Getting things done

Well after a long night, I (well we...story to follow) finally booked our flight HOME :)  It feels so nice to have that taken care of!  After spending many hours with Frank finally getting our plans set and finding cheap flights, and then doing a short search on when the best time to purchase tickets is, I decided that last night was the night.  The did drop about $20 each from before so that's nice and since we changed where we're leaving from, it was also cheaper :)  Saving money already!  So, to that story...

I got everything set to book including the websites, schedules, and credit card information, but the stinkin' thing wouldn't work because I guess it thought I had stolen my mom's credit card since I was in Nicaragua purchasing a ticket for Peru, go figure.  Well, then I had to call up my mom and have her fill in all the information.  But she was working late, and had to call me after and between all of this I was calling Frank to check details, etc.  I had my hands-free set on my cell on for Frank and was using my Skype phone on the computer to call my mom.  I felt sorta like a travel agent, except not as glamorous as it may sound.  Around 11:30pm or so we finally got the tickets booked (because yes, it had to be last night to get the best deal and just to get it all taken care of) and I was exhausted.  I called Frank after to confirm and didn't get to bed until well after midnight :( 

This morning my body did not allow me to get out of bed before 9am.  Yikes!  I think it was all the stress...  Anyway, I did eventually get out of the house today.  I went to the preschool with Ruth & Dyland again and unfortunately, they said they were too full so Dyland couldn't enter :(  So sad because he gets so excited when we visit and he sees all the other kids.  He really should be in a school type atmosphere because he just cruises around the house all day, watches TV, and then today he took a pen around and decided to color all over the walls, his clothes, and his body.  Nice.  Needless to say, they don't pay attention to him as often as they should and he really needs to be around kids his own age.  Bummer about the preschool.  We did take him to the park after to play which was fun.  The play-set is a little too big for him, but we climbed up there and helped him on the slide.  He LOVES the slide :)

After we got back I was looking up more flight stuff for our flight from Panama to Peru (we're taking a bus from Nicaragua to Panama to check out the Canal & things for a few days there before heading to Peru) and Ruth delivered lunch to me.  She's such a sweetheart.  

It's sort of an omelet thing with tomatoes on top, rice, and some french fries. 

In the afternoon I went to the instituto again since I told the teacher I would be there.  I almost left because I was waiting for awhile and she wasn't there and she wasn't on the bus with me, but she eventually showed up.  Oh, speaking of the bus.  One of my Access students offered me a seat and he talked to me for about 20 minutes all in English.  I was so proud of him!  A lot of times the students are too nervous to speak to me in English, but he was telling me all about the class this morning (that I slept through...oops!) and other things.  It was a nice conversation & I noticed several students looking over at us because we were speaking only in English--I think they were surprised he could speak so much with me :)  So, back to the instituto.  When the teacher finally got there, we chatted and I asked her if she was teaching the same lesson from yesterday (it was a different group of students), and she said yes.  So, I told her that I was going to observe the lesson and she got a little nervous, but I told her to not worry and I would just watch.  We ended up moving outside because the school is under construction and they were painting so we were inhaling paint fumes.  Yuck!  The teacher found an extra dry-erase board and we headed outside, which is not uncommon, especially right now with the construction.  It's funny because everytime I got there I think, oh my gosh there's no way students or teachers would be allowed to walk through here or even be here period.  It's a construction site.  Things are hanging down, they're installing the roofing, painting, etc.  It's kinda crazy, but they can't just cancel class for 5 months, right?  Well, it seems like most of the students aren't there anyway.

Ok, ok.  So she taught, I slipped in for some extra help and we finished the lesson.  After I took a few minutes to talk to her about the things that I liked, and gave her some suggestions.  I encouraged her to use more English, which is very difficult for her.  She barely uses any and I think she is just very embarrassed to pronounce anything in front of me even though I told her it's okay and it doesn't have to be perfect.  She doesn't have very much confidence in her English abilities, but she's practicing so that's good.  Here we are:

Observing my counterpart teacher

Me teaching a bit

Explaining some things

After I got back from the instituto, there was another flight to book, and yet the same thing happened again and my mom even got a call about suspicious activity on her credit card.  It was actually a good thing she got the call though because last night's attempt actually charged her twice, and that was through Delta Airlines' website, not even a third-party page.  Weird.   Well, she got all that cleared up and I gave her instructions for the next flight (Panama-Peru).  Now, I'm happy to say that we have our flights booked: Panama-Peru, then Peru to Portland.  Wow, all P's haha  We just gotta figure out all the buses later but that will be a little easier (I might take that statement back later haha).  Right now I'm just glad we got all of that taken care of since we'll be leaving in less than 2 months.  Only 8 weeks...