May, where did you come from?

Woopsies, it has been too long old friend. Sorry for the lack of posting. Life has engulfed me here and I have completely neglected this here blog. My apologies. May has somehow creeped up on us and it is really starting to dawn on us that our time here is rapidly approaching an end, and it's FREAKING ME OUT. I've been overwhelmed lately with a plethora of emotions that I have no idea how to process or deal with. It's been a doozie, and it's only the beginning of the end. I'm expecting lots of tears the next couple weeks, just hoping they'll be able to find their way out of my eyeballs, since it's been near impossible to shed tears here, but tis my life. Anywho, let me try and fill you all in on some of our life here the last month.

We've been back in school since Spring Break for a while now, and it was pretty hard to get back in to the swing of things for a while, the weather has been crazy hot, which has made things a bit more difficult, but we are managing and really just trying to stay present and finish well. My kiddies are going a bit loco lately, somehow the heat makes them more hyper and crazy and has the opposite effect on me, making it a bad combination. But we're learning to make it work. We watched Bill Nye the Science Guy the other day to learn about the water cycle and it was pretty awesome. My kids are so stinking smart and Bill Nye sort of rules. They seem to really be getting it, which is always such a rewarding moment.

We also had another crazy desfile (parade) last week. It's a pretty crazy spectacle, as we take up a quarter mile of the main road. We march from the gas station (right by our school) and march to the mall (which I'm guessing is about a quarter mile away, I could be way off). I was with the little first and second grade girls again. They were little pomponeras, sups presh. Here are some pictures of the madness.

Love this little man. 

studs. 

love them

little Pre-K/Kinder kids

taking up the whole road

A glimpse of the madness. 

Pomponeras

In other life news, diving has been the greatest thing to ever happen to my life. We started diving with another local dive shop Seagrape Plantation Resort and they've been super cool. We've been going on some of the best dives yet. We got to do an awesome wreck dive and another one that had some crazy cave-like swim throughs. It was pretty epic. We're really hooked on this whole diving thing. We wish we had unlimited funds and time to be able to just dive all day everyday, but we take what we can get. I will try to post again soon with picture and videos once I get some from Ingrid.

I think that's all for now. Thanks for reading! And Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Spring Break madness Part1

Hello Spring Break and hello again blog world. It has been far too long. I am officially on Spring Break, technically on day 5 actually. And as I am sitting here writing this it is pouring down some hard core rain. It kind of seems like a sick joke, this rainy season that never seems to end. The weather has really taken a turn for the worst since yesterday and it's a depressing site, buttt despite it and all the craziness and roadblocks I'm trying to stay resilient and positive through it all. In reality, I am really just thankful for this time to chilllll out and just be still, it is much needed and even if things aren't going exactly as planned, it's still a blessing of a time and it's already been sweet. Here are some highlights thus far:

Pablo's Birthday Extravaganza 

Birthday smile! 

Pablo is one of my most favorite people on this island. He live in French Harbor and was one of the first friends we made. He turned 16! (so crazy!!!) on Friday, so we threw him a whole day celebration. Sarah and I took him and 3 other boys to West Bay, which was an adventure in itself.

ice cream pit stop

Trying to hitch hike with those crazy boys was a trek, but we made it and spent the day hanging out at the beach and playing in the water. Sarah and I felt like moms the whole day watching over our little kids, it was grand.

beach fun

such a stud

After the beach we went back to our apartment and had a huge extravagant dinner for all the boys. Ingrid and Caleb were back at the place with 2 other French Harbor boys getting all the goods ready. We made lasagna, rice, beans, chicken, and a double decker cake for them. It was tons of fun. We celebrated Jarvi's birthday also because his is in August and we won't be here then. He ate it all up as if it really was his birthday. Love those boys so much.

singing Happy Birthday

yay for cake

"take a picture of me with my cake" - Jarvi

Scuba Diving Galore: 
I've been so lucky to have been able to go on 4 dives within the last week (that's a record for us haha)! There's something about being in the water that just feeds my soul. Gratitude, love, peace, joy so many pure emotions pour out of me after being in the water. Everything in me wants to get back in at every moment. It has been such a blessing and incredible experience to have here on this beautiful little island. The reef here and the underwater world minutes away from the shore is seriously out of this world.

Jeep Fun and learning to drive stick shift
We were super duper blessed by one of our student's parents this past week. They have an old jeep that wasn't being used and they let us borrow it for the week to drive ourselves around. The only downside is that it's stick shift and well only 1 of us girls knows how to drive stick and she is currently traveling around central america. Luckily Caleb is visiting and can drive stick and we've been getting full use of the car. Caleb gave Ingrid and I  a little driving stick shift lesson last night in the mall parking lot and it was a blast! We were pretty good, just going to take a little bit of getting used to, but I'm convinced we'll be driving stick shift like pros by the end of my time here, heck to the yeah!



Now we're off to try and find a hiking trail and adventure around the island (weather permitting, the rain has stopped, thankfully). I'll try to write a part 2 soon of what we do the second half of our break. For now, thankful and breathing in gratitude and joy. love love love.

Watching Oceans...

So, my class was supposed to go on a field trip this past Monday on a glass bottom boat. It's a boat out in West Bay that has a glass bottom allowing you to see the underwater world in the confides of a boat. Half boat/half submarine type of thing. Unfortunately it got rescheduled due to bad weather and we have postpone the trip until April when we get back from Spring Break. In lieu/honor of our trip we've been watching Oceans (shout out to my cousin Kathy for sending me the movie!) the past two days. They were too precious today watching it and getting all excited. They're chatty little cathies and couldn't stop talking at every moment but they were too cute none the less. Check out this picture and two short little videos. They're crazy little munchkins.

Haha they're amazing. Love them. On a completely unrelated note, the other day one of my students wrote me a super cute note and it definitely made my day. I am obsessed with these kids.

"There Ms. Lina..." haha There = Dear. The cutest. Love them.

Best. Weekend. Ever.

Brace yourselves this is a long one, but a good one...

We had one of our best weekends yet and I did not want it to end. It all started with a glorious half day. Friday was CPBS Day, aka CPBS's birthday! The day started off with a whole school assembly/chapel/ceremony. It included singing some worship songs, performances by the band, song and dance by various grades, and a hilarious performance by the seniors. They dressed up as "color blobs" and did some hilarious dancing. It was awesome.

We then had a crazy hat competition. Here's a picture of some of the kids with their crazy hats and just being crazy.

crazy hats

my crazy hat kids

love this kid. 

The rest of the day was filled with random games and such. After the school day was over 3 of the girls headed over to West Bay Beach and Sarah and I went over to West End and went diving. It's always fun to be out in the water and diving. It wasn't the best diving experience we've had so far, but always fun.


The real weekend treat started on Saturday though. We decided to finally get out butts to the East Side and figured the best way to do that would be to rent a car. So we rented a crazy truck and hauled our behinds to the East End of the island.

the good life. 

We ran into a fruit truck on our way. Seriously some of the best fruit I've ever had and super cheap. I wish that truck was around always.

verduras, verduassss

yummmmm

back on the road with our goods

We took the road until there was nowhere left to go and found ourselves on a random dock where we pranced around and took pictures.

We then turned back around and stopped at a couple of the places we had been hearing about but had never been to. We first stopped at Camp Bay. Super chill, quiet, place. Beautiful beach.

We then made our way to Paya Bay, a beautiful resort we had heard so much about. And let me tell you it was SO NICE! It's nestled on this beautiful cliff-side ocean front. There's 2 secluded beach fronts. A beauuuuutiful yoga deck that overlooks the water. And super cute little walking trails that lead you to the different parts of the resort. We ran into our friend Casie (she went to high school with my college roommate! SMALL WORLD!). She is a yoga instructor there and has been living there for about 2 months. She showed us around and we just spent the day lounging at the beach. It was awesome.

the public beach

one of their private beaches

All of us girls 

some of the rooms

so epic. even the moon came out to say goodbye

We had an awesome dinner there then headed back towards home. We did drive throughs of Oakridge and Jonesville, 2 of the towns on the East side. We then made a stop at the mall for some ice cream, then went back home and settled in for the night after a long day of adventure. We were pooped after the long day of adventuring.


The next day Ingrid and I woke up early to take one last joy ride. We drove over to Sandy Bay (the west side of the island) and stopped by the beach and took a little morning swim.

cruising some back roads by the beach

After that we went over to West End and stopped in at one of our favorite restaurants, Earth Mamas. We shared a delicious smoothie and took some Banana Pinapple Pancakes to go. We booked it to the car rental place for our 9:00am drop off and had to sadly say goodbye to the glorious truck. It was a sad moment.


The rest of the day was spent cleaning my apartment. I have been FREAKING OUT lately because I saw a cockaroach chilling on my bed/pillow the other night and then proceeded to watch it crawl between the mattress and box spring. I didn't sleep in my bed for 3 nights. I went on crazy cockaroach prevention mode and tried by best to set up traps and clean every corner and crevice of our house. A part of me sees it as a lost cause and the other part of me refuses to believe they exist at all. It's ruined my life here haha.

After cleaning and such Ingrid and I decided to make our way up the road to our old Taxi driver's house to hang out/say good bye (he works on a boat on mainland now and is only home for a few days). But on our way we ran into some of our French Harbor friends (they work at a horse farm just up the road from our house). They offered to take us out on the horses and sticking true to the YOLO spirit of the weekend we hopped on some horses and went for a ride. They took us to this trail not far down the road which led to a little beach area. We just rode around for a bit and hung out. It was pretty awesome.

Needless to say it was just a really epically awesome weekend. I'm thankful for the overflow of blessings that are showered on us on this island. It's crazy how fast time is flying by here but we're just learning to enjoy each moment as they come. Thankful for crazy adventurous and refreshing weekends like these.

Scuba, birthday, and too many things

Hello blog world,
I don't know what happened when I went home, but I came back with ZERO desire to blog, and for that I apologize. I will most definitely try to be better. I feel like so much and at the same time nothing at all has happened since the last time I blogged.  The end of January and the beginning of February was jam packed with Teacher birthdays. We had 3 in 3 weeks, 1 each week (MINE included :)! ). We had some back to back celebrations. One of the teachers even had a surprise birthday party thrown by her kids, the cutest! My birthday was great, finally turned 23, it's a funny feeling here because there seems to be no concept of age, somehow in my brain I just assume we all are the same age. Regardless, it was fun celebrating and hanging out all together for all of our birthdays.

Another big thing that happened this past month was that we finally got SCUBA CERTIFIED!!!!! It is basically the best feeling EVERRRRRR. It took us 4 months to complete a course that can take as little as 2 days! haha. We're ridiculous, but hey we finally DID IT! We spent a whole weekend diving it up and it was glorious. I think we all just felt so much better and more comfortable in the water this time and it just made for a really fun time. We made our very own hand signal for "so cool" so that whenever we're underwater we just give each other the shaka to signal SO COOOOOL! And let me tell you there is SO much down there to say SO COOL about. I know I'm getting super spoiled because this is some of the best diving in the world. We got to see a huge lobster, a sea turtle and swim among a school of fish. It was so cool. And we've only just begun. We're so excited to get back in the water and just keep diving. Coolest thing everrrrr.

Classroom life and tutoring in French Harbor has been super difficult. I don't know what's been up but teaching has just been really hard. I am literally exhausted every single day and life has just been tiring. But I do love my babies more and more each day. They are precious, beautiful, little creatures that I am incredibly thankful for each day, even though most days they push my last nerve and drive me CRAZY! Learning to take each day with a grateful heart and finding joy in the midst of chaos.

Okay, I think that's all I've got at the moment. I really will try to be better about posting :)
Thanks for reading. Here are some pictures to leave you with.

crazy kids

getting ready for soccer practice. the cutest.

View from a private little beach in front of our friends' place in Sandy Bay

Back on the island

OH SNAPPPS. I meant to post this about 2 weeks ago, but the power went out and then I just flat out forgot I never posted it. My apologies. I am just going to post as is and will try and write up another update soon. SO SORRY for the lack of posting, will try to be better!!!

Hello folks,
Sorry it's taken me so long to get back on the blog train. I've been back on the island now for about 2 weeks and it's been a bit of a whirlwind getting back into the swing of things. I feel like I am exhausted ALL the time now a days, but I'm slowly adjusting back to school and island life. All of us teachers had a really great break enjoying time with family and friends back home. It was a bit hard for some of us to come back, but we're all excited to be here and to finish the next 6 months strong. It was funny because we came back from the States to no internet at our apartments for a couple days and have had multiple power outages the past 2 week and have had our fair share of "island moments" where we are ever so reminded that we are in fact back on the island. It was such a weird feeling of feeling like we were gone for so long and like we never left. But indeed is is sweet to be back and it feels  like home all over again.

We just had exams this past week and that kind of wiped me, but the half days were nice. My kids are more precious than ever. It was so good to see them again after the break.  We start a new quarter on Monday and that should be an adventure. I'm going to be trying a lot of new things with Language Arts and there's still a lot I'm sorting out in my brain, so please pray for wisdom and divine inspiration. Not much really much else to update on, but here are some super cute pictures of my precious children from this past week.

So, the other day after they were done with exams one boy asked me to draw him a heart and he proceeded to go over it with his new glitter glue and soon enough the whole class was doing it. They did it all week. I love the little notes: "para mi mami", "para mi familia", "mama & papa", such little lovers.

Waiting for me to come out of the teacher's lounge, so cute.

Well, I will update more next week as we get into the thick of things! I'll try to update more about classroom jazz. There's a crazy tropical storm or something over the island because there have been crazy high winds all last night and today. Hopefully it was pass soon and we will be able to beach it up! Yeeeee, until next time friends!

Christmas Program and saying goodbye

Hello all, there is so much excitement and surreal-ness as I type this post because in less than 24 hours I will be in the U.S. of A!! It is Christmas time and we are all going home for Christmas break. It is a crazy, surreal, bittersweet feeling. I am so pumped to finally be on Christmas break and to be able to take some much needed time off and to go home and visit friends and family. All of us teachers are on the same flight to Houston, which we're all really excited about. We are all feeling the Christmas spirit and are extremely excited to go home, although we will all miss each other a whole lot. We have spent the last 5 months spending almost every waking minute with one another, so it's going to feel quite strange being apart, but we're looking forward to time with our families and friends and taking a break from island life.

Our last week here has been a bit of a joke, but in a glorious sort of way. Last Friday, our school put on their big Christmas program, so the whole week was a bit thrown off, but it was all so worth it. It was a pretty big production with the whole school participating. It was a play mixed in with some dances and songs by different people/grades. My second grade kiddies teamed up with the third grade and we did a sweet little dance to Joy to the World. They did an awesome job. I felt like a proud mom watching them perform, they were so stinking CUTE. Here's a really small little clip of them performing, so stinking adorable with their uncoordinated-ness and all.

Here are some pictures from the night.

CPBS teachers

Me and one of my crazy students

Second and Third Grade!

Overall, I would say it was a successful night! Our last day of school was yesterday, which was basically a free day of games and fun. I am going to miss all my kiddies so much during the break. They were all so precious saying goodbye. Love them so much. Here are some pics of them from Tuesday:

some of the boys.

so precious.

I gave each student a little gift bag and a card. Here's one of the twins showing it off. 

just hanging out. 

We've also been super blessed the past two days with incredible weather. It's like rainy season left and we're back to our summer days. We've been at the beach soaking in the West Bay glory. It's hard to believe that some of us are going back to snow! Luckily, for me CA weather won't be too much of a change, although anything colder than 70 degrees here is basically freezing, so I'm sure it'll be a bit strange. Regardless I am SO EXCITED!!!!! I probably won't be posting while I'm home, so until the New Year my friends! MERRY CHRISTMAS all!!