Faaaaaaaall on your kneeeeeees!!!!

I am listening to Christmas music. I have Ruth's iTunes on and it happened to come up. I am not complaining. I love Christmas music. I used to love singing really loud to music as well but now I don't. Have I gotten too old? I used to sing so loud and animatedly in my car that people thought I was crazy. I hated summer because I had to decrease the volume (of my singing) at stoplights because my windows were open. I have purposely tried to sing loudly at music I love while in my car (well, used to) and it just wasn't the same. I was sad about it.

This has been a good week. I am visiting Ruth but not staying at her house this time. I am staying at the guest house. It has been such a relaxing week. Waking up early still but I get to lay around in bed and it is such a comfy bed!!!! And Ruth has a lot of books so I have been doing a lot of reading (which I love). I have to go back to school next week. I hope the break has been good for my brain and not a hinderance. I really thought I would study more while I was here. :)

I did some fun "cultural" things while I was here. Ruth and Walter kept bugging me about all my cultural learning. On Mother's Day the youth group made over 300 tamales for the church. I watched some of the two day process. It is a lot of work!!! Then on Tuesday the school put on a Mother's Day program. I got to go as an auntie. :) It is so much fun to watch kids you love in a production. Kathe was a teacher and Sam was a cow. It was great. And Sam's teacher asked if I was his auntie. She said he talks about me a lot. :) Yay. I love these kiddos.

Today we had Kathe's birthday party at the school. It was a lot of fun! Ruth bought this enormous Belle pinata (it was bigger than Kathe) and there were some pretty experienced pinata swingers. Then we had food and I made a bunch of balloon animals for the kiddos.

Kathe got a bunch of presents (of course). One was a live chicken. It is a teenager I think. I had a bit of a scare when I peeked into the box. That was probably the last thing I thought would be in there. Ruth said the family didn't have any money for a present and raised chicken's so gave her one. Wow. Can you imagine? It blew my mind a little on how big a present that was.

I went shopping for Kathe's corte (the traditional skirt that Guatemalan's wear. She got a traditional skirt too but I don't remember the name for that). It was fun. She picked a nice bright pink one. We had to buy sandals to go along with it. Kathe was sooooo excited. It was fun to watch. And, she looks fantastic in it!!! She wore it today. I will put pictures up on facebook as I don't feel like taking the time to figure it out right now.

Tomorrow I go back to Antigua. :( I will be staying with a different family. I met them before I left last week. I think I will be happy there. They have wireless internet!!!!! I can pretty much handle anything to have internet at night! On my own computer!!! They also have...... a washing machine! Wow. Are you guys as excited as I am? I knew it. :) They seem really friendly and there were several other students there that seemed pretty happy too.

Ruth forwarded me an e-mail a while back about a surgery team that was coming down that was short on nurses. I e-mailed them and so for 5 days in June I will be a recovery room nurse. That kind of scares me as I am a NICU nurse. But I think it will be fun. They are paying my expenses for that week too.

But other than that, life will be back to normal next week. I have decided to do at least 8 more weeks of language lessons. I need it! I thought I would practice some while I was here but it is so easy to have Ruth translate for me. So as much as I love her I need to get away from her! She is my enabler!!! (of speaking English :)

I am off now. Have a great weekend!!!!!

Naomi