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!! 

Monkey Business and Quinceanera Fun

Oh man, this past week has been adventuresome. We just never know what will happen next here in our sweet little home and last Thursday we had one of our biggest surprises yet, a special friend snuck into our apartments and caused quite the frenzy. Somehow, a MONKEY ended up in not 1 but 2 of our rooms int the same night. Now, you would think, oh so you guys have a friend who has a monkey and they brought it over, still kind of weird but kind of makes sense, but no, not the case.  This random monkey just showed up on our porch and then found its way into our rooms. I first spotted the monkey when I came home from school. It was on our balcony and was climbing its way down when we got home. I didn't think much of it at the time, I mean I thought the monkey was cool, but just thought no big deal. Well, later that night, Sarah got home and was chatting with me in my room. I wasn't feeling so great that night so I asked her to bring me some medicine. Well, on her way over to me, she left her apartment door cracked open, which is totally normal. Upon returning, though, she got quite the surprise to see a new little friend:

We had a fiasco of an adventure trying to get him out of the room. We called in reinforcements and our landlady sent someone to help us. It was madness, but the monkey finally left the room/apartment. Well, later that night somehow we managed a monkey fiasco number 2 in my roomie's room. As she was getting read to go to bed she spotted the little monkey in her room. He snuck under her bed and we had to look real hard to find him after she first spotted him.

Round 2 was hilarious because we had all somehow formed a bond with the little guy. This time instead of chasing him around like round 1 we kind of just sat around as the monkey sat on her bed frame. We tried to figure out where he came from and tried to come up with a story of what his life was like. It was pretty hilarious. Eventually, Anny, on of the other teachers with her monkey whispering skills grabbed the little guy and took him outside.

It was quite the little adventure, definitely one of our best yet. Just another day in the life haha.

Also, another big thing we did was go to our very first Honduran quinceanera! One of our students, the daughter of the mom who teaches our fitness class, turned 15 and they had an all out quince fiesta for her. It was at the mall in Roa one of the nightclubs on the island. It was an all out fiesta. Everything was real fancy and elaborate. Here's a little picture journey to give you a taste of the night.

Starting with our fancy red carpet entrance. 

Really cool trees, perfect picture opt. 

The inside of the club all done up. 

Another part of the club

She had a group of about 20ish people in her "party" and they performed an awesome dance. 

The theme was masquerade, hence all the masks. We had a ton of fun. I especially loved seeing all our students all decked out looking all fly. We also got to see their super sweet dance moves, which made me jealous, because they've got some serious moves! Overall, super fun night. Here's one last shot of us teachers with our cool masks.

love! 

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.