Gobblin' Good Time

Here are a few pictures of our Guatemalan Thanksgiving! Yep, we actually had turkey with all the trimmings. Albeit, the trimmings sometimes took on a Guatemalan "substitution" flare, but Scott said it was one of the best Thanksgiving spreads he'd had in quite a while. I felt pretty good about my first turkey - thankfully I was able to buy a Reynolds turkey bag to bake it in. I think that was my salvation. I almost had a bad mishap - I didn't realize that you could stuff the turkey from both ends, which means I didn't realize that there were 2 bags of "stuff" inside the turkey to remove before cooking. Thankfully, I called Rhonda, who made the stuffing, and when I asked her if there would be a lot of stuffing left over (that didn't fit inside the turkey to bake). She asked me if I stuffed both ends, and I casually said that I was getting ready to do that, but was just checking! Much to my surprise, there was the other bag of giblets in the other side! SO - what could have been a very embarrassing, yet memorable first turkey experience, resolved itself in time :). Along with turkey, we were able to purchase canned cranberry sauce and some canned pumpkin, rounding out our traditional meal. I was able to get some french fried green onions for the green bean casserole from the states about a month ago, so we were all set. The meal was great, and we enjoyed spending it with other missionaries from the States.

Obviously, since we cooked the turkey, it was our job to carve it and save all the leftovers. I carved and carved, knowing that a goal of mine was to find the wishbone. I've never known exactly where it was located - I just knew that dad would save it, dry it out, and then we would break it the next day. Well, thankfully, I found it - and carved it out without breaking it! I wanted to preserve the tradition of breaking it with the kids. They thought it was funny - Elijah was victorious. We will start the scoreboard now - Elijah (1)/Sydney (0). We'll see if Sydney can even things up next year...


Well, just wanted to get a few pictures out. We have a really crazy 2 weeks in front of us with the Maxima Mision coming up. We have 5 days until 200-300 people invade Guatemala, and we are in charge of them! Please keep us in your prayers - pray specifically for our heath, that Scott and I stay healthy during the stressful week, and that the kids stay healthy during the week with a babysitter. This last picture is apparently a classic "retake" in the Armstrong family - Scott remembers posing for this exact same picture with his dad, Tim and a Royals Cabbage Patch doll (sorry, I can't remember his name, and Scott's not around). Hope that it gives warm fuzzies to the Armstrong boys! :)

emily

Fun School Days

The kids are officially done with school, but since Nov. 2, have been involved in a vacation course. They get to do lots of fun things like cooking, drama and gymnasium. Yesterday they brought home 2 cups of purple and red jello that they made themselves. They were pretty proud! They are having a ton of fun! A few of the days have been "theme" days - like last week, they searched for buried treasure as pirates.
And today - they got to go to school dressed in their pajamas, because they are having a pajama party!
I'm interested to hear what they got to do today for their pajama party - I'm sure it involved some type of candy - every party here in Guatemala includes candy!

We've also had lots of fun in the house - I've been staying at home with them during the afternoons since they started school last spring. Although it's had it's challenging times, I've enjoyed the extra time that I've gotten to spend with them. A few weeks ago, we went grocery shopping and brought home a few boxes - of course, the kids found uses for them...

We are on the countdown until our huge Maxima Mision project takes off - only 17 days from today. Scott and I are super busy coordinating lots of details. Please pray for us as we coordinate 500 people planting 10 churches in 1 week. It's going to be awesome, but right now feels very overwhelming. We need our prayer warriors to be on overdrive for us. The actual event in Dec. 2-9.

Well, with that I'll end this blog. As I just mentioned, there is lots of work to be done. I'll leave you with a funny quote from Elijah - now that he's 4 1/2, something funny comes out of his mouth almost daily!

Overheard at the dinner table a few nights ago:
Scott: Em - should I save room for dessert, did you make anything?
Elijah: Mommy - what did you make for dessert?
Emily: I made zippo.
Elijah: Zippo? Can I see it?

Hugs to everyone - happy thanksgiving a week early!

The Armstrongs