Photos and such

Does anybody have a cure for when you're laying in bed and even though you're dead tired you can't sleep? Because your to-do list is getting organized and analyzed in your head and you're trying to figure out a time-table for the next day so that everything fits in somehow. 

I thought maybe getting one thing checked off that to-do list would help. Therefore please excuse any random ramblingness & grammar mistakes. 

The thing is, I've been taking more pics the last few days, weeks as I feel my time slipping away and I want so badly to preserve it. But they're not really about one specific thing,must a lot of fun everydayness. So we'll try to avoid grammar mistakes and stick to a few pictures that I've been wanting to share with y'all. 

Lovely break from an afternoon of sewing (me n Teresa were sewing anyway, not sure what's boys were up too) with "minutas" a snow cone type of deal, sold by a guy on a lovely bike get-up. 

 Alverda Weaver and her brother were here to visit Samuel for a few weeks. Alverda brought jazz along to make home-made Chapstick. So we hauled the microwave out to my classroom and made Chapstick!

Throwback Thursday! Actually, can't remember what day of the week this was, but I wanted to do a photo re-create with Silvia from back in the day when she did her hair like this. Surprisingly, she was all for it! And then she wanted to keep it like that! If she wants to have a fur scarf on her neck all day in 90* weather who am I to tell her no! 

Elmer decided to stop by for sewing classes. Let's just say I'll stick to working with Teresa! 

Who, by the way, has been doing amazing! This week she helped with her first order of purses and really blew me away! We are now finished with all the purse orders that We needed to finish up before the end of the year! A GREAT feeling, to say the least, even tough Teresa was less than thrilled for the pic. 

Miguel also stops by occasionally. His favorite is ripping stuff out with a seam ripper. I have been amazed at how patient he is with it, although I still don't quite trust him with anything too valuable! An added bonus is that this particular piece kept him occupied for almost half an hour. 

After which he got distracted by some visitors who had brought a rip stick. He was determined to learn but even with a lot of help and encouragement he only got about as far as I have ever got. 

Studying outside for something different. Words are definitely easier to learn outside with all the distractions around! 

A new toy has been found in an old wagon that recently got new tires as a gift from Samuel's dad. Amazing how many can fit on it! 

And then someone had the idea to hook it up to the lawn mower!

None of my girls have birthdays in the school year so I decided to have one big birthday party for them all together. I had it planned about 4 days too late to include Silvia, which was really hard on me. I decided to invite Teresa as well since she is the only other girl in school. 

Of course a party means . . . selfies! 

Teresa educating Eduardo with a fabulous book called "The Paper Bag Princess." If you should be so lucky as to see me sometime in the near future, the video of the story is quite fabulous! 

As for this week, the kids are super excited about having Friday off. Well, the teachers might also be just a little bit happy about that! We are planning our annual staff weekend/outing for this weekend. So we will be leaving Friday morning and coming back sometime Saturday evening. We are heading to a town a few kilometers from El Pital, which is the highest mountain in El Salvador, and straddles the border between El Salvador & Honduras. Something in me really wants to climb that mountain before I head back to the states. We'll have to see what I can do about that. 

Well, this post was a little bit successful. My eyes are now quite a bit more grainy and I feel quite a bit more droopy. So until later, good-night. 

The last month . . . .

" . . . to bring my heart to every day, and run the risk of fearlessly loving without running away."

This is a line from a song that grabbed me by the throat this week. (Jason Gray, Without Running Away, for those of you that were wondering.) the challenge to actually bring my heart to every day, rather than just wake up and go through the motions is a constant struggle for me. Especially when we get to this part of the year where one is tempted to just throw up the hands and say, "forget it!" It doesn't matter anyway, there's only one month of school left." When the deadlines are looming and it feels like it will be impossible to finish every thing up. 

Yes, somehow, unbelievably we have landed at this place. Technically it's less than a month. 29 days to be exact, until I will be heading to the Monseñor Romero Airport, and saying good-bye to El Salvador for a good little while. I won't say "for forever" because I will definitely be visiting again. But leaving this time will be a little bit different, ok, a lot different, because I don't have a return ticket. I won't focus on it any more than that for now because it practically gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about it. I would rather focus on squeezing the pleasure out of each moment that I have left. Even the moments that I feel like whopping my kids over the head. 

It seems they have caught the "end-of-year-it-don't-matter" bug. Eduardo has become a pro at shrugging his shoulders and saying, "I don't know." So we will continue to try to interest him. The other day, he got quite animated over which soccer team I like, Real Madrid or Barcelona, super big deal! So I do know there are things that interest him. Just how to help him see that the things that don't interest him as much as football (soccer, whatever) or practicing his trick riding skills are still important? Silvia continues to ride the line, seeing how far she can go before she gets in serious trouble. Not a fun situation to be in! And to know how to counsel her when she deliberately chooses to do wrong, knowing that she is choosing to obey Satan and it doesn't seem to matter to her. Paola, continues to work along steadily, math and learning words don't seem to be too overwhelming for her, until she gets caught in a giggle fit, which I still have to figure out how it is triggered although sometimes I'm not sure I want to know how her brain works! Beatriz also continues to plug along withou too many problems, she's been asking some hard questions lately. Like, "How long do your sleeves have to be to be a Chrisitan . . . Etc" Whoah! What!?!  I told her I would take one Wednesday morning girls devotion to explain what is required of Christians and what the Bible says about how we should dress. A little bit intimidating since what they have always been told is that cape dresses and veils are Christian. But I do not believe that is the case, but neither did I want to teach them that they can do whatever they want, "as long as their heart is right." I pray God can use whatever I said whether I went about it all wrong and use it to further strengthen their relationship with Him. 

Their questions and the conversations we can get caught up in, never cease to amaze me! How we got from discussing the differences between plants and animals to whether or not vampires are real is still a mystery to me, but what is school for if not to get answers to your questions? So to me it didn't really matter whether or not we finished the science lesson for the day, since they were asking questions about things that truly perplexed them. The other question that blew me for a loop was when Elmer told/asked me whether or not it was actually the little horses that made rainbows appear in the sky. Somehow, they seem to have a hard time dividing the real from the imaginary, especially when they've seen it on TV. 

Along with the busyness that come with wrapping up school and trying to pack up the last three years of your life, well, I haven't actually started that, but the thought is enough to make me want to run far away, we are starting to practice for our year-end drama. (Naaman, the leper) I also am still having sewing classes with Teresa two afternoons a week so that kinda takes up a good chunk of my time. She has finished two dresses, so this next week I'm hoping she will be able to get started helping me on an order of purses that I have to finish before the end of the year. 

Sometimes I have to wander about the ideas I get, and why I think they have to be done. But I think I'll be glad that I stuck through with this last-minute project that I started. It hit me the other day that is is the tenth anniversary of the school being started. And nothing was really being done about it. I have always loved the idea of re-creating photos from long ago, but my brothers always refuse to cooperate for me, so I thought maybe the kids would be a little bit more accomodating. So I rustled up some old pictures, some real beauties from back even in 2005, the first year we had school here. Let's just say, things have definitely changed. Not the least being the kids themselves. 

Here are a few samples of what I've done so far. Hopefully more to come soon!

Mauricio & Clifton-present and 2011. Even 4 years can make quite the difference. 

Carlos & José, present and 2010, where will they be in 5 more years? We can only pray!!

one of the biggest "differences" I've done so far. 2007-2015  Elmer, Louis, Elmer Santos, Alfredo and Mauricio with some friends from Belize.  I didn't quite see it as necessary to try to bring the friends fro Belize just for a photo shoot! I've got so many more fun photos I want to do, we'll have to see how time holds out. 

In the last week we also took class pics and celebrated Children's Day. But those pics might have to wait for another post. Until then, remember to live life with your whole heart even if it feels like it will kill you. 

Visitors!!

So, in my last post-whenever that was ={ I mentioned that I had visitors coming! Yes, I finally got my visitors in the last quarter of the year! Actually, it was good timing, just when I was starting to feel that the year was getting longish, I had fun visitors to look forward to. 

But before I get into that, there is other good news. Silvia is back!

I think she was trying to show off her colored tongue from her sucker!

I was happy to hear the news that Silvia would be allowed to come back to finish the year. But as I mentioned earlier it was with some trepidation. It has been obvious since she is back that while she is not a completely changed little girl she was happy to have a second chance. And I have been thankful for the love that God has given me for her, because I know on my own I would never be able to love her at all. I still feel like I fail so often in how I relate to her, reacting in frustration when patience and understanding is what she needs. I keep praying that I could learn what God wants me to learn from her, and maybe in the meantime she will be able to see a shadow of the love that God has for her. 

And yes, my visitors! 

My aunt and uncle and their two youngest children, Dan, Naomi & Javen and Janae. Although since they have lived only three miles down the road from our family for the last 13ish years they feel more like my younger siblings. Javen and Janae at least, Dan and Naomi are a bit over the age limit to be considered younger siblings! I felt super special that they took time out of their busy schedules to come see my life. 

Just so you can get a look at their pretty faces too! ;)

We had a great time simply hanging out at CICS, watching the Thursday afternoon soccer game, hanging out with the kids, & learning bits of sign language from Elmer's stories! In the afternoons we did a few afternoon trips to Aguilares buying fabric, vanilla, licuados, and some candy that I managed to get them addicted to in the time they were here. They also helped out with some random projects that needed attention. Our eternally dripping kitchen faucet soon caught Dan's plumber-trained eye and for the first time in three years we have a kitchen faucet that can be turned completely off without trying to find that perfect sweet spot where it dripped the least. Lydia was thrilled to say the least! Dan & Javen also found out how we empty the sewer tank here in ES. By hand of course! Thankfully, it was just a gray water disposal tank so nothing to gag worthy. Naomi and Janae pitched in and helped me work on purses, needless to say, three people can get a lot more done in one afternoon than one person alone. 

On the weekend we took the opportunity to explore a nearby tourist town, Suchitoto. We had a beautiful hotel with an amazing view of Lake Suchitlan. Interesting note, Luis, the owner of said hotel, is a brother to one of the "orphans" that was taken care of at the orphanage that used to be where the deaf school is now. Their story is quite amazing and a clear testament to the power of God directing people's lives. 

Like I said, amazing view! 

We enjoyed a small zip line ride, 

boat rides on the lake, exploring a hermit's cave on a nearby island, along with a wrecked plane. 

Of course we also had to do some souvenir shopping and food sampling. French fries from a corner vendor, pupusas with coke from glass bottles and of course ice cream, just to make sure it's the same as in the states! 

The hotel also had a gorgeous pool so we had plenty of things to keep us busy. 

Sunday evening we took off, up the mountain to see how the view compared with our West Virginia hills. I must say, I'm still a very loyal Mountaineer, but there is something about the view from Boqueron. 

Not like you can see that much of the amazing view from this pic! 

Approximately a week and a half after I said good-bye to them at the airport, I once again made the trip to the airport, this time to pick up my mom. 

Yes, I know, we need to practice our "selfie faces!"

She had some dental work that needed to be done and decided to get two birds with one stone. Cheaper dental work and visiting me, win-win situation, especially when there are air miles available! 

Thankfully we were able to get the dental work taken care of first thing and so we were able to take the weekend off. I had direct orders from home, names withheld for security reasons, to make sure Mom got some relaxing done. So once again we headed to Suchitoto. Although Mom got the extra cultural experience of bussing there as well. We took it very easy, and it was a blast! But Monday was back to school and finishing up dental work in the afternoon. The week flew by with school in the mornings and shopping and sewing in the afternoons. Mom also worked on some purses in the morning while I as in school. Needless to say I was thrilled with the end result of the week. Orders finished that had been shelved for WAY to long, made for a very happy me. But the best of all was simply having Mom around to talk to, catch up on news from home and "counsel" me! Phone calls are amazing but sometimes they just don't cut it. 

And last but not least, Andrea came to visit one last time this year. Of course she came primarily to visit Matthias but we managed to do a lot of catching in between. It was great to be able to sit up all night and catch up on each other's lives again. Amazing how many changes can happen in a 10 month period! 

We spent Saturday evening and today (Sunday) in San Salvador at the guest house. We did a little bit of shopping. It was great to shop with a fellow "speed shopper." The ladies in our favorite fabric store recognized us and told us they had some new fabric for purses! It's kinda fun to be known and recognized. Three years ago I would have never thought I would get to that point! 

The end of this past week was a little upside down, as Paty left Thursday morning to attend a funeral of a cousin. Then Thursday afternoon both Samuel and Lidia came down with some kind of fever, upset stomach, headache kind of flu. So Friday school consisted of Elmer teaching Samuel's class, Paty's class being canceled, and Tiffany teaching my class, since I had to go with Nata to drop mom off at the airport. So Matthias was the only regular teacher, but we all survived. And Silvia even managed to not start a fight while I was gone. I was so proud of her! I had told her that she would need to head to the house and help Becky if she started being disrespectful to Tiffany. So I was super happy to see Silvia still at school when I came back. She gave me a big grin and I gave her a big hug, letting her know I was super proud of her. 

Random events of the week, 

The little boys decided recess was tree climbing time. 

Joel was practicing his eye-crossing skills

The three little pigs have recently become fascinated with fixing cars, so here they were fixing "my car" so Dwight and I could make a Pizza Hut run. The imaginations of these kids!

We've finally been having more rain the last while. I was amazed by this stunning clear rainbow only to see the double one after I snapped the picture! 

My latest favorite view, dusk settling over San Salvador as seen from the roof of the guest house. 

And now, we settle in for the marathon of the last two months of school. Cramming those last few words into the heads, starting drama practice, final tests and all the fun reports and grading that have to be written up! Yay! 

Keep praying for the school, especially this week as Nata flies to the states to haul some cars back, and as we round the homestretch to finishing up this year. 

Until next time . . . . 

Comin' off vacation . . .

So today was Monday and it was a really awesome Monday! 

After a week of lots of relaxing and catching up on a lot of those little projects that had been staring me in the face for way too long, I felt rejuvenated and ready to see the kids again. The morning hugs were executed with some extra "umph!"

I was kinda a bad teacher today. We really didn't do much work at all. We sat around and talked about what we did on vacation. And ate chocolate and laughed at the Dove sayings. How do you translate the idea of, "Pack your rose colored glasses." I just translated it literally and then we teased Beatriz about her pink sunglasses all day. 

We also mourned the loss of our dear class pet. Diego seems to have escaped/been kidnapped during vacation. The girls were quite traumatized while Eduardo openly rejoiced and asked if someone had stabbed him dead. (He never had a great love for the bird!)

RIP Diego, wherever you might be. Thank you for never pooping on me. 

It was great to sit around and catch up on their lives. And I nearly cried when it came Beatriz' turn to tell us about her vacation. (If that confuses you, check out my last post, "Once again a student) she was all smiles! And she said she had a great vacation! Her mom was rather upset when she arrived Friday afternoon, but ended up apologizing a day or so later was her normal self for the rest of the week. And her dad wasn't mad at all, although he did drink and got into a rather major fight. He didn't mistreat her.  How wrong is that? To have only one major fight be an "improvement" and something to be thankful for. But it really is, for her. And Sunday her dad even took her to the Mennonite church that is close to her house. (Close as in E.S. close, not Lancaster County close!) he was chopping some grass for the cows close by so when she asked to go along he didn't have any problem with it and took her on his bike. I sat on my desk as she recalled all this to our class! And I just wanted to do a happy dance! We settled for thanking God for so many answered prayers on behalf of this girl that He cares about more than I can ever imagine. 

And specifics about my vacation . . . 

It was honestly just a lot of relaxing! :) Blissful to say the least! I spent a few days at the guesthouse in San Salvador and caught up on some shopping at the mall there. I managed to fit in a massage and also found some cool new smoothie shops and also discovered that the roof of the guesthouse is a great viewing platform to see the firework displays the city likes to put on to celebrate August vacation. I was also blessed to be able to catch lunch with a very wise woman and dear friend, who very patiently let me unload to her! Wednesday afternoon I bussed home from the city, and Lidia informed me that they were planning to go to a Water park the next day and I was invited to tag along. ("They," being her two sisters that are here visiting.) that seemed a little more appealing than the cleaning that I had on my schedule and so we set off. I was expecting a few slides and some dirtyish pools. Since that's kinda been my "water park" experience here. I was quite surprised! A very upscale park with thermal pools, ginormous kids section, and a nice assortment of slides, and pools of different depths, even a zip line cable stretching over the pools. Sadly, jumping off the zip line into the pool was not allowed. But the ginormous yellow slide provided quite enough thrill for me. 

Not sure exactly how tall it was, but very much straight down! Good belly-flopping/heart-in-throat experience right there! 

Finishing off with some good ole cones! 

And the rest of the week was sewing and reading and sleeping in and some long over-due cleaning. 

Today while working at school it hit me for real that we are past the three month mark. 

And if these last three months go anywhere near as fast as the last 6 I'll be back in the states before I even know what happened. 

This week we're looking forward to Nata & Becky coming back from Mexico. Life just isn't quite normal when they aren't here. However we had an amazing time with Enrique & Laura here and Lidia & Patu will definitely miss their family, especially their nephew who has stolen all our hearts. I'm also looking forward to my first visitors of the year! Wow! I waited till August! My uncle & aunt, Dan & Naomi, who live about three miles from my house in WV, are coming on Thursday with their two youngest, the only ones who haven't made it down here to visit me yet. Makes me feel quite special and I look forward to showing them around. 

Till next time . . . 

Sunday afternoon catch-up. . . .

It's a bad thing when your day of rest has a to-do list. Normally mine includes a nap, at least reading or something equally relaxing, but I was afraid a Sunday afternoon nap would only result in that nasty feeling of waking up and trying to figure out what year you're in. That always makes me grouchy, so I decided to spare everybody that I live with the drama and instead catch ya'll up on what's happening on my side of the world.

First of all, Nata, Becky, and their family took a trip to Mexico to help out with the annual Deaf camp. Last year was the first year they went and they were asked to contribute again this year. It involves about 10 days of traveling and 8 days of camp. They usually take a few days to enjoy the mini vacation with their family. They plan to return sometime in the second week of August. While they are gone they asked Enrique & Laura Vasquez from Costa Rica to come be "jefe." Enrique is a brother to Paty, who is a teacher here, and Laura is a sister to Lidia, the cook. So they are both enjoying having family around, not to mention a darling nephew, Eric, whom we have all adopted for the time that they are here. Elmer especially dotes on him, to the point that Veronica chewed him out the other day because the cows were out of water. She blamed it on the fact that Elmer was just playing with Eric instead of doing his work!

Us girls took our annual Gals Trip last weekend. We stayed a little closer to home this time. We headed to Lake Suchitlan, about 45 min. from Aguilares. It was a great time of relaxing and enjoying some sunshine & shopping & girl time & eating, of course. Our hotel had an amazing flat roof and we spent most of Friday evening enjoying the cool lake breezes and aerial view of the central park. Sadly, there was no circus going on so we couldn't have a Ferris Wheel ride!

View of the cathedral from our hotel roof

Zulma & Mary
Zulma is a deaf girl who graduated from school and lives with her grandparents. Right now her grandparents are visiting the states, since Zulma had no one to stay with she has been staying here at CICS.

Paty & Verónica
Paty is a teacher and Verónica is the dorm mom.

We find great ways to entertain ourselves!

I think my favorite thing about Suchitoto is the awesome colors on all the houses.

Getting ready to head out onto the lake. 

Me & Lidia
Lidia is the cook, and I am, well, me!

The CICS gals
(l-r)Zulma, Lidia, Mary, Verónica, me, Paty

Waiting patiently for our personal chauffeur to arrive! 

In other news, school days continue to fly by. July in our school year is about the equivalent of February in a U.S. school year. If that comparison didn't make sense to you, you're probably not a teacher. It's that time of year, when the excitement of a new school year has worn off, and new books are no longer new, and it's not just easy review stuff anymore, but actually hard math problems. But neither is it close enough to the end of the school year to start getting excited about all the end of year activities. In other words, a teacher's favorite time of year! 

Thankfully, we have a week of vacation to look forward to immediately after July, so that helps. 

My kids have really amazed me in the last weeks though. They have really seemed to dig in and put new efforts, including reaching new goals in their timed math drills, and some majorly improved scores on spelling tests. So, maybe they were bribed . . . just a little bit. Hey, it's a teacher's secret weapon, don't judge! 

But I think my favorite new event has been the questions they are starting to come up with. I love to see them using their own heads and thinking things through and not being afraid to ask about stuff that don't make sense rather than just nod and say, "I get it." 

Last Monday morning we spent the whole first period talking about different things their parents did or told them regarding Catholic traditions and worship. It totally took me by surprise, but it was a great chance to show them the errors in that way of thinking. 

A few of my other favorites have been,

 "How do whales have babies in the water?" 

"Do even whales feed their babies milk? How?"

 (We were having a science discussion about the different groups of animals)

"Do animals go to heaven?"

"But the elephant from the zoo that died went to heaven, right?"

"How does the water in all the oceans stay on the world if it's round?"

It does my heart good to actually be able to have them join in the discussion and get involved and get excited about learning. 

Here are a few pictures from the normal everday.

Miguel wins in the "Cool Sock Contest" purple with pink ribbons!

me with my gals, (before Silvia left)

Anthony concentrating on Pick-Up sticks while Jairo & Joel watch to make sure he doesn't jiggle any of the others. It's the new favorite game and they are quite sharp in catching when someone else wiggles one of the other sticks!

Eduardo, Miguel & Mauricio work on a puzzle.

This coming week, will be focused on last-minute studying for the Spelling competition on Friday. And then we will send all the kids home and enjoy a week of vacation! I for one am very much looking forward to that! 

Well, I think I achieved my purpose here. Made it through my afternoon without being tempted to sleep! And got one thing knocked off my to-do list. :)

Now to find time to update my books page . . . . 

Until next time,

Mel

Changes . . . .

Just a warning, I decided to be completely honest in this update. If you don't feel like wading through the ramblings of a rather drained nun please stop now! To say the least it was a rather emotional week. Seeing my cousin/sister with her life packed in boxes, knowing that life will never be the same. Seeing her mom, dad, siblings dealing with the fact that this is not a year or two of service in another country, no, this is a completely new life that she has chosen. Her future is in Montana. 

Please don't get me wrong, I am so happy for Gloria and Allen. He makes her happy, I can see it plainly on her face. I was just faced, ok, more like hit over the head, with the reality that life involves changes. 

Ok, I'm 24 years old. I know life involves changes. But somehow, I wanted life to be all about the changes that I decided to make. Just the ones that I had control over. I didn't want other people making decisions in their lives that affected me, but that I had no control over. 

I wanted to be able to move back to the states after I am finished in El Salvador and still be able to make the trips I made as a 10 year-old. Those lovely weeks in the summer when we out-of-states cousins would all troop to Ohio and spend the week with Grandpas and the Ohio cousins, making hay, making a mess of Grandpas yard with our water slide, helping the aunts clean out their closets and terrorizing the boys with our dressing up shenanigans, damming up the creek and slathering ourselves from head to toe with mud before we ever knew it was a high end spa treatment.

I wanted to be able to relive those blissful years of 18-21, when we were just independent enough to think we knew it all and thought we actually knew how the world worked and it was blissful, spur-of-the-moment pontoon trips, just because we were all in Ohio anyway, and late night talks on Mark & Reeny's front porch, discussing the worlds problems because we had enough wisdom to figure them out. 

I wanted to be able to move back to West Virginia and fit right back into the niche that I vacated 3 years ago, in the church and the youth and the community. 

But this week/weekend in a series of "enlightening" moments my wishful fairytale thinking evaporated into thin air, the vapor that I had used to construct my imaginary castles. 

As a dear lady, who is a returned missionary as of a year ago, very succinctly told me, "They just don't leave space for you." 

And it's true, life in the states moves on even when I'm not there. Newsflash Mel! And that's exactly how it should be. Thinking other people's lives should wait for me just so I can be comfortable and not go through the growing pains of change. How despicable and selfish is that?! 

But it doesn't make the changes any easier . . . It doesn't make me not want to go back to that innocent 10 year-old me, fishing in grandpa's pond or even the 18 year-old me who knew how the world operated. 

Maybe innocence is bliss after all. 

So now I'm sitting in a corner of the International Airport of Houston, listening to songs that are making me cry and trying to convince myself that I am ready to go back to my kids and pour my heart into them again. Because I know that's the only option I have right now. That the best way to forget about your own stress/worries is to pour yourself into others. 

But right now, the thought just makes me tired. 

I wanna dedicate this post ( I don't know, do people do that?!) to Violet, for all the tears we shared over the weekend, and to CJ, thanks for that much-needed four-wheeler ride Sunday afternoon. Having your life flash before your eyes tends to make you forget about some of the lesser stresses! I'm praying for both of you guys as you continue wading through the changes. 

And yes, I will try to get an update out about my great 12 hours in Panama but right now, I'm thinking a nap might be more beneficial to my emotional outlook on life! But you can't say I didn't warn you!!

Adventures of "normal" life . . .

Yeah, how's that possible? I guess maybe if you think your life is boring you should do something about it!

Whether that means adding character to the eggs that are just sitting on the counter with nothing better to do or having a random water fight Friday afternoon or sitting down and playing a good ole game of Memory. All of which have happened here lately amidst the more boring, less exciting "normal" of life.

I  think I found a new hobby
(also fun: injecting food coloring into eggs!)

I realized my latest posts haven't really been all that informative about life in general here. . . . we'll try to fix that now.

helping each other figure out their language worksheet

The last few weeks actually feel sort of like a blur. There's been lots of studying, there will continue to be studying. There's been company, there will be more company. There have been hospital visits. Hopefully there will be no more of those!
It seems having a new toy like a trampoline just begs to be tested to the limits! So far no one seems to have suffered anything extremely permanent except for Elmer who is still hobbling around after putting his knee out of socket last week. I think it was last week anyway, honestly I'm not even sure anymore! :( Becky has also been in out of of the hospital with gall bladder problems. This Tuesday, Lord willing, she will be going in to have it removed. (Which reminds me, about a month ago I wrote that Miguel was having his surgery, I should have said, " . . .was planning to have a surgery." The government hospitals down here are unpredictable at best, so although he was been scheduled at least two different times he has yet to actually have the surgery. However, he seems to be alive and kicking so I guess we'll take that as a blessing.)

And amidst the normal of everyday school life every now and then cool unexpected things happen. Like Silvia learning the alphabet by memory! or Eduardo freaking out about his "girl-colored" notebook, or Paola actually being the one with a smile on her face or  Beatriz actually catching on that an hour is actually longer than a minute. Or some random police stopping by to canvas the neighborhood and actually stopping and taking time to mess around and talk with the kids. It was actually really cool. I was quite amazed at how open and friendly they were. Letting the kids play with their badges and letting them handcuff each other. The kids LOVED it, to say the least. Joel was determined that he was going to leave with them!
                                                                       

all so curious . . . .

Román for some reason or other was very not sure about the police!

Joel not having any mercy on poor Jairo

the future face of the El Salvadoran police force!

Carlos, finally having to admit that he needed help to get out of the handcuffs

This week we're looking forward to finally being able to finish off the last 14 weeks of studying with our first spelling competition. The kids always get all worked up about it but usually end up doing really well. 

until next time . . . .