Day 22

Where supposed to get a lot of work done on Saturdays but sometimes it just doesn't happen. For example, today! We got invited to go to a "water park" for free! Its not a real water park, its at a hotel and there are three slides... but it is the only water park in Puerto Rico and compared to the slide at the school, it was amazing! In all fairness I did have a really fun time and we got Betsy to go down the fast slide that your in the air for like 65% of the time your riding the slide. It was also our last full day with Laurieteel(one word) before she is voted off in tomorrow night's tribal council. Fair well my friend you will be missed. We had a lot of fun. We are very similar people from what I know about her, or as she would say we are kindred spirits[I guess its Canadian I don't know(shes from Canada)].  She did succeed in getting me and the rest of the school to go to an actual tea party. I was under the impression that those stopped happening at like 5 or 6, but she made cookies and lemonade so I guess it wasn't all bad. The kids definitely liked it and I guess that's all that matters. It was a good opportunity to teach them good table etiquette. I can't wait to see the look on Saul and Gaby's grandma's face when they stand up when she leaves the table at dinner, I don't even think your supposed to do that here, oh well. Anyway back to today. After the water park I went to the bio luminescent bay again but with a different group of people. I had to see it again! It was still really cool. I think today was far to relaxing, and it will be hard to make up for it in the next few days considering the tropical cyclone that is headed our way.  Speaking of storms I appreciate everyone's prayers but if you could all do me one huge favor and not pray that there will be no hurricanes this year. We REALLY like storms and I've haven't been in a hurricane yet(fingers crossed). That sounded bad. Either way I would like to post a quote in honor of Laurieteel's stay on the island.

 "Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected." -Charles Lamb

Day 21

Seriously though, these ants are going to kill me any day now. I was told though that after about 6 years you build up an immunity to there bites, I don't know that that will help me. There is a bite that you can't become immune to though, shark bites! I heard today that on Tuesday a woman was brutally attacked be a shark in a bay much like the one I was in this evening!  That was one of seven recorded shark attacks in Puerto Rico's history, the last of our lethal shark attacks was in the twenties, so its been a while. So about the bay I was in. Today I witnessed something that few are fortunate enough to see, I went to a bio luminescent lagoon. One of only seven in the world, three of which are in Puerto Rico, the lagoon is full of a type of algae that glows when disturbed. The algae is so small that the only thing you can see is the water glowing wherever you touch! It was the coolest thing I have ever seen. I can't wait to show my family when they come to visit. There are also a ton of fish there and when they swim fast at all they glow and its so bright! It looks amazing! I recommend that everyone at least look this up and look at pictures because it is indescribable.  We borrowed kayaks from a local pastor that we know and paddled up this river on the way to the lagoon. As the water is hitting the front of the kayak it glows and wherever you paddle lights up. After we got all the way up the river we began to explore the lagoon and play with the water. Me and Leo found a dock on the far side of the lagoon. It was pitch dark and all we could see past the dock was a walkway made out of wood that lead straight into the dark rain forest. We eventually got up the courage to go down the path. So Jen and Laurie are back at the dock holding the kayaks and me and Leo are walking down this path into the pitch dark forest. You cant talk to a deaf person without light. So a little ways down the trail there is this platform up above the trees that you can go on. Once we were up there we had enough light to talk and I told him that I could hear these little noises in the forest that almost sounded like footsteps(I wasn't lying) and as I was listening closely to the forest Leo yells at the top of his longs and scared me so bad! All the hairs on my neck were standing up straight and he was laughing his head off, he was very proud of himself because he scared me. Not funny. So I wasn't almost killed today but there was about a half a second when I thought I was about to die. So if your ever in Puerto Rico I recommend you check this out, and come to me and I will find a kayak for you to borrow so it is free! Thanks for reading my post.

Day 20

Coming up on week three and I think I've adjusted nicely to living here. I already have a pet lizard and I'm growing a palm tree. I've heard that carnivorous plants grow well here so I really want to get one. I thing the kids would really enjoy feeding it and watching it grow. We'll call the plant plan b if the lizard dies. I think I was invited to a tea party today... these women are crazy if they think I'm going to a tea party. Unless they serve black,  french roast tea its not happening. All the girls will regularly get together and drink tea... I don't get it.  Anyway I almost died today. Leo, Wade and I went snorkeling after school today, and because of the recent storm there were large waves, which makes for bad snorkeling. So we get out there and the water is all cloudy and my goggles kept fogging up and we're swimming around this huge island of coral that you cant cross over because its only like a foot deep and there are waves and pointy things on the coral. We started to go around the coral and Leo swims under me and his head touched my foot so my automatic ninja reflexes said "kick his back with both feet as many times as you can in two seconds!" so I did. Twenty minutes later we're about halfway around this thing and we're pretty far from shore and Leo decides he's going to swim over the 1 foot deep coral, bad idea, and before I could get Leo's attention to tell him to stop and that I'm not following him, Wade puts his head in the water and swims after him. Wade and the ocean don't really get along. A few days ago was Wade's first time in the ocean and he was too scared to even get near the coral and now hes swimming over top of some really shallow coral. So I finally get Leo's attention and tell him to come back and that he is crazy, he agrees to both and comes back. Wade on the other hand is to scared to move because he is surrounded by sea urchins, and had been stung all over his hands. Leo made it back to me without too much trouble and so we just sat in the water trying to think of what we could do. Wade is stuck and injured, the sun is going down and the waves are pushing us into the sharp coral. We decided that the only thing we could do is to swim back to wade and once we were all together try to find an escape. So we started swimming. You know that seen In Mission Impossible 3 where Tom Cruise is being lowered into that room by a rope but they drop him and barely catch him before he hits the ground and he does this star fish pose so that he doesn't touch the ground? Ok well imagine me doing that in the water trying to swim inches from the sharp spikes of the see urchins and then the water is moving back and forth like a tide pool. There were times that I was just laying on coral for a second completely out of the water because reseeded. It was a miracle that I didn't land right on top of a see urchin. After barely making it to wade, me and Leo find him standing in knee deep water with urchins all around him moving in for the kill. So we pushed him over and headed for shore. It's a wonder I'm not still out there skewered by a giant urchin. After we got back we eat dinner and played apples to apples, one of my words was melodramatic, weird. Quote of the day.  "A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it." -Jerry Seinfeld

Day 19

Ok, people are wondering about the whole Day __ thing. I don't know... I like Survivor, how do you think I ended up on a tropical island.  Ya so a few of us were talking about voting Laurie off the island but I think I have a pretty strong alliance with her, Lilly, and alfalfa so I don't know if I should stay true to my original alliance or go with the majority. I just really don't want to have to explain all that to Laurie when she's on the jury. I don't know, well see what happens. Still no luck on the hidden immunity idol. That was weird, sorry I'm back. I built a sweet rope thing today... I really don't know what to call it. I took a rope and tied it around part of a swing set so that the kids could climb on it.  Its a lot cooler than it sounds. Saul liked it. I always have him try to break the playground stuff that I make, if its going to break he'll be the one that does it. I guess there is a storm coming threw again. I grew up with zero rain and have always wanted to live somewhere that has a ton of rain. So far I'm not satisfied, and I'm really starting to wonder what it will take. I also realized today that I have already been away from my family longer than I ever have before, craziness. I would like to apologies to my readers who haven't seen the show Survivor. You probably think I'm crazy. I just don't want to get voted off. I hate losing. More than I like winning even. Here's a quote about winners... and quitting.
"Winners never quit and quitters never win." -Vince Lombardi

Day 18

Well the van is pretty bad. It blew a gasket, it has a huge leak in one of the coolant hoses, and there is coolant in the engine where the oil should be... so ya pretty bad. At this point the mechanic has to decide if its cheaper to try and fix or to just replace the engine. Either way it will be expensive but God will provide. School went very well today. There were no fights, nobody was was bitten, and as far as I saw there was no licking of markers. A few of us had plans to go snorkeling today but the water was too rough from the storm that's passing through. So we played in the huge waves, great fun. The swing is still broken, my dorm is a mess, and the lawns need to be mowed, I have a lot of work to do tomorrow. There is also a hole in Betsy's roof that needs to be patched and I need to seal the rain gutters all threw out the school, and I don't get out of school till around two. Oh ya and I need to find something to put on that tire. As of today I believe our school is signed up for a bad mitten, I'm not sure a lot of the kids even know what bad mitten is. Well we have three weeks to train and I think we are playing again visually impaired kids. I think whoever was in charge of matching up teams doesn't really understand disabilities.  I guess I am also signed up to play the guitar for something before Christmas, I don't know, I'm just along for the ride.
"God creates out of nothing. Therefore until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him." -Martin Luther

Day 17

Monday! Today is the first day of actual school where the kids have to learn. I started my day with a boys devotional with some students. After the devotional I made breakfast for some of the kids who don't have breakfast at home so they come to school hungry(please pray for them and their families). Then I made a tire swing! We are looking for something to put on the tire so it doesn't put black marks on the kids clothes. Ideas? Please comment. Then after school me and Leo tried to put together a quick beach trip to go snorkeling but nobody wanted to go so we went by ourselves. We wanted to go to a new beach that Leo had heard about but he didn't know where it was, and since we're boys we didn't ask for directions we just took out the map and went for it. After a few wrong turns we had just about made it to the beach when the van died! It had over heated and there was steam and smoke coming out from under the hood. So we rolled the car to the side of the road and opened her up. The coolant was empty! I guess that there was a leak in a hose going to the radiator so within a week the coolant went from full to empty. So we called Betsy and she came to save us. Me and Leo were having a good time of it though. We took pictures of each other with the broken car Betsy is a champ! The things she puts up with in a day are crazy and shes always smiling. Well the van is at the shop getting fixed so lets hope that goes well. No beach but it was still fun. Also while I was researching solar panels for the school it started pouring rain so I went outside and took a shower with the frogs. Random fact! There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. 

Day 16

Interesting day today. I went to a new church with Tess, who works at the school, her brother Wade, and Leo. Well this church was all in Spanish. So Tess had to translate the Spanish to English. She is very smart, English is her first language but she speaks Spanish very well, she actually goes to a college in Puerto Rico that is taught in Spanish  So we were very fortunate to have her as a translator. The only problem was that she doesn't know enough Sign Language to translate into English and Sign Language at the same time for Leo. So our solution was to have Tess translate the Spanish to English for me and Wade, then I wrote down what Tess told we for Leo. As I was righting faster than I've probably ever had to right hoping that my hand didn't cramp Leo grabs the pen and Writes "Now you know how I feel always having to write to talk". After that interesting experience we had lunch with the congregation and found out that the church had a beach trip planed that day so we decided to go with, good decision. Best beach trip ever. Brought goggles and me and Leo swam all the way out to the coral and looked at all the cool fish. I tried to swim over some coral that had about a foot and a half of water over it but a wave came when I was right in the middle of it, surrounded by sea urchin(those little spiky balls). I tried to escape but the water reseeded just before I could and I got stabbed in the leg by a sea urchin, I almost died. OK not really but it hurt and my leg was really sore, and I read that if you get to many stings they can be deadly so I barely escaped with my life today. After my near death experience a member of the church was nice enough to let us use his kayak. So me and Leo paddle out to check out the endless coral that was to shallow to see from the water. It was so cool, great experience and after we got tired of the coral we rode the waves in the kayak. Oh, and we also capture a sea urchin because I needed to see my attacker up close so after a lot of hard work we got one of them out of its hiding spot, and I held it and he crawled on my hand(really slowly) and I named him Earl the urchin. Then we put him back. When we got home Tess and Wade treated everyone to cake and ice cream. Weekends are nice. Random fact! For every one day an egg is left at room temperature its expiration date moves back seven.