Blogging with the Bice's: January 2009

Friday, January 30, 2009

Exercising and Wedding Recap

Greg and I recently started exercising regulary again. We have done it sparatically since we returned, but now we actually have a plan. See, it is a little difficult here because its not like you can just go out for a run when you feel like it (for safety reasons of course!) There are a couple of gyms in town, but they aren´t very conveniently located for us, nor do they offer hours that accomodate our schedule. So while we were home we bought an exercise series of 11 DVDs - each focuses on a different muscle group and several of the discs include various cardiovascular exercises, each about an hour in length. Well, apparently somehow ´word got out´around our apartments (there are 6) that we had started a fitness program and slowly but surely, our neighbors began asking if they could join us. Even a couple teachers, administrators, and students from the school (who do not exercise) requested to join in too. Happily we invited them to come and so far our record high for attendance has been 13 participants! Thankfully we have a little covered patio (for parking our non existent car) because once the group grew that big, we had to move things outside! Anyway, we are pretty excited to have a group of work out buddies and are really motivated to stick with it even more so since others are counting on us now!

So, I will give you a quick overview of the wedding we attended. We had a great time and enjoyed the experience! We headed out in the general direction of the church (not exactly sure where we were going, since there are no addresses) and luckily saw a truck with the bed full of people all dressed up. Kyle, Crystal, Greg, and I all got the notion that they must be heading to the wedding too, so we started following them. Fortunately, just as we suspected, about 7 to 8 minutes later, we were there! Not sure if we would have found the place on our own, but thanks to the truck, we made it! As to be expected, the ceremony started about 25 minutes late (Honduras time as we say!) and lasted about an hour and a half finishing at approximately 9pm. You would have thought the bride and groom were the most famous couple in Honduras by the way guests were snapping photos of them. It was truly like the Honduras paparazzi as guest continued to stand up and move extremely close to the couple to take pictures throughout the entire service. Greg was trying to be respectful and keep his distance while taking photos, which resulted in have at least one other photographer in every shot he took. I don´t think he got one photo of just the couple because guests were literally in the bride and groom´s personal space the whole time! It was pretty funny! So after the wedding, we were starved! We weren´t sure what time the reception would actually start or if and what they would be serving for dinner, so we made a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way back into town. We filled our bellies then went to the reception. It was decorated nicely and each table had soda, beans, cheese, and chips on them for appetizers. Around 10:00pm they began serving dinner. At 11:00pm the bride and groom shared their first dance then opened the dance floor up to all the guests. By this point, Greg and I (and Kyle and Crystal too) were all so tired that we were ready for bed! We stuck around until 11:30pm, hoping they would cut the cake, but it didn´t look like it was going to happen anytime soon. We heard that weddings here normally go on until 2 or 3am, and we just weren´t up for the all-nighter! We did enjoy our first Honduran wedding, but I think we prefer an earlier start!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Wedding Preparations

Greg and I will be attending our first Honduran wedding this

evening! We are very excited to see our Spanish tutor, Dina, get married - especially because we got to help a little bit! A few weeks ago when she was giving us class, we offered her a sample of some cookies that I had made. She enjoyed them and semi-jokingly mentioned that she would love to have them at her wedding. Greg generously offered our services and made it official...we would make 250 oatmeal raisin cookies for her reception. As we prepared to start baking earlier this week, I thought the task would be quite daunting. However, since Greg and I worked together - and we were making them for a dear friend - it ended up being a lot of fun! We made a few on Wednesday evening, then on Friday cranked out the remaining 200. Crystal helped me package them and I would say after a total of 7 hours of work, the job was complete! In fact, Mario (Dina's fiance) just stopped by to pick them up...less than three hours before the wedding!

Also in preparation for the la boda (the wedding) Greg needed to get his scuffed up dress shoes polished and shined. After unsuccessfully searching for a store, our friend Maria offered to take them to the market, get them cleaned up, and bring them back. We graciously obliged! She noted that it would be pretty unexpensive, so we sent her away with the shoes and 100 Lempira (about $5). She returned a couple hours later with the shoes in excellent condition (I wish I had a before photo) and 60 Lemps! We couldn't believe that it only cost two bucks! Quite impressive!

Our weekend has been very relaxing and the weather today has been unseasonably cool. It is overcast and there is definitely a chill to the air. We actually enjoy it when we have a change from the typical hot and humid weather. Hopefully the rain stays away though for the wedding tonight!

Have a wonderful weekend! God bless you!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Up to Speed!

HAPPY 2009!!! We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New

Year celebration! We sure did! God continues to bless us and fill our lives with his joy, love and peace and we pray that he does the same for you!

Okay, so this blog provides an overview of our life over the

past two months (while we have been on blogcation). Here is a list of the top 25 things that have occurred recently in no particular order:

1) 5 days on a mission trip in Managua, Nicaragua spending time with families and playing lacrosse with kids that live in the city's trash dump (www.lovelightandmeloday.org)

2) Hosted a cookie exchange party to prepare for the holidays

3) Greg played in multiple soccer games that started at 10pm

(which really means like 10:30, 10:45)...on school nights!