Welcome to MN!

Having lunch in the Miami airport. So excited to see the family.



And there they were! It was late, almost 11, but even Hannah was there! Boy were we excited, and it was hard to get to sleep that night, but what a great thing to see family.

Packing

Packing tonight took some time. As you can see, Agustín got a little creative with where he was going to put his clothes. Needless to say, most didn't get into his bag.

No place like home

Bye, Panama!

While I will miss your friendly people, your beautiful skies, your peaceful ocean, your sense of pride, and the warm wind, I am ready to come home to this:

If only they would notice I'm here!

I think I'll have to force quit the program. I don't think they heard me come in.

Ummmm... hello?

(I should mention that they spent the entire week in Ambato with grandma and grandpa, not realizing I was out of town. It worked out great, since they were the ones on vacation!)

At the beach

After the last session today we had some time to relax before the closing ceremony. I spent some time on the beach.

Then by the pool.

Oh, I will miss Panama, but in two days will be in Minnesota, and hopefully at the cabin, where I plan to do more of this. But by a lake of course!

The Canal

Went to the canal this afternoon. It was quite neat seeing how it works, watching the boats go through, watching the locks fill with water, drain with water, etc. To imagine that they built it over a hundred years ago, and so many people died from disease during its construction.

It sure brings in a lot of money for the country. If only every country could have a canal!

The Hotel

We stayed at Playa Bonita hotel, which was absolutely beautiful and on a private beach. The beach isn't nice enough really for swimming, but I love just staring at the ocean and walking along it, and the pools at the hotel were really nice. We had sessions all day long, so stayed only at the resort, with a nice dinner afterwards. I'm meeting lots of coworkers, and everyone is really nice!

This is the view from my room balcony. So relaxing and peaceful.

Panama City and Casco Viejo

Arrived early this morning in Panama City for the Cambridge University Press regional conference. It's a great flight from Quito since it is only 1 1/2 hours. The weather was hot and sticky and I, after a few months of nights at 42 degrees and days with a high of 68, was thrilled! We got into the hotel, then took a taxi to Casco Viejo, the colonial part of the city. It is very quaint - some areas rather run down and others very posh and built up.

We bought some handicrafts in the outdoor market,

admired the sea,

and then stayed for a lunch of prawns in coconut juice.
Great day.

The Bandit

Another picture we found, taken by Agustin. We had to censor it before posting, but both kids think it is just hilarious!

His spot

You can often find Nico sitting here, between the boys' rooms, playing with his cars.

Family dinners

About a year ago we decided to start the whole family dinnertime routine. We used to put the kids in front of the TV to get them to eat, or let them play and then chase them around trying to put food into their mouths, but now that we've started eating together as a family (even if the meals are still a la carte), the kids have been better eaters as a whole.

And it sure is cute when they ask if they "may be excused"!

"I want to learn how to take pictures"

This is what Agustín said today. So I gave him the camera and ended up about 40 of these types of pictures.

I think he liked the Toy Story 3 Kleenex.


"Smile, Mommy!"

His new watch.

"The cave"

And a couple more I will post later once I have censored them, lol!

Plomito is getting in on the fun

Even Plomito is blowing the vuvuzela now!

To infinity...

Daddy had fun playing with the kids this afternoon.

They got a kick out of how he set up the toys in Tin's room.

Later I would be asked to play with them. They wanted to play with their toy cars.

"But I don't know how to play, guys," I told them. "Every time I play you tell me I'm doing something wrong."

"Don't worry, Mommy," Agustín assured me. "There are no rules."

Of course, not ten minutes later I was being instructed as to how the cars and planes crash ("Not that way!") or told to choose my set of cars, only to be told once I had chosen that "those are mine, choose different ones."

It's quite exhausting to play with those two. Basically all they do is chase after my cars and then crash into them. My fingers are full of bumps and bruises!

Oh, whatever happened to Barbies and baby dolls? Wouldn't it be nice, for once, to just dress Barbie up and then brush her hair?

Life gets back to normal. But we will always have the vuvuzelas.

The World Cup is finally over, and life will be getting back to normal. Today, the kids got the last two vuvuzelas left at KFC.

Lucky us.

If Nico gets his way, we will all be deaf by the end of the day.

More of the same

Did I say 10 hours of fun? Let's make that 14 hours, with a break in between.

New legos

New legos will keep this kid busy for at least 10 hours straight.

Peace.

Smile

The face that makes me smile.

The end of an era

Tonight I walked by this pile of clothes and got a little sad. This is Agustin's school uniform. This was his last year at Freedom School (funny name!), as they didn't open a second grade class. He will be attending Paulo Freire next year, with a lot of his friends from school, who are also moving on, but I will miss Freedom school. I sometimes had my differences with it, but in the end we were really happy with the education there.

Cleaned up

Got my nightstand all cleaned up tonight. (Yes, this is clean.)

That brown thing there is one of my favorite possessions - you put it on the pages of your book and it keeps the book open.

Nice!

Happy birthday, Bati!

CLIL - horrible little acronym by the way

Preparing like crazy for next week's TKT CLIL course. This has got me completely stressed out. I haven't had enough time to think about it or work on it. At work most things don't seem to be planned well enough in advance for my liking! I don't like doing things halfway, or just working day to day on the priorities and not having any time to prepare for what's coming up. Our vacation starts in about 2 weeks and I have NEVER felt like I needed a vacation more than I have felt these past five months or so.

Never.

The crib

The crib is full of stuffed animals. For two years we have been planning to take it out of Nico's room, but then where would we put all these animals?

Sometimes the kids jump in there (I have no idea how they can make the room) and play.

Back home again

So nice to be back home again. Was greeted with teary eyes by the kids, who very ceremoniously presented me with leis! Aloha!

Laundry

Daddy taking care of the laundry this weekend while I am gone. It's so nice coming home to a clean and organized house!

Mr. Mom

Daddy is playing Mom this weekend while I am in Guayaquil. Looks like the kids will have fun. They will cry and say they missed me when I come back on Sunday, but while I'm actually gone they will be fine.

First day of summer vacation

Nicolás's first day of summer vacation - and he has really been looking forward to it! Agustín had a fever the last two days, so even though today is his graduation ceremony, he is going to be absent. He didn't really seem to mind.

I am looking forward to easing up a bit on the morning routine. No having to get dressed and eat in a rush, since Grandma can help out with all of that if there is no time. Of course, this morning Agustín was embarrassed to walk out of the house to the car in his PJs. He is getting so big. I was like, "It doesn't matter," and he was like, "Mommy, everyone will see me!" Looks like my little boy is growing up.