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!! 

Happy birthday DECEMBER!

Hello everyone, hope all is well. It's been a while since I've posted so I thought I would throw out a random post. It is officially DECEMBER and us teachers have been so excited about CHRISTMAS for so many reasons. We are all so excited to go back to the states and recharge with friends and family. We celebrated December this past weekend by having a cookie/baking party and watching Elf. Our cookie/baking party was HILARIOUS because well we are just really lacking in appliances. Only one of our ovens is currently working and it's about the size of a shoe box (okay maybe a slight exaggeration, but seriously it's tiny) and we had some grand plans to bake up the wazoo. So we decided to improvise and make do with what we have by trying to cook some cookies on the stove. It was hilarious and almost worked but basically turned into warmed up cookie dough, delicious nonetheless. HAPPY BIRTHdAY DECEMBER!

In other news we have found a new taxi driver. His name is Jaxel and he is hilarious. We always feel super blessed because God seems to always provide us with new taxi drivers right when we need them.  Our original taxi driver Nino, up and left to go work on a fishing boat near mainland a month or so ago and it's been rough without him. Taxi drivers can be sketch and hit or miss here so Nino was a blessing and we were sad to see him go. Luckily one of the teachers picked Jaxel out at the mall one day and we've been using him the last few days and so far he's been great. Today, Ingrid and I had him pick us up from the coffee shop to take us home. He's been telling us that we need to go eat carne with him in the street in Las Fuertes and today as we were on our way home, he asked us when we were going to go eat and living out our YOLOness we said AHORITA! and so he busted a quick U-y and off we were to Las Fueretes for some carne en la calle. It was awesome. We were laughing at how with Nino we went to his house to make baleadas and now here we were going to go eat carne with Jaxel, seems to be a trend for our taxi drivers to want to make us gorda (fat)! Regardless we had a blast feeling like locals in Fuertes and eating delicious grub in the street.

Also, we just found out that next week we basically only have classes for half the week because the school puts on a huge Christmas program and the preparations for it cuts into class time (it's crazy). So we have no school next Friday (the day of the program) and Thursday is basically going to be spent shuttling kids back and forth from the school and the mall (where the Christmas program is going to take place this year) to practice for the Christmas program. That means that I really only have 1 more week of teaching for this quarter, which is just WILD! I don't know where it all went. We are almost half-way done with the school year, so crazy when I put it like that.

It has been an up and down adventure here and I've been learning a whole lot everyday. Lately, I've been dealing with a lot of insecurities and feeling super weak here. It's felt like every weakness of mine has been magnified here and it's hard not to just dwell on those weaknesses and feel like a sucky human being. Thankfully, God is good and has been walking me through this whole process of refinement and seeing His perfection through my weakness. It's a bittersweet process, but I truly am thankful, and I feel like each day I'm stepping more and more into who God has created me to be. It's hard but oh so good. Thankful, thankful, THANKFUL!

Anyways that's enough of my ramblings, here are some pictures of my precious, little babies. (click "read more" to see more pictures!)
Thanks y'all for reading, means a lot. And hey maybe think about leaving a comment :)

My kids the day before Thanksgiving Break

crazy gemelo.

Crazy Kids

I've been really into taking pictures lately. I busted out Photobooth on my laptop today after our exams. I managed to get a group shot (minus 1 girl) and then it turned into chaos as they mobbed my comp to take pictures, got some funny shots out of it though. Without further ado, here are my precious alumnos:

My Babies.

I love them. 

Look at these crazies. 

chaos. 

Precious. 

Oh man, do I love these kids, even though they drive me crazy most days, they are precious. We are starting a new quarter next week and I'm getting excited to get things going. I feel a lot more confident as a teacher and feel like I have a better idea of how I want things to move. So hopefully we'll have a very productive 2nd quarter!

Happy Children's Day!!

Today is Honduran Children's Day, a day to celebrate all the little ninos. We had a half day at school  and the day was spent playing games and having fun. The school set up a bunch of stations with various games/activities for the kids to rotate through. My kids were crazy but also quite hilarious. One of my favorite activities of the day was "zumo" also known as sumo in English. My kids got so into it and it as just plain hilarious. 

The girls. 

The intensity.

Another favorite was the Pinata. Man the kids here do not mess around when it comes to pinatas. They ravaged the candy like no other and were whacking away at the thing. I think the school went through at least 10 pinatas throughout the day. Apparently Pinatas are a big deal for Children's day, so I'm sure the whole island had pinatas going all day long. 

They also played soccer, dodgeball, water balloons, make-shift mini-golf, ate snacks, and played some other random little games. 

soccer

snacks! 

dodgeball, boys vs. girls

love this picture. 

Overall it was a sweet day. Exhausting but fun. Oh man these kids crack me up. 

My sweet crazy kids

This is how things are all the time haha.

After school since it was a half-day Sarah, Ingrid, and I hitched our way over to Brick Bay and spent the day hanging out at Club Natale. Oh man, do we love that place. It's just always a good time when we are there. We're hoping to start working with them soon and helping them out by doing some tutoring/teaching/mentoring with some of the kids in French Harbor and hopefully eventually in Punta Gorda/Pandytown/the East side of the island. Super excited for that. 

Friday Art

So, Friday afternoons is our Art time. I found some easy and fun drawing guides on this blog, decided to do the snake and chameleon with my kiddies.  We had tons of fun drawing these crazy creatures and coloring them in. I had them all pose together with their pictures and it all just turned into madness, but we had fun and the kids cranked out some awesome drawings.

16 and counting

Oh man folks, sorry for the long delay in posting, the last few days have been crazy, lots happening! This week has been our first full week at school and my class has grown and grown, which has been BLOWING my mind!!! I am now up to 16 students, which compared to many classes in the States is still a small number, but seeing how at open house I had FIVE, 16 is a HUGE jump! But, in reality it is a blessing. We have been praying for more students to register and well God is bringing the students, it's pretty wild.

Monday was rough, and I definitely came near tears at one point talking to my director about it. I had 3 new students come in that day and I felt so overwhelmed about teaching and classroom management and just felt so helpless all day. Teaching is no joke and everyday I grow a newfound respect for all the teachers out there in the world, this is no easy task!

But Tuesday was a new day, and although it brought 3 more new students, it also brought a whole new peace. I rearranged my classroom and turned the desks into group tables and tried my best to mix up the students so that I could manage the chaos and the day as a whole just went a whole lot smoother. Each day since then has been going just a bit smoother, and I think we're finally starting to get into a bit of a rhythm and I'm growing closer to the students each day. I love sitting out and talking/playing with them during recess and lunch. Those are precious moments that really help strengthen my relationship with them. I feel more and more blessed each day that I get to learn and grow with this little kiddies. Our class is still pretty chaotic most days, but overall I think we're starting to get into the flow of things. THANK YOU JESUS! haha!

Here is a picture of my precious little ones,

My kiddies (missing 3)

Yesterday some of them were hula-hooping during lunch and it might have been one of cutest things I've seen, ever.

intense concentration

So precious

sweet girl. 

Love this little guy!! 

On another note, last weekend after our first couple days of school we decided to take a mini-vaca to the west side of the island. We stayed in a cute little hostel out in West End. West End is mainly a touristy area, and is getting a road paved through it. It was all of our first times there and we had a blast hanging out at the beach and with each other. While hanging out at the beach a random man with a monkey on his shoulder came strolling by (no big deal, day in a life on the island haha!) and let us take some pics with it. Love the random things that we encounter here.

Just hanging out. 

The next day we went to church in West Bay at the only gringo church on the island. Some of the girls had went to a bit of it the week before and we had dinner with the pastor and his wife earlier in the week. Then we spent the day at the beach. The weather here on the island has been crazy lately. While at the beach a random, huge storm rolled through, and 30 mins later the sun was right back out as if nothing happened. So strange. We also ran into Pablo, one of the boys we've befriended in French Harbor. Him and his cousin were at the beach and we spent most of the afternoon with them.

Overall, life is sweet folks. I am so blessed to be here it blows my mind!

First Days of School

Oy vey, what a week it has been! We just finished our first week of school and it was a doozy, and they were just half days :/ haha. Well, where to begin? I started school on Wednesday and I have 10 students, although 1 more just got added to my class today. So my number is now at 11, 4 girls and 7 boys. They are the cutest kids ever. They are all very sweet and great, but man they are WILD. They have a lot of energy and it's been a bit difficult for me to try and figure out how to manage it all in the classroom. I have a lot to learn and I'm realizing that that is totally normal, so I'm trying to have a bit of grace on myself and not be too hard on myself. But there's a lot for me to think about and figure out with classroom management, but I'm sure it will all come with time. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit rough this week. I feel like I'm a horrible teacher and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I know it's just going to take time and that I just need to trust God. On a more of a positive note, I am really so thankful for this time and these kids. Difficulties aside, God is always good and these children are sweet and beautiful and it's a privilege to be able to teach them.

Here's some pictures of them, they are quite the hams, so excited to take pictures:

working hard or hardly working?

My kids

The boys. 

I have a couple ideas rumbling in my head for re-organizing the desks to create stations for them. Have a lot to think about and figure out, slowly but surely. It's definitely going to be a challenging and stretching year, but I'm excited to grow as a teacher and to watch these kids grow.

Please pray for me and my fellow teachers, next week will be our first full week and although it is exciting, it's a bit daunting at the same time. A lot of us were a bit overwhelmed. Thanks for all your love and support!


On another totally unrelated note, I just found this picture from a couple weeks ago when we found this huge bug in our apartment and thought I'd share. Oh the island life.