Cravings, Exhaustion, and Hormones... OH MY!

This post is dedicated to my first 24 weeks of pregnancy.  I want to document how I am feeling through all of this because I know that it will soon be a very distant memory. 

Let me start with some of the things that I have been "craving".  I use quotes because I am not sure how much of it is actual craving and how much is just me getting away with eating what I want with no questions asked :)  The main thing that I have been craving pretty much since the beginning of the pregnancy is meat.  I don't like to cook it, though, because it kind of grosses me out.  I could basically eat a steak every day of the week and maybe even two times a day.  My wonderful husband has made sure that I get enough meat and that his son is being well fed. 

Something else that I could eat everyday is chili fries.  I know this is disgusting for some, but I really do love them. The best that I have found are from Wienerschnitzel.  I get mine without the cheese, since dairy and I do not get along, but they are DELICIOUS!  Honestly, even just writing about them and looking at the picture right now makes me want to put this computer down and go get some.   I usually let myself get them once a week (or less), but when I do eat them I enjoy every.single.bite!

So, even before we knew we were having a boy, my pregnancy had some signs that pointed to boy (if you are one for wives tales, that is).  I wanted protein, which people say is a boy.  I didn't have any morning sickness (thank goodness!), which differs for each person with each pregnancy. 

Something that I did feel during my first trimester was exhaustion.  I had just started working full time again and being on your feet in front of kids all day takes a lot out of you.  Add being pregnant to that and you get one tired mama.  I would wake up in the morning and go to work, longing for my bed pretty much all day.  I would be in bed by 7 or 8 at the latest and do it again the next day.  My weekends pretty much consisted of sleep.  It was pretty pathetic, but it was what I needed to do to survive.  Thankfully when I hit my second trimester the exhaustion went away.  Don't get me wrong, I do still enjoy my naps, but I can actually function like a normal person again.

Hormones.  Oh dear, sweet hormones.  I won't go into this topic too much, but honestly since when did a commercial make me cry?  I mean, I have always been one who shows my emotions, but since I have been pregnant they have been magnified.  Tears are just a few seconds away at any minute and once again my wonderful husband has been so gracious and loving to me. 

I can't wait to meet this baby boy.  He is a very welcome addition to our family and there is no doubt that he will be loved!!!

Baby Martinez

I have been so blessed during this pregnancy!  I have hardly had any symptoms of being pregnant and my belly and baby seem to be growing as normal.  I am so thankful to be pregnant and it is sometimes still hard for me to believe! 

I felt the baby move for the first time when I was holding Finley, my new niece, which was really cool.  Then on Thanksgiving evening after eating as much as I possibly could, I was watching TV with Mario and the baby started really going at it and he was able to feel and see it moving in my belly.  It is a pretty awesome experience! 

For those of you that don't know yet, we are having a boy!  We don't know what we will name him yet, and I am not even sure that we will share a name once we decide on it because then at least there will still be an element of surprise when he is born.  We'll see, though. 

Here are some pictures from the pregnancy.  They are in order even though there are some weeks where I definitely look smaller than the week before.  

13 weeks

14 weeks

15 weeks

16 weeks

17 weeks

18 weeks

19 weeks

21 weeks

22 weeks

Mario and I couldn't be more excited about this growing miracle!  We go on December 23 for an ultrasound to check everything out and I can't wait to see our little guy in there again!!!  Thank you for your prayers and well wishes for us and our growing family!!!

Cousins

Oh friends it has been so long since I have updated and I sincerely apologize.  Between starting the school year with my 2nd grade class and getting into a routine here, I have been horrible about blogging.  Hopefully though, I will be able to be more consistent now that I am kind of in the swing of things.

Today we got to take some pictures with my niece and nephew and I thought I would share then with you.  The title of the picture is cousins...

That is right, we are doubling the cousin count come April!  My sister Becky is due in November and Elisabeth and Nathan are super excited for a cousin.  Today we surprised them and took pictures with all 4 cousins!  

That is another reason why I haven't been updating so often.  I have been exhausted!  Between work starting back up like I said before and my body trying to adjust to another human being growing inside of me, it was a tiring few months.  Thankfully other than being tired, I didn't have too many other pregnancy symptoms. 

Now that I am in my second (!) trimester I am feeling a little better and have more energy so hopefully you will get to share in some of my pregnancy updates!  Mario and I are so excited about a little one coming in April!!!!  

Here are some more pictures of today's photo session.  

Lately...

A lot of things have been going on...

Mario has been working pretty much non-stop.  We have been involved with the church.  Family get-togethers have been plentiful.  I got a job. We have attended two graduations.  I have started a new style of eating.  AND SO MUCH MORE!!!

God has been so So SO faithful!  Mario has been able to do a bunch of different jobs for different people and is loving it.  He is not someone to sit still for too long so it has been nice for him to have specific places for him to put some his energy to good use.

We got to share at our church youth group beach retreat in May and that was pretty awesome. The theme was prayer and God gave us some cool stuff to share with the youth.  We also got to camp in a tent (it was Mario's first time) and be at the beach for a weekend so who can complain about that!?! We are also doing vacation Bible school this next week with our church.  We will be working with the jr. high group.  I am excited to get to know the jr. highers better and share on our identity in Christ with them. 

Setting up the tent

The first tent experience

We have also had a some fun family dinners at my Grandma Irene's house since we have been back.  It is great for our family (whoever is in town on any give Tuesday) to get together and eat.  We have been able to spend lots of time with my sister and brother-in-law since we are living with them.  We are so thankful that they offered up their guest room for us and it has definitely been a comfortable place for us as we have made the transition back to living in Bakersfield.  We are within 2 miles of the majority of our family!  It is great!!!

These two are best buddies and I captured a few pictures of them playing around in the back yard

Family Dinner

Telling jokes at family dinner

sisters!

 Shortly after we got settled in I started my application to teach for the next school year, but it was a slow process to finish and after some stress and my patience being tried, I finally got it turned in.  I got a call and had a job interview on Thursday May 30th.  After a night of sleeplessness, I went to the interview and found a very kind principal sitting across the table from me.  He asked me a few questions, we talked in Spanish a little bit (just for fun) and he said I would get a call by the end of the next week.   The very next day I got a call from the district office and they were offering me a second grade teaching position at Williams Elementary School.  I was super excited and thankful!  Williams feels like it is going to be the perfect fit for me!  Here  is the
Student Enrollment by Group (School Year 2011-12):

• Black or African American- 7.8%
• White-2%
• American Indian or Alaska Native-1.6%
• Two or More Races-1.2%
• Asian-0.8%
• Socioeconomically Disadvantaged-96.7%
• Filipino-0.2%
• English Learners-61.3%
• Hispanic or Latino-86.1%
• Students with Disabilities-5.3%
• Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander-0.2%

I can't wait until August 19th when I get to see the little beautiful faces of my class!!

We got to go to two graduations in May.  One was for Nathan, my nephew, who graduated from Kindergarten.  It was definitely a cute program and we are so proud of Nate!  My oldest brother Ricky also graduated from high school.  He was a few years late, but we are proud of his accomplishment nonetheless.  

With the Kindergarten graduate!

 
Last but not least on the update list is my eating habits.  This is something that I thought I would never write about, but... I am officially gluten (and mostly dairy) free.  Uggh!  Again, if you know me you probably know I love bread.  White, french, biscuits, rolls... you name it and I would eat it.  When we moved back to Bakersfield, though, I finally faced the fact that my stomach had not been normal for quite a long time.  Since we moved in my sister and she is also gluten and dairy free, I started asking her questions.  Well, a three week cleansing diet and some upset intestines have led me to the conclusion that indeed, my body is not a fan of gluten (boo!, hiss!).  The good news is that there are SO many options out there.  If there were ever a time to be gluten free, which trust me there is not, it would be now.  A side benefit to this new lifestyle of eating is that it eliminates a lot of the processed junk food that I used to eat and so I am actually eating healthier by default.  It has been a nice change, but I am not sure that I will ever stop dreaming of the day that bread and I can be reunited.  

What We Have Been Up To...

Being in Bakersfield has been great!  We have been able to connect with some friends, hang out with family a lot, and reconnect with our church.  We are working with the youth group on Wednesday nights and I especially have felt called to pray for this group in particular.  I have a feeling God is going to do some awesome things and hope to help pray in whatever it is He wants to do.  We have also been able to share 3 or 4 different times with different groups since we have been back.  It has been really neat to share what God did in our lives with others and see the excitement build in them about what He will do in our future! 

Elisabeth, the most beautiful niece in the world!

My two older sisters and Mario

At a car show, they let him sit inside and he was in heaven!

Nate's baseball game! Go #1!

Nathan, the cutest nephew in the whole wide world!

Catch Up

I have been horrible about keeping up this blog over the past weeks.  I had really good intentions, I promise!  So now it is time to play catch up!!

We had a great rest of our time with the team.  We went to an orphanage (that I had never been to before and LOVED), went to another part of Guatemala City to pass out Bibles and finished off the time with a trip to a village in the middle of nowhere to give out food bags and do a church service that ended up with 300 people in the normally 80 person service!  It was great!

Then on our last Monday night in Guatemala we had an adios time with our small group from our church.  It was so amazing!  We had Guatemalan food, laughs and an overall good time. 

Then on Tuesday we packed, had a going away lunch at YWAM, a haircut for me (the Coloms invited me for one last girl time and paid for a wonderful haircut!), had dinner with our awesome friend Martine, had coffee with some other good friends (in the picture below) and had one last goodbye at the Coloms before we went to bed.  It was a looooong but great day!!!

When we left Guatemala on Wednesday we were tired but excited for the new adventure!!!!

8 Days...

On Tuesday we went to an area of Guatemala called Villa Nueva.  It is a dangerous area and has been on the news often because of crimes so we went to shine some light in a dark place. 

Our first stop was a public school that had about 500 students.  We got to have assembles with the 1st-3rd graders and then with the 4th-6th graders.  It was really cool to be able to do this in a public school.  In fact, the government has been meeting with us and has been sharing their desire for us (YWAM) to be more involved in the public schools.  They realize that by bringing the Gospel in, the dark is driven away and they are interested.   It is pretty cool.  We cleaned bathrooms and painted as well in the morning and with 50 people it flew by! 

Speaking into young lives

The cutest sound man around!

Then in the afternoon we went to another public school.  There were about 1,000 kids at this school, but the teachers were really organized and the students were well behaved and ready to hear the truth.  The team that we are working with did dramas and shared testimonies.  They also replaced a roof, painted and cleaned bathrooms.  Again, it all went by fast with so many people working hard.  We even had a clown, who is a volunteer from a local church who wanted to help us out.  It was a fun place to be!

Painting away

The roof the team repaired

Thanks for reading!

9 Days...

I can't believe we are in the single digits!  It hit me hard on day day 9 that we are actually leaving.  Leaving this country, leaving these people. 

We had an orientation and time of worship with the El Paso team in the morning and then in the afternoon we went to the Christian television station, Canal 27, to pack bags of food that we will be taking with us to the village we are going to on Friday.  300+ bags of food is a lot to make, but not when you have 55 people packing them!!!  We made an assembly line and it felt kind of like Trick-or-Treating.

Then last night we went to our friends Guatemalan family, the Colom's house.  It was going to be the last small group for our church that we would be able to attend, since next Monday is Holy Week and they wouldn't be meeting.  After the devotion, Priscilla and Stuardo (mama and papa Colom) said that they have mixed emotions because they know that we will be happy in Bakersfield so they are happy for us, but that they are going to miss us so they are sad.  I, who was already fighting back tears, began to realize just how much I am going to miss them.  I began to cry as they asked us to come to the middle of the room and prayed for us.  What a great church family we have here in Guatemala!  We have been blessed time after time by them and they will always have a very special place in our hearts! 

Thanks for reading!

10 Days...

Saint Patrick's Day, or the day we had 10 days left in Guatemala was a full day.  We didn't go to church in the morning because the team of 50 people from El Paso, Texas came in so we went to the airport to pick them up.  They came in two groups because I am pretty sure that there is no way they could have come on one flight unless they booked the whole thing for themselves.  We waited a long time for the first group to come out.  We speculated about what they would look like and as each group came out we asked ourselves if that was them.  Finally, after seeing about 4 or 5 youth groups come out the airport doors, we saw the group.  The evening pick up wasn't too bad since there weren't as many people there.  We finally crawled into bed around 12:30, just in time to sleep and wake up to make breakfast for the team the next day. 

All in all it was a good day, but still no camera.  I did take a beauty shot for you all and am willing to share my St. Patrick's  Day 2013 self portrait with you all.  Enjoy!!!

11 Days...

Saturday we had 11 days left in Guatemala and it was good day, indeed!  We did laundry, got stuff ready for the team who arrives on Sunday, I went to Mega Paca (more on that later) and lunch with two other friends on staff while Mario stayed back and fix some stuff at the base, and we ended the evening off by hanging out with our friends the Coloms. 

So Mega Paca is like a second hand clothes store heaven.  There are clothes from the States that they bring down, sort into size, discount and resale for a ridiculously cheap price.  The reason we went yesterday was to look for long skirts because we are going to a village on Friday where we need to wear long skirts, plus we kind of used it as an excuse to go :)  Mario HATES the Mega Paca.  Why, you might ask.  Not because he isn't a fan of second hand clothes because he definitely is.  It is because he does not like spending the time going through and trying on clothes if the end result is me walking out of the store empty handed.  For me, the going through and trying on is half of the fun, but for him it is a big fat waste of time.  That is why I try my best to avoid having to go with him and I take full advantage of going with girls when I have the chance.  So yesterday we went and I didn't find a skirt but I did get two shirts for a super low price.  It was great! 

In the afternoon our friend Stuardo Colom called to see if we could give him and his family a ride to a 10K night run they were going to do.  We gladly agreed, since this family is like our family away from home.  They invited us to dinner afterward and we laughed late into the night with them.  We are definitely DEFINITELY going to miss this family.  They have done so many things for us and saved our sanity numerous times since we have been here.  They are like a breath of fresh air for us and are always looking to do something to bless us.  They are amazing!!!

Last but not least I have to tell you that I do not have pictures to put in this post because I tried to take my camera out twice to get some photos of the day just to realize that our camera is slowly dying and it decided that it didn't want to play along.  It turned on, but pretended like it didn't have an SD card in it (even though it did- I checked and double checked), so there are no pictures from our 11th day left in Guatemala.  Hopefully I can talk it into working for just a little bit longer so that we can get pictures up for the rest of the days! 

Thanks for reading!!!

12 Days...

We only had 12 days left on Friday.  That means we have LESS than two weeks... eeek!!!  Anyway, Friday was a busy day because we have a team coming on Sunday.  We had a staff meeting all morning long to discuss details (not my or Mario's favorite way to spend our morning, but definitely a necessary thing to make sure all of us are on the same page).  Then in the afternoon I worked on getting the schedule perfected and Mario finished painting.  He has been painting around the base all week and it looks really good. 

This really doesn't do his painting justice because he hasn't taken the tape off yet and the lighting is horrible, but his creativity is great and he does such a good job!!!

 Then after lunch Mario got a shot and of course I had to document that!  Actually shots here are really common and he was getting a vitamin B complex shot. It was his second injection of the week.  It was super inexpensive to get everything for the injections and so we took advantage of it before we get back to the States and everything medical related will be more expensive.  I had actually gotten the same shots a few weeks back and had told him that it had hurt, but I guess he didn't believe me because after he got the first one he commented on how bad it had actually hurt.  I am glad we could go through the pain together.  Thankfully we have a friend here on staff who can give injections and she gladly injected both of us with the vitamins.  Here are some pictures of Sara and Mario after the shot...

 Mario decided that he would rather take pills than get shot, which for him is a huge deal because he HATES taking pills.  Now when he needs to take vitamins or anything else I have something to remind him of when he says he doesn't want to take them.

So that was our interesting Friday.  Everyday I start the day thinking that I won't have anything to blog about for that day, but something always comes up and I am glad it does!!! 

13 Days...

So Thursday we officially only had 13 more days of being in Guatemala before we move back to the US and here is what happened...

I got to eat MANGOES!!!  They are seriously my favorite fruit in the whole wide world.  I am sad to say that Bakersfield doesn't know mangoes because the 1 version (Tommy) that we have is good, but it is definitely not the best.  Here I am finishing off my favorite, one called Pashte.  It is really orange inside and is super sweet and juicy.  Someone said that they are the kind of mango that you eat at home where no one can see you because they make such a big mess.  To me they are so worth the mess!  Guatemala has around 13 different kinds of mangoes (!) and I have tried maybe 5 or 6 and have been a fan of them all.  Mangoes are truly a delicious fruit and I am going to miss them while we are in the States! 

14 Days...

On Wednesday we were on day #14 of our 15 day countdown to Bakersfield.  We had Street Ministry in the evening, like we usually do on Wednesday.  It was our last time going as just the staff because next Wednesday we will have a huge team with us and then the next Wednesday we will be in Bakersfield!!!

I must admit that I love Wednesday night ministries and it is one of the things that I am going to miss most about being here.  The people on the streets know my name, they want to share things with me and they know that if they ever want to get off the streets that we will be there to help them. 

one of our favorites, Juan

Last night was kind of a crazy one and many strange things happened.  First of all, during our weekly soccer game in the street, one of the guys from the streets kicked the ball and his shoe came flying off and went through a second story apartment window.  The person inside was NOT HAPPY at all and we did everything to calm him down as he threatened us with different things.  The owner of the building came and was not any happier with us and after accusing us of things and saying some not very kind things, we decided that we would pay for the window and they needed to give back the shoe. 

The hole where the shoe went in

The guy who lives in the apartment and us trying to calm him down

Not too long after the shoe incident, the street lights went out.  Just like that, they were off.  It was weird and we didn't really know what to do for a second, but we decided to play in the dark and not too long after that they came back on.  That has never happened to us, though, and so it was strange. 

Then, one of the last events of the nights was when a car came down the street, aka our soccer field, and didn't see the cinder block we were using as a goal.  It drove right over the bock and drug it a few feet before quickly driving away.  What a NIGHT!!!

Day 14 was interesting, to say the least!!!