Home Sweet Home

There is a reason for the saying, "Home Sweet Home." Besides it being blazing hot here in Missouri, it has been nothing but home sweet home. I have spent oodles of time with my sister and my niece and three nephews and it has been wonderful. It's a little crazy around their house, but what more can you expect with four kids under the age of 6?? :) I love it though. I have eaten at IHOP already a few times with them, we've played glow in the dark mini-golf at the mall, my nephew thinks I'm really good at Scooby Doo video games, I've gone to his t-ball twice, we've played outside in the small pool, we've gone to the neighborhood "big" pool, I've spent countless hours holding a sleeping sweet precious baby boy, and on and on. I am seriously enjoying every minute of it and soaking it all in. My niece and nephews are all getting so big and so funny.

Grace just finished kindergarten and her little mind works 24 hours a day. She is very observant and takes note of every detail, especially when you get something wrong, she loves to correct you!

She likes to take pictures, so this is her attempt to take a picture of us together!

And she likes to cut coupons! (Especially for candy or gum!)

With Mimi and Poppy at the play area at the mall!

Sam just turned four and he is quite the little character. His favorite phrase now is "You're not the boss of the car.....or of the couch......or of the basement." etc etc. So I finally said to him, "Sam, I don't want to hear you keep saying that to me or Aunt Kammie won't take you anywhere." Now he likes to remind me often, "Aunt Kammie, you're the boss of the couch. or Aunt Kammie, you're the boss of us right now." ha ha. He's so funny. He loves to 'play' video games. More, he really likes to watch someone else play them. Well, since I am quite the mature 30 year old, I still enjoy the video games. So we get along great. He loves to watch me play the Scooby Doo game. I do think I've gotten my name on most of the top scores so far. ha ha.

Getting ready to hit at t-ball!

Not sure if he's relaxing or waiting for a ground ball!

Sam loves his little baby brother and is a good helper!

Nate, who is 2 1/2 amazes me more and more every time I see him. He is growing so much and looks so much bigger and older to me each time I am home. I know that obviously he is just growing up, but coming from his little micropreemie status, it still just amazes me each time. He truly is a miracle to our eyes. He is jabbering now all the time. He will say "Tia" but not Kammie! That's ok, I'll take tia. :)

He insisted on having his goggles on in the baby pool in the back yard!

Gotta love those big blue eyes!

Just looking so big!

And little Preston, he is just a bundle of love. I am so in love with him, it's unreal. We missed out on a lot of the typical "baby" stuff with Nate, so it's so much fun to have a snuggly, cute, sweaty baby to love on!!! I just love letting him snuggle up on my chest and love on him!

Even though I love letting him sleep on me, I sure do love him even when he's awake too!!!!

Love the snuggly time!

Love it!!!

There's just something to be said about knowing my way around town and where things are and where to find things and feeling "home" again. No matter how long I've been gone and how much time has passed that I haven't even been in Missouri, I still feel somewhat at home here. Of course things change and it feels weird that I don't live here, but a part of me will always feel home here.

I've gotten to see some old friends, some people that I normally don't see and others that are my regular people to see! I have hung out with friends that I have known from kindergarten, friends from high school, and friends from junior high. I know it sounds stupid and my mom will never get it, but seriously, I am reconnecting with old friends due to facebook!!! It's so fun. I am getting together tomorrow night with five girls that I played softball with when we were like 14 years old and younger. We started playing together from the time we were in like 1st grade and we played together for several years. Softball was my life and these girls were a huge part of my life. I spent my entire summers at the ball field. I am so excited to see them and reconnect with them. I am also having lunch with my kindergarten teacher on Monday! How crazy is that??

I leave on Tuesday to embark on my long journey around the world. ha ha. I am so excited about seeing some other friends and seeing some other parts of the world. I will see Laurie in Spain, Rebekah in Italy, Wendy in Kenya, and Laura in Belgium!! I can't wait!

Gum Scrapers

We started having a really bad problem of students chewing gum at school, so even though this policy started a little late, we started making the kids who got caught chewing gum scrape gum off the bottom of desks and the sidewalks. So, like any good teachers, we took pictures of them and put them in the end of the year slideshow today!!! :)

My 30th Birthday!!!!

I celebrated my big 3-0 birthday back in May! I knew it was coming up all year and I kept thinking about how I wanted to celebrate it here in Guatemala. I wanted to do something memorable, something fun and something different. One night we were out and this trolley bus passed by with people yelling out the back and looked like a big party on it. At that moment, I knew, that was what I wanted to do for my 30th birthday!!! Well, I did it! It was so much fun and there was a wonderful group of friends that helped me celebrate and welcome in a new decade.

Jaime and I outside the bus before we left!

The party going on inside the bus!

Sharon and I!

The outside of the bus, it was so fun!

We had jello shots and when we stopped for a bathroom break at a gas station, Kari gave this mariachi band some jello shots. They loved it!

The back was open so you could ride back here!

Jaime, Fernando, and me! Fernando promised me a few birthday "presents" and showed up with like 4 or 5 Guatemalan guys on the trolley!

Dancing in the trolley!

This was after midnight so I was getting birthday hugs! (We went on Saturday May 16, so it officially wasn't my birthday until midnight!)

It was sooooo fun!

Service Learning Projects

Each year the different grade levels at our school take on service learning projects. In seventh grade this year, our topic was health and we were partnered with a sister school here in town that we were to help out. We spent the first part of our project teaching the kids lessons on different aspects of nutrition. Then we spent the next half of the time having the kids come up with a little workshop with an activity to teach a small group of students from our sister school their lesson on nutrition. The kids worked really hard and got really into it. They all had penpals that they had written letters back and forth to and were looking forward to meeting the kids when they came to our school. Well, due to the glorious SWINE FLU, our school decided to cancel all outside activities with other schools, all sports events, all academic activities, including our service learning project! So the week of, we had to tell the kids that we weren't going to be able to host the other school to participate in their workshops. The kids were pretty disappointed but we ended up inviting elementary classes to come and go through the workshops so that the kids felt like their hard work was for something! It was still fun.

Millers in Antigua

Like any good Guatemala tour, we made a trip to Antigua. It is just such a unique town and so different from Guatemala City. The architecture there is beautiful and when it is clear and you can see the volcanoes, it's so nice!! So we got back from Rio Dulce on Saturday night and got up Sunday morning to head to Antigua before Mike and Gretchen had to fly out on Sunday night. We had beautiful weather and a nice day full of shopping and fun! They even got to experience some Guatemalan classics while here, we passed two dead bodies on the side of the road on our way to Antigua and they felt a tremor while shopping in Antigua!!

Mike and Gretchen with the famous arch in Antigua. This arch was built for a church so they could pass over from the church to where they lived without having to go out in public and cross the street!

One of my favorite pictures of the arch, with the blue sky and the volcano coming through behind it!

Of course a trip to the Sky Bar, one of my favorite places to visit with a nice view!

It was so fun to see the Millers and get to spend time with them!!! In Korea everyone asked if Gretchen and I were sisters. Since we are both from Missouri and we have a lot in common, we just started calling each other our long lost sisters!

Sisters!!!

When we got ready to leave, there was a parade of some sort going on. Well we followed it......all the way back to our car!!!! It took us another 45 minutes to wait out the parade before we could move the car and leave!!!

Boat (Yacht???) Ride

Friday night while we were eating dinner at the restaurant, this little boy and his father come up to Stephanie and say, "Hi Miss Moy." He is a second grader at our school and they came up to say hi! We chatted with them for a few minutes and then the dad proceeds to invite us all to come on their boat with them tomorrow, because they are going to go to a finca (farm) to eat breakfast and then on to the hot water fall. Sure, we said, not sure if it would really happen or not. They said to meet them by 7 am down at the dock. They told us their boat is there and they would be sleeping there that night. Well, nosy us, we meandered our way down there that night and saw this nice LARGE boat sitting there! So we packed up early and went down to the dock where the captain greeted us and let us on the boat and served us a beverage before heading off. We had a great day hanging out with the kids. One of the older girls will be in my class next year. The family was so nice and generous to us all day. It was a super fun day. Then they dropped us off at the car and we headed home! (They headed home on Sunday in their helicopter!!!)

Gretchen and I on the boat!

This was where we stayed, a view from the river. We were in the cabins on the other side though, not quite this pretty of a view!

Here is the Castillo de San Felipe, the Castle of Saint Philip. We didn't stop there but we heard it as just as impressive to drive by and look at as it was to actually go in!

The second grader deciding to go inside the boat, no problem, just climb up the front of it!

The boat.....or yacht, as we referred to it!

We ate breakfast at this farm and then we all piled into the back of this tractor and it pulled us down the road until we got to the path to get to the hot water fall.

This was the weirdest sensation. We went swimming in here and the water coming down from the waterfall was very hot. The water in the pool was cool, so it was this weird hot/cold feeling!!!

Then after about an hour swimming in the waterfall, we came back to the boat and the kids wanted to go for a ride on the banana boat, there was one more space, so I got volunteered to go with them!!! It was fun though!

I had already gotten changed or I would have done this too, but then the kids climbed to the top of the boat and jumped off into the lake!!! So fun! Action shot...

Just lounging around on the Yacht!

Rio Dulce with the Millers (and others)

Mike, Gretchen, and I, along with my neighbor Stephanie, piled into the car on Thursday, the first day off school, and met up with two others cars to caravan to Rio Dulce. We stopped at the ruins, as posted below, and then finally made it to the hotel at Rio Dulce. Rio Dulce is the river that connects Lake Izabal to the Caribbean Sea. It ends right near this Garifuna town of Livingston. Garifuna is a mix of Caribbean and African people who live along the Caribbean coasts of Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and Nicaragua. It was a really cool little town, with a kind of Jamaican feel to it. We got to our hotel on Thursday late afternoon, took a refreshing dip in the pool and hung out there all day, eating dinner at the restaurant that night. Then we rented a boat for the day for all of us, and it took us all the way down the river to Livingston, making some cool stops along the way. We had lunch in Livingston and then came back. Here are some pictures of our day:

In the boat on the way out!

Mike and Gretchen getting blown away!

We came upon this tree and if you look closely it is inhabited by tons of white egrits.

These birds are cormornats. They are taught to dive down into the water and catch fish and then they have to stand here and dry off their wings before they can continue diving. They are pretty cool. Rachel (the science teacher!) was telling me that in Asia they tie their necks so they can't swallow the birds and they use these birds to help them fish. I actually saw it on the Amazing Race later!

No idea what these insects were, some type of grasshoppers or something, but they were all over these plants!!!

Then our boat driver decided to pick one off the plant so we could get a closer look at it!

Then we went to this place where there were lily pads EVERYWHERE!!! It was beautiful!

Finally made it to the town of Livingston.

The beach at the Caribbean Sea. We didn't go in!

Mike, enjoying his "coco loco." These are pretty popular here, coconut milk and rum!

Mike eating his lunch of the local soup, with an entire fish in the soup!

We stopped along the way home so we could swim in the river. Gretchen and I decided to get in for a little bit, even though it was really cold and I'm sure we were the entertainment for the day for the Mayan women in the background.