Saturday, July 24th

First (hopefully not only) snorkeling of the season took place at our favorite snorkeling area, Fountain Flats Drive. Heidi, Trudy, and I were the only repeats who went with seven newbies. The water was nice and warm, which unfortunately, probably kept the fish away. There were no sightings of fish on this trip. But we all had fun and that's all that matters.

Big Lebowski Party, July 9th

We finally had our Big Lebowski party! My fairly Odd June was out since we had such crappy weather but I was determined to get at least that done. I sent out the invite, prepped the log o' meat (seven pounds of hamburger from Costco) and waited for people to show up. I had said 7. Well, by 7:30, Allie and Emily were the only ones who had shown up and I decided that I could have a couple of beers. But then, they all started trickling in and I ended up having 27 people for the movie that night! The White Russian milkshakes were a hit and though the movie hiccuped a bit at the end, it was still a great evening.

Busy, busy, busy-Friday the 23rd

Well, the busy season is finally upon us. Okay, it has been for awhile now but I'm finally getting around to blogging about it. This particular time of craziness began again with a Christmas in July/July birthdays celebrations. Carrie sent out invites to the general public and around 25 people showed up, going in and out as the mood took them. I dressed up in my Christmas apron and my fancy, shmancy red heels.

People came, they ate, they also helped cook

Drunken Chicken was cooked and consumed (de-ricious!)

Ben resting after a night of Wii

Guatemala-Friday

Last day of work, but we only ended up working in the morning. The country house was pretty well completed so we mixed some concrete in the morning and went to the dedication ceremonies in the afternoon. These were done mostly in Spanish so I didn't understand a lot of what was going on. It was really cute, because, at both cermonies, we handed out cross necklaces to the kids. At the first ceremony, one little girl kept asking Ron a question, and he thought she wanted more necklaces, but she kept shaking her head. We finally got Cheryl over to translate and what the little girl was asking was, "How tall are you people?" A valid question since the average height of the group was probably about 5'10" and Cheryl brought that down pretty far by being about 5'6".

That afternoon, a small group of us went to a building in Gualan run by a group called Hearts in Motion. They are run out of Indiana (Highland) and work with Guatemala specifically. One of their functions is to bring in dentists and other doctors to help with the rampant problems of cleft palates and polydactyly.

They go out into the local community periodically and identify the children most at risk. Every Wednesday, they bus the kids into the building and make sure they get a nutritious meal for the week. They also have room to keep several children on site. They had four while we were there. One little boy had been so neglected that he would probably never walk. There was one little boy who lifted his arms up to me so I picked him up and carried him around. He was so sweet, but when he opened his moth, the most awful, fetid smell came out. His teeth were rotting in his mouth, and several of the cavities where teeth should be were just oozing puss. It broke my heart. I ended up sobbing like a little girl on the bus back.

House Ceremony Complete with Plaque

Doing the Invocation

Dinner... Yum!

Sauces for the tacos

Breakfast

Work Fun

Had a group of kids from the Explore Yellowstone program at the HRC on the 20th. They were so cute. They all wanted to ride the elevator (It really is unusual to have one of those around here. ) Eery time we walked into a storage space, the all oohed and aaaahed. It's great to have them come in and renew my interest in what we're doing. one little boy even said that he wanted to be a librairan!.

More Indiana Wedding

Two weekends ago, I went back to Indiana to see my friend Laura get married. Oh. The Wedding was so beautiful. It was the first wedding I've been to at the VU chapel but it was gorgeous. Long walk down the aisle though. I am so excited that she is married to such a great guy.

It was great to go back to Valpo and hang out with the parents. Mom and I went shopping a couple of days but I'm still not really that into it and it was so hot, we spent a lot of time in the lving room reading. I also went for a tandem bike ride with my dad ihich was fun. It really, really hurt my bum though. After one hundred years of having bicycles (is it two hundred?), why hasn't someone come up with a comfortable seat? Seriously.