Vacation has been good so far. Stacy arrived on Sunday after a ton of delays on LAB. Whatever you do, DON'T FLY LAB!!!!! They are slim shady! We have been just relaxing and running errands. I've attached some pictures from the end of the school year. Rebecca has headed off to Rio and will be getting married on December 29th. We took the students to Aqualand on the last day of school and had a blast. Even my glamour girl students (in the glasses) hit the waterslides. I haven't been on waterslides in ages so that was a good time. The next batch of pictures and posts will be iin the new year. Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and wonderful New Year!!!!!!

I had the chance last weekend to play mom. My church supports several orphanages and one of them wanted to close for two days to plan for the upcoming year. That meant that all of the kids had to have a place to stay. So I had two girls, Juana (15) and Yeraldine (7) come and stay with me. It is usually a family that takes kids but I thought it sounded like a neat thing to do, so I was my own family.

Now I have stayed with kids, babysat, nannied, hung with my nieces and nephew, but none of that compares to having your own kids so I have to give props to all the moms I know. Their job is never ending. I only had their job for one night and it shed a whole new light on things.

I picked the girls up after work on Friday. We came home and I was beat to say the least. A week before the semester is ending and I had about as much energy as a dead battery. Go moms, I know you are tired way more than you realize or admit! We did our nails and talked. I have a fooze ball table downstairs and that was a hit. Then Julie called and invited us over for Harry Potter. She had the projector from school so we watched it on the wall in the living room just like the movie theater. Big hit! The girls slept late on Saturday and when they got up we had pancakes and continued the conversations. Even Yeraldina, all 7 years of her, bless her heart, helped me find words I didn't know in our talks. We spent the afternoon at the zoo and then had a picnic in the plaza. All in all a great two days. The girls are so polite and enjoyable to be around. Just cute as can be. It is hard to imagine they come from families who are unable to appreciate such loving little girls.

My time with the girls got me thinking about adoption. Don't worry, I won't be coming home with new kids this summer or anything, but I'd really like to provide a home for kids that need it. Yes, kids, I realize two might be a little easier than one. Maybe it is because I come from such a big family, but I can't imagine just one kid and me. Two for sure. The single biggest challenge was language. I know I have learned a lot in the last year but I'm nowhere near fluent. I'm like a 4 year old, if that, more like a 3 year old in my vocabulary. But I'll tell you, not an ounce of impatience passed from Juana or Yeraldine. Patient souls for sure. I think the sweetest thing was Juana praying at bedtime, thanking God for opening up my heart and home to her. Now if that doesn't make you want to keep them, I'm not sure what would!

Pictures:
-Yeraldina playing with Jake (Julie's dog)
-Standing on my patio
-Lighting the barbeque with Julie
-Watching Harry Potter on the big screen.

Sucre for Thanksgiving

Clearly it has been a while since I've posted anything as I'm about to put up some pictures from Thanksgiving. Even in my second year running, it is odd to have a hot Thanksgiving. We celebrated the weekend before over here at the compound I live on. Three turkeys and all the fixings. Yum, makes me hungry just thinking about it. It is nice to celebrate the holiday with my family down here. All of us away from home but give us a little turkey and nostalgia starts flowing. It is like we are all back with our families eating, it was a lot of fun.

For the actual time off, I headed to Sucre with Mike and Julie. It was my 4th time there and I just can't imagine ever being sick of it. It is a small college town with old colonial history. The small cobble streets are lined with white buildings and it is a nice slow pace of life. People even talk slower which is great for me. It makes me feel like my year and a half of spanish is paying off! We went out to see the dinosaur tracks but it was really dissapointing. When I went in June with my parents, you could walk right up to the tracks. I'm sure that made archeologists around the world just sick! Now there is this view point but even with binoculars, you can't see how big the tracks really are. Having seen it before, I could still appreciate it. But if it was your first time, like Mike and Julie, I have to agree that it was a bit lame.

Aside from the dinosaur tracks we didn't do a whole lot. Long meals, naps, books and TV movies. It was a nice time. I can't wait to take Tracey there.

Strike 3

Today is the 3rd strike of the school year. Five states, not just Santa Cruz, are involved so this one is pretty big. There are a lot of issues in Bolivia at the moment, land reform being probably the biggest. This is what today's strike is about. Evo's land reform act involves taking private land and giving out to the indigenous poor of the country. Obviously the people who currently own the land do not want it siezed and given away. Can't really blame them. This is also causing a lot of serious environmental problems. In an effort to make their land look used, in hopes of not having it taken away by the government, thousands of acres of land are being deforrested. It is all a very sad and devastating business. So as nice as it is to have the day off work, it isn't worth it when it means bad news for the country as a whole.