Turkey Day

Well, I just purchased two tickets for Costa Rica over Thanksgiving Break. My friend Stephanie and I will be making the voyage there. Get this: the price of the tickets was $16 each but with taxes added on, the total was $194. Crazy. Anyway, it's still cheap. I told Stephanie she might have to sit on top of our luggage for that price. So we will leave on Thursday morning and be in Costa Rica by 8:15 in the morning. It is only like an hour and a half flight. Then we return Sunday evening. I am super excited. Well, here is a little information in case you want to look anything up and give me some tips. We are thinking about going to Jaco beach, just because we don't want to spend a lot of time in the car, we want to spend most of our time getting a TAN!! So....it is one of the closest beaches to the airport. So, here is a map of Costa Rica to help you see where we are going to go. Jaco is on the Pacific coast.

I am hoping we will see three of these for the three nights that we will be there!


Who knows maybe we can meet these fine guapos?? ha ha ha. Well, ok, maybe we will at least do a little horseback riding on the beach! Even if they aren't our guides.


And I can guarantee you I will be doing PLENTY of this!!!!!

Mis Sobrinos!!!

I just bought my tickets to come home at Christmas and I can't wait to see my little niece and nephews, who are somehow not seeming so "little" to me anymore. A few weeks ago when I was talking to my sister on speaker phone about my trip to Miami I had said how I asked for a day off work so I could go to Miami to go to the wedding. So then when it was Grace's turn to talk to me, she said, so Aunt Kammie, when are you going to take a day off and come visit US??? I had to explain to her that I needed more than one day off to come to Missouri, so I would have to wait until Christmas when I had three weeks off for vacation to come, because it takes longer on the plane to get to Missouri. She then asked me what was 7 + 7 + 7, because she wanted to know how many days I would be home!! I couldn't believe she already knows how many days are in a week!! What a smartie! I can't wait to see them so here is a little preview!!! :) I love them!

The Great Locker Clean Out!

Now doesn't that sound like a fun project with a bunch of seventh graders??? One day last week during our advisory class, I had all of my kids go out to their lockers and clean them out. WOW, were some of them a mess. One girl told me, Miss Bass, did you know that last year, so and so found a hamburger in their locker when they finally cleaned it out?? Ha ha. I'm surprised there weren't hamburgers in a few of these lockers of these kiddos. Wow, I am really enjoying getting to know these kids so much. It is so hard to believe the first trimester of school is quickly coming to an end!!!!! Here is one of my students letting me borrow his hat to support the Guatemala soccer team!!!!

Here is one student getting the belongings out of his locker.....wow!

Everyone had their own method to use...

Cheese!!!!!!

Chicas bonitas!!!

I mean seriously, how can you get angry at a face like this????? I know I sure have a hard time getting mad!

Cutie pies!

Two of the boys in my advisory!

Drive-Thru Gallo

One of my "highlights" (sarcastically speaking) of last weekend, the long weekend was when my friends Danielle and Miguel drove me through the drive-thru Gallo beer can!!! ha ha ha. It is a liquor store where you don't even have to get out of the car. Of course we did get out of the car so we could take a few photos. It was super dark so they didn't turn out all that well, but you can kind of see what it is. It looks really funny just sitting there on the side of the road.

My Recent Decorating Project

Those of you that know me very well know, well ok lots of things about me, but you know these two things: 1.) I love pictures, taking, looking at, anything, and 2.) I am not a big decorator. Mary and I were very similar in our decorating styles while living in Korea, which was pretty much non existent. ha ha. After living in Korea for about a year and a half, I finally hung up two pictures in our living room. ha ha. Anyway, I got this idea off my friend Ryan's blog. Kudos to Ryan, you can check out his blog on my blog links on the right. (The Bush Family) Anyway, I just took some pictures that I had taken of people, places, vacations, etc and printed out 8 x 10 prints and then took wire, strung it across the wall, and used clips to clip the photos to the wire. I really like the way it turned out and am going to add some photos to my bedroom soon as well. This was just my start. :) I put a long string of pictures down the hallway when you first walk in (the last two pictures) and then I put up two rows of pictures in the living room above the couch. I am really happy with the way it turned out. Enjoy!!!!

Well, it is Friday afternoon which means that I had some time to blog today, but it also means you won't be hearing from me for a few days. I still can't figure out what is wrong with my computer or my blog or what or why my computer at home hates my blog. :) I am having a girls night in tonight watching movies and then tomorrow, hopefully sleeping in, and going to a friend's art exhibition. I also would like to at least get a start on my photos in my bedroom!!! I know, sounds exciting right?? ha ha. Such is the life in Guatemala!

When in Latin America, Do as the Latinos Do???

Probably not the best philosophy to live by.....So, I have a Guatemalan friend who is always going out with "just the guys" and so I always give him a hard time about being so macho and how the Latin guys leave the girls out all the time and don't include them. So finally a few weeks ago, he was out with his friends and I was like well if you won't let me come, then why don't you guys just come over here and hang out. He was like, are you SURE??? I was like, yeah, of course, why not? Well, this picture is the result of what happens after you have a group of Guatemalan guys over......sooooo, needless to say, I'm not sure the next time will be that they come over. ha ha! :)

McDia de Feliz

On October 8th, Guatemala celebrated McDia de Feliz for the tenth year in a row. We had heard about this and weren't totally sure what it meant. All we knew was that if you bought a Big Mac the proceeds went towards funds and research at the Ronald McDonald house. Some of us teachers here thought, what a great cause! So of course we wanted to take part in it! After school Danielle and I went to McDonalds and we found out that we could buy coupons for Big Macs that could be used in the future but since we bought them today the proceeds would still go for the same cause. So we spent quite a bit of money at McDonalds that day on Big Mac coupons that I don't even like! ha ha. I gave them away to some people here at school to use. After doing a little research, I found out that there are several Latin American countries that now celebrate McDia de Feliz and the proceeds go to help those in need at Ronald McDonald houses in that country. Pretty cool. And it was packed at McDonalds. From what I read (in a Spanish article online), last year they made almost 4.5 million Quetzales, which is about $616,500. Not too shabby for a day of selling Big Macs! It was fun to be a part of the big hubbub. There were radio stations broadcasting from several of the McDonalds. So here are a few pictures of our small adventure!

They had to have people out directing traffic and stuff in the parking lot. These people were all waiting to get into the drive thru.

Sorry for the bad, rainy picture, but you can see the crowd of cars (we had to wait in a line on the street to get into the parking lot) and you can also see the radio station broadcasting.

So, the cars weren't waiting to go through the drive thru, it is called the "auto mac" here!!! :)

A better shot of the radio station tent.

Gracias for coming!!! Oh and McCafe is this really fancy (for McDonalds standards) coffee shop where they sell coffee in real (not styrofoam) mugs and good cakes and stuff. But it is in McDonalds!

Yes, McDonalds does deliver here in Guatemala!!!

All the cars lined up in the auto mac

Danielle showing her support of the ninos with her big mac!

South Beach, Miami!!!!

Since Alexa and I flew into Miami, we rented a car and had to drive a little over two hours to get to Fort Myers, where the wedding was. Well, Alexa's flight was about four and a half hours before my flight, so after all of the wedding fun and the sad goodbye with Alexa at the airport, I called my friend Meranda who I used to hang out with in New Jersey when I lived on the east coast. She has lived in Miami for the last three and a half years and I hadn't seen her in about as much time. So, I had told her that I would have a few hours to spare in Miami, so I got all checked in, left my luggage and she came to pick me up at the airport. We went and had lunch together and then she gave me a quick tour of Miami, down to South Beach and that area. It was soooo fun, as this was my first time in Miami, so I actually got to see a little bit of the city itself! The flight is so short and cheap from Guatemala, I have a feeling I may be back there a few times while I am living here in Guatemala!!! Here we are at South Beach!

Me at South Beach! I obviously wasn't too dressed for the beach! ha ha.

On the sidewalk right outside of South Beach!!!

Meranda took me to this place called Mango Cafe (I think....) and they have live latin music all the time. It was soooo fun and cute!

Reception and Dinner

The dinner after the wedding was amazing!! The food was great and since it was such a small wedding, it was so much to really get to know and hang out with the people who are so close with Mary and Michael. Having known them only in Korea, I didn't know any of their family, except for one Mary's brothers who had come to visit in Korea for a few days. It was really fun to get to know all of them and to hang out with them. We almost felt like family!! :) Here are some photos from the reception. The first is of course, Alexa and I. We can't seem to go too long without taking a photo of the two of us!!!!! I couldn't seem to get enough of her over the short few days that we had together!

The happy couple!!! Soooooo cute!

Alexa seems to like seeing her name written on anything. When we were in Manila together, we took a picture of her next to her name written on the tv screen welcoming us into our room at the hotel. Sooo, here she is holding up her namecard at the reception!! ha ha.

Roomies!!!

The three amigas!!!

Michael serenaded Mary with a song, so sweet!

Me with two of two "roomies" in Korea!!! ha ha. Michael spent so many weekends at our house, along with Alexa, they weren't really considered guests at our apartment after awhile!!!

The first dance!!!

Mary dancing with her cutie pie little niece!!! We kind of thought she reminded us of a white version of our friend's daughter that they adopted from Ethiopia with that curly hair of hers!!!! She was so adorable!

See, here we go again!!!!! ha ha.

Mary and Michael before they said their goodbyes to us all.....sob sob. Yes I am a crybaby and I cried once AGAIN when I had to say goodbye to them!!!!

Me with Mary's brothers. The one on the right, Josh, came to visit in Korea, so he was one of the only people that I sorta kinda knew at the wedding. They were quite the characters. We all went back to the hotel and had a pool party at like 2 am until we got kicked out! :(

Wedding Ceremony!

When we went to the ceremony was the only time that Alexa and I even actually stepped foot on the beach, so we figured we better take advantage of the opportunity to take a beach photo of ourselves. ha ha. It was right at sunset which was beautiful despite the overcastness of the day!!! It did rain for a bit during the ceremony but it certainly did not deter any of the happiness that was going on there! Here we are on Sanibel Island!

Here is Michael waiting for his beautiful bride to come down the aisle!

Mary's dad walking her down the aisle, looking as beautiful as ever!!!

As the clouds began to roll in, the wind began to pick up as well, right as Mary got to the front!! Her veil was a little out of control for a few minutes, but she got it taken care of!!!!

Mary was wondering how long this rain was going to keep up!!! It lasted about halfway through the ceremony, which was short in general!!!

Saying their vows to one another.....beautiful!!

Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Krom!!!!! Soooo cute!! I just love them! It was so much fun to be with them in Korea to watch their relationship blossom and their love grow more and more for each other every day!!!