Merry Christmas Everyone!! It has been so great to spend this time with my family and friends. I have been enjoying every minute of it and I still have about a week left. I have been loving this Michigan weather, but it has been impossible for me to get warm again after being outside.

Last week I went to see my Kelsey. I was so excited! It was so fun to see where she lives and works. We went out to eat with my 2nd mom and dad and Kristi. Later we found a new way to get the extra mattress and us down the stairs.
















I have been doing a lot of cooking and baking. I made and ate lots of cookies. I have been helping with dinners too. My cooking skills are slowly improving!















Here are some pictures of Lee Ann and I preparing for Christmas. We decided not to try very hard when we were wrapping.




Ha, look at these gifts. See the one that says to mom from Doris... Lee Ann regifted!!











Then we decided to wrap Allie. She didn't like it much!




















Here are some pictures with the family on Christmas eve and today.


























































Look... Lee Ann and I got drills for Christmas! Ha Woohoo! Mine might stay in the box for a while.














This is the painting I gave mom and dad for christmas. They loved it!

























I am sure I will have lots of fun pictures for the next post. My Arbor girls are coming this weekend. I can't wait!!

Hey! It is definitely starting to feel like Christmas now that I am home. I hope we get lots and lots more snow! I have been able to spend lots of time with both sides of my family since I have been here. It has helped so much just to be around them.















Today we had the Dixon Family Christmas party. I am glad I was able to be here for it. There was so much good food! I have eaten way to much since I got back, but I really missed the food!

















I have lots of fun things planned for this week, but lots of relaxing too. I am excited for both. I have been reminded since coming back of how precious my time with friends and family is and I am going to enjoy every moment of it. You can be praying that God will comfort my family during this time and that the Holidays would still be a joyful time for all of us. Thank you for your prayers. My family and I really appreciate it!

Hey everyone, I just wanted you all to know that I made it home! I came home early because grandpa Wilcox passed away on Sunday. I made it in time for the showing and the funeral is today. Everyone is doing okay, we are glad that he doesn't have to suffer anymore. Please keep us in your prayers. I will be staying until after christmas brake. The school is giving me a few extra days, so I don't have to keep flying back and forth. I will let all of you know how things are going soon. See you all soon!

Hello Everyone! I am so glad it's Saturday. It was a long week. I think both the kids and I had a difficult time getting back into things after Thanksgiving brake. I can't wait to see what they will be like in January.

On Friday the entire school went on a field trip to see the ballet of "The Little Mermaid". It was crazy! Just imagine 500 kids in the same theater. I only had one chaperoned to help me keep 19 kids from squirming, talking and needing to use the bathroom every 5 minutes. Ha ha It was hard, but the dancing was beautiful and I know it was a good experience for the kids.





These are some pictures of us on the way to the theater. They were so excited!



























My class was one of the first to get there, so I kept them occupied by taking their picture and letting them take pictures. It worked for a while.












































I have less than two weeks until I leave to come home. I can't believe it! It is going to be so great to see you all again. I can't wait to drive again, have a hot shower and use a microwave. It has been such a blessing to be here though too and I am making a difference. I have to remember that when I get on the plane to come back. Yesterday after school, I stopped and looked at their prayer requests for the day and was amazed. I didn't say any of these, they came up with all of these requests on their own. What a great opportunity it is to encourage their growth and help them know the love of God.






















I have a prayer request- Grandpa Wilcox isn't doing well. Please keep him, my grandma and our whole family in your prayers. God Bless!

I had such a great Thanksgiving! Let me start with school... my kids came to school on Wednesday dressed as Pilgrims. I loved watching them walk in one by one, all of them decked out in their best Pilgrim attire. Their costumes were amazing and we had so much fun.


















Before our big feast we had the 1st and 2nd graders switch classrooms and each teacher had something different for them to do. I had Thanksgiving games... my room was the best! ha
















For my long weekend I went with my roommate Kristy's family to the beach. We left right after school on Wednesday and stayed until today. I was feeling so sad that I wasn't going to spend Thanksgiving with my family, but God gave me a great weekend with a wonderful family. I felt just like I was one of them. Every day was so much fun! Here are some pictures our my weekend.



Here we are on our first night in Caborete. Every meal we had this weekend was so good!











We spent lots of time on the beach. I took walks, went swimming, attempted to snorkel (the water was a little cloudy) surfed, sunbathed and had some great time with God while watching the sun rise. I loved every minute of it! Having so much fun kept my mind off wanting to be home.




















This is me getting a surfing lesson from Kristy's brother. I don't think I can quite pull off the surfer girl look... oh well, maybe after a few more tries.












I know you can't really tell, but this is me! I actually made it up, lots of times!

























I would love to say lots more about this weekend, but it is already 10:30 and I have to get up so early! I need some good sleep tonight! I only have 3 weeks until Christmas. I am so excited to see you all! You can just be praying for my reliance on God in decision making for next year and just every day life. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Hmm...where do I start. Well, I could tell that you were all praying that we would raise lots of food for our food drive. We raised enough so that every child's family in the school we visited got a bag of food. Here are some pictures of us delivering the food on Wednesday. I was so worried about how the kids would behave and getting them their safely, but everything went really well.

Here is all of our first graders at the school we took the food to. It was really great for the kids to see the poverty that is just down the road from us. Now every morning when I ask for prayer requests they always ask to pray for the kids and the school. How wonderful!

I promised my kids that if every one of them brought in food, they could have a party...and the little stinkers did it. So later that afternoon I took them out for an extra recess. Then I played "Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving" for them and gave them brownies. They loved it! I think they enjoyed the movie almost as much as me.

Ha, this was our silly face pictures. They really shouldn't let me have this job!

On Thursday I went to see the Águilas, Santiago's Major league team. One of the mom's from school invited us. What I didn't know was that her dad owns the team, ha. We had amazing seats and they kept showing us on the score board. The fans are much more enthusiastic here! It was so much fun!

Today was Family Day at school. It was a little sad because it rained all day. It would have been way better if it wasn't raining. We still had fun though! Here is a picture of some other teachers and I watching a middle school dodge ball competition. It wasn't the best place to sit. We kept getting hit!

It was a freezing 70 degrees today! I loved it! I am actually using my quilt at night now. It gets a little chilly sometimes now. Look how great it looks on my bed!

Well I probably won't have time to post again until after Thanksgiving. I am sure I will have lots of fun pictures to show you. We are having a thanksgiving feast at school on Wednesday. Then I am going to the beach with my roommate and her family. They are going to teach me how to surf. Ha, surfing for Thanksgiving, crazy! I hope you all have a great holiday! I will be home for the next one! Only 28 days! I have some big decisions to make about next year, so you can be praying that I will follow God's will and hear him clearly. Love you all :)

1 Titus 1:9~ "He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine."  

Hey everyone, I have had so much fun the last few days and I am excited to tell you about it! This week at school we had some fun times. I had all the kids do their hand prints for a lesson I am doing next week and we had a spaghetti party. The kids loved it!





















Yum Yum, you should have scene their white shirts when they were done! Ha


























I had such a fun day today! Our neighbors took us to the mountains to see waterfalls. They were the most beautiful waterfalls I have scene. They were even more beautiful than 27 waterfalls and we had so much fun together.











We rode in the back of their truck to get there. It was so fun! It was great going through the mountains like that...so beautiful!




When we got there we had to walk on lots of really scary bridges to get to the first waterfall. It worth it!












After we saw the first waterfall we headed up the trail to the next one. It was a difficult climb. All of the rocks were loose and it was really steep at some parts.












There were vines in some parts of the trail to help us get up the really hard parts.



































This was the waterfall we worked so hard to get to. It is way more beautiful that the picture is! We went swimming in the water right next to the fall. It was so cool...but the water was freezing! I had forgotten what it felt like to feel cold...I liked it!


































There were some really amazing rocks over by the waterfall. We had so much fun climbing them and taking pictures.













This is a picture of us coming down. Going down was a little easier, but scarier. The rocks kept slipping and we kept falling.























We took this picture on our way home. It started to rain a little. Ha...that was fun. It was so great to just have fun today and not think about school at all. Wow this was a long post. I am so tired! Time for bed! I am getting anxious about Christmas, so you can be praying for that. Oh, and we are going to donate our food drive boxes to a really poor school on Wednesday. We haven't got enough donations yet, so you can be praying that the food comes in and that we will be able to bless them in a really big way. ~Goodnight!