Visiting Old San Juan

Our week went by fast as usual. Friday the elementary school had a big puppet show. The kids were so excited, it was crazy. On Friday night the Marsh's and us decided to make some local food, we made empanadillas, very good!! On Saturday the Marsh's and us woke up early to go to San Juan. I had to get my passport. Starting in January 2007, everyone needs a passport to visit Puerto Rico. The place where we had to go to get my passport was in the biggest mall in PR. It was one of the nicest malls I have ever been in. After I got my passport taken care of we headed to Old San Juan. Wow, Old San Juan is amazing! We visited to old forts that were made in the 1500's to protect ships from passing through the "gateway to the Carribean". We could see drawings that prisoners drew in the tunnel,while waiting for their execution.There were a lot of tourists in Old San Juan, we heard a lot of English. Everyone kept asking us where we were visiting from, they were suprised when we said Guayama. It was so hot walking through the forts, we walked up so many steps. After the forts we found Senor Frogs, and ate lunch there. Then we walked around to look at all the different vendors. There were so many neat things that the local people make. We had a very fun day. Today we are taking it easy, laundry and football!! Have a great week! Talk to you soon!
Brent and Kate

This is Fort El Morro


This is a picture from the top of the fort

Brent and Courtney hanging out in the fort

Here we are getting ready to walk to the fort behind us!



Shopping at the vendors

Lola and Her Friends!

Kelly was able to get some good shots of Lola, Winston, and Miller. They are so cute together!!

Springs Fever!!

Hey Everyone! Another week is over. We have been here almost 8 weeks already!! Yesterday we decided to soak in "the banos" ( natural spring baths) in a nearby town. They were great!! Very relaxing!! It was funny though, right before getting in the springs I was starting to put sunscreen on, WHOOPS!! Everyone started yelling "No, No" I didn't even think about that, I washed it off and everyone was happy!! After the springs, we did something new here...Taco Bell and Super Wal-Mart!! It is so funny here though, we walk into Walmart and they are handing out Pina Coladas!! We passed though!! We came back to Guayama and went down town. One of our co-workers has a bar here, so we hung out there and played poker. Kelly and I were the big winners though, putting our husbands to shame!! We don't have big plans for the weekend, we have a lot of school work, so we will probably just hang out here with Lola. Lola is so cute..her ears are almost all the way up now. I will get some pictures of her soon. I try to get pictures of her with Winston and Miller because they play so cute together, but I have not been sucessful yet! I almost got one of her biting Winston's tail, she is a little stinker! Here are a couple of pictures! Have a great weekend! Brent and Katie

Lola Goes to School!!






On Wednesday Lola spent the entire day at our school. She stayed in the principal's office and just hung out with the principal and the other teachers. She was the talk of the day. Our principal is a huge dog lover and she asked if Lola could spend the day with her. She was good. She even made a visit into Brent and my classrooms and, of course, the kids loooved her!!

Here is Lola in my school bag, getting ready to go to school!

Brent and I had another good week at Guamani Private School!! I love going to work with Brent every morning. Our classrooms are only 2 doors from eachother so we see eachother a lot during the day! My class is great. My one boy that doesnt speak much English is learning more and more each day. I write words like: great, super, wow, etc. on their assignments. So his new thing is coming up to me and showing me is work, he will say WOW??? Super?? instead of asking if he is doing is work correctly. It is so cute!
On Friday we had a bbq with the neighbors in our back yard. On Saturday we got up early and drove to a new beach about 45 minutes away. It was a perfect beach day. We had the beach to ourselves for the most of the day. We had a picnic, played football, and swam all day long. We had a blast!! Brent spent a good part of the day trying to get a coconut. He finally got one!! ( actually he didn't stop...and we came home with four coconuts) We spent six hours at the beach and Brent got a sunburn. We were using this sunscreen spray and I think we need to go back to using lotion, because the spray didn't cover that well. Last night we found this really nice restaurant/club called Tequillas!! Great food! We are excited to watch football today and tomorrow. We all have different teams that we like so we will have some fun games!! Kelly's team is the Cowboys, Courtney's team is the Red Skins, Clate's team is the Dolphins, Brent's is the Broncos, and mine of course is the VIKINGS!! Have a great week folks!!

This is Playa Larga


Brent and Courtney playing football while Clate is swimming

Here is the " Coconut Man"

Kelly and the Miller hanging out in the shade!

Labor Day Weekend at the beaches!!

Brent and I had another great week in Puerto Rico!! It was nice to have today off to recover from our fun weekend and get ready for another week. Our midterm grades are already due tomorrow..so of course that is what Brent and I are doing tonight!! Well our weekend started off good. Friday afternoon they announced that I was the " teacher of the month" at Guamani. I was excited but not half as excited as my students were. They were cheering and screaming..it was pretty funny. That was a nice suprise and a good way to start off the school year!! On Saturday Brent and I got up early to head to Rincon where we were going to meet some other teachers for the weekend. When we entered the town we were so excited to see the beautiful beaches!! We went straight to the beach and spent a couple of hours swimming in the ocean. At night we went to this restaurant that overlooked the ocean. Well, we ended up sitting there for a total of 3 hours!! The service was not good at all...and the food took so long. The teachers took us to a few more places around the town and then we went back to the hotel for the night. On Sunday morning we drove to another town with a very nice beach. The water was so clear at this beach...we loved it!! After that we drove to another town that was full of different vendors..it was really neat except for the fact that it was raining. Lola went with us of course!! On Saturday she stayed in our air conditioned hotel room for most of the day. Sunday she rode in the car with us and she laid under a tree at the beach!! She did so good!! It was so much fun!!
Here are some pictures of Rincon!! Have a super week everyone!! Can't believe this is already the 5th week of school!!






Here is Kelly's sister Joy, Kelly, and me swimming!!

See what our beach dog does when I leave her with Brent!!