* I am so greatful for the wonderful adventure that living in Mexico was. Teaching in another country had it's struggles, but the blessings were just as great. I loved the chance to travel and get to know another country. I am grateful for the time we had to make new friends both American and Mexican. And even how my Spanish improved through talking with parents, friends, and random people all over the place! I am so thankful for the parents and the students that I met at Colegio Ingles.
* Miss Perla and Miss Rosy were wonderful guides throughout the school year and full of huge hearts that were willing to help! They saved my backs many times and were so gracious to work with me through projects and through changing their schedule around.
* I am so grateful for all the packages my mom sent with items for the prize box and activities to entertain the kids! Plus all the yummy goodies for us. And for everyone else who sent me things Tammy, Andrea, and Sarah. And all the sweet cards that filled my bulletin board by the end of the year!
* I will remember the many trips to OXXO and Soriana for things we needed like soda and chocolate and Fifa World Cup cards!
* The countless nights we stayed up late playing rumikub, endless hours of phase 10, some spoons and of course disney scene it. And of course the movie marathons.
* The AWESOME V.I.P. movie theater where we sat in lazy-boys and could order any food or drink under the sun. We saw lots of cool movies too.
And too many more memories to count! Thanks for an awesome year Torreon :-)
It was really cute for graduation they called the students names one by one and they had to come shake my hand and then move on to the stage and show their certificate to everyone. They were so nervous but excited. It was fun to see them too because everyone was there and after 2 days away from them it was nice to see their happy faces again.
, embarrassed and nervous but so ready to be everywhere at the same time.
The kids got to sing the school hymn and did a good job of listening to each other and sitting in their chairs without playing too much or singing too loud.
It was a lot of work and they spent about 5 hours a week practicing it during school hours. The boys got a little more into the dance then the girls and that was pretty cute.
That they just needed to remember responsibility, to try their best and to do things with a smile on their face.
which is unfortunate. They put all 240 kids in one room and tried to make 2 and 3 year olds sit in a small place. Watch on a blurry tv where you can hardly see antyhing. However it was fun to see the kids pride and their excitement as everyone came dressed in green, with their faces painted and with an excess amount of noise blowers!
Viva Mexico! Viva Mexico. Viva Mexico!
These are the other teachers in the Kindergarten who I saw on a regular basis. The school system is broken into maternal, 1st kinder (2 sections), 2nd kinder (2 sections), and Preprimaria (2 sections).
Pato and Andres representing Mexico. :-) It has amazed me how much pride everyone seems to find in their country, their flags, and the other things that they get excited about.
Alex and Montse playing in the classroom. Kind of silly but during the last 3 weeks of school I got new toys in my classroom and was able to let the kids try new things as well.
Em and Eda smiling for a picture in our kitchen. They are so sweet. And I have loved having them as roommates! I am going to have to see them in Minneapolis sometime soon.
s people know how to make on their own.
Hanging out on the couch waiting for more food to be ready. It's amazing how many fun laughs we've had on these couches and how many different people have been on them throughout the year! We decided to have a carne asada to celebrate Emily B's birthday.
Candid shots in the living room. Gotta love catching people doing their own things.
Kekis got us the blow up Corona thing since he works for Santos. There were pretty much 2 parties going on the whole time.So many friends we have made already. Kinda crazy that we have made all these friendships in such a short time. Also strange that so many of these people speak English and yet have taught me tons of Spanish words as well. I love that we have conversations almost always half in English, half in Spanish.
Outside grilling. Let me say that I can't wait to be home and have a normal grill. It is difficult to use charcoal here especially. It's not fun to stand over a grill when it's already 100 degrees outside.
We decided to have smores on top of the fire. It wasn't quite the same as home, but one of the girls had graham crackers so we thought we would try!
Monday night Jenn, Emily F and I went downtown to Teatro Nasas. We went to watch our students dance to Peter Pan. It was kinda fun to watch, we were all remembering the days that we spent dancing and putting on hideous costumes.
These little girls were so cute. They're right at that age where they're so into it and actually have the skills to do a good job dancing.
The sets were really intense. They even had tinkerbell go down to the stage in a ring from the ceiling loft. Peter Pan was lifting people and running them all around the place. It was really fun to see them re-act such a well known story. The only sad part was the fact that some of the songs they danced to were in English and did not have children appropriate words in them.
These girls won the worst outfit award. I felt bad for them.
This group is the one that my student danced in. She was very excited about it and told me about 35 times that I NEEDED to come see her. It was kinda funny because she was that one girl who didn't have a clue what she was doing and stayed on stage even after everyone else had left!
My roommate Katie's soccer team temporarily fell apart. It is in the process of coming back together right now which is kinda fun and yet sad to watch. 
I have enjoyed having things to do on Saturdays though, it's a nice trip outside of the house and fun to be around some people besides those we work or live with! 
Since the team is still rebuilding there aren't always enough players. So on Saturday, the coach-Jessy- tried to ask Eda to play. Katie's team only had 9 players (2 were already from the other team) and the other team had 11....not exactly fair! keep in mind that we came as cheerleaders. We had on tank tops, jeans and flip flops.
So the team rounded up a shirt, shorts, socks, and cleats. It was pretty funny to watch because Eda is so not an organized Sports person. She had no idea what to do and people were yelling at her in Spanish and she tried to run away from the soccerball. It was so hot to be playing soccer. They play their games at about 1 or 2 o'clock which is so intense.
My sweet friends got me a really yummy cake :o.
This was after we went out to dinner at the Oriental Grill...a sweet place, but not the best meal. It was the going away party for Cecy, our sweet friend who moved to St. Louis. I am hoping to see her lots.
My birthday was on Saturday, but we got to start celebrating Friday night! We went out for dinner at a restaurant called Oriental Grill. It was one that we had heard about a long time ago, but had never visited it.
Saturday morning we got up and went to houses A & B to celebrate some of the other girls birthdays. They made lots of yummy things such as German pancakes, an egg dish, tons of fruit, and some other yummy things.
After breakfast we came home for naps and then got up and got ready for the day around 3:45pm :). Then we went to Wings Army bar (its an American chain that has good food, but really bad service) to watch the Santos game and see if we were going to go to the finals. Santos are equivalent to D-1 in the States and they are now going to the final final because we won 7-1. Wuhoo :-)
Then we came back home to play games. On the kitchen table was a present and some very fun balloons from my friend Luz. She's so sweet :-) We played Maffia or Assassins which was a lot of fun, some disney scene it, some cards. In the process I went to call my mama and they all invaded my room singing with a cake. Makes me very grateful to have the roommmates that I have :).
Sunday we continued celebrating by making breakfast- coffee cake muffins, fruit cocktail, some yummy juice and just hanging out together :-) And then in the afternoon we went to see the movie Date Night, but unfortunately it wasn't in the awesome theater but it was still fun. :-) Hopefully pictures to come soon!
This was another fun shopping trip in the suburb of Guadalajara! 
We got a taxi from the hotel which was a little creepy because they brought us down through the alley and took us in the hotel's private taxi. It was just funny to watch happen! Again our hotel was awesome and let us leave all of our things in a room while we went exploring the next day as we got on the overnight bus again!
This town was little and full of fun little shops. I think that it's main revenue was tourism. The only things I ended up buying were jewelry and a really fun vase. I'm really hoping that the vase makes it home safely! 
We got back around 5 and took some time to look at the 2 churches
we hadn't been in the downtown area and then headed to the bus station. ALways an adventure since they brought us to the wrong terminal, but thankfully we had plenty of time to get on a little minibus and get to the right place. And on to the smelly bus with the bad driver to Torreon. 
and of course because we're in Mexico, our bus broke down and we got stuck there for an extra 3 hours. However that was kinda cool because we got to meet new people and get to know the people in our tour group
. I felt bad for our tour guide because some people were pretty mean to him and disrespectful. So we ended up checking out the cathedral, government building, putting more minutes on our cell phones, eating chips the Mexican way, and visiting the burrito woman.
factory of Mexico. We had to wear hairnets,
but it was pretty cool to watch the process and to get to learn about what Mexico is famous for after doing the winery in Spain! Inside we got to see the big agave pina's 
as well as the processing within the plant. 
This ugly bird is seen throughout the factory, on the tequilla bottles and even some kept in cages at the plant. Gross :p
What we did not understand was how huge it was! However it was really fun. 
People sold all kinds of things and some even sold them right next to each other! There was a big section with live animals- birds, fish, someone walking around with a giant lizzard. There was a whole middle part where women were preparing all kinds of food
. Quesadillas, tacos, gorditas, frijoles, elote, cake, sweet things, spicy things, things that were flavorless....needless to say, overwhelming! 
