Congratulations to the Budvarsons

Marc's sister Allison married the love of her life, Chad Budvarson on 8-8-08 in Hawaii. Yesterday we had a Hawaiian reception at Grandma's to celebrate. Fun was had by all and we are all very happy for the new couple.

Allison and Chad...cutting the cake!

Grandma and Grandpa... cutting a rug!

The kids had fun dressing up for the occassion. Katie liked being a hula girl, although she wouldn't hula dance for anyone.

The happy couple and our three kids...

Summer Fun

Summer is winding down but we are still working on getting as many fun things in as we can!

Happy Birthday Allie! (Allie, Katie, Natalie, and Sarah) Allie is a friend from school... her birthday was at Mud Mountain Dam park... always a fun place to visit. Allie was also a student in my class last year. Katie has been spending many, many hours with our neighbor girls, Natalie and Sarah. When school starts, maybe she will finally find her way home again. Jim has been teasing us that he is going to take Katie off on his taxes this year.

Hot tub fun... we visited Grandpa Dwight last week for a few days. The hot tub is always the highlight of their visit for the kids. We picked fresh tomatoes from the garden to take home, yum! I also made sure to have a box of Verhey peaches to share with friends, there is no comparison to these and store bought. The highlight for me was driving over to pizza at Chico's. Nothing like a Hochstetter to push your cholesterol past the max!

We have been to several pool parties recently. Since the weather has been in the 90s... it has been great to have friends with a pool. This is Katie and Tessa. Tessa turned "1" last week and was enjoying her cake and ice cream. I think that is why Katie didn't want to get too close. Katie's eyes were so red from all the chlorine she could barely keep them open... but she had a great time!

On Sunday we drove to Bainbridge Island and visited our good friends the Vandeleurs. We spent a little time at the beach when it wasn't raining.

The kids enjoyed playing on the beach. Garret has a new rock obsession since Grandpa Gill gave him a rock polisher... so he hunted for rocks.

But, more than the beach, the kids enjoyed playing the Wii and Wii Fit. This is Garret and Katie "hoola hooping" to see who can get the most revolutions. I even tried out ski jumping. Harder than it looks. Katie asked me "how many more days until Christmas?"... was that a hint?

Our new Mini Cooper

We ordered a new Mini Cooper today... how exciting. This will be Marc's commuter car. It gets 35+ miles per gallon. It will take 3 1/2 months to arrive. Will be a fun Christmas gift to ourselves! I am adding a photo of one that looks similar. We got chili red but no stripes.
Everything was an "extra" and we did not get a lot of those. It will have a sunroof though.

Thank you! Muchas Gracias!

A BIG thanks to those people who helped me have a great trip in Colombia!

Gloria, the Colombus Elementary principal and Susan, the Director of the Colombus School

My second grade teammates, Dalese and Kelly... could not have done it without you!

Janis, the Mother Teresa of math, who brought us all to Colombia!!

A funny thing happened on the way to the airport...

Lots of interesting things to see and do in Colombia...


This picture I took for Marc. It is some kind of stream or waterway that was running through town. The orange tube/pipe in the photo we were all pretty sure was sewer. Yikes!

And we also saw lots of chickens wandering around. No one seemed concerned about keeping animals (including dogs) on a leash or in their yard. I wish I had a photo of the pigs we saw on the roof of a house when we were coming down the cable car.

I tried to get a couple of photos showing the "outside" of the house. People here have a whole room outside. They do not have dryers (sometimes not a washer either) and hang everything up to dry. They often eat outside in what we call a porch or sunroom. The first photo is my friend Dalese, standing in Gloria's (elementary principal) living room. Her couch, television, etc, was all outside on her deck like a living room. She did have a small curtain to pull down near the television in case of rain. I wish we could do this in Washington!

At Gloria's for dinner, we ate on a large patio a few floors down from Gloria's apartment. They had a live singer there to sing authentic Colombian music. Part way through, others decided to get in on the show. So, Aaron from Chicago sang the "Titanic" theme song for us. For some reason, there was a shower out there and he stood in it. So, here is Aaron, singing in the shower!


All of the cars in Medellin were pretty small. In fact, people here are only allowed to drive 5 days a week. Your license tells the police what day is yours. For example, if you are a 5 or 6, your days to not drive are Monday and Wednesday. This means, some of the kids took a bus or a taxi to school on days their parents could not drive them. Diego (Gloria's husband) told us it is because the roads are too crowded and the streets are too narrow. This photo is a taxi that was at our hostel. There were a ton of these Chevy Sparks. cute!

There were probably more motorcycles than I have ever seen. (Even in Sturgis!) It is a good way to get around here. I didn't get a photo, but everyone who rides on a motorcycle must wear a jacket and a helmet with their license number (they have to match) on it.

The bugs here were BIG and some of them were strange looking. We saw these moths at the school every day. Some people went home with mosquito bites, so I guess those must be the same!
I know you are all wondering about the Policia. There were not as many as I thought there might be, and I have to say, they were friendly! There were different kinds of police, just like at home. This picture shows the "tourismo" who help the tourists on the metro and downtown. We also saw security at the mall. Outside a motel near ours, there was military police one night, Janis said someone important must have been staying there. Of course there were also some at the airport.

Las Palmas School

Las Palmas School was the public school across the street. This is the school that we brought supplies for. The original plan was to have all of the kids from the schools come together at Colombus School for math camp. It is difficult to explain, but the class system they have did not allow for the kids to mix together with each other. Because I don't speak Spanish, I did not teach at Las Palmas. They did allow us to go over and visit one afternoon.


The kids and teachers made special decorations for our visit. They put up this sign for us. The picture is me and Ingrid, a teacher from Wenatchee. They also hung an American flag in the school entrance. The classrooms had "kid" designed decorations taped on the concrete walls for a contest they had in our honor.

We took boxes and suitcases with many school supplies. Thanks to all the kids and families who contributed to this, it was very appreciated. This is a photo of the Assistant Principal and my friend Mikki (I taught with her at Elk Ridge). We were both crying as she was explaining to us in Spanish what a difference we were making for them.

I took a photo of these boys. I wish you could have been there to see them. They were all sharing this ice cream together.

These girls really wanted their picture taken. Girls anywhere are "posers" we decided. They let us take their photo and then rushed over to look at it in the camera screen to see what they looked like. I think they would have let us do it all day!

The students here all wear uniforms. This is a photo outside the Kindergarten classroom. They were getting ready to go out to recess. The room was tiny!

This is Luisa's classroom. I think these were First graders. She was having them work together on the floor. These kids were not used to working together. They spend half the day at school. There are not enough classrooms for all the students. So, the younger kids (K-4) come in the morning and only stay until lunch. The older kids (5-8) come for the afternoon and then in the evening it is High School and Adults. They somehow manage to teach almost 800 kids and adults a day here. The teachers said that some of the kids ride a bus for 2-3 hours one way just to get to school.

Janis told us we would come on this trip and go home "changed". I can see what she meant by that now. We have so much where we live. I can see that my own children do not appreciate all they have. And I can also see that being a great teacher is much more important than the "things" and tools you have to do the job.

Happy Anniversary

Time flies when you are having fun... 17 years worth of time has past since Marc and I got married on August 3, 1991.

Ciao Colombia!

Saturday morning- 3:15 AM... we got up and got on our bus for the last time. Joseph made us all coffee, and several of the ladies wanted to take him home.

He has been here everyday to get us breakfast and whatever we needed. There is another funny story to share about Joseph and me, but you will have to ask me in person. Janis told us before we came that we would make lots of new memories to take home, but I hadn't planned on being the one with the funniest memory!



We turned in our room key.. Saint Christopher? All of the keys were attached to a figure of someone: Mary, Jesus, an Angel, etc. So we ended up referring to them as people on the trip. "Don't forget to grab Mary before you go", etc. It was amusing... so Dora had to have a photo with him.

When we got to the Medellin airport, there was already a big line. You must go first and get your passport stamped and pay the tourist tax. Then we stood in line to have our bags checked. Lucky me... this time I was pulled for "inspection" which meant a guard looked through my whole bag. He was polite and since I did not speak Spanish... he didn't question me about anything, he zipped my bag up and sent me on my way. We stood in another line to check our bags through to Portland and it took them awhile to figure that out. We then had to get through customs again and in line for security. When all that was done, they were loading our plane and we had no time left. We went back through Panama City and headed to Houston. On the flight from Panama to Houston a 2 year old named Pablo sat behind me, he enjoyed kicking my seat the whole way. In Houston we played the whole game of standing in line AGAIN. We had to go through immigration and customs to get back into the United States. The line was huge. We had less than 2 hours and we used every minute. The plane luckily waited for us and we all made it on. Lucky me, I sat by Alden, another 2 year old. This time at least, he fell asleep.

In Portland we all went and collected our luggage. Good news, no one lost a bag! We said Ciao (apparently, Adios is more formal) to all our new friends along the way... I took a plane from Portland to Seattle and met Marc and the kids.
Mom and family are happy to all be home! What a great trip. This week I will post a few more things as I remember them. Thanks to everyone for caring for my family, their thoughts and prayers during my excursion. I had a great time. Good news... we all want to go back next year and do it again in Bogota!

Visiting Downtown

The last day at Colombus school... I was sad to see the kids go! We all felt we had a successful week. This is my class. Front row (l to r) Antonia, Rafael, Maria Antonia, Pedro Pablo, Daniel, Isabella, Maria, Laura Ag. Back row (l to r) Mrs. M, Santiago, Juan David, Simon, Juan Paul, Manuela, Marianna, Miss Veronica, Laura Ar., Susana, Simon.

I worked with a host teacher all week named Veronica. She was VERY helpful and got me all the things I needed, plus helped with the kids. She is like a teachers's assistant here.

This is Marianna and Juan David. In the background you can see the bus they take each day. The bus hold about 10 kids and there was a line of them each day to go home. Some kids get picked up by their parents, a taxi, or a driver.

The kids were funny today as I think they thought I was staying for the year. They are used to American teachers coming and going. Many teachers come down here from the states to teach for a 2 year contract. It is a SWEET deal as they pay for housing! You can hire yourself a maid for around $5-10 a day depending on what you want her to do. If you stay an extra year, they will pay for you to get a Master's degree also.


This is Marta and Maria. They are the maids that cleaned the classrooms on my floor (4 rooms). We gave them some Bath and Body Works lotions and soaps and also Hershey's chocolate which they loved! They cleaned our rooms before and after and sometimes in-between recess while we were here. The floors are all tile, so lots of mopping. They were very kind.

We had an end of the week assembly where we honored Janis and all the other people who worked to bring us all together. In Colombia, professional development for teachers is not done. All the teachers I talked with appreciated us coming and helping them. At the assembly we also presented our gifts of supplies to the Las Palmas (public) school. They were so very appreciative and I have to say that it was hard not to cry. I was designated the spokesperson and I simply told them that we represented the White River School District, there were 10 teachers from 5 different schools. We had supplies we collected from community, parents and students in each of our schools for them.

The kids did a traditional dance for us. The boys wore hats and scarves. The girls wore skirts and had baskets with fruit they carried on their head. The skirts were made from black plastic garbage bags with flowers taped on them. We gave all the kids candy afterward and they loved it!




We all walked up to the top of the school (the High School is at the top) to see the view! My photos were a little hazy but here is one of all the White River girls. (L to R) Trina, Mikki, Kelly, Dalese, Lisa, Me, Dora and in the front, Ashley, Holly and Christy.

We headed off after the assembly on a tour of the city. Gloria (the elementary principal) and Susan (the director of all the Colombus schools) took our large group and headed downtown. We took the metro bus to Plaza Botero to see the famous sculptures there.

This one is called "Mano" (hand). Dalese and I stuck together in the Sculpture Park. We all walked as a group and the tourist police made sure to follow us. I think all of us blonde girls may have been more of a display than the sculptures.


After we left there, we went on the cable cars to the top of the city.


As you get higher and higher, the poverty becomes more apparent. We saw pigs on the roof of a house! We left dowtown and took the bus back to a restaurant. We had great food again! They eat well here, dinner usually between 8-10 pm. And we quickly learned that no one is in a hurry to bring the bill ...so dinner was 2 hours at least each night. We got back to the hostel around 10 pm, packed our bags up and went to bed. Tomorrow, we head home...