Vida

so my trip home took a little...a lot longer than I expected. it started with Sister Tere coming by our house and we ended up having breakfast with her because Jess bought tamales (for my last meal) and we had enough to share. So she stayed for breakfast. Honestly, I was pretty distracted with thinking about my day, but it was nice to share a meal together. Then Melissa and I had a little gift for Paquita at the Guarderia so they opened again Monday so we went and I said good-bye there too. Classes only start in August, but right now they watch the kids. 4 of my kids were there. Hanna- yelled my name as I entered-, Dante, Axl, & Gael. then i headed to the parish to say good-byes there. everyone was eating breakfast-chilaquiles-so they were all at the table so i could say good-bye. i got to the airport in plenty of time in mexico city with isaac's family. they hung out with me until isaac was able to come. he showed up all dressed up and with a sunflower (my favor...

so as things close out i've resorted back to what i think is pretty normal for me. not thinking about what's ahead and hanging out in the moment. when i have quite a bit of time i always seem to have a sort-of countdown going, but once it gets closer and closer, the countdown stops and i'm just hanging. i guess inevitably waiting for the inevitable. i stop thinking about i have this left or this left . and just think about the next day and what i'm planning. i'm not really sure why my mind works that way...but it does. although i keep being reminded when people keep saying good-bye to me....although i've gotten to the point of just shrugging my shoulders and going with it. tuesday night we had a special dinner at the parish because miriam (a long-time lay missionary who worked in santa fe for like 10 years) was in town. many of the sisters from the congregation we work with came and it ended up being much more special than i imagined. it started o...

so my friend sus and i were able to meet up while she was visiting Mexico City and visit the Museum of Anthropology together a day last week. She started talking about how she was going to oaxaca and really wanted me to come along. I was hesitant, but I mean I'm leaving Mexico and I don't know if I'll ever have an opportunity to go there again so we planned a weekend trip. We took the night bus out of Mexico City and arrived at 7ish am. Found ourselves a wonderful hostel ($100 pesos a night-can't beat that...we looked). Then we jumped right in to the sightseeing. We were happy to discover we came at the perfect time for festivals. We hit up Santa Maria del Tule. It's a tree. But it's 2000 years old. It's said to be the world's single largest biomass. It was huge! We went to just about every market quickly picking up what Oaxaca is known for: Mezcal-a close cousin of tequila (very strong), most bottles had the worm in them, all different k...

isn't it funny how things come full-circle? when i started this blog, my first posts were many good-byes and now here i am again a year later making a whole new set of good-byes to people i hadn't met before. and once again...it's so hard. things wrapped up at the guarderia. that was a very difficult day for me. Graduation Day The day started with a light drizzle (that whole week it rained...Isaac said a hurricane passed over us...it was just awful). I arrived at the Guarderia and was put to work blowing up balloons and preparing the decorations. They like to use balloons for all kinds of different decorations here. It still mazes me how Mexicans can use balloons in so many diff erent ways & it can look so cute...just with balloons. It's actually really interesting. But, unfortunately, blowing up balloons and tying them is not one of my talents. Although I will say I'm better now that I was a year ago...I think. The day started pretty normal with ki...