Floating Lanterns Over Mexico

While I really wanted Cami to keep blogging about her trip to Mexico, she keeps talking about how hard it is to sit down and write a fun blogpost when she has an AP Lang essay to write.  Or AP calculus homework to slave over.

So I decided to give her a pass this week and write it up myself.  

This will be the final installment of blogposts about her service trip to Mexico to help build houses.  (Click here for part 1 and part  2)

On the final night of her trip--after the houses were finished and presented to their new owners--all of the participating families gathered for a real Mexican fiesta!  They started off the fiesta with some mediocre Mexican food at a seaside restaurant, then headed out for a real treat--the opportunity to live their own Tangled moment (sans the serenade)!   

She said that the effect of the lanterns floating over the Bay of California was absolutely enchanting...

and the perfect capstone to an amazing week!  

Thank you to my Uncle Buddy and his family who welcomed Cami with open arms on their family trip...

and allowed her to have an experience of a lifetime!



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Building Houses in Mexico (Part 2)

Today my mom blackmailed me. She told me I either had to help clean the kitchen or write her a blog post.  It was almost like she was asking me to steal her blog again. (shh, don't tell her I actually wanted to write another blog post!) So anyway here I am typing away contentedly while my mom and dad slave over the dirty dishes :-)

The first time I stole the blog I told you about the out-of-this-world awesome Christmas dinner we had our first night in Mexico and how I got there. Now the story of my craziest Christmas ever continues with us building houses!

No, you didn't misread that. Cami Goold, the teenage girl who loves nail polish and cupcakes and hates nothing more than yard work was actually building a house. And I LOVED it! For three days I worked next to my Aunt Debra, Uncle Buddy, Hannah, Ethan, Isaac, and 20 other families cementing brick walls and tarring roofs so we could give the best Christmas present ever to 2 families. It was definitely hard work but I cherished every second I spent working beside awesome people and learning awesome skills to build awesome houses.

Here's a glimpse of the work we did:

{First we built the walls from the ground up. There were a lot of cinder blocks and even more cement involved.}

{Hannah, Isaac, and me with a big pile of cement}

{Me and Hannah cementing some more.}

{After the blocks were stacked and glued we poured cement to fill the walls.  Those buckets were HEAVY!}

{We took random breaks from building walls to move piles of dirt.}

{Hannah and I had a good laugh about this guy photobombing our picture}

{Once the boards were in place we went on the roof to help nail them down.}

{After the walls were all built up, supports for the roof were put in and we helped pass up boards.} 

{Working on the roof was new, a bit unnerving, and totally 100% awesome.}

{After the boards were in place we used thick, black tar to glue down shingles. I learned later that the only way to remove tar from your hands is to wash them with gasoline. yay.}

{This is what 20 families building houses in the desert looks like. Awesome.}

{After just 3 days working on them, this is what we left the houses looking like. Another group will come in a few weeks to finish the inside and present them to the families.}

After we finished working on the houses we started, we went to the houses that were started last year by another group to finish them up. 


{Me, Ethan, and Isaac moving a huge pice of dried cement out of the yard.}

Once the 2 houses were fully furnished and shiny clean we got to do my favorite part of the entire trip: present the houses! Since the families receiving the houses don't own cars Buddy and Debra went to pick one of them up from their previous house shack.

{This is the tiny trailer a family of 6 had been borrowing from a friend to live in.}

{This is the house they live in now, thanks to Families Helping Families.}

{the living room.}

This is the family Buddy and Debra drove to their new home. When they were presented the house they were so elated they were literally speechless. Afterwards

{the bathroom}

{The kitchen}

{one of the bedrooms}

{This family had 7 kids! We never saw their previous living situation but all I know is how happy they looked when they got to walk into their new house.}

{This is the family Buddy and Debra picked up and brought to the new houses. When they were presented the house they were so elated they were literally speechless. Later that night we were talking with one of the organizers of the FHF project and he told us what happened after the family walked through their new home. The dad walked up to him with tears in his eyes and just gave him a big hug. This man works as a dish washer at a restaurant for 12 hours a day. He leaves work twice a day to BIKE his son to and from school. For this man and his family we gave up just a few short days of our winter break and in return they were able to finally have a steady roof over their heads, a blessing I take for granted every single day.}

{Me, Hannah, Ethan, Isaac, Uncle Buddy, and Aunt Debra with the end result of our 3 days of building.}

  Building houses in Mexico was hard work but it really didn't feel like work at all. When people ask me how Mexico was I usually can only come up with an unimpressive "it was so awesome!" because I can never find words that adequately describe how great it really was. But when it all comes down to it awesome really does describe just about exactly how I felt about the whole thing. So totally awesome. Another awesome thing is my Aunt and Uncle. I cannot speak highly enough of  Buddy, Debra, Hannah, Ethan, and Isaac and I am so grateful they let me tag along with their family. 

Cami's Trip to Mexico (Part 1)

My mom let my big brother steal my room and mess up my bed while he's home from JMU for winter break, so I decided to steal her blog as revenge. I hope you don't mind.

I am going to tell you a story about a 16 year old girl. This girl loved nothing more than Christmas. She loved singing Christmas carols. She loved baking cookies until her hands fell off and her jeans didn't fit. She loved sneaking up the stairs past midnight on Christmas Eve to sit and stare at the glowing tree. But most of all she loved being with her family. She loved watching the movie Elf with her siblings. She loved watching her sister scream delighted thank you's as she unwrapped her presents (so loud Santa definitely heard them from the North Pole.) She loved it all... So what on earth was this girl doing 2,000 miles away from her home and family on Christmas?

It all started a year ago when I was eating lunch in the school cafeteria and my friend told me she was going on a service trip to El Salvador to assist impoverished people. I immediately knew I wanted to do a service trip somewhere, someday.... but it was always a faraway dream that I knew wouldn't happen for years. As junior year rolled around and the thief called AP calculus stole my life from me, my dream faded further into the shadows. I had just about decided to wait until after college to check service trip off my bucket list when my grandpa called with the news that his brother Buddy and family would be traveling to Mexico to build house for families in need over Christmas break AND THEY WERE GOING TO LET ME GO WITH THEM!!! Not much else in the world could have actually made me WANT to leave my house for Christmas. Arrangements were thrown together in a couple short weeks (by my wonderful parents, grandpa, and aunt and uncle). It was quickly decided that I would fly to Utah and stay with my grandparents for 4 days before driving to Mexico with Buddy and his family where we would stay in Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) for 5 days.

Before I even knew what was happening, it was just hours before my departure to Utah and I was packing my bags for the trip. That's when the reality of 'missing' Christmas finally hit me like a ton of bricks. I am embarrassed to say I almost ditched the whole thing right then and decided to stay home instead of embarking on my holiday adventure. Don't get me wrong now, I REALLY wanted to go. Like a lot. But I'm a sucker for Christmas and traditions and my family so I almost didn't. I'm pretty sure my mom wanted me to stay home too but being the awesome future teller person that she is, she somehow knew already that it was an experience I needed to have so I let her escort me to the airport and put me on a plane to Utah. 

And so it was that the girl who loved Christmas said goodbye to her family and flew to Utah all alone, just days before her beloved traditions would begin.

The second I stepped off the plane in Utah my fears were put to rest as my Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, Aunt, and Uncle immediately set to work making my Christmas as busy and full of excitement. We baked, sang Christmas carols, played in the snow, and baked some more. The days leading up to Christmas were full of family and fun. I almost didn't even miss my family in Virginia...almost.

After I received my fair dosage of sugar and singing, Christmas Eve morning rolled around with my (great) Uncle Buddy, Aunt Debra, and their kids, Hannah, Ethan, and Isaac picking me up for our adventure. They took 2 cars all the way to Mexico just so they would have room for me, they're pretty much the nicest people ever. Overnight in Phoenix and 12 hours in the car later we drove across the border (I was shocked they didn't even ask to see our passports!) Driving into Mexico was breathtaking. I've been to 42 states plus Canada but nothing can compare to the culture shock I felt driving into Mexico for the first time. You can just ask my poor Aunt Debra whom I battered with questions the full 60 miles between the border and our beachside destination, Puerto Penasco. If you've never been to Mexico I'll let you in on a secret--they speak Spanish. And they build doghouse-like shrines to the virgin Mary on the side of the highway, and they don't have grass, and they have really tall cactus trees, and there are about a gazillion and one stray dogs running around the streets. 

Just as I was recovering from the initial shock of being in a truly foreign country for the first time we arrived at the first event of our service trip: Christmas dinner for the locals.

A local restaurant, Don Julio's, donated the main course for the dinner and all of the families brought side dishes.  We ate at the restaurant later in the trip and it was delicious!)

I was shocked first by the amount of people that were there to help-- more than 20 families left the comfort of their homes for Christmas just to help give comfort to another family.

My favorite part of the dinner was the toys. A toy factory in Utah donated hundreds of wooden cars and trains which we handed out to all the little kids after they filled their plates.

Little kids just have a way of working their way into people's hearts. Watching their faces light up as they received a good meal and a toy was priceless, I was maybe tempted a few times to take a few kids home with me.

I have this theory that nothing brings people together like good food. This dinner was perfect evidence of that. Half of us spoke English while the other half spoke Spanish but as these families lined up to get their food, everyone was just happy. Apart from confirming my belief in food, it made me realize how often I take good food for granted. Every night my mom prepares an amazing, fresh meal and I can't even imagine the chaos that would be my house if we ever missed dinner. These people don't have the luxury of food at all, let alone food as good as my mom's! Seeing all the faces brighten as they filled their bellies made me realize why I so badly desired to go on a service trip-- to try my very best to share the blessings I take for granted (like good food and a house) with people who don't have them. That dinner and the people we met there gave a purpose to the long days of building walls and tarring roofs that would follow...but details on that later.

Stay tuned for Part 2:  Building Houses

Mexico and an Art Project

I was so excited to see this picture come across my Instagram feed yesterday.   

It was posted by one of my acquaintances whose family is participating in the
same service project as Cami.   Cami's phone doesn't work there in Mexico, except where there is wifi coverage, so it's the only glimpse I've been able to see of what they're doing  there.  

This picture is of the Christmas dinner they served to the natives.  

Yesterday they started building houses!  

I can't wait to hear all about it when she gets home.    

In the meantime, this quick late night facetime call she made from the
hotel last night will have to do.    

We sure miss our Camikins.

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On a completely different note, here's a glimpse of a very cool art project we did a couple weeks ago.  Adam's is top left, Ellie's top right, and Cami's is the bottom one.
 I absolutely loved how they turned out and am thinking about getting them framed.