I haven't posted in a while, I've got a lot of pictures to put into this entry! I think my last post was about Wednesday. Thursday was not a good day for me; I was sick and stuck at home all day. We had been planning on going with the school on a field trip Friday. They were going to be driving to Santa Ana, an area near the coast, and visiting a national agriculture institute of some sort, and then going to a big water park. It had a wave pool like White Water, and a natural hot tub type area heated by volcanoes! How awesome does that sound? The park had crazy huge and crazy scary slides, too. Or at least the picture made it look like it, and the stories from Teresa and Jose. We didn't get to go because I was still sick Thursday night. :P
One thing that I'm finding that I really miss? Quiet. It's always noisy here. Every afternoon is rain, and depending on the day that can be really loud. We've been watching movies together every night since we don't go out after dark, and Teresa, the other American as she calls us ;), has been coming up to watch them with us several times. One night it got to the point where it was raining so hard that we had the TV at maximum volume and still had to pull it away from the wall and closer to the seats to even hear it over the rain. That was the same night that San Ignacio, another city next to La Palma, was having its huge party. Until after 2 in the morning, the bass lines and dj's voice was echoing throughout the house. It's kind of difficult to sleep when your bed is vibrating in rhythm to a Spanish song... My headphones have become good friends the past couple nights.
A favorite place of ours to eat lunch lately has been Eric's Pizzeria. They have good pizza, but here is a picture of my "quesadilla". It's more like a burrito, but it was yummy! And Mom and Dad sitting across the table from me :)
I've posted the gorgeous views out of our window before. I've never posted the other things on the window, so here is the lizard on the glass last night :)
We watched it eat two moths right in front of us, and it made me slightly less freaked out by the fact that there were several in our house. Less creepy bugs for 2 lizards? Fine trade by me.
Blanca and her daughter Emily came by yesterday, here's a picture of them together in our kitchen.

We also got to check out our backyard outside the compound area, and it's literally a jungle! I don't have the pictures on this laptop, but it is gorgeous. Reina came to pick banana leaves to wrap her tamales in. She's bringing some for us tomorrow night. It was crazy to watch her. She was wearing a skirt, and she was barefoot, and she just went all around with the machete and hacked down the leaves. Then she would pull the sides off of the middle part, and her daughter Amanda would roll them up. There are pictures on Mom's facebook, and I may put up a link to them on mine. Our view is so amazing- we have a jungle, and past the jungle is a river, and past the river is mountains. And more mountains. And more mountains.
Today, it was raining really hard at one point. I glanced out the window, and it was totally white. We were in a cloud! Living in the mountains is beautiful :) I wish I had the pictures right now to put up here, but I'll try to get them on facebook later. Teresa just left from another one of our movie nights, and we're all pretty tired. So,
More to be posted later!
Su amiga,
Ruth Erin