hellooooooooooo snow!

so i planned a surprised trip back to IL over christmas.
it's was a sucess for 1/2 my family! :-]
my brother opened his mouth and told most of the Indiana family, but it was still a blast to see everyone!
as i got on the shuttle bus at the Phx airport, i thought "oh i left my passport in the car" - then i debated on going back to get it or not, but it was locked and hidden, and i had my drivers lisense so i just figured i'd leave it there and get it when i flew back into Phx. WELL what i didn't remember was that my camera was hidden in the SAME spot in the car.
THUS raquel flew all the way to IL without her CAMERA!
which further leads to the fact that i only have pictures from christmas eve that include my nephew and i :-]
well at least i got some! thankfully my sister kenzie let me borrow her new camera to take those!
my plans ended up changing a little bit and now i'm actually driving back down to Magdalena! it will be a fun trip, but i'd appreciate your prayers over our drive! we're leaving on tuesday and arriving sometime on wednesday down there!
thanks!
merry christmas and a happy new year!

Lock-In

last thursday night we had a "lock in" at the school for the junior high kids as a prize!

it was... well the first time in my ENTIRE life that i stayed up all night without anything except caffeine in my system..

and it will also be the LAST. 

:-]

yes, i know that i'm only 25 but i can NOT do that kind of stuff anymore. it's saturday and i'm still feeling the affects!! lol

so here's a LOT of pictures and videos from our marvelous night! enjoy!
before devotions started michel and todd had a wrestling match... michel seriously thought he as going to win... but that didn't happen... good solid effort though! haha

jaqui and i at the beginning of the night - we were waiting to start devotions.

after devotions we had games!! 

from 9:30ish until 12:00am we played and played and played and played [get the point?] but it was a ball!

after games we ate...

then we had a movie...

everyone camped out before the movie..

this is what time it was AFTER the movie... 

and that meant it was time to EAT! so off to the kitchen we went for some...

PIZZA! we cooked 3 pizzas in total... and had this (below) left over

not too shabby, huh?

OH btw joel rink, we "borrowed" 3 pizzas. i plan on having them replaced before you get home, but just in case that doesn't happen, it was us - well, more specifically fede. :-]

however, i did give fede permiso haha

a bunch of random group pics..

and as for the below picture... well... my defense is that it was around 4:30am and we were SERIOUSLY lacking sleep..

fede and i being... umm... raccoons? ha

last but least, our family christmas tree in the comedor - complete with one present underneath! :-]

merry christmas everyone!

Christmas Decor...

this year is SERIOUSLY lacking...

i mean REALLY bad...

last year at this time i was just getting all settled in from being back from morelia and didn't really realize that we had no decorations. i was unpacking and figuring out where to put things - i didn't have time to think about christmas decor. 

well this year - i am REALLY noticing it. 

a couple nights ago carissa found some random christmas lights in the cupboard.

so that's what our decoration is this year. 

a whole whopping 12.5 foot string of lights around the bathroom cupboard...

watch out christmas light parade! we might out do you this year! 

so i decided that next time i go home i'll be shipping down all my christmas stuff. it's already neatly organized in 2 tubs from storage, so i'll just need to take it to the midwest food bank to so it can make it on a truck on the way down here. 

now, i totally realize that decorating isn't the important part of christmas - but when it's 85 outside and no snow, it's hard to FEEL christmas. i think with a few decorations it will help give the season it's feelin'. :-] 

i've been rockin' out to christmas music for awhile now and still loving every minute of it. i bought 28 new christmas songs on amazon.com for $5.99!! that's AWESOME!! my favorites include but are not limited to: 

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree 

White Christmas 

You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Jingle Bell Rock

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 

have any suggestions for christmas music? let me know! i LOVE finding new songs! 

i hear that in IL they've had quite the snow the last couple days - we're having a mini-heat wave. which is nice to some extent - it's been in the upper 80s during the days and cools off again at night to about 40ish.

anyways, with the holidays come travel! 

we have quite a few staff members from CVE who are traveling home for the holidays. 

please pray for safe travels, good weather conditions as most of them are from IL & IN, for relaxing time with family, and that everyone can make all their flights! :-] 

thanks for your prayers!

Prinicpes de Calzonchinos

i think my pictures explain themselves tonight. 

[just to help jodi out here, she's actually SAVING eddie - not putting him up there]

teaching on wed y thurs

yesterday teaching was pretty normal.

we did have 2 lizards in our chemistry class.

check out karla, fede, and i as we scream around chasing the dumb things haha.

oh, when they came into class they informed me that we needed to talk in english the whole class so they could practice - notice how i speak the whole time in english - yeah they just reply back in spanish. haha.

enjoy the show! :-]
today fede was talking and karla was writing on the board - she wrote
"V quiet" to fede and seriously didn't realize it was wrong!
haha spanish joke, sorry if you don't know spanish you won't understand.
blessings until next time!

nothing new

this week's been pretty blah so far.
i was sick last week and had made a comment to carissa about how i didn't get as sick as i usually do - when i get a cold, i'm DOWN for at least 2 or 3 days. body aches, headache, snotty nose, you get the picture. well this time i didn't get the body aches!
until yesterday that is...
ugh!
i don't know what happened, but i felt like i was going to vomit and my body hurt SO BAD - it was not fun at all.
however, today my aches weren't near as bad - thanks to some medication - and i was able to get all the work done that i 'had' to because for the rest of the week voy a ser una maestra! (i'm going to be a teacher!)
one of our teachers has to leave to go to some training - so i'm going to substitute.
don't worry - i'm making sure my camera is fully charged and ready for picture taking.
sub-ing is ALWAYS full of interesting times, so hopefully i'll have some pictures to share in the next few posts!
until next time...
blessings!

catch up time!

well for once it's not because of lack of time or laziness that i haven't made a blog post! :-] 

not that that really changes anything haha i was having computer issues - yes, i - a mac owner - was having computer problems. thankfully ben schick swooped in and saved the night tonight and i'm back up and running faster than ever though! yay!

so lots has happened since i blogged last... we took family pictures! that was fun!

here are a few of random ones from my camera... taken by someone from the group that was here

all the single ladies, all the single ladies! (yes beyonce.. how tacky i know) :-]

and here's the professional one! 

a BIG thanks to ryan cox for being our photographer! the pics all came out SUPERB and we love them! 

let's see.. what else has happened...

oh yeah, i turned 25! 

it turned out to be a pretty good birthday. 

i honestly didn't think it was going to be good. 

about 2 weeks before it i had a mental break down about it - literally - tears and all. 

i started freaking out about where i am in my life - about how i have so many things i have yet to experience/do (yes those of you who are older than me are saying YOU'RE SO YOUNG STILL but at this moment in time i didn't FEEL that) and just looking around at classmates - seeing where they are in life and comparing myself to them - WHOA HOLD THAT THOUGHT! 

comparing myself to other people!?

i think i read some where in a book sometime about NOT comparing ourselves to one another... 

so yes, after God slapped me upside the head with that and i realized how ridiculous i was being and since i was doing something that God specifically says NOT to (aka SIN - YUCK) my attitude changed and everything was wonderful! 

so Praise God for His "get over your age Jarrin and look what I've blessed you with" intervention! yay!

i got flowers this year! which is like a HUGE thing for me. i'm LOVE getting flowers. 

i found this on my desk from the Zobrists who were down here visiting for the weekend. thanks you guys! :-] i loved them!

and then i got this lovely smelling rose from jose and daniel! kristi, i hope you don't them cutting your rose bushes! haha

we actually celebrated 4 people's birthdays all in one night! 

we had a group here of over 75 people and i really didn't want to celebrate with people i didn't know - and neither did anyone else! haha we cassidy's birthday is the 23rd, mine is the 24th, and bere & brianda's birthdays are the 25th! so we did them all together on tuesday night.

and we all had our faces shoved in the cake as well! 

it was chocolate and it went up my nose. 

NASTY. 

but it was fun none-the-less :-]

we had another international food night at the girls' house! it was comida china (chinese food) and we had a lovely evening. here's a few pics from that...

lupita was a gansta' thug that night lol

karla and yaneli attacked me. 

check out the video below...

and here we are eating supper... check out yaneli's scooping action with her chop sticks haha

hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving!