It is our family tradition to visit Miraflores Mall sometime during the Christmas season. It is my favorite mall to see when it's decorated. Normally, we try to visit during our Christmas school break. This year, though, during our Thanksgiving break we needed to make a trip into Guatemala City to run some errands. We ended up stopping by the mall to eat lunch at the food court, While there, we took our annual photos with their trees. They really do a beautiful job decorating!
This is one of two giant trees they have.
me and the boys
our family
Ben
Christmas 2024
David and the boys
I especially love seeing these every year.
Miraflores Mall has a wonderful outdoor space on the lower level behind San Martin. It is so peaceful to sit out there, and you can almost forget that you are in a major bustling city. The boys always love to rent scooters and ride them on the trails.
One of my favorite things to do at Christmas is visit Miraflores Mall in Guatemala City. It is my favorite mall in Guatemala. During the holiday season it is simply beautiful!! This year we went on the first day of our Christmas school break. As always we had a lot of fun!
These were stunning in person!
me and my boys
our traditional family photo in front of the tree
my favorite Christmas tree each year
The boys ride scooters every year. The mall has a fabulous outdoor area. You can almost forget you are in a large city while there.
After some time of exploring and photo taking, we met the Jarvis family for lunch and bowling. What a fun time we had together! It was great to share part of the day with friends.
Canon and Cruz
He came home with us for a sleepover. That was a Christmas gift for both of them.
Our summer vacation trip to Mississippi was fun-filled from start to finish! This will be my last post about it. This post is filled with all the random photos I took during our time there.
We made A LOT of trips to Wal-Mart. It is my favorite place to visit on all trips to the U.S. We arrived in the States late at night and made our first visit to Wal-Mart the very next morning. We were all excited!!
Reese's Puffs is their favorite cereal.
I love this shirt!
Here is a video of first trip to Wal-Mart.
We also made several visits to Chik-fil-A. We had eaten it in the Atlanta airport the night before but ate it again for our first lunch in the States.
We did a lot of shopping! We always stock up on everything while in the U.S. Here we are buying shoes for the boys.
shoe shopping
We enjoyed a few visits with the Johnsons. I love getting our kids together to play. Nicky and Jackie were in our student ministry years ago.
We made several visits to the Dairy Freeze for ice cream and snow cones.
They spent hours in the yard playing wiffle ball. It provided them entertainment and exercise.
They also spent many hours riding their scooters.
We got to enjoy a few kid-free shopping trips of our own. It was so nice! We rarely get much time alone without our kids here in Guatemala. Any time we do, it is a real treat.
We took advantage of one of their sleepovers with friends for a date night to Jackson. We enjoyed a wonderful meal and movie. We have not been to the theater without kids since 2009.
We saw Sound of Freedom.
It was our first experience with reclining seats. Wow! That was amazing!
We loved being home during tomato season. Here is David buying from a roadside stand. That honor system is something that would never work here in Guatemala.
Ahhhh.... tomato sandwiches. That is something we definitely miss every summer. I lost count on how many we ate while home.
The boys spent a lot of time at the Sojourners. These are also former youth ministry students whose kids are around the same age as ours. I think our boys would spend their whole summer with them if we would let them.. They got to do many fun outdoor activities there like riding 4-wheelers, swimming, and tubing on the lake.
They also went on an outing with them to Party Safari.
gearing up for go-carts
We met friends from Easthaven Baptist for supper at Shiver's Fish House. Most of this group had been on our our March mission team. It was great to catch up again in person over a delicious meal.
We shared during a VBS service at Sardis Baptist in Hazlehurst.
Our family sharing about life in Guatemala with a group of VBS kids.
They enjoyed getting to spend some time with their cousin Ryder after the service.
Enjoying snow cones with the Johnsons in Wesson.
I loved all the beautiful sunsets we saw while home.
Me and the boys in my hometown.
flying back to Guatemala
a video of our travel day
We returned home to Guatemala on July 30. We were sad that our vacation had come to an end. It really was a perfect ending to a fabulous school summer break!!
Coffee before we made the drive back home.
