Ashley Elizabeth... our sweetheart turns 20!

~ Ashley Elizabeth McDonald~October 15, 1991

She wasn't supposed to be here.. but the Lord had other plans for her life. Literally rescued from the abortionist's hand. The Lord used her to bring Grady and I to himself.. and now I am priviledged to call her one of my very best friends. She is a very talented, gentle young lady who amazes me daily with her abitlity to juggle household duties, dissapointments and challenges with a smile and an eternal perspective always in view. She loves the Lord Jesus and is such an encouragement to me. I adore you my sweet Ashley. Thank you for your example to me and for your ministering spirit. Your father and I love you so much.

You can visit her blog at:

http://servantforjesus.blogspot.com/

Laura Jean

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above...

Recently we were chided for having so many names for Laura. I do not know why we always give our children so many nicknames.. well I guess when you have as many people in a family as we do, everyone wants to get in on the action! Here are Laura's current nicknames:

Lulu, Lala, Lobelia, Lucy, Lucinda, Lolly, Lori and Ashley's favorite LaTicha (? where did she get that?)

My current favorite is Lucy. It just seems to fit her. Well whatever we happen to be calling her on any given day, our youngest daughter has been such a joy and blessing to our family. Much of the time she just plays contently by herself. She also loves playing with Grace and is daily learning more and more the ways of being a little girl instead of my baby. She 'gets' jokes now and is always watching carefully what everyone else thinks is funny and what everyone else thinks is serious. Recently she has been fussing at night to nurse and also being very 'grabby' in public, making a scene if she wants mama. Dad and I decided that maybe it is time for her to be weaned except for at night.. so I went to the store and bought a bottle in order to switch her to cows milk during the day.. well luckily for her it leaks like crazy and was promptly thrown in the trash! So my little baby gets to continue to be my baby for a few more days until I get another bottle from the store that is! Her other favorite 'yum-yums'are homemade yogurt and watermelon. And her vocabulary is growing daily. She currently says Mama, Da, Ashley, Mandy,bike, up, down, uh oh, baby, dog and kitty. In sign she knows please, up, more, all gone, milk, thank you, more and all done. The signing has been a wonderful tool to use while her verbal vocabulary catches up. I just love this age and watching her process what is going on around in her little world. You can almost hear her brain working and making so many new connections daily. We give thanks to the Lord for this most precious little blessing.. our family would be so incomplete without her.

Laura Jean, 15 Months Old

Amanda Update

The results of the halter heart monitor test last week revealed that she indeed suffered from tachycardia all day long.. her heart rate racing up and down from 80 or 85 bpm to 120 bpm. No one can really tell us why this is happening which is probably the most difficult part of this trial. The good news is that both the monitor test and the echocardiogram test shows a perfectly formed and funtioning heart which is such a blessing and miracle! The only problem is trying to figure out why Mandy's heart is racing up and down. We had thought that once her infection was gone that the issue would be resolved but that is not the case. Some have suggested that it may be hormone issues, some are suggesting that it could be a thyroid issue. We will be retesting her for the thyroid in another 4 weeks. In the meantime she is on many supplements and vitamins which is helping her with her exhaustion and headaches. We are so so blessed she is feeling better but it does not tell us *why* she is still suffering from the tachycardia. Please keep praying that she continues to feel better and that we have the wisdom to order the tests which are going to give us more information on her situation. Thanks to all!

The Belize Zoo

We have been to many zoos in our family history. But this one by far is the most wonderful zoo we have had the opportunity to visit! The Belize Zoo and Education Center is settled upon 29 acres of tropical savanna and exhibits over 150 animals, representing over 45 species, all native to Belize.

Jabiru Stork

This wooden 'statue' shows the Jabiru stands 5 feet tall and has a wingspan of 8 feet. Its heavy bill is about 12 inches long. Look how small Gracie is next to this giant fellow!

Dad and Gracie with a Scarlet Macaw

Grison ~ I believe he is in the weasel family... ewww!

Grant and Grace hike the stairs to get a better view of the entertaining Spider Monkeys

Mandy makes the trek too!

The Spider Monkeys are so fun to watch! This guy seemed to be posing for the camera~

Tapirs or 'Mountain Cows' These gently giants allowed my more adventurous daughter pet them! We later heard that if you are not careful they will sometimes try and urinate on you! Yikes! (sorry to be so gross.. :O )

This way to the jaguars

Springfield ~ our children got to hear first hand from Franz how he captured this lovely Jaguar near Springfield.. hence her name

Jr buddy, Springfield's beautiful son

Coatimundi

napping in the sunshine this crocodile looked almost surreal

Lovely parrots

This Margay is even more beautiful than the well known Ocelot! The photos do not do her justice

Here is the family favorite! This lovely Puma (or Mountain Lion or Red Tiger) was rubbing herself against the fence. She finally flopped on her back and on her side, purring and growling. She was such a beauty!

The male puma

The coy little Ocelot

After spending the morning at the hospital with Dr. Gough, Mandy was exhausted! We had brought along a wagon to pull her around in. She was able to walk a bit also but had to resort to being pulled quite a few times.. as of the time I am writing this, she does feel a bit better Praise the Lord! Just looking at this photo and seeing where she was a week ago encourages us that she is slowly regaining her energy! Yay!

Some gorgeous blue bird of whose name I cannot remember! :)

The whole zoo was so well maintained! There were workers painting railings and picking up debris the entire time we were there.. it was such a joy visiting such a beautiful zoo!

Lovely tropical flowers decorate the entire grounds

As we were leaving the zoo, we were already talking about what the children would like to see again upon our next visit! We are so grateful that there are wonderful places such as this where we can see God's creation up close and personal.

City Life

Grady and I took Mandy and little Laura to Belize City for her appointment with the heart specialist.. Ashley had offered to stay home with Grace and the boys.. we all thought they would probably have a better time here at home than riding 3 +hrs in the minivan! When traveling as a family, someone either has to sit behind the back seat in the hatchback area or somewhere on the floor. Not too bad for short trips.. but a bit uncomfortable for longer ones!

We got to the bridge in Spanish Lookout and were relieved that the water was low enough to slowly crawl through!

As we drove over, we could see the waters swirling around us!

Our first stop on our day trip was the Art Box in Belmopan. We were told that they serve espresso! We had left home early enough to swing in and take a look at some locally handcrafted items as well as peruse their bookstore and of course have a goood cup of coffee!

Mandy really liked these lovely wooden stools in their cafe area

The tourist in me almost gave in to purchasing this carving. This special verse had been especially encouraging to us over the past few weeks..

Laura found these Amish dolls quite charming.. so much so that she grabbed the Amish Mama with her toddler death grip and had to be forcibly convinced that it did not belong to her! I had Mandy snap this photo to see if we could duplicate this sweet doll at home.

Here I am, showing off our AMERICANOs! Yes, they were in styrofoam and yes they had powdered creamer in them BUT were nonetheless delicious!

This is a typical police check point. Actually, I believe this was a customs stop.

As we enter Belize City we noticed this very clean looking market

Looks good but it's not quite lunch time yet!

The elevator was out at the hospital.. Mandy decided to walk up the 2 flights of stairs instead of being carried. It was slow going though as she really does not have much energy these days. Always a smile though~

Mandy and Ashley's new friends had insisted the night before to let Mandy borrow a shirt and skirt from them.. one of the sisters had experienced a heart monitor before and knew that it would be difficult to fit it to Mandy with a dress on. This was an answer to prayer as it helped the process go much more um, modestly and smoothly! :) This photo was taken after Dr. Gough had put the monitor on.. you can hardly tell it is there! He warned her to keep the monitor, which was hanging on a rope around her neck, inside her shirt as someone may think it was an expensive phone or other electronic device and steal it from her! He is a great doctor. We have been so blessed to have worked with him.

Upon leaving the hospital, we asked this friendly hospital staff person where we could find Brodie's Grocery store. It sounded easy enough....

Somehow we found ourselves at the end of the road and at the Port of Belize City

Now if we could just find a place to turn around! Brodie's where are you???

Hey, haven't we already driven by this round-about? A few times?

We drove through many, many different neighborhoods.. This father and son were selling sodas and orange juice.. as well as this old toy riding car


..still lost

Getting lost was increasing our appetite quite a bit.. we decided to stop at this campus cafe. It looked popular and busy which we took as a good sign that it was at least fresh food.


It was special to just have two of our kiddos with us. We love to make time for special 'dates' with our children but since coming to Belize have not found the time to do so as often as we would like.

Excuse me, may I please have that coke?

If only I could just taaaste it!


Sweet victory!



Silly baby!



Our fancy 'turkey dinner' It actually was pretty good! Time to get back on the road!

A group of school girls

I snapped this photo while we drove over the bridge. I loved the spring in her step!

This house displays the name of a Belizean political party. We are noticing more and more political 'advertising' .. there are important elections coming up early next year~

We finally found Brodie's! We purchased some coffee beans.. Grady and I agreed that this store is much like our Fred Meyer back home.. you can find anything there but it is pretty overpriced. It is good to know where it is located now, just in case we *really* need an American brand product (and for coffee beans.. they have the cheapest prices around for the only brand of beans we can find) By the time we arrived at Brodie's, Amanda was exhausted. She was a trooper though and did walk through the store. We continue to pray that the Lord would heal Mandy and that this difficult time in her life and ours would be over soon.. if that is His will. And if not, that he would give us the Grace to rest in HIM for all things!