Fellowship with brothers and sisters in Houston

Over the New Year weekend I went with the Apodaca's to Houston, to visit Mrs. Apodaca's sister's family.  I had a wonderful time!  God blessed me so much through all the conversations we had and events we lived together.  :-) 
We arrived on Thursday night.  After dinner Jacob, Noah and Abby went out to have some fun on the driveway.

 The Marques family has a tradition of serving an authentic Mexican soup on New Year's Day.  This soup is called Menudo, and contains (among other things) hominy, red chile sauce, and ... tripe.  If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it.  :-)  It is quite a time-intensive dish to prepare.  They started putting it all together the night before, because it takes a long time for the tripe to get tender.  So we ended up "ringing in the New Year," simply because we were busy until about 11 then we talked some more...  Here's Mrs. Marques cutting the tripe.

The next morning Mr. Marques added the hominy.

 

They always host it as a come and go affair, so throughout the morning there were waves of people sitting around the dining room table visiting.  Then at around noon several families arrived at the same time; things were very busy for awhile!

Later in the afternoon we went to visit some friends from their church, because they have an annual gumbo get-together.  :-)

Another annual event Mr. Marques hosts is a touch football game the Saturday after the New Year.  We girls went along, just to watch and just because it was a gorgeous day.

That evening another family from church had invited us all over for dinner.  

 

The offspring (they aren't all of the age to be called "children" anymore) play bluegrass -- what a familiar scene!

 We attended the Family Integrated church there in Houston on Sunday morning, then drove back home that afternoon.  Our trip was such a blessing; I look forward to going back soon!