so i tied the shoelaces around them and kept walking! these pics were taken after our hike so you can get an idea of how wet we got from the rain :)

so we went on a 6 hour hike in the mountains. i bought these shoes in tela when we were at the beach and had never worn them before- 20 minutes into the hike, this happened. and then about an hour later, the other one fell apart too.

jacki and sarah attempting to hang up my hammock. so far our attempts have been unsuccessful- i'll let you know when we get it up!

that little egg/booger looking thing? that's what you eat :)

Lichas- a type of fruit down here. You peel off this prickly skin and eat the white fruit inside.

Us and our guide... see the waterfall in the back?

Our house and our beautiful view!

Azucena and me after she smeared chocolate on my face :)

my cake!

My kids celebrating my birthday

climb every mountain!

This week we didn't have school on Tuesday or Wednesday due to the political curfew, so Thursday was like a Monday and Friday was like... a Friday. So you can imagine the amount of work we got done and how crazy my kids were! I had two tests that I was going to give on Tuesday and there was no way I could push them back, but my kids didn't really study during their two days off so.... that was slightly frustrating. But hopefully we have no more interruptions and my kids will get back into the routine of things!
Things at the house are still really great. One of the teachers that lives in town came up and stayed with us this weekend just for fun. We talked, watched some of The Office, played Speed Scrabble, and stayed up really late (11!) Saturday we slept in (8!) and then went for a hike. I think I've mentioned how we live on the edge of Celaque National Park, but haven't actually gone in? Well we did this weekend! Our 55-year old neighbor is a Celaque guide, so when we mentioned that we'd like to go up sometime, he volunteered to go with us. Jacki, Rachel, Kirsty, Mr. Bran, and I all left at about 9:30 in the morning with lunches packed by Sarah, full water bottles and smiles on our faces. Don Luis (our neighbor/guide- Don is the same as Mr.) stopped frequently to show us different plants- leaves used to make soap, stems you could snif if you had a cold, flowers that you put in hot water and drink if you have arthritis, this fluffy plant that they use to make pillows... he knew everything! The frequent stops were great, but when we weren't stopped, Don Luis was booking it up that mountain- I really thought I was going to pass out :) Our ultimate goal was to get to this waterfall that we can see from school so I just kept hiking up, waiting until we got to this waterfall. The scene I kept picturing to keep me going was from Samantha Saves the Day! (yes the American Girl book)- Samantha and her friends go to this secret island and find this beautiful waterfall and they have a picnic lunch and play in the river and have a great time.... Well. It wasn't quite like that. We hiked up the mountain for about three hours and arrived at the place where you can see the waterfall... I'll post a picture but it didn't really seem any closer to me than it had from the bottom of the mountain. Also, there wasn't a spot to eat lunch! All the other girls said it was totally worth the climb but I'm not so sure. I suppose I'm glad I went. :) The walk down definitely made it worth it for me though. It was much easier and the scenery helped remind us of many songs from musicals. At one point us girls were running through the forest singing "Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles" from
Fiddler on the Roof, the next moment we videoed us singing "Climb Every Mountain" from Sound of Music. About halfway down, it started pouring rain, so of course we had to sing "Singing in the Rain". It was so funny. I'm sure Don Luis and Mr. Bran thought we were crazy jogging down the mountain singing operatic songs in English. It was great :) We arrived at our hosue 5-6 hours after leaving, completely drenched and we just lounged around the rest of the day. It was great and I'm not too sore so MAYBE I'll do it again.


Also, if any of you are interested, here's a quick update on Honduran politics...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/27/honduras.president/index.html

It's not super informative, but it at least tells a little bit. We haven't been affected by it too much in Gracias or Villa Verde as far as seeing demonstrations or upset people, but it's something to be aware of!

PS Happy Birthday Grandma! Hope the Broncos win for you like they did for me!!! :)

birthday!

So yesterday was my birthday... it was a fun, crazy day. It started off with God giving me the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen... the rest of the day we were in a cloud so that was pretty exciting. My kids gave me little gifts all day (I got some earrings, a bracelet, two teddy bears, a plastic flower.... and lots and lots of cards). It was so sweet. At the end of the day I had music class with the third graders where they had also made me lots of cards and had torn up construction paper for confetti that they threw when I came into the room (reminded me of New Year's Eve at my house :)). It was practically impossible to carry on a normal music class because they were all so excited. That ended up being ok though because about 10 minutes later the teacher that does Spanish with my kids at the end of the day came in and said she was taking over the third grade class and I needed to go to my classroom. I walked in and there were streamers, balloons, signs, and super-hyper kids all over the place. They sang me "Happy Birthday" - which apparently the entire school could hear. Some students had brought in a HUGE chocolate cake, some Ritz crackers, popcorn, and lemonade which we passed out in complete chaos. Apparently it's also tradition to take frosting from the cake and put it on the face of whoever's birthday it is so... by the end of school my entire face was covered in chocolate frosting. This would have been perfectly fine except that us teachers were going into town for a birthday supper and in order to do that we usually jump on the kids' bus right at 3 so I had to quick try and clean myself and my classroom up before the bus left!

We arrived into town just in time to find out there was a 4 o'clock curfew for the entire country of Honduras. Right before I came to Honduras, the government 'escorted' the president Zelaya out of the country because he'd been trying to put some things into the constitution that would make it easy to set up a dictatorship. Honduras has had a man named Micheletti in charge since then. Apparently Zelaya showed up in the country and everything went into lock-down mode. SOO. We were in town and everything closed so we just went back up the mountain. Today they cancelled school because the curfew went until 7 am and students wouldn't have been able to make it to school. We came down into town again to try and have a birthday lunch but... once again everything is closed. So we're using the internet and sitting around and we probably won't have school again tomorrow! Always something interesting here :)

But, all around, my birthday was wonderful. Thanks for all the birthday wishes!!

This week in Music I taught the fourth grade class the song "Lord You are More Precious than Silver" (I don't know the real name :)) except that I taught them the second verse because I felt like they might relate to it better.

Lord, Your love is higher than the mountains.
Lord, Your love is deeper than the seas.
Lord, Your love is wider than the oceans.
Nothing on this earth compares with You.

The fourth grade class is usually pretty rowdy, but on Thursday they were ridiculous. Sarah is their teacher and she had had a pretty hard day getting them to be quiet, so she wished me luck as she practically ran out of the classroom. So, instead of doing my usual warm-up songs, I used a breathing exercise to have them kind of calm down. That.... sort of worked... Most of the songs I teach the kids are upbeat and use lots of actions so that they're excited for Music but I decided that might not be a good choice for this day. I randomly remembered this song and thought I would try it out. This song is actually really special to me because (sorry in advance Zach!) when Zachary was a baby I used to sit in his room for hours rocking him (I'd maybe sometimes wake him up to rock him back to sleep :)) and I'd sing this song over and over again. It was always such a beautiful time singing in the dark to Jesus while rocking my baby brother. So, I decided to teach it to these kids and they loved it. A calmness fell over the room immediately. I had them do a few actions like lifting their hands way up for the mountains, dipping their arms way down for deep, and spreading their arms out wide for the ocean, but mostly they just sang from their hearts. A lot of the students had their eyes closed and THREE girls started crying. WOW. How precious to hear children worshipping God and to be able to join in. I had music with them the next day, and since it was a Friday I let them choose what songs they wanted to sing for the last half. I had some our usual songs brought up, but I had several kids (since they forget to listen to each other, they all just keep saying the same thing :)) raise their hand and say, "Can we sing the song of the Lord?". So we did.


I love my job!

random people in the crowd at the game

this maybe gives you a little idea on the amount of people at the game.

our precious neighbor luis. he was sad we were leaving.

abi hiding under the table :)

candido fernando and abigail. and me with one earring missing.

Sarah and me at the futbol game

my boys playing futbol against the fifth graders at Dia de Ninos (Children's Day)

We fashioned a bar to hang our clothes on! and our dresser thing is full too!-- but no more living out of suitcases!

my room. complete with pictures and letters to remind me of all of you at home :)

most of the girls in my class after they won their futbol game 4-1!!!