Its December?

Our neighbor boy's 5th birthday party. He is in front with the blue plaid shirt.

Some crazy grasshoppers

Joe with all his candles, there was so many we didn't need the lights and thought the house might catch on fire.

We can't believe it is December. We see Christmas lights and trees and cannot believe our eyes. It is too hot here to be Christmas time. We have been sweating pretty consistently and it doesn't look like its going to end soon. We celebrated Joe's birthday with some cake our neighbor made and some delicious Paraguayan dish that Joe enjoys....its similar to scalloped potatoes and ham. But with mandioca, a potato like food, and some sausage.

We had camp the past two weeks with the kids but were very disappointed. We invited more than 100 kids and only about 10 came. We were sad and tried not to take it personally. The kids are just on vacation and don't want to do much. We had fun with the kids that came: we colored, read books (Thank you family), and played some games. The kids here really love duck, duck, goose but always pick me so I got pretty tired in the heat. We had another camp this week but we ended it early, it was at a school further away and there was about 5 kids. We felt bad ending it too soon but our tolerance had lowered from the week before. We bought tons of water balloons and some were sent from home, those will have to wait. This coming week we are going to celebrate Christmas in our community and prepare for Chile. We are leaving December 27 and coming back January 11. We are very excited for a little break and cannot wait to be at a beach. We are going with 2 other volunteers and it is going to be a lot of fun. I promise to post pictures.

We love and miss you all. We wish we could be home for the holidays. Though the time sure has flown by, we have almost been here a year.

Thanksgiving Party

Joe and I foam hats at the Thanksgiving party. It was a lot of fun with good food.

Beautiful ruins

A statue at the Jesuit Ruins


Ruins

Amazing stone work

I'm a saint

We could go to the top of this building and look at the full view of the ruins.

We had a great time at Thanksgiving, though we would have loved to be at home eating delicious food with family. We went to party with most of the other Peace Corps volunteers in Paraguay. We got turkey, mashed potatoes, and Joe got pumpkin pie. It was a great time with volunteers. We did something I didn't think I would do on Thanksgiving, we swam a ton and got sunburnt. It is so cold at home you couldn't swim at Thanksgiving. The hotel was great, there was 3 swimming pools, one pool with a high diving board. While at the hotel we went to see Jesuit ruins. It was beautiful to see some of the history of Paraguay. Then we went to visit a friend who lives close to the ruins. We had fun but missed our families.

Now we are going to have some summer day camps with the kids and count down the days until Chile.

Thank you Aunt Barb and her women's group, we got all the school supplies and will be taking some pictures of the kids. Also thank you Aunt Nancy for the supplies and candy. We really appreciate all your packages, love, and support.

We miss you all and are very thankful for you all!