...tengo mucho sueño...

So this last week or so has been busy Busy BUSY! It began with Swine Flu taking over yet another part of our lives (even though there have been NO confirmed cases of it here in Baja) with the closing of ALL Mexican schools for 2 weeks, AND all of our kids being quarantined to the orphanage property for those 2 weeks.

Last Thursday was Mexico's Dia Del Niño (Day of the Child) and it was celebrated here with TWO complete days of fun and food and games! An AWESOME GROUP provided BBQs, Bounce Houses, a RAD DJ, toys and pools for the kids for both days. They also had little ultralight planes in which they took some of us staff up in over the beach! It was so much fun!











Lauren and I also managed to organize a late-night time for all of our staff to get to join in on the fun!! haha It was AWESOME FUN!

Me, obviously very excited to get this thing started!


One of our dorm moms, Lucy, decided to take me down with her:


Lauren and I racing down to the bottom - it got a little brutal at times. :)


The morning of the second day, we headed to the beach for our flying time with another great group who was involved, but had some time to chill out while the planes were being prepped:



We also got to take a quick walk on the beach, running into an unfortunate little whale who apparently couldn't make it back to the water. :(


FINALLY, the planes were ready to go, and we got all geared up!


And UP we went into the sky...


...And over the ocean!


We have also had to get creative in keeping the kids entertained as much as possible while they are out of school - someone donated a box of "Make & Bakes" - where you can make your own little stained glass windows in the oven with metal frames and colored beads. (I remember making these when I was little!) We had a blast!

Here is Emmanuel with his masterpiece - A race car:


aaaaand a few other random pictures:

Myself with Esther...



...and again with Lalo...



...Victor, self-taken...



...and Ramon!



While it was a loooooong week, it was a good one - especially full of fun for our kids!


In closing - this evening I went walking with some of our staff and older girls (they walk every night!) and we ran into a large Kingsnake. While these are not poisonous snakes, it is our policy to kill all snakes on our property in case we let one go and the kids start to think ALL snakes are OK. This one was no exception and I helped to kill him, although I was sad to do so... Here is the snake, and then me with him in his final headless state...