Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Making tortillas, a birthday party and more ruins!

The Succotz sisters had made plans with Stephanie and I to come over to our house and teach us how to make tortillas. When the day came, we were surprised to see not only the sisters but rather 13 of the family members! We were thinking that we would have a short lesson on how to make tortillas. They thought they would take advantage of the time together; making a a whole day of it; showing us how to make stew chicken as well as both corn and flour tortillas! An example of our American mindset.

We had planned:
1)9 a.m Succotz ladies come over to teach us how to make tortillas
2)1:00 The ladies leave and we take the Kings to the Mayan ruins
3)3:00 Head home from the ruins and make dinner

Meanwhile the Succotz sisters had planned:
1) Get to Spanish Lookout sometime Thursday
2) Spend the whole day together enjoying the fellowship and showing the American ladies how to make an authentic meal.. until dinner.. or later...

We eventually met in the middle by offering them a ride home at 2:30 sharp in order to spend lots of time together but also making it to the Mayan ruins before closing. That turned out nicely as some of the ladies and children actually ended up coming with us to the ruins. Maria had Ashley take a photo of baby Hosea on the throne there at the ruins as her ancestors had lived there centuries earlier.






Brianna




Playing Around



Nellie shows us how to make the flour tortillas. Stephanie and I kept trying to get her to give us specifics.. how many cups of flour etc but she just kept saying 'until the dough looks right' :)


Instead of kneading the dough, she used a sort of push-pull sort of motion




Letting the dough balls rest




















Meanwhile, Roberta teaches us how to form and cook corn tortillas












And Albalose showed the ladies how to cook stew chicken! Yum













Stephanie had made some yummy banana bread for lunch. When we heard that Rudy's birthday was just around the corner, Ashley and Stephanie decided we had better put a cream cheese frosting on it to create an impromptu birthday cake! (you know.. necessity being the mother of all invention) however, we were out of powdered sugar for the frosting. In this photo, the ladies are crowded around the pantry door, watching in amazement as Ashley makes powdered sugar in the vita-mix using granulated sugar and corn starch. They were fascinated by the process..






Voila! A banana bread with cream cheese frosting birthday cake! It was delicious by the way





Mandy wasn't feeling all-too-well this day but did come out a few times to check out all of the yummy smelling food












After a long fun day of tortilla making and a birthday party, we finished out the day taking the Kings and some of our new friends to some local ruins













Brother Jeremy and Jonathon





Grant with the birthday boy








This little guy perched on the same site which once housed his ancestors. May he grow to seek and serve the one true God.




The King Family




Headed back down and headed home...

2 comments:

Jaimn said...

BBC Travel has an article about Belize - "Tourists flock to Mayan temples, but underneath their feet is an ancient underworld" http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20120201-journey-into-the-maya-underworld. It made me think of your and your beautiful pictures (even the ones with soldiers and guns!) and wanted to share. Thanks for sharing your stories with us!

McDonald Family said...

wow that sounds like an interesting article! I think we read that Mexico expects a 30 percent increase this year because of it also.