100 days of school

Friday the 15th was the 100th day of school at Nate Saint. The 1st and 2nd classes had a day long centenial celebration. As part of day, each student built or made an object with 100 items. There were buildings made out of 100 straws and 100 popsicle sticks, 100 lego vehicles, and 100 small paper hearts glued onto a big paper heart. Shea set up a tower of 100 paper cups at school (see picture) and Micah made a paper chain with 100 links. Micah's highlight of the first 100 days was the class reading 100 books together. Shea's highlight was the Christmas musical (Meet Me at the Manger) that the school did in December and the hike to Hola Vida waterfall this month.


Jodie's class was a little more low key in recognizing 100 days. It was hard for Jodie to pin down one highlight The 3rd and 4th graders have been busy in February as their "travels" across the U.S. have had them in the Southeast. They've read Mildred Taylor's Mississippi Bridge, listened to music from the region, studied and discussed slavery and racism, and had a special visit from kindergarten teacher Mrs. Blackburn to talk about her home state of Alabama*. This week the class heads up to the Midwest. They'll start writing some tall tales this week.

Jodie celebrated her birthday on the 13th. Some of the missionary ladies had a special party for her with lots of flowers, then she got a lot of love from her students and their parents at school with more flowers and cake at school. We celebrated at home with a cake. Then this past week the two of us went out on a date to El Jardin in Puyo while Beth Patton (Jod's fellow teacher) watched the kids. That was a special treat!!


My parents were here for a week and left on Tuesday the 12th. Dad got to speak at Chapel at Nate Saint and shared about being leaders. The kids even got to play follow the leader. The week went by too fast with them.


Jadyn, Luke, and I attended our first Ecuadorian birthday party last week, also. Our friend Jhonatan (son of Isaac & Aide) turned two. There were about a dozen kids and a few parents at the party and we had fun (well Luke didn't have so much fun) playing games and singing. Then we had some very yummy cake and jello punch and Luke really enjoyed that. It was a lot of fun to celebrate with Jhonatan and the rest of his family!

*Speaking of Southern states, our cat Georgia (as well as Princeton) will never give us kitty grand-babies. They had surgery at the vet's and are now recovering nicely. They've also moved out of the house to their new "home" on the back porch.