So we had been invited to a special service at a sister church located about 45 minutes from here. Daniel is scheduled to preach, and our family to sing several songs. Tonight would be our fourth night being at church this week, and I could tell the children really didn't have their hearts in it. I couldn't blame them. We all get tired of being "out"!

Then my husband calls the pastor of that church to confirm the time we needed to be there. He said, "Oh, didn't I tell you? That has been moved to next week!" When their dad announced the news, the children rejoiced! Free time! Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Yeeeaaaah!

So what did they do with their free time? They went upstairs to sing and "play church". :o)

Four years ago the Lord gave us our John Benjamin. What a sweet, funny little guy he is! Always sensitive, a lover, not a fighter.. He defers to his brothers and sisters more often than not. When he opened some presents we got for him, he happily allowed his siblings to play with his new toys. I doubt I ever did that when I was four, ha ha!

So here are FOUR things I love about our J.B..

1) His sweet, kind nature.

2) His willingness to help with chores at home.

3) His sense of fun and adventure.

4) His amazingly limber little body. He jumps, falls, runs and climbs like a little spider monkey! LOL

I love you, J.B.! Happy birthday! :oD

They run rampant, if we're not careful!



Luckily, I have a strong and brave hubby who can keep those critters under control. :o)

100% natural. Traditional. That's me.

Hubby says I can be a little saucy at times, too. ;o)

The enemy crouches ready, each troop armed with every weapon they can manage. The first strike is imminent; a clash inevitable. They've awaited it for hours, plotting their tactics and sure that, this time, they will emerge from the fray victorious!

But the General is aware of their evil plan, and knows the location where they lie in wait. He also knows they are expecting him to come from the West. And he is ready.

The General is unarmed, and vastly outnumbered, and yet he charges courageously into the battle... From the North! A brilliant offensive move! The enemy is sufficiently surprised, and in the ensuing confusion, the General wrests weapons from one of the troops. They fall back to regroup!

The battle is on! I sit hunkered here before my computer, hoping to escape the din. Thunder sounds over my head, the missiles fly, and shrieks pierce the evening as they hit their target with precision.

This is no ordinary battle.

This is Saturday Night Pillow Fight With Daddy.

The General advances his attack. Oof! One of them blind-sides him with a sofa pillow! No fear, he quickly recovers. Children dive behind the beds as he takes aim, but this time the pillow just barely swipes a blonde head. He is unarmed again and, seeing his disadvantage, the troops advance once more... The littlest one latches onto his leg, wanting to be picked up. This puts The General at further disadvantage! Will he succumb to the barrage of pillows and fall to the ground, vulnerable to the enemy's notorious Deadly Dog Pile?

My ears strain to hear any signs that would tell the outcome. What's that? They are coming down the stairs! They are sure to discover me here, hiding out with the computer.

But they wouldn't attack a pregnant mama... Would they?

This was after having church Wednesday night. We cleared away most of the chairs, gathered the children around, and asked Hna. Beatriz to snap a few photos for us. None of them came out perfect, but we had fun!

Oops! The littlest wasn't looking...

Nobody was ready for that one. Not even the photographer. (Amateurs...)

This time the camera was on video, and nobody knew it at first...



Daniel says, "It's on video." I react, and then Hna. Beatriz says, "What happened??"

Here we go:

That's the best we could do! There's the whole family, May 2009.

Thanks, Tereza for the ideas!

Seventeen months and two-hundred posts ago, This Pilgrimage began. I wondered (out loud) what I should do to mark this occasion, and settled on reminiscing a little about how I came to be a blogger.

When we first came to Guatemala in 2002, I relied mainly on email and telephone to keep in touch with friends and family back in the States. I was content for a while, emailing photos and updates on the family, but as I began to learn that there was more to the internet than email, (I know, I was waaay behind the times. Still am...) I started to look for ways to post our photos and updates online so that our people Up North could just click there.

It took me a little bit of digging to find this, but This Site ("Tammy's Bulletin Board") was my first attempt at it doing that. Don't laugh! Hey, it was free... :o) I set up a page for each family member and intended to have running updates on each page. But I quickly learned that Tripod.com wasn't going to hand over that much free space, ha ha.

So I started looking around for other options...

...And I learned about blogging! In September 2005 I started our first blog,"The Daniel Coates Family", and boy did I have fun with that. My friend and fellow missionary Tori helped me get going, and she has been a blessing in that way several times since. (Thanks, Tori!)

That blog covered it all, ministry stuff, family stuff, all kinds of stuff. By January 2008, I realized we needed a separate blog for family, and the first is still maintained for ministry. Thus This Pilgrimage was born. I asked God to help me with it, and use it however He sees fit. It is about the path we take, following Him. Thanks for coming along!

So that is my blogging story! It's been fun and inspiring. It has frustrated me and stretched me. It has worn me out at times, and kept me going at other times. Overall, I love blogging, and appreciate all of my readers (whether you comment or not). Thanks for stopping by. :o)

Look at this nifty old tea kettle my girls found! Someone had left it in the creek behind our house, and they fished it out and brought it home.


We cleaned it up and heated it on the stove to dry it thoroughly. The enamel is chipped in several places and there are dents in it, but doesn't it have character? I thought it would look cute in the space on top of my kitchen cabinets.

Our Guatemalan friends will think we are crazy when they see an old tea kettle decorating my kitchen.

Ever since you were born,
It has been your delight
Your little self to adorn...


With such colors brilliant,
Pink, orange and BLUE!
What shall I do
With a boy like you?

Not content just to paint,
You also must savor
That yummy, non-toxic,
Crayola marker flavor.



But that's no conclusion
Of this exasperating rhyme.
We'll see blue again
Next diaper-change time...

For all the convenience of a modern washing machine, sometimes a little girl just needs to do it the old-fashioned way...


(Her scrub board is my cutting board.)


Johanna can't reach the clothesline, so her big sisters did that part of the job.


Fresh, clean dolly laundry!

Baby Joel is well into his ninth month, and while I very much enjoyed his adorable, toothless, gummy grin, I was beginning to wonder if the boy was going to sprout some teeth anytime soon!


Well, one finally broke the surface last week. These photos are my attempts at capturing the "breakthrough"...


Yep, he caught on to what I was doing...


C'mon, open up!


Aha! Got it!

Nina over at Portugal Bound tagged me for a meme. This is my first time to do a meme, so fortunately for me, the rules are simple:
1) Link to the person who tagged me.
2) Mention the rules.
3) Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about myself.
4) Tag 6 other bloggers by linking to them.
5) Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that lets them know they’ve been tagged.

So here are six quirky details about me:
1) In fifth grade I decided to stop biting my nails. Then I started biting my cuticles instead. Still do.
2) I have a tiny hole at the top of each ear that I was born with.
3) I procrastinate until the last minute. I guess I work better under pressure.
4) My doctor hates to see me coming. He knows I most likely will not take his advice nor Rx, but rather get his diagnosis then look for a home remedy to treat it.
5) Babies #4, #5 and #6 were born in water. I loved it!
6) My husband asked me to marry him when he was fifteen. (Good thing we lived 300 miles apart. Ahhh, camp romance!)

Okay, so I'm tagging:
Tammy at View from Behind. Church planter's wife. God bless her!
Ashleigh at Heart and Home. Military wife. God bless her, too!
Charity at Fresh from the Chari Tree. A fellow Texan, Yee-Haw!
Jaynee at The Lockwood Family blog, if she has time. This lady has 11 precious little ones to look after!
My buddy Tori at A Home Away From Home. She did a meme a while back, but might have developed some new quirks since then ;o)
And Sandra at WatercolourDreams, about whom I would like to know more. :o)

This is a funny anecdote I found that I can really relate to..

Unexpected guests were on the way, and my mother, an impeccable housekeeper, rushed around straightening up. She put my father and brother to work cleaning the guest bathroom. Later, when she went to inspect it, she was surprised that the once-cluttered room had been tidied up so quickly. Then she saw the note on the closed shower curtains. It read "Thank you for not looking in the bathtub."

...I gotta remember that! :oD

Another big event that occurred during Furlough 2007 was when our oldest child had to get glasses. Jessica was having trouble reading road signs that we could see well ahead of time. Walking past an eyeglass store one day, she did a free quick-test, which verified our suspicions that her eyes were weakening. Getting her a pair of glasses was such a relief to her...


Something about glasses on her face made her look so grown-up!

If you wear glasses, do you remember when you first put them on? I do. And I loved them. I loved being able to see everything so clearly! If I was ever called "four-eyes" I don't remember it, because I was just so thankful to have those wonderful glasses. Of course, that was back in (ahem!) the '80s, so those BIG lenses were popular.

Daniel found this at the store the other day. It's "watta" brand drinking water. It's just pure water, "but with style," it says. I guess the designer water movement has reached Guatemala!

It was brought to my attention by a kind reader that I have posted pictures of my boys lately, but nothing of the girls. To remedy this, we went outside for a quick photo shoot. Here I am with my sweet girls!

Here's a close-up of our strawberry plants that grow along the front of the house. They have some sweet little blossoms on them right now, and many itsy-bitsy strawberries! When I saw this little visitor crawling on the leaves, I had to snap a picture of it.

I tried to sneak a pic of Joel Daniel as he awoke from his nap, but he was ready for me! The camera strap is irresistible.

I gave all of my guys haircuts today. (Well, at least the three that had enough hair to cut!) They are lookin' good! :o)

Well, it is a sweltering 75 degrees today (;-) The sun is so warm and the wind just right -- it's drying my laundry faster than I can keep up! A beautiful day for my hubby to come home. Yea!! We've whipped up a few surprises for the big welcome. Among them, cheeeeesecake. Daniel's favorite.