Day 105

This holiday thing has had me thinking its Saturday all day. Well I guess I get two Saturdays. I power washed the roof of Jen's classroom today. That was pretty fun. Not a very exciting day off I guess. Tomorrow we are going to crash boat beach on the other side of the island. I've been looking forward to this trip for a while. Its going to be really fun. The only problem with long weekend is that we now have three days without kids instead of just two. Its really easy to miss them.

Day 104

Saúl had to melt downs today and came close to a third. Betsy also doesn't have a puppy. Long story short the puppy she planned to buy and its brother got into some rat poison and died. We were all pretty sad about that. Betsy obviously was the most upset. Well the search goes on. Jen is on a plane right now headed to California to see her brother's wedding. Judy made dinner tonight then a bunch of us went to the beach. It's weird how one person missing really feels different. No school tomorrow, it being a holiday and all. I don't think I mentioned that badminton is cancelled for a while. something happened at the place we play and they need to fix it. The most detail I've gotten about that was from Saúl who described it as if the roof had caved in and they need to lift it back up. I gave him the 'doubt it' eyes. I found some lessons online to improve at Othello. This game is deeper than I ever realized. The other day Betsy's parents, Ruth and Martin, sent us a box of full of chocolate and snacks. I love chocolate, and so does Saúl so its a great motivator. Thanks guys! Another thing that seems to motivate him is rain. Anytime it rains he yells and finishes his work as fast as he can so he can go out in it. I tried to explain to him that that's not very Puerto Rican.

Day 103

I woke up this morning to a rediculous amount of rain and lightning, at 1am. I love when that happens. I just closed my shutters and went back to sleep. Tomorrow after noon Jen is going to the airport so she can fly to California and see her brother get married. Betsy is driving her to the airport. This is all happening right after lunch So I am taking Saul and Gabi for the last few hours of the day, sweet! Betsy is making a quick stop after she drives jen to the airport. She is stopping to buy a great dane puppy! This is will pretty drasticly affect the remainder of my time here. I will be doing a lot of puppy sitting, and this is a big puppy. Her last great dane weighed like 160 lbs. So before long this thing is going to weigh as much as me... and its a dog, crazyness. I think she is going to name her calamity. When she is full grown she will be eye to eye with Saul who is six. Its basicly a small hoarse. I'm sure some of the kids could ride it. Sounds fun, we'll see. More on the puppy tomorrow, when we actually have her.

Day 102

Every day, after chapel I have devotions with the older boys. Recently I have been staying after to learn vocab with Kevin and Kristian. I've found that I learn a lot of new words in ASL during this time. After vocab was finished I was responsible for Saul during math time. Well I tried to start after play time but he wasn't finish playing and decided that he wasn't going to work. That decision led to a half hour of craziness. Not so fun. After about twenty minutes I got him to the point were he could sit in the time out chair without being told to do so every four seconds. My main goal for this temper tantrum was to get him to explain why he didn't want to work and to reason with his teacher before completely loosing it. We got pretty close to that, I got him at least talking and before long laughing. He was of coarse still punished for his disobedience despite the positive resolution. I wanted him to explain himself a little more than he did but there is always next time. After school Leo Kevin and I went to the beach because the waves were still reaching a good twelve feet. We had a great time, no major injuries sustained. The beach never gets old.

Day 101

Saul and I are getting along so well! We mowed the lawns today because he finished all his math. I let him drive. We cut an S for Saul in the bottom field. Then Gabi wanted a turn driving at the last minute so I let him help. We finished just as it started raining, perfect timing. During school Betsy was on her computer and happened to notice that there was a high surf advisory for all the north facing beaches in Puerto Rico. So immediately after school Leo and I jumped in the van and went to the beach. Fifteen foot waves. Massive waves that exploded when they broke on the sand like someone threw a grenade. There were only like six people on the beach and they were just there to watch the waves. Well we were pretty excited so we just ran for the water. We had the best time. My back is going to hurt for a while from the beating I got but it was so worth it. I was on top of a few of these things and it just felt like I was jumping off of a two story building. So fun. Crazy but fun.    

Day 100

The internet was down in my building last night so I was unable to post. The weirdest thing happened today. I was in my dorm after church and I heard Jen yelling so I went outside to see what it was about. She said she found a snake. I went over and caught the thing. It seemed very close to the same size as Jen's snake but this one had just eaten. We decided to keep this snake instead of Jen's snake because this snake seemed so much more relaxed. It had rapped itself around my arm and it stopped trying to escape. So we brought it into Betsy's class room to trade him for Jen's snake but it was gone. Our best guess is that it escaped the cage, found food, and was trying to get up the stairs towards Jen's room. How does that happen, and why does the snake not run for the forest. Instead it heads up the stairs where I found my snake. Why do the snakes want to go up those stairs?! I may never understand. Church was good today. A lady made meatloaf for everyone to raise money for the new building. It was really good. Tess, Leo and I just got back from the Brass Cactus. Tess wanted to see the end of a football game but it was already over by the time we got there. Oh well, it was worth it for the onion rings.