After a great first year in Guatemala and 4 wonderful years of marriage we thought the time was right. We surprised our families with the news during our time visiting Montana this past month.


We are expecting the baby to make it´s appearance around January 12th. I'm 16 weeks along and through with morning sickness! We will travel to Guatemala City a few weeks before the due date where we can take some advanced Spanish classes as we wait for the baby to arrive. Our side of the country doesn´t have very good medical facilities or equipment so we don´t feel comfortable staying here. I know this is practically unheard of these days but we WON´T be finding out the sex. We want to be surprised. I´m thinking it´s a boy and Shane´s guessing it´s a girl so we´ll see who´s right come January. Please pray for a healthy pregnancy and smooth transition into parenting!

Back in Chamelco........finally

Does anyone else hate airports as much as I do? We were suppose to leave Wednesday night, but after a 6 hour delay there was no way to make our connecting flight. So we quickly called our 2 airline carriers to change our tickets, which had to be successfully done within an hour or repurchasing tickets would have been neccesary. Then we learn we will leave Missoula Friday morning and have to hang out in Las Vegas until Saturday night. Bummer.
We did make the most out of this unexpected time in Vegas and enjoyed spending some much needed ¨us¨ time together after our packed 4 weeks in Montana. We think the worst is behind us and only smooth sailing from here on out until at check-in in Vegas we find out we can't board until we purchase return tickets since we don't have our work visas yet (after 12 months of waiting) but only tourist visas. So once again the race was on and there we were trying to buy return tickets within the hour and making sure we could get them credited to our account when we cancel them. After that near panic attack was subdued we arrived in Detroit at 1 a.m. and had to spend the night in the terminal since we had to be back at 4 a.m. for check-in. I slept only about an hour when I overheard some disgruntled airport workers discussing the ¨campers¨ behind their work station. Oops. Due to that one delay in Missoula and switching our flights we flew from Missoula to Vegas to Detroit to Fort Lauderdale to Guatemala City. Yikes. Why we had to fly to Detroit I have no idea.

I successfully accomplished two things from my ¨top 10 least favorite things to do¨ list. First was sleeping in an airport and the second was throwing up in a confined space. There I was head hung over my barf bag as we landed in Guatemala City. How humiliating.

Then I had to board a bus for a 5 hour twisting, turning road. 58 hours after we left Missoula we arrived home and were able to reunite with our o-so-loved puppy, Scout.








As you can tell by the pictures we had a great 4 weeks with friends and family.

Montana Bound

We will be heading to Montana for the first time in 14 months. Woohoo! Don´t expect any blog posts in July. We are looking forward to seeing everyone and we´ve missed good ole Montana too. The majority of our time will be spent with family and since we have 70 monthly supporters and many friends we won´t have much time to see people one on one, although we´d love to. Therefore, we will be having 2 barbeques for family, friends and supporters. Our newsletter tells the house addresses (don´t want to give them out over the internet) so please come!

The Billings barbeque is July 1st (Friday) from 5-8
The Missoula barbeque is July 17th (Sunday) from 2-5

Fire!!!

Pop, pop, poppity pop! Everyone in the FH office abandons what they are doing and runs to investigate the noise. The source of the sound is an electrical cord sparking and smoking. Turning off the breaker proves ineffective, so the sparks grow into small flames. In the meantime, chaos takes over. The reactions range from panicking people running around and screaming, thereby adding greatly to the already mounting chaos, to the few, paralyzed with fear, just staring at the flames from a distance, while still others are busy removing vehicles from the burning area. Rather than using the preferred method of using dirt to put out the flames of the electrical fire, it is getting doused in water (for those of you who didn’t take fire safety: electricity + water = a bad thing). In the mayhem, the cord is severed with a nearby broom, putting an end to the excitement. To our surprise we noticed the doctor, from our office, taking people’s blood pressure making sure the fright of the event wasn’t causing serious health problems. I kind of chuckled as I thought this was some sort of joke, but quickly realized that this scenario was taken very seriously.

Now let me bring it up close and personal to an experience two weeks earlier. One morning before work while enjoying a shower I start to notice a strange smell. Mind you, bizarre smells are common in our bathroom, so I didn’t think too much about it. However the smell became much stronger so I quickly rinsed the soap off my eyes to assess the situation. Looking directly up I see my shower head…on fire! Yes, on fire! The natural question that pops into your head is probably the same as mine, how in the world does a shower head catch on fire? Well, hot water heaters aren’t common, so an electric shower head can make a freezing cold shower warm. Anyway back to the shower…I leap out of the shower covered in suds from head to toe hollering for Shane to throw the breaker. My relaxing morning quickly turned thrilling since it’s not everyday there’s an electrical fire just inches above my head and in water at the same time. The wiring in many homes and offices isn’t done by professionals and are wrapped and repaired with little things found around the home. Bad wiring was the culprit of both scenarios, and I’m hoping two fires in one month are all I will be experiencing.