happy thanksgiving!

There are so many things that I have to be thankful for today, and I just wanted to share a few:

- I am thankful for working shoes. I have broken 6 pairs of shoes while living here in Mexico, and am now down to my runners and one pair of flats. The flats are pretty beaten up and should go in the trash, but I'm seeing how long they can last. Oh, and I have my heels, but let's face it - I can't even begin to try and wear those everyday.
- I am thankful for my wonderful school kids who really like me, and I'm more thankful for the kids who only sort of like me, but are great pretenders and act like they like me!
- I am even more thankful for the weekends when I can get away from said wonderful kids.
- I am thankful for my AWESOME host family. Seriously - the best you could get. I am going to miss them all so much. I have always wanted a little brother, and here I am with two! It's the best. Though I'm not really sure how they feel about having an older sister...
- I am thankful that I can go to church. I think that I will be even more thankful when I can fully understand everything.
- I am thankful that I haven't gotten bitten by any of the dogs here. There is about one dog to every person. That is a lot of dogs.
- I am thankful for freshly-squeezed orange juice that I can get whenever I want.
- I am thankful for a working computer. And iPod. And I am thankful that I can call my family at home whenever I want for free!
- I am thankful for emails.
- I am thankful to have grown up in the city and country that I did.
- I am thankful that my Mom taught me manners, and more importantly to use them.
- I am thankful for my family. Being away from everything that is normal to me has really made me realize how great I have it. I could not ask for a better family. I could go on and on about this, but the bottom line is that I love them. I love them so much. My family really is the greatest thing in my life, and I am so blessed to be a part of it.

Seeing a whole new part of the world has really made me realize how much of a blessing it has been in my life to grow up in the United States and to be able to obtain a higher education. I never thought that I would say this, but I am so grateful to be able to go to school! I have such an opportunity that I never appreciated until now. I won't take it for granted. I'll never be too cool for school!

P.S.- This is what you ate for Thanksgiving:


and this is what I had...

and I've got to admit, I missed the turkey, but REALLY liked these guys.

Puebla and the birthplace of Nachoooooooooo!

One of my favorite places to go on the weekends of for vacation is to the city of Puebla. It is so fun, and cheap to go to! Also, it is so fun to see the other teachers who live there. Peubla is SOOO different from Tehuacan. So Tehuacan has about 250,000 people - Puebla has around 5 and a half million. Sort of a big deal, right? It's a good thing that I haven't gotten lost there. That would be REALLY bad. But here are some pictures from a trip that I went on a little while ago....

Here's a HUGE cathedral in Puebla. Really pretty/sort of creepy on the inside.


Some delicious ice cream that we had. Soooo good! Oh! And the other day I had cheese ice cream. It was different - but I approve.


Me at the market trying on jewelry. I think I look like I'm from The Flintstones with this necklace :) and I look like I'm on Loritab in this picture.


Picture from the bus...anyone need to go to Mexico?


This past week I got to go to Oaxaca with three other teachers, and it was such a blast!!! I really liked it. But it would be lying if I said that my main reason for going was for shopping or for the history of the city. Or because how fun it is to say 'Oaxaca.' It's mainly because of this guy:



and these two...


But unfortunately the city doesn't look like this blessed movie - or the places that we went to at least!

Funny story, so....I thought that I had brought enough money. One hundred dollars should be enough right? Welllll, the bus tickets were about twice as much as I thought they were going to be (about $50 round trip) and then the hostel was going to cost $14 a night ($28 for two nights). So, I had about $22 to spare for food, and any other souvenirs that I wanted to buy. Needless to say, I ran out of money pretty quickly! So there was me with no money, my friend Raegan who got her wallet pick-pocketed, April whose debit card wouldn't work...and Aly. Thank goodness she was there! She was so nice and lent us all money for food, and things we wanted. But man is it hard to figure out things to do when you don't have money. We wouldn't have been able to even take a bus anywhere if she hadn't been there. Thanks Aly!
Here are some un-Nacho Libre-ish pictures.....Enjoy!


I love this picture. Not only because I think that it is a cool picture, but that guy tried to sell me a broom not 5 minutes before :)



















So I was taking pictures of the temple, and I heard some weird noises in the bushes. I didn't really think anything of it until these little guys popped out of the bushes! I screamed. Keep up the good work temple gardeners!

Just a little bit of Tehuacan :)

Here are some pictures from some places around Tehuacan! Hope you like them!


This is a little church that I saw when I was exploring one day. I thought it was very picturesque!







And here are some pictures from a little market in town. It's always a good time!






Soooo... the shop was a hallway, and I really wanted a picture. But it's really hard to be sneaky and take a picture without the shop-owner knowing when the only way for the owner to look is out at the street at me, the picture taker. So, I just asked it I could take a picture and he got really excited! It was cute.


Question: 'What did one statue say to the other statue?'
Answer: 'You have a bird on your head.'

Luisito - the next David Villa!

So my little brother Luis is a stud. Seriously. He is the goalie for his soccer team here, and he is so good. In fact, all of those little childrens are good. Darn these people and their talents. They need to have a workshop or something. Here are some pictures of him playing, and my friends and family at the game:


Lucky number 51. I kept on yelling "El es mi hermano!!!" during the whole game. Yup! I'm sure he just loooved that.





Papa Luis holding up the fort!


Let's go Chivas!!!


Go get 'em, Ricky!


The whole crew. Too bad Mandy's eyes are closed! :)