The Grinch crashed Christmas?

well the Grinch in this case was a sort of virus in our harddrive and the Christmas was the blog post I had intended to post and, well all this means is that my computer crashed just before Christmas!!!
I'm afraid that we won't be getting our computer back for about a month and so I must bid you all farewell till the computer is fixed BUT I promise to try to take a lot of pictures and give you all a nice long update when it arrives. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I sincerely wish you all a prosperous new year.

Bethany Hannah Franco

A blessed weekend

This weekend our church orchestra was VERY busy with several special services.
On Saturday we went to Sprucepine to help with the inauguration service of a church there but in the end out of the 8 orchestra members only 3 of us were able to go and of the 3 I had to play the piano and Erick had to direct the music so poor Josue had to play the violin by himself.


Daddy and the pastor of the english church.



Playing A passion for Thee
We prepared some special music for the service, however, due to the fact that there was not another pianist we played "A passion for Thee" acapella but thankfully Erick knew how to play the piano part so it actually came out very nice.
Haviland and I sang "Oh Holy Night" (in spanish) and that came out very good considering that I was soooooooooooo nervous and had to sing it all memorized due to the arrangement being in english and the book borrowed from my piano teacher.
We had a delicious banquet after the service but had to hurry as it was going to start raining and it was soooo cold that daddy wanted to get home as soon as possible. My dear little sister took plenty of pictures of all of us and here are a few.

Roberto Zuniga
Oh I forgot to mention that Roberto and Nacho went with us as well.

Eli and Me

Erick taking all the hymnbooks to the bus.

Jovani

Jo, Nate and Eli
Haviland has a knack for getting pictures of people when they least expect it which is why
the 3 above pictures have very interesting(to say the least) facial expressions. We sang the whole 2 hours back and arrived home around 12:15am. It was a blast!!!
On Sunday we had our Christmas cantata during both services. The childrens choir sang and the orchestra played.
During the morning service Danny, Erick and I played the ofertory sort of spur of the moment and we played "Oh Holy Night" (Are you beginning to notice that this is my favorite song?)


The 3 violins AKA: The flutist, violist and cellist

Congregational singing

Acting out the birth of Jesus

Katie, Marcos and Genesis singing "En la noche los pastores velan"
(I don't know what it is called in english. Maybe "In the night the sheperds watch"?)
The little shepherds

The angels singing" Angels we have heard on high"

The 3 kings singing" We 3 kings"

Daddy preaching

Me, Erick and Danny listening to the preaching

The services were a great blessing and I thank God for the wonderful time we spent
with family and friends.

Christmas decorating

For the past couple of months we have been going to Sprucepine, NC on Mondays
to have a Bible study with our friends the Huendos. They live way up near the top of a Mountain and this week they took us to THE top of the mountain to pick a Christmas tree.

The view was breathaking as was the COLD!!!

We had never gone to a tree farm so this was a new and fun experience.

Me and Haviland.Daddy cutting down the tree.

Our tree.

Daddy carrying the tree.

Well on Tuesday afternoon we found out that our dear friends Fernando and Alejandra are expecting a baby!!! She has had 4 miscarriages so we are all very happy for them as they LOVE children( even us!!!:). Please pray for her and the baby and that everything would go well.
Anyway to get back on the subject, I made pizza and we decided to invite them over to celebrate and help us put up the tree.

Putting on the lights.
Mother made some Mexican hot chocolate and then we started decorating. We did a playful tree this year hence the colored lights.

Deciding which ornaments to put up next.

Some of our ornaments.

The finished product.
Believe it or not all those presents are from Haviland and myself. This year we have made almost all our presents so you can just imagine how much work we have put into these gifts embroidering, inventing, sewing etc.
I just love how the tree looks in the dark.


Close ups of some of the gifts.

As we enter this holiday season, lets purpose to remember the true meaning of Christmas
and thank God for the wonderful gift of his son.
~And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.~
~Luke 2: 10-14~

A Blessed Sunday

Yesterday was a very special day as all of the youth were in charge of the services at church.

This is our orchestra ( except for 2) with 2 additional people.

Back row : Benjamin Vasquez, Josue Rodriguez, Erick Guzman and Daniel Vasquez.
Front row : Elizabeth Delzo, Esperanza Gomez, Bethany Franco(Me!!!) and Erick Moreno.
We girls were in charge of all the music and the boys were in charge of the preaching and such.

The ushers: Jared Franco(not shown), Emanuel Rodriguez, Daniel Moreno and Marco Torres.
I was playing the piano, Esperanza was playing the organ and Elizabeth was playing the violin which is why there are no pictures of us. (Haviland took all of these pictures.)

Erick Moreno preaching " The priorities of a Christian" based on Proverbs 4.

Daniel Vasquez preaching "The life of Christ" based on Luke 2.

I'm afraid that Havi didn't have the camera in the evening so there are no pictures of the specials or of Josue and Benjamin preaching.
Benjamin Vasquez preached " The character of Job" and Josue Rodriguez
preached "What kind of eyes do we have?".

There were 3 voice specials and 2 instrumental specials.
In the afternoon I also had the opportunity to play the piano at a nursing home for the elderly people it was so nice to see their excited faces when you played and when you spoke to them.
I am so thankful for the wonderful opportunity that we all had yesterday, it was such a blessing. The wonderful thing is, that all of us have surrendered our lives to God and it really is sooooo nice to see all of us (my friends, that I grew up with, and myself) serving the Lord together. I thank God for the wonderful friends that He has given me.

~Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.~
~ 1Timothy 4:12~

Giving thanks for Thanksgiving

My family usually celebrates Thanksgiving 2 times a year.
The first time is at church the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Now if any of you have ever been to a hispanic potluck you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that they are the best, and if you haven't boy you don't know what your missing!!!

Rebbeca and Joseph enjoying the DELICIOUS food.

Andrea and Jasmine.

Alicia.

Enjoying food and fellowship.

Isaias.

Thank you to Katie, Abby and Anna who took all these pictures for me.

On Thursday we had a small family gathering as Camilo was out of town and Ethan was sick, therefore Stacey couldn't come. Mother and I cooked all morning and how rewarding it was. The food was sooooooooooooo good.
As Jared said last night: "I thank God for all the good food"

Franky and Abuelo looking at old pictures.

The pecan pie I made.

Hayden with his Abuelo.
Later in the evening aunt Chelin and crew came over to visit over pie and coffee.

Abuela and Viviana.

Jared and Franky.

Christian.
As you see Christian brought along the poodle wig and boy did we have fun trying it on. everybody looked sooooo funny.
We really have sooooooooo much to be thankful for, God has blessed us richly.

My weekend in pictures (a few at least)

On Thursday my dear daddy left for the Dominican Republic on a 4 day trip. However we still managed to have a busy schedule. On Friday we went to the "Cow"stleburys (AKA= The Castleburys or Casseroles) house to spend the day, night and Saturday morning there.
I will warn you that Haviland took a lot of these pictures and she has the tendency to go just a little bit camera crazy.
The boys, paying more attention to their food than to the camera.

Victoria playing horse on a very crooked tree.

Sawyer, always happy.

Sayre raking up pine needles for our fort.

The finished product.

Making candles.

Listening intently.

Sayre dipping his glow lamp.

My glow lamp after I put on all the flowers.
We had delicious homemade pizza for dinner and watched the last 2 episodes of Cranford. It was sooooo relaxing.

Getting ready to go see the cows Saturday morning.

2 BIG cows.

Yet another BIG cow.

Enjoying the view from the trunk of the "Burb".

After lunch we headed back home to babysit my little (well, not so little) nephew Peyton.

Isn't he cute?
After babysitting we headed out to the turkey bowl at BJU.
Caleb's the 1st Franco to play in the championship and we were all very excited.

The Beta Gamma Delta Patriots entrance to the stadium.

Charging the field.

Preparing for the game.

The president(of BJU)arriving to present the game ball.


From the East to the West, #3 is the best!!!

Mother enjoying the game and spending time with her 2 big boys.

My handsome big brother.
I can hardly believe that he is already a freshman at the university. I miss him a lot at home though, he has always been here for me and now I'm the oldest at home. It's a LOT of responsibility.

Hailey, ready to go home.

Celebrating after their 4-1 win against the Basilean Eagles.

Pictures with the family.
Well, daddy's back home now and so the whole family is here.
~Thank you Castleburys for the wonderful time we spent at your house.~