White Christmas...

I am just wrapping up a short weekend "vacation" at Tranquility Bay (a resort a 10 minute walk down the beach from The Finca) before heading into what will be a very busy Christmas season and New Year here. There are a number of animals here which for me is a great therapy. There are 2 monkeys (Chimi and Cheetah) 2 "guard" dogs who you can see napping in the sun, a kitten who enjoys rough housing with the monkeys, and a couple horses.

While online here I've heard quite a bit about the snowstorm hitting Minnesota just in time for Christmas. I hope everyone enjoys it, but stays off the roads for a while. I am glad that Deirdre is getting snow just in time for her first Christmas back home after serving her 2 years here at the Finca. To all my meteorologist friends back home... if anyone can pull a few strings, talk with mother nature and old man winter to give us a white Christmas here that would be great. The other week in "winter" school we talked about weather with the kids. I spent a lot of time talking about snow because it is something completely foreign to them. I drew a snowman on the chalkboard. I asked the kids what was needed to build a snowman, and many actually knew the basics of hat, scarf, carrot, and button eyes. It was clear that this topic has come up from past missionaries. Thankfully, Amanda (one of the missionaries who just left after 2 years) left me a container of this stuff called "insta-snow". It's a white powder that you add water to and it expands into a fluffy snow life substance. I gave them each a clump and told them to roll it into a ball. At that point it was clear each had also heard about snowball fights... Aaargh! Once I got them settled down I explained we were going to make our own miniature snowman. You can see him here as Dorfa holds him in her hands.

I know though that despite wanting a White Christmas I am being very spoiled by the weather here. Right now we are in the heart of rainy season, but (crossing my fingers) the rain may just be taking a rest. The last 3 days have been brilliantly sunny postcard type days here. On Friday we were even able to take the winter school kids (who had behaved that week... only 10 of 16) for a swim. Check out some of the pics.

I hope you all have an amazing, blessed advent, Christmas and New Year! Remember if you ever need an escape from all the snow you know where to find me!

Love,

Katherine

P.S. I also just uploaded a number of videos from our time in Guatemala. Check it out on the right hand side of the page ---->
It may also include some old videos of my Campus news stories since I haven't figured out how to get it to play only new ones. If you're really bored or just looking for a laugh or to reminsce you can watch those too. I hope to post more videos as I have time, but please understand the limited time and internet coupled with a slow connection makes this difficult.